Well there was Final Fantasy IV: The Afteryears. It lacks the modern graphics, but it's definitely a retro-styled Final Fantasy.
And there was also "The Four Heroes of Light," which was basically a remake of the first game for the DS. Plus, they remade III for the DS, which hadn't been released in the US in its original form. I doubt there will be a home console game using a classic-style setting/job system. That seems to be reserved entirely to the handheld market now. That said, the engine used for the remakes of III and IV (which was also used for Nostalgia and, I believe, The 4 Heroes of Light) seems pretty versatile, and I wouldn't mind Matrix doing some more games with it, FF or not.
Well FFIX came close to this, the graphics (in particular, the stunning FMV sequences) really pushed the power of the PSX. The only thing missing would be the multicoloured mages, although there were traditional black mages.
This. Dragoons have the old 'leap into the air and hit from above next turn' ability. Red Mages got to use both low level magic, carry a sword, and wear those sweet red musketeer outfits. Good point re the DS remakes. I loved the III and IV updates a lot and wish V and VI would get the same treatment.
To be fair, Freya's outfit does resemble that of the traditional Final Fantasy Red Mage, but, as I noted, her actual in-game job classification is that of a Dragoon.
I've put X-2 on hold in order to concentrate on VI, the thing that really gets to me about X-2 is just how weak you are and the apparent lack of opportunities to level up. The Aeons that you face in the game are ridiculously fast and CONSTANTLY use their special attacks which inflict all kinds of status shenanigans. I've bested Bahamut and Valefor, but Yojimbo was just impossible for me, so I've put that on the backburner. I don't even see how the game is supposed to have break damage limit abilities when the maximum damage a warrior class can do in the mid-20 levels is around 400hp (usually with a critical). It winds me up, almost as much as FFIX having no way of breaking 9999 damage by any means (not even multiple attacks) unless you learn DblBlk and then mega boost the magic stat (then it's only 20k and most of the enemies you need the extra damage for are immune to most of the elements or have ridiculously high magic defense).
No. She's a Blue Mage. There isn't actually a playable Red Mage in FFIX, making it the only job class from the original Final Fantasy not to to be featured in that regard (the Monk job class is there in Amarant; the White Mage class is there in Garnet; the Fighter/Warrior/Knight class is there in Steiner; the Thief class is, obviously, there in Zidane; and the Black Mage class is, obviously, there in Vivi). BTW, both Garnet and Eiko both have the distinction of not only having dual job classes, but also of sharing said job classes with one another, as they are both White Mage Summoners (with Eiko leaning more towards the latter job class [Summoner] and Garnet leaning more towards the former [White Mage]).
You could argue that Amarant is also of dual class, given that he has the throw ability most commonly used by the Ninja class.
Does anyone else agree that the game villains have sharply declined following IX and X? (I haven't played XII yet, so I'll exclude it for now!) I completed Crisis Core the other day and I have to say that Genesis Rhapsodos was a major disappointment, although one can't exactly compete with Sephiroth. Genesis was too nutty from the start of the game, his dialogue consisted of constantly quoting passages from a fictional play and his intentions for turning into the bad guy were never made explicitly clear. The reason things worked so well with Sephiroth was because he began a descent into madness following the revelation that he wasn't completely human. It was a complete character shakeup from the quiet, calm and collected individual that was a celebrated war hero to someone who completely misunderstood his origins to the point it drove him insane. This is all made even worse by the fact that Sephiroth becomes a meglomaniac following his acquisition of the Ancient's knowledge and is aware at that point, that Jenova isn't actually his mother (in that sense) and that he got many things wrong. But the true horror of Sephiroth's character is that he doesn't care that he got things wrong and his will becomes so strong that he is able to completely control the Jenova creature, influence those carrying it's DNA and even prevent the Holy spell from destroying Meteor. So compared to Sephiroth, Genesis is a one-dimensional villain that becomes the bad guy "just because". I will acknowledge that there is some depth to Genesis given that he chooses to fight his percieved final battle as a member of SOLDIER and not an experiment that has the ability to imprint his DNA on others and turn himself into a giant monster. But back to the rest of the series, I personally rank the villains from each of the games I have played as follows... 1) Sephiroth (FFVII) 2) Kefka (FFVI) 3) Kuja (FFIX) 4) Jecht/Sin (FFX) 5) Ultimecia (FFFVIII) 6) Ex Death (FFV) 7) Zemus (FFIV) 8) Barthandelus (FFXIII) 9) Shuyin (FFX-2) 10) Genesis Rhapsodos (CCFFVII)
I too am a huge fan of the PS1-era Final Fantasy games, and could never really get into the more recent entries of the series. I'll always have fond memories of FFVII, especially my first playthrough. That game totally ate up my life for months back in '98. Still love the characters, and the story (although the convoluted developments on disc 2 are a bit off-putting). Then I went back and played FFVI and loved it too, pretty much for the same reasons (despite the dated graphics, the destruction of the world left me in total shock). Could never really get into FFVIII, but IX is really underrated, and, I think, largely overlooked as a lot were put off by its predecessor. and I'm glad to see love for it here.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War Of The Lions (the original was never released as PAL and therefore it's unavailable on PSN in the UK) is an absolutely awesome game and the FMV sequences are beautiful in a simplistic way. I wasn't keen on it at first because the battles were slow, but I quickly began to love it for the challenging gameplay and the requirement to think your battle strategies through both prior to and during the battles (it ain't called "Tactics" for nothing!).
the ff9 thing is odd because ff9 had several red mage NPCs, it may be possible that they were at one point versions of unused playable characters, i remember that they were pretty well developed looking for NPCs
^ Indeed, one would wonder whether there were plans to have some additional party members. I've often wondered whether Gilgamesh/Alleyway Jack was meant to be a secret character that would join the party once you reached a certain treasure hunter rank. I can't believe that Square-Enix is considering another sequel to FFXIII! Given that fans of the series will buy the latest releases regardless, surely it would make sense from a critical standpoint to produce better games with better stories and characters. After the abysmal MMORPG that is FFXIV, you would think that SE would be focused on producing a masterpiece.
I've noticed that the traditional "Job" concept has been phased out somewhat in the later games. Could this be another indication that SE plans to abandon the traditional JRPG system of playing in the Final Fantasy series? Nonetheless, it's not too hard to assign a job to each character... FFX Tidus: Warrior/Time Mage Yuna: Summoner/White Mage Auron: Samurai/Mystic Wakka: Ranger/Gambler Rikku: Thief/Machinist/Chemist Kimahri: Blue Mage/Dragoon Lulu: Black Mage Seymour: Sage/Summoner FFX-2 (base jobs) Yuna: Gunner Rikku: Thief Paine: Warrior Final Fantasy XII (quite complicated given the original release's freedom to customise, nonetheless, four of the game's playable characters are more obvious) Vaan: Warrior/Thief Balthier: Gunner/Thief Fran: Archer/Red Mage Basch: Warrior FFXIII (prior to l'cie status) Lightning: Warrior/Gunner Snow: Monk/Grenadier Sazh: Gunner Hope: Ninja FFXIII-2 Serah: Archer/Warrior Noel: Warrior/Beastmaster