Are these Final Fantasy games worth it?

[linwolf]

Final Fantasy IX was by far the best Final Fantasy game, and among my favourite games of all time.

Oh and X story was a bit stupid at times (overall still good) but the gameplay more than made up for it.

 

[Ashcrexl]

i actually like every single FF game from iv onward except the MMORPG ones because fuck the MMORPG ones. so, uh, yes? worth it?

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Both from what I've heard at from what I've played, 8 wasnt that good, and 9 was alright. Also, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone speaking ill of FF12, so I'm curious as to who you talk to that thinks that.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Over the years I've noticed a distinct trend that most people agree main Final Fantasy games, 1 through 7 are fantastic. while the 10th through 13 are utter bullsh*t. what I've been determining all this while is whether or not games 8 and 9 are bad.

so I ask you wise men (and pubescents) of The Escapist: while Final Fantasy 1-7 are great, and 10-13 are fucktarded, but is 8 and 9 bad?

Wait... what? II was awful, V was repetitive and III on the ds (shudder)... I never bothered to finish it.
Who says VII is good? it's just the most well known.
I personally loved both VIII and IX but, VIII is known to be the one all the fanboys bitched about. It's not popular, but still to this day remains my favourite.
Also 10 through 13 are shit?
Where are you getting your facts? X is probably one of the most popular in the series and receives much praise, XII was also quite enjoyable and they tried something different. The plot wasn't great but I still enjoyed XII immensely.
XIII, okay that one wasn't popular but I personally enjoyed it despite the linearity, as the difficulty curve was just awesome. XIII brought difficulty back into the series.
IX is easily the most fun in the series I have played. The sidequests were just brilliant.
-Tabs<3-

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

8 had a robotic jellyfish and a train from space. How is that not awesome?

You can suplex a demonic train in 6, your argument is invalid.

Never said it was better than 6, just that it's definitely a point in 8's favour.

 

[Alizee Serenity]

God. It's impossible to say.

The FF fanbase is fractured on EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.

Just try 'em.

Prety much what I was going to say. Its always something like "The series got shit at 10" "no 7 ruined it" "everything after 10 is bollocks" "youre all idiots, 6 was the best, and everything after that is utter rubbish".

Theyre all wrong though, the series died with 13.

My thoughts exactly.

There's always some fans who go nuclear if you dont love their fave like they do because in their opinion their fave IS Final Fantasy. Some might not even regard you as a fan or even a gamer for that!!

((Example: Heck I get crap from FF fanboys in my area for playing the series but not absolutely a fanslave of FF7, because they say 7 is the all knowing divine, 7 has all the answers, 7 is always there for them, 7 will always live, 7 will deliver...etc etc etc. Yet all I said was my first FF was 10...))

 

[-Seraph-]

8 had a robotic jellyfish and a train from space. How is that not awesome?

You can suplex a demonic train in 6, your argument is invalid.

Never said it was better than 6, just that it's definitely a point in 8's favour.

Fair point, but that doesn't make me hate 8 any less. Its story was just so terrible that no amount of gunblades, robo-jelly fish, space trains, or what have you can redeem it.

 

[Zetsubou-Sama]

The rule of thumb when it comes to FF is:

FF1-6- Good, with 4,6 being considered two of the best (except 2 the meh classic)
7-The Overrated One
8 - The Controversial
9- The Best of The PS1 Era
10- The Last Good FF
10/2- The Hated One, But for some a neglected gem.
11- Not an FF
12-13- The Bastards.

FFT- The Best Outside of the Main Series.

 

[mireko]

9>7>12>10>13>8

In my humble opinion. I'm not sure when it comes to the older ones.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

8 had a robotic jellyfish and a train from space. How is that not awesome?

You can suplex a demonic train in 6, your argument is invalid.

Never said it was better than 6, just that it's definitely a point in 8's favour.

Fair point, but that doesn't make me hate 8 any less. Its story was just so terrible that no amount of gunblades, robo-jelly fish, space trains, or what have you can redeem it.

Well that makes sense, but I never played FF for the story, so that's probably why I enjoyed 8.

 

[Daedalus1942]

8 is total shit, 9 is a hankering back to the NES/SNES days and is widely regarded as one of the best.

8 had terrible broken gameplay that was mostly unintuitive and full of needless grind and busywork. Characters sucked, villain terrible, story made no sense, ect...

