Final Fantasy Games 1-9
- Thread starter Mr Light
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Oh no... we've entered the TNZ of games... talking about FF7. 
FFIV is definitely my favorite---I love the story, I love the characters, and I've always liked how many places the team goes, from the world to the underworld to the moon to the moon's very core. Terrific music, too. Plus everyone loves to hate poor Edward, the original spoony bard.
Next up for me is FFV. Something about that job system got under my skin and I HAD to master every job with every character. In retrospect, that was a pretty pointless endeavor, but I do remember having fun at the time.
Although I really like FFVI, I don't absolutely LOVE IT like so many do. I don't like how there's not a clearly defined "main character" who I can name after myself, and although Kefka's theme song is one of the best tracks to come out of the series (which is high praise for this series,) I didn't really him as a character. His SNES laugh is still a terrific sound effect, though..."WOOOP WOOOP WOOOP WOOOP." Also, I've never been a big fan of the "one year later" thing, even though I loved it on BSG. Can't explain that one.
As for the PSX games, I've only finished FFIX, which I thought was a great throwback to the "medieval" style of the earlier games. I still haven't gotten around to finishing VII, and I've only played VIII for a few minutes here and there, so not enough to form the required Hate it! or Love it! opinions this game seems to garner.
I've tried the NES games, but without a good story to hook me in, I just wasn't interested in running around leveling up for hours just so I wouldn't get annihilated in the first dungeon.
Next up for me is FFV. Something about that job system got under my skin and I HAD to master every job with every character. In retrospect, that was a pretty pointless endeavor, but I do remember having fun at the time.
Although I really like FFVI, I don't absolutely LOVE IT like so many do. I don't like how there's not a clearly defined "main character" who I can name after myself, and although Kefka's theme song is one of the best tracks to come out of the series (which is high praise for this series,) I didn't really him as a character. His SNES laugh is still a terrific sound effect, though..."WOOOP WOOOP WOOOP WOOOP." Also, I've never been a big fan of the "one year later" thing, even though I loved it on BSG. Can't explain that one.
As for the PSX games, I've only finished FFIX, which I thought was a great throwback to the "medieval" style of the earlier games. I still haven't gotten around to finishing VII, and I've only played VIII for a few minutes here and there, so not enough to form the required Hate it! or Love it! opinions this game seems to garner.
I've tried the NES games, but without a good story to hook me in, I just wasn't interested in running around leveling up for hours just so I wouldn't get annihilated in the first dungeon.
I think the nostalgia factor is what does it for a lot of people... the audience for VII expanded significantly from the previous games, and as a result it was the first FF game that a lot of people played. It was certainly mine. I look back on it less favorably now, but at the time I thought it was the bees knees.
The only ones on the poll I've played are 7, 8 and 3 (on the DS which I never finished). I also played about 2/3rds of X and stayed as far away as possible from XII
1. I saw maybe one FFVII ad back when it came out. I didn't even have a PSX at the time. To say the ad campaign is why I love it is completely and utterly retarded.
This statement is so backwards, I'm completely taken aback.
If anything, Final Fantasy VII will go down and history as prof that some eye candy and a lot of TV adds can convince people they're buying a quality product.
Something with dull, repetitive (and utterly simplistic) game play, stupidly stereotyped characters, a gazillion plot holes exposing a ridiculously convoluted plot must be good because the commercial said so, right?
In ten years, I have to hear one person give me a solid reason why this game is "the best RPG ever." Not one. They just regurgitate the same old tired lines. It's like those commercials were so successful, they created a whole new breed of fan-boyism of those who will toe-the company line for them.
And you know, what I find even more hilarious is that no one has attempted the same level of add campaigning as SQUARE did here. The proof is in the pudding--people gobbled it up. Yet no one has tried since.
2. It is considered "the best RPG ever" because so many people agree on that point. They don't have to validate their tastes to you, it is okay to just like something. Sometimes it is just the right ingredients in just the right amounts, and not any one particular thing.
Personally I find the story engaging from the start, which is key in my enjoyment of any story-driven media be it games, movies or books. The characters, if perhaps a bit shallow and archetypical, are still well drawn into strong and distinct characters that all serve a purpose to the story and have a defined role rather than being along for the ride as is so often the case in RPGs. The humor is also probably the best of the modern RPGs, with everything from slick sexual innuendo(How does it feel bub?), foul mouthed anti-heroes, cross-dressing quests to even a summoning spell that brings forth a giant fat chocobo.
