FF Preference

[danimal1384]

Final Fantasy was widely unknown in America until 7. it was the first 3d ff game, it was really damn long, all the characters in your party all have their own origins and stories, which are all flushed out very effectively, and they all tie into the general plot of the story. the characters had real, or human, motives that most people could relate to. it was a new system of magic and specializing, cause anyone could be used for any more, for the most part. the story was compelling enough to generate a following, and it was an epic story that felt epic as you played. you felt as though everything rested on your shoulders. it was also the first ff game that really got hyped and was advertised for in the media. all these elements are the primary reasons that ff7 is by far the most popular ff games and one of the 20 top selling games of all time i think.

while i'm a big fan of it, i don't think its the best one. i think 8 was the best, cause it actually made you expediate your playing of the game, cause the higher level you got, so did the enemies. it was innovative, the side game was fantastic, and it had a sense of reality to it, like things of this nature could maybe happen in the not to distant future.

as for 10, i'd say it was the most fun game to play. the sphere grid system was very different and original. the graphics were such a huge boost from 9, cause it was the first one on the ps2. it also was the first ff game that had a full voice acting cast. the game itself was very linear and allowed a non-hardcore rpg player to play the game and enjoy it without getting lost. these are what made ff10 popular.

that being said, while i think it was the most fun to play, i think the story and characters were probably the worse out of the series up to that point. the story didn't feel that epic, cause sin had been defeated times before but always comes back, so you feel unimportant. there was that large critique on religion with Yevon, and you didn't care about any of it. the character were uninspiring and unrelatable. their motives for how they behave and what they do seemed rather general and weren't specific to them. the main character looks like a surfer from california who has daddy issues. his love interest is some chic who has less emotion in her dialogue than ben stein in Ferris Beuler's Day Off. half way through, i didn't care about any of them and hoped they all died gruesomely.

and don't get me started about ff10-2. while fun, the estrogen levels were through the roof and 2 hours into it i had to make sure my dick hadn't receeded into my pelvis and become a vagina.

 

[Arbre]

Oh, also I love Xenosaga. Amazing series. I totally support the long cinematic approach. I play RPGs for the story. Not the long boring grinding. More cinematics and less gameplay makes it more of a plus for me. I also love the Metal Gear SOlid series for that reason, though it isn't an RPG...and it's gameplay is actually fun too, making it one of the best games ever.

Well, I'm not sure the receipe "film + some interactive mob slashing" would work for many genres.

 

[danimal1384]

Voted Xenogears. It was like Final Fantasy, but worth playing. Easily Square's second-best game, behind the first Super Mario RPG.

hell yeah xenogears. it was brilliantly done, too bad the xenosaga games decided to muck the whole xeno-series up for people. they originaly were going to do 8 games, and xeno gears was episode 5. but after the debacle of saga2, they ditched the idea and just finished with 3. too bad

 

[Saylex]

I really can't think of many reasons outside of the ones listed that FF7 is revered as "teh bestz0rz." The same goes for FF10. And, I have to say before I get started, I love seeing healthy debate rather than the idiotic "OMG U DUN LIK U SUX!" that you get when you go to most open forums. Anyway.

FF7: People liked it because it was the first FF on the PS, so they were interested to see where it would go. Their investment in the previous FFs fueled their desire to find out what Square was providing us with this time (for the old-time FF fanatics) and just offered a brilliant world to immerse yourself in pre-emo goth punk era (for those that didn't grow on FF.)

For me, 7 was by no means -the- best. It was good, yes. Characters were great, story was awesome, side-quests and mini-games were a hoot, the materia system and chocobo fuc....mating was entertaining, at least to the point of getting what you wanted. And (I may be alone on this) but casting Knights of the Round for the first time, apart from being extremely rewarding for your chocobo expedition, was an extremely giddy moment and, at that time, I thought "Wow, imagine that down the line if they redid this."

Sad to say, I still think those thoughts >.>;;

Before I skip on to 10, let me say, Four, Five and Six were the rox and should be at least sampled by any fan.

Ten. FF10 was certainly an interesting game. Again, first FF on the PS2, so automatic hype for the upgraded system and graphics, etc. Character development was rather shallow in this game, for me, and we reverted to the whiny main character (except this time it was "I can't go back home! wahhhh my daddy's a punk wahhh!" calls.) The supporting characters were just that, supporting. You never got a feel outside of Tidus and Yuna (and Kimahri -I'll explain in a second-)'s love fiasco apart from Auron delivering a "This is your story" and Wakka belting out a BOOYAKA! upon killing something.

As to what I said earlier, Kimahri was there the entire time Tidus and Yuna... "comforted one another" (yes I'm alluding to sexual activities, it was blatantly obvious.) And since the game is Tidus' story, and I'm sure he didn't see how it looked, he had to ask Kimahri. Since Kimahri is flustered, he simply explains it as "Kimahri see nothing. Kimahri only see Yuna floating. Sparkles were also involved." So bam, Suteki Da Ne (whatever that song was called) gets its music video from the PC Kimahri.

Yay for long posts!