I could write an essay completely deconstructing 8 and explain how terrible it is and how much it fails on a story telling level it aint even funny. Although that would take more time than I'm willing to invest in it right now, maybe some other day. Avoid it, it's not worth your time.

Final Fantasy II exists, your logic is flawed.

2 wasn't as bad as so many make it out to be, hell at least it had a comprehensible story. The gameplay was broken if you abused it, but they fixed it in later iterations. I managed to beat the NES version without ever breaking the game and had fun with the challenge.

I have to ask, did you ever even bother finishing VIII? It had some of the best sidquests in any final fantasy game bar IX. The story made sense in the context of final fantasy. can you really say VII's plot wasn't batshit insane too?
I'll be surprised if you bothered to get to the fourth disc when the time compression happens and most likely you're just going off Spoony's video series on the game.
The gameplay and battle system took some getting used to sure, but it was good, it made you think and you had to decide which spells you would junction and which you would use as OFFENSIVE SPELLS.
It added another aspect and dimension to the game, and I really don't understand all the bitching that the game receives.
-Tabs<3-

 

[Caspulex]

The easiest way to figure out, go pick a number between 1-13 and look up the corresponding Final Fantasy, if you don't care for any of 1-6, move on to 8-13, and vice versa, can't decide, pick 7, EVERYONE likes that one (for good justifiable reason) generally speaking.

I won't lie to you.

I absolutely deplore FFVII.

Yet I prefer 8 to it. 8 was fun in the notion that once you get the proper spells and weapons everything just falls in front of you dead. And the Tonberry summon.

Though, I'd place 9 much higher than 8. It was a "salute" to the history of FF, and it shows. Simple plot with a cliched but adorable story, and just overall awesomeness. My favorite of the FFs post-SNES era, myself.

That isn't saying much because I've never played 10-on...

 

[Zetsubou-Sama]

Final Fantasy VIII is like an onion, the more layers you go through the more you find.

Best mini-game. An innovative but broken junction system. And a world rich in story and lore if you explore it. And probably one of the best soundtracks in the series.

 

[Supp]

4,6,7,9 are usually the one's considered the best. I've played 1,2,3,4,7 and 9 and I've enjoyed all of them. Were I to rank them I'd put 1 at the top for the sole reason that its the game that got me really interested in video games.

As for XIII, the general consensus that I've heard is that if you make it through the first 10 hours of the game, its actually one of the better Final Fantasies.

 

[AlohaJo]

I find VIII and IX to be the best of the 3D Final Fantasy's. VIII can a bit hard to wrap your head around sometimes, but if you just relax, breathe, and experiment, you'll understand how it works completely. And it does work.

IX takes the series back to it's roots, but it has a level of polish that you don't see in most games anymore.

 

[-Seraph-]

8 is total shit, 9 is a hankering back to the NES/SNES days and is widely regarded as one of the best.

8 had terrible broken gameplay that was mostly unintuitive and full of needless grind and busywork. Characters sucked, villain terrible, story made no sense, ect...

I could write an essay completely deconstructing 8 and explain how terrible it is and how much it fails on a story telling level it aint even funny. Although that would take more time than I'm willing to invest in it right now, maybe some other day. Avoid it, it's not worth your time.

Final Fantasy II exists, your logic is flawed.

2 wasn't as bad as so many make it out to be, hell at least it had a comprehensible story. The gameplay was broken if you abused it, but they fixed it in later iterations. I managed to beat the NES version without ever breaking the game and had fun with the challenge.

I have to ask, did you ever even bother finishing VIII? It had some of the best sidquests in any final fantasy game bar IX. The story made sense in the context of final fantasy. can you really say VII's plot wasn't batshit insane too?
I'll be surprised if you bothered to get to the fourth disc when the time compression happens and most likely you're just going off Spoony's video series on the game.
The gameplay and battle system took some getting used to sure, but it was good, it made you think and you had to decide which spells you would junction and which you would use as OFFENSIVE SPELLS.
It added another aspect and dimension to the game, and I really don't understand all the bitching that the game receives.
-Tabs<3-

Don't put stupid assumptions into my post, I played the damn game TWICE. Once when i was a kid, hated it; then came back to it when I was older to see if I was just too young to appreciate it...NOPE.

Side quests don't mean crap, that's not the main reason I play the game. The story made no damn sense, not even "in the sense of a final fantasy". It was all terribly written with plot holes you could drive a truck through, shallow unlikable characters, a completely uninteresting and shallow villain, and just over all stupid plot.