We also have:
The chocobo system, which is one of the most fulfilling mini-games of any of the FF games.
A magic system that is flexible and powerful and yet simple enough that you need not worry if you're gimping your characters.
The best art design of any RPG, ever. The graphics may be dated, but the pre-rendered backgrounds are gorgeous at times, inspired even. The characters are all very well conceived with iconic silhouettes that make them instantly recognizable. The game can go from completely silly(Golden Saucer) to serious(The Desert Below) in a flash and yet retain the same style.
FUN FACTOR! I never felt like there was anything I HAD to do to move on to the good parts. There was no endless drawing magic or tweaking my junctions to optimize my character who will do nothing but attack with melee attacks anyways since using magic will drop my stats, no assholes wanting to challenge me to cardgames or blitzball tournaments(I'm trying to save the world here people!), No spending hours programming my party to fight for themselves in yet another repeating tunnel dungeon while I watch TV waiting for a cut-scene to come up to learn what is happening in a story that seems to have no real focus to it.
The battle system is simple, but it still requires a skillful strategic mind to keep up with some of the end bosses, especially the optional ones like Ruby and Emerald (no, summoning 'Knights of the Round' over and over doesn't work as well as you'd think)
I think Dirge of Cerberus is shit, Advent Children is pretty much popcorn fluff that looks cool but serves no other purpose (and the Sierra don't hold a candle to the Highwind btw.)
VII has been overexposed and is a lot less cool for it, but it is still a great game, and personally I've felt like jRPGs have been going downhill since.
Well I started FF6, after spending five minutes figuring out how to put the GBA game into the DS without breaking the damn thing 
They certainly are simple graphics! But it's not so bad since its on a tiny screen anyway. I finished the opening stage and just got out on the overworld for the first time, but I can't figure out how to find the next city and enter it. Is it that little white dot on the map I can barely see? I don't see anything there to head towards, but then when I went back where I started there wasn't really anything there either...
They certainly are simple graphics! But it's not so bad since its on a tiny screen anyway. I finished the opening stage and just got out on the overworld for the first time, but I can't figure out how to find the next city and enter it. Is it that little white dot on the map I can barely see? I don't see anything there to head towards, but then when I went back where I started there wasn't really anything there either...
Trust me, you'll want to use a walkthrough or map because the old SNES games are maybe some of the most unfriendly games ever. At least the random encounter battle rate is fairly low in 6.
Mostly, you'll be told vaguely to go "east" or "south"... and if you didn't write it down or memorize it, you're screwed because quest logs didn't exist back then.
Yeah, this is why I'm waiting for a real remake.
Mostly, you'll be told vaguely to go "east" or "south"... and if you didn't write it down or memorize it, you're screwed because quest logs didn't exist back then.
Yeah, this is why I'm waiting for a real remake.
Good Will Riker
Admiral
My favorite is Final Fantasy VI.
It is definitely one of my top 5 favorite videogames of all time.
It is definitely one of my top 5 favorite videogames of all time.
Oh believe me I use walkthroughs for everything!
I had a frustration just starting. I started the game, found the first save point, didn't understand how to save (thought I just had to walk through it), then got killed by the first boss. Then I had to restart the game from scratch going through all the introductory scenes over again.
I had a frustration just starting. I started the game, found the first save point, didn't understand how to save (thought I just had to walk through it), then got killed by the first boss. Then I had to restart the game from scratch going through all the introductory scenes over again.
7 and it's satelite games are the best
6 is iconic, if the music were better and a few charaters weren't shoehorned in (i'm looking at you Relm) i'd reguard it as highly as 7
and who can forget Final Fantasy:Mystic Quest, for the SNES this game is alot more of a beginner's, or "Gateway" RPG, the main charater has no past, nor is it revealed, the world map is "point and click" no exploration on the map, but alot of hidden passages in dungeons, pretty decent game all things considered, but not on full par with it's numbered brothers
and before i forget, a shout out to Super Mario RPG:Legend of the seven stars, another gateway RPG with a well written plot, balanced charaters, funny script, ect. a perfect game
6 is iconic, if the music were better and a few charaters weren't shoehorned in (i'm looking at you Relm) i'd reguard it as highly as 7
and who can forget Final Fantasy:Mystic Quest, for the SNES this game is alot more of a beginner's, or "Gateway" RPG, the main charater has no past, nor is it revealed, the world map is "point and click" no exploration on the map, but alot of hidden passages in dungeons, pretty decent game all things considered, but not on full par with it's numbered brothers
and before i forget, a shout out to Super Mario RPG:Legend of the seven stars, another gateway RPG with a well written plot, balanced charaters, funny script, ect. a perfect game
To be fair, most of what I said wasn't directed towards you, it was just a general observation.
