Omega certainly does have endurance; just look at its defense! (Just try to kill Omega without using lightning attacks or any other attack that ignores defense.)

FF6 Atma Weapon does not allow you to do 9999 damage early on. You can get the weapon around mid-game, but it isn't that powerful at the levels you are likely to be at that point. In fact, spells will generally be more powerful, especially once you get the Ultima spell. It's only at extremely high levels that the Atma Weapon can deal 9999 damage.

FF7 has many mandatory minigames; the motorcycle sequence, the snowboarding sequence, the submarine fight (and you have to wait it out if you aren't able to complete it early; the original PC version doesn't even allow you to quit during it), and, of course, sequences like the CPR sequence (which makes *no* sense in a game where there is healing magic available to the player).

Also, FF7 is smaller in scope than FF6; there's only one world, and the game is linear throughout. FF6 has 2 worlds, and the game actually opens up in the second world, allowing you to explore it instead of being strung along with the plot. Also, FF7 never gives you a proper 4 character party; the game, for whatever reason, limits you to only 3 characters. Reducing the party size really does make the game feel less epic and smaller in scope (Chrono Trigger has this issue, but that's not as much of a problem there because the game isn't in a sequence of what were previously epic games).

There's also a lack of effect variety. All FF7 summons do damage; that's not the case in FF6, which had some with interesting non-damage effects (like Golem, Unicorn, and Starlet). FF7 has some non-damaging limit breaks, but they tend to be either low-level or on a character the game doesn't let you use after a certain point in the game. (That's another issue; FF7 punishes you for progressing through the game.)

With respect to KotR, you don't even need to be on the last disk to get it; I got it while still on Disk 2. Also, that spell *alone* is enough to shred the game's balance to pieces; no single ability in FF6 or earlier, by itself, is *that* powerful. (Even FF2's Blood Sword needs high Strength to get reasonable accuracy.)

With regards to the leveling system, FF7's level up mechanics are still worse than FF5's. In FF7, if you want the maximum possible HP, you basically need to consult a table to tell whether you need to re-load the level up. (Higher HP is not necessarily better here.) In FF5, you don't have to worry about it; HP is solely determined by base Vitality, which in turn is solely dependent on current Job and Level (and, for Freelancer/Mime *only*, other jobs you've mastered). I actually would prefer FF2's level up system to FF7's.

Example. Yiazmat has skyhigh defense. But it also has 50 mil HP...
I remember I was dealing these numbers on Terra before the end of World of Balance. I was quite surprised myself.
You can walk away to make sandwich or coffee in any minigame (outside mandatory one, with Chocobo). Once you are back, the minigame is over and you can continue playing.
In terms of visitable locations and such, FF7 is larger. World of Ruin feels rather empty and World of Balance is quite small too.
What exactly is powerful about it? It is weaker than Omnislash and neither can one-shot final bosses nvm superbosses. And getting this materia pretty much requires a guide. Also don't forget that while max enemy's HP in FF6 was 65535, in FF7 there are enemies with much larger health pools.
Or you can just use MaxHP/MP materias. Master materias free up a lot of slots, so it is quite possible to max all stats, while also getting all spells/skills.

Why should I have to walk away from the game? I want to actually *play* the game, not wait for the game to let me play. (This is a common theme in the game, with excessively long cutscenes, and excessively long summon animations, and the final boss has an attack with an excessively long animation as well.)
Here's the thing: You can keep using KotR, particularly if you link it with MP absorb materia. With that materia combo, you can use it every single fight. Final bosses and superbosses are a very small portion of the game, and it turns out that you can just Mime it. (The Mime ability has never been so powerful.)

Omnislash (which is likely also overpowered) is not something that you can just use at will; KotR can be used whenever you want.

Also, the chocobo sage provides enough hints that one could realistically get KotR without a guide.

You do need slots to equip them, and master materias (along with Enemy Skill) are a bit too powerful for one materia slot. Also, master materias take a while to get, and some materia combos aren't so good with master materia, as you end up with anti-combo effects (like Added Cut on the use of healing items).

