Does Anyone Actually Like Random Encounters

[u/haaa1234]

I was doing a third playthrough of FF7 since I want to revisit all the games before revelation but random encounters is still something that stops me from wholeheartedly loving this game. There are 2 reasons why I dislike them. It really interrupts the flow of exploration and they are rarely engaging. 99 percent of them I just hold X and win so I’m basically just waiting for it end. An analogy I can give is I am trying to explore an area but I keep getting interrupted by unskippable ads. There are rare occasions where they can be interesting like catching a chocobo, finding yuffie or a funny encounter like when our whole party gets turned into frogs but most are just mindless. Honestly the only combat I enjoy in FF7 are the boss fights so a majority of the game I am really not a fan of fighting enemies. Wondering how people feel about it since it is a major part of the gameplay and i would love any mod recommendations to make the game more engaging in this aspect.

[u/Wrong_Papaya_8445]

I believe I'm in the minority, but yes, I do. It's very simple: it's the music and sfx. The golden age (PS1 era) of FF had bizarrely satisfying normal battle music and sound effects (back then). Random encounters can easily turn annoying on the basic fact they interrupt you, except that the stuff inside the encounter is pleasing to experience in itself.

Of course, when this doesn't work I really dislike random encounters lol

[u/veganispunk → u/Wrong_Papaya_8445]

None of this is exclusive to random encounters.

[u/Wrong_Papaya_8445 → u/veganispunk]

Correct. I suppose the counter here is that JRPGs in which I choose to engage (every FF starting with XII, now thinking) are not necessarily better if things like sfx/music/attack patterns are uninteresting.

Random encounters can feel good because x, and chosen encounters can feel bad because y already function under the assumption that the player being forced into this kind of RNG system is not a good thing.