Also, most of the people I was referring to FF7 was their first JRPG. The genre had a huge stigma before this game, but the flashy graphics of emo characters, whirly explosions, and big swords, for whatever reason, drew them all to it. And God forbid, they liked it.
Most of them really never experienced anything like it before and it became the degree to which everything else was compared.
Some have suggested that FFVII forever changed the JRPG map, and I suppose that's true to a certain degree, but most of these fans don't play most of the really good games of the genre and dismiss them because they "don't have this or that"--usually compared directly to FFVII. If anything, that's been the source of my obscene lunacy on the topic over the years.
It just drive me nuts.
The perfect example of this is FFVIII. The characters weren't stereotyped archetypes but symbolic icons. The story was much deeper and much less obvious (albeit more esoteric). You had to think more to understand it. Combat was much more interactive--you had to work more--and the game could be a bit more difficult. But, it wasn't "Final Fantasy VII" therefore it sucked.
And really, pretty much everyone is guilty of committing to a movie, tv show, whatever even though it really sucks bad and at the same time insisting its greatness. But, most of us don't worship it and proclaim it divine.
Oh Jeebus, don't get me started. And apparently it's the, "future direction of RPGs."
I've tried four times to get through the game up each time give up about 15 hours into it because I got so bored. Unfortunately I can't find a link (every search I try results of a deluge of Crisis Core responses), but somewhere out there is the monetary ranking of a video game related ad campaigns. Of the non-console related, FF7 is clearly at the top. They even ran ads for it during the Super Bowl.
To deny a correlation between that and its popularity is just silliness.
But it really isn't, it's just that the fan base is the most vocal. Outside a few popular websites that have propagated its "greatness" by assisting said fans in their tomfoolery, it really isn't nearly highly regarded. On a critical and more broad level, it's much lower on the radar.
It's a tedious fetch-quest at best.The actual "game" almost completely lacks any interactivity--you just hold a few buttons down and stare at the ceiling. You do this over, and over, and over, and over, and over all for a cheap game-helper. (As if the game wasn't already really easy.)
Simple and watered down. It was "too" easy, and didn't necessitate any kind of strategy. Of course, this had a lot to do with how simple the game was so easy. It's not hard to go through the game without using any Materia at all, which if you ask me, makes it somewhat superfluous. But, again, at best all you had to do was slap some on and go. I suppose some like the simplicity of it, but the Esper system was equally as simplistic, but at least it had a purpose.
[/quote]The best art design of any RPG, ever.[/quote]
That's debatable.
I think this sentence says a lot.
Some of us need that stuff to give us a break from the tedium of repetitive, boring random battles.
I don't know what you're getting at here.
Said bosses are tacked-on cheap and gimmicky and require and equally cheap and gimmicky strategy to defeat them. Want real hard bosses? Play Lunar.
I agree to a point, but there's still been some really good ones in the last few years--they just weren't FF7.
Trust me, you'll want to use a walkthrough or map because the old SNES games are maybe some of the most unfriendly games ever. At least the random encounter battle rate is fairly low in 6.
Mostly, you'll be told vaguely to go "east" or "south"... and if you didn't write it down or memorize it, you're screwed because quest logs didn't exist back then.
Yeah, this is why I'm waiting for a real remake.
It's not that hard.
May I ask why? I mean they can be nice if you get really, really stuck, but why play the games at all if you're going to have someone else do it for you?
Ayup. We've started a war that trumps Obama vs Clinton. 
Suddenly I'm reminded of those people who cosplay Cloud and Tidus and then act out battle scenes in their backyards.
In-depth discussions regarding Final Fantasy games are always a pain in the ass. That said, I probably hate arguments over FFVI the most, since half the people involved always end up trying to convince me that Kefka was a believable, multi-dimensional antagonist, usually resulting in my brain exploding.
And you take enjoyment away from this style of "playing" a game?
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