Also, you still haven't maxed the character's *base* stats.

As a practical matter, when fighting Emerald Weapon, it helps if you can get a character to have 9999 HP (9998 won't do) with exactly 2 materia equipped. This way, Aire Tam Storm does 2222 damage to the character, leaving her with exactly 7777 HP left, which triggers what is probably the game's strangest intentional mechanic.

Also, when you claim the game isn't buggy, there is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuPiQ4mHRC0

(Also, magic defense on what passes for "armor" in FF7 doesn't work properly.)

Actually, in some situations, KotR is stronger. Omnislash does not ignore defense, therefore an enemy with max defense will take only 1 damage per hit. KotR, on the other hand, *does* ignore defense, and therefore will work on enemies regardless of their defense. A YouTube video was only able to get the damage down to just over 150 per hit. (That's with the Arena's level down effect in play, and the enemy protected by Shell.)

judging from another YouTube video, KotR would be able to reach over 17K damage if it weren't for the damage limit. In other words, you can do guaranteed 9999 damage per hit to any enemy not protected by Shell, and over 8k to those that are.

Of course, the game doesn't actually have enemies with such ridiculous defense, but if they had included Flans (like the ones in early FF games), there would be times when Omnislash is essentially useless.

(Incidentally, FF6 Ultima has the same property of ignoring defense, and it's far more powerful than other attacks that do. If it didn't ignore defense, it wouldn't be the gamebreaker it is, and Flare and Meteor would retain some strategic use.)

But it did have one exploitable bug that should not have made it past testing; namely, the W-Item bug.

There's also the fact that the original PC version of FF7 had a tendency to crash and leak memory. (I remember it taking literally forever to load the next area.) The use of FMVs read from the disk doesn't help; I got nervous every time an FMV would come because I am worried the game would crash or there'd be an error reading the disk.

Also, FF5 has far more strategically significant options than FF7 (or FF6, for that matter), yet it manages to feel rather balanced and not be as easy to exploit. FF7 could have easily had abilities like Jump and Mix, but those abilities are missing for whatever reason. (Why they decided to include the boring Throw ability and omit the interesting and fun Mix ability I have no idea.)

Just to clear a few things up (FF7 related):

That 17k+ KotR damage was at level 99, 255 Magic (I assume), 4 Hero Drinks, and a mod that removes the (rather silly IMO) damage limit.

A more realistic figure (one that I actually attained while playing FF7) is 9k+. This was at a reasonable level, with 255 Magic (easily obtained with equipment and Magic + Materia), and no hero drinks. Remember that this still works on arbitrary enemies.

Note that neither of these figures take into account MP Turbo, which can give this spell a 50% boost while only increasing the cost by a measly 5 points.

(Side note: In FF7, it's possible to do negative damage. In FF5 and FF6, this doesn't happen, although damage overflow can still happen in both games; FF6 Ultima at level 99 with 140 Magic Power will deal less than 1,000 damage.)

And most non final bosses/superbosses die from couple of common hits. Why bother wasting MP and Limits on them? Truly obnoxious bosses are way before you can make Gold Chocobo (realistically). When you get Gold Chocobo, game is practically over by then.

And you definitely didn't see Aeons in FF 10. Especially Anima with Oblivion which can deal damage in 6-7 digits. Double Oblivion destroys almost everything, excluding some of the tougher superbosses. Why Anima, you could 1-hit any storyline boss with any Aeon by a single Overdrive.
We don't speak about PC ports. Original PC port of FF7 was totally unplayable, it was big luck if you managed to launch it at all.
Any FF, which was initially released worldwide (except the first and 12), was quite easy to "exploit". FF 7 is very well balanced if to compare it with FF 8-10 and 6 (even if Atma Weapon wasn't there). FF 10 was saved by a lot of optional challenges. The "harder" and "trickier" FF games were reserved for Japan, because developers were afraid to release hard games for the West. Only FF 12 became exception, and seems it was the last true FF. FF 12 was truly superable, and it has a special place in my heart.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_(video_game)]This One.[/url]
A favorite of mine; great and intense game ;P

If you haven't played Persona 4 Golden, play Persona 4 Golden.

mmm, I'm kinda not really fond of PS1 games on the Vita as they're natively in 4/3 and on the screen of the Vita, it just renders too small for my taste. I bought and tried Silent Hill and Resident Evil 2 on Vita and for me, it really killed the pleasure of playing those games in these conditions (on the contrary, I enjoyed Resident Evil 1 on the DS and RE:Revelations on 3DS).