7 was crazy, but it made sense, had impact, depth, and had characters that actually developed and were somewhat likable. And I'm gonna stop you right there and tell you NO, I am not a 7 fan boy or any of that. I judge each FF on their own merits and never stoop to the stupid comparison crap that most fans do (save for this one case where you brought up 7).

And yes I do share some of the same opinions as spoony, but I played, judged, and hated FF8 Looooong before I knew of him. It was all the more entertaining when i saw his vids at how much we had in common in a lot of areas but some of his stuff was a tad overblown.


The combat was shit, it didn't make you think in a good way. It was full of needless busy work and broken up the ass. But if people like the combat then I don't care, I have little problem with that. But the story is down right bad from every aspect before you jump to it's defense and what not, try not to bring up those stupid assumptions.

EDIT: Sorry if I come off as really hostile, I just hate it when these dumb assumptions like "oh you're just going off spoony", "did you finish the whole things?", ect...come up. I play games thoroughly before I praise or lambaste it, I never go half baked like some people may.

 

[Austin Howe]

VIII and IX are both absolute gems that any self-respecting Playstation owner should have. VIII is a game that turns every convention of the genre on it's head, and IX is, while nostalgiac, also suprisingly fresh after the darkness of tone, and vast gameplay innovations going from VI to VIII, and it holds up really well, especially when compared with any preVII Final Fantasy title, especially V and II.

 

[migo]

Over the years I've noticed a distinct trend that most people agree main Final Fantasy games, 1 through 7 are fantastic. while the 10th through 13 are utter bullsh*t. what I've been determining all this while is whether or not games 8 and 9 are bad.

so I ask you wise men (and pubescents) of The Escapist: while Final Fantasy 1-7 are great, and 10-13 are fucktarded, but is 8 and 9 bad?

I like 8 better than 7, haven't played 9. 10 is one of the greatest games ever (particularly for its time). 1 is utter crap, 2 is interesting for its time but still pretty bad.

The people who say 1-7 are great and 10-13 are crap clearly have some bizarre standards for coming to that conclusion (or they're just trolling).

 

[Chromanin]

Final Fantasy is becoming a solid gold CD player- it's magnificent to look at but it's getting outdated and you could easily find something that has greater worth for a lower price.

I really like that analogy.

I love Final Fantasy, but most of the games are not very good. Yeah, they always nail graphics and music, but that's all they consistantly get right.

FFI: It's fine, but obviously horribly outdated.

FFII: Just avoid this. Trust me.

FFIII: Good if you're into old-school RPGs. First game to use the job system.

FFIV: Good characters and party mechanics. Weak story. First game to use Active Time Battle.

FFV: More job system, and it works. Story and characters are pretty goofy, all-around.

FFVI: Completely overrated. For its time, it was pretty important, but there's nothing extraordinary about it now. It's not terrible. The large cast of characters and their different fighting styles make combat pretty fun, the world is big and expansive, and the villain is one of the best ever. However, the characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is groan-inducing, and the story is just plan silly at times.

FFVII: One of my favorites, but still not very good. Materia system works well. Characters are pretty interesting, even if this is the game that started the "zazz" factor. Limit breaks give each character a certain uniqueness in combat, and there are a good amount of sidequests. Unfortunately, the graphics are ass-ugly. They have not aged well, at all. The story is a convoluted mess, and the text is riddled with typos.

FFVIII: I can't explain all the things that are wrong with this game, but the top three that take the cake are: the nonsense story, the inane characters, and the abomination that is the Junction system.

FFIX: An okay game. It was meant to be a throwback to oldschool Final Fantasy, and it does that very well. The Trance system pretty much blows, but combat is adequate otherwise. With a couple exceptions, the characters are fairly unique. The story is pretty theatrical. The game is also really easy and really short. So it's hard for it to get on your nerves.

FFX: Worst protagonist in video game history, completely unlikable characters, terrible voice-acting, senseless mini-games. Combat works very well, though.

FFXI: This is an MMORPG. It's pretty good. Classes are unique, all can be leveled on a single character, multicrafting is available, and the party mechanics are well-balanced.

FFXII: Probably the best, numerical, Final Fantasy. Has the least annoying characters, a competent story, tons of side-questing, a big world to explore, and the gambit system is a unique step in changing up combat.

FFXIII: Haven't played it. Watched my brother play it, and I do know that the characters annoy the piss out of me.

EDIT: Sorry for kind of derailing your topic with all of my unwanted input, TC.