Also, apart from the games in themselves, it's tempting to buy lots of PS1 classics but the big problem of the vita is its stupid expensive proprietary data storage cards. If you start buying games which were filling more than 1 CD-rom, I can guarantee you'll reach the limit of your data card quite quickly. Of course, you're not obliged to install them all at the same time but then you run the risk of having a digital backlog and naturraly, this ain't GOG so you can't have backup copies of the game in case something goes wrong.

Back on games, the PSP ones are more interesting IMO as they have the same screen aspect ratio and benefits from a perfect upscaling and they're available on the store at a small price (you can even wait for some sales if you're patient). Lots of classics have already been cited but I would just add Valkyria Chronicles 2 into the mix.

You can also check the PSP Minis collection which were small games at reduced price but can be very good for some casual sessions:
- BreakQuest
- Trail Blazer
- Flying Hamster
- Where Is My Heart (also on GOG)

Tomba

Good call.
Played the 2nd one?

I'm gonna second Jeanne D'arc. It's a really fun game so far and it looks excellent in graphics and presentation.

Do all PS1 games work on the Vita (naturally through PSN)? in which case get anything Castlevania. Front Mission 3 is really good, although after a while it can get hard to remain motivated (or at least for me).

I disagree about FF7 being more balanced than FF6; FF7 can be broken with one ability, by itself (KotR), while FF6 requires more than that to break the game. (Also, FF6 preserves character individuality for a while; in FF7 it's quite feasible to setup every character in your party to be effective in every role. FF5 limits your ability slots to the point where you have to make trade-offs; FF7 doesn't do that.)

Also, what level were you when you got Atma Weapon?

FF9 was better balanced than FF7 (though it did have some issues of its own).

FF4 (non-DS) is not really exploitable, and neither is Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

The problem with FF10's optional challenge is that game balance breaks down after a point, especially once you factor in the Dark Aeons, which are immune to everything that isn't non-elemental damage. The fact that the most powerful weapons *ignore* defense, making every attack other than Quick Hit useless, doesn't help.

There's also the fact that FF5, and to a lesser extent, FF6, managed to be good while fitting on a single cartridge, while FF7 not only did it not fit on a single cartridge, it did not even fit on a single CD-ROM because they wasted space with non-interactive cutscenes.
Here is my stance here:

Random battles are a major component of an RPG. You spend more time in them than you do in boss fights. Therefore, they are an important part of the game; when random enemies die easily and don't pose a significant threat, it really brings down the game. (Also, having enemies be weak and die too easily really hurts the usefulness of spells like Sleep, which would have been worth using if the enemies actually pose a threat.)

Also, using KotR + MP absorb does not waste MP; in fact, you will generally end up recovering far more MP than you would use casting the spell. In fact, regaining 999 MP is quite possible.

Maybe you should (re)play the original Wizardry, a game in which random encounters were actually serious threats. (On the other hand, status ailments aren't that useful; a problem that Wizardry 2 rectified.)

Also, Wizardry 8 has random enemies that actually provide a good challenge and are not immune to status ailments. (Please play the game normally and don't just hack your level up to the limit; the game was balanced for the levels that are actually practical to reach.)
It wasn't unplayable; I managed to reach the start of the third disk on the PC version.
As I said, I got the Gold Chocobo on the second disk. I still had the rest of the second disk, as well as the *entire* third disk, to finish with this summon that shouldn't have been in the game in the first place.

It got from me and my bro when we were teens! :)
A game that surely needs more attention, just like the one (called "One") I've talked about ;P