 

[jaiden26]

I have a spin on a tired question. I"ve gone obver the topic many a time but I'd like to get the escapist view on it. What determines (aside from personal preference) why people majorly choose FF 7 and 10 as the best Final Fantasies? Now aside from FF: Tactics my personal favorite is 9 (also the first FinalFantasy I played). I played through 7 and to say the least was not astounded...and Aeris' death was no surprise and got no emotional reaction from me. Haven't beaten 10 (don't own) but I've heard good things. What makes these FF stand above the rest? Is it based on plot? Graphics? First time FF experiences? What?

The magic everyone is referring to is the abilities section of the games. FFVII had Materia which honestly was the best FF skill system to date. And the second best system to date was FFX's use of an ability grid, where they ditched level grinding and just had you spend points you've acquired in upgrading your characters the way you see fit.

FFX also allowed you to break 2 FF caps from previous games -

#1 You could make armor for your characters that were called Genji, and it would allow you to break the hit point cap of 9,999 which upped the cap to 99,999...I only got my three main characters to 33,000hp before I finished the sphere grid, and wasn't allowed to progress any further.

#2 This one should probably have been listed as number one, based on the fact that you can have access to this part of the game first. Once you aquire your ultimate weapon with a character, this character can break the damage cap also, raising the cap from 9,999 to 99,999. Once you did this a corresponding summon was able to break this cap as well.

I'd have to say that the only place that either game lacked was that in both of them (if you played long enough) you could make every single character at your disposal exactly the same:

In FFVII you could max out your materia and gain what is called "Master Materia," whereas in the beginning of the game you were only allowed to slot a few abilities at a time, so that you couldn't have every skill at once. Once you get the Master Materia for that color of abilities, you could cast every single ability of that color by only taking up one spot in your weapon and armor slots. Thus by the end of the game with every character up to level 100, and you being able to switch the Master Materia to whomever your current 3 toons are, the only thing that made them at all different was their Limit Breaks...yet by the end of the game they too all did massive damage and they were all almost exactly alike with one or 2 only hitting the enemy for 9,999 once when the rest hit the enemy 12 times for 9,999 each hit. So you are pigeon holed into picking a certain 3 to be your heros at the end of the game based only on their Limit Breaks.

And in FFX, you could max out the sphere grid with every player and they were all exactly alike with the only exception being Yuna because she was the only character that could summon, so she by default was the only one out of the six toons to be a shoe-in for your group at the end of the game, and all throughout the entire game as well.

While I loved these 2 games, I see where they lack, and yet I love them inspite of it. I agree that the first FF was great and the only one that was at all challenging. And I think that the only reason that FF:T had the FF title was that it had FF like characters in it, even though it was, at it's core, a fancy chess game. FF8, FF9 and FFX-2 were the worst FF games I had ever played until I played and beat FFXII.

On a side note - I really can't wait until Sony loses their licence to be the only console that releases FF games, but if the FF games that Square keeps releasing are crap, I will move on from this series and never look back. FF13 is the last game that Sony can release exclusively on the PS consoles...I refuse to spend $600 on a game console, much like I refused to buy the $800 Neo Geo systemback in the 1990's.

 

[Darkpen]

oh come on, this is too easy. Why do people say they like FF7 and FFX? Why do you think? Its because they're both the first FFs of their respective platforms, that's why. The difference between the 2D era and the 3D era is that FF7 was the beginning of what would become the much-larger RPG fanbase in mainstream western culture than what it was before (i.e. obscure PC titles and tabletop). FFX was simply the next step of this, where we started to see some truly realistic graphics, and a compelling-enough story to grab people's imaginations.


Personally, I don't understand the sentiment of why people like FFX. Personally, it was bleh, Rikku and Lulu were hot, Auron was cool, Blitzball was the shit, and that was it). I can, however, understand WHY people like FFX, whether it was someone's first FF, or simply due to the level of depth that the game offered in terms of improving your characters and catching monsters.

My first FF was FF7, and for the longest time, it really was my favorite FF (please note that this was the case BEFORE I finally beat the game and was entirely disappointed by the ending, which lead my favorite PS1 FF to being FF8, as that was my first real FF that I actually got into (I was stuck in the train graveyard for the longest time, and before I knew it, FF8 came out)).

If anything, my own experience is somewhat comparable to people putting FF6 on a pedestal, despite FF4 being the first FF on the SNES (and just for the record, as far as fundamentals are concerned, I think the best FF is FF4, then Tactics, then XI Online, then X-2).

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

and don't get me started about ff10-2. while fun, the estrogen levels were through the roof and 2 hours into it i had to make sure my dick hadn't receeded into my pelvis and become a vagina.

It's okay, son. Some day after you reach puberty, you might just find yourself thinking that girls really aren't so bad. In fact, you might start liking girls quite a lot! Your mother and I love each other very much, and if we didn't, you wouldn't be here today. Now let's go fishing.

 

[Kronopticon]

unfortunately, i never really caught on to FF, it seemed a bit too repetetive for my liking, and i thought it similar to pokemon, in some respects, im weird, so disregard my opinion if you wish

 

[runtheplacered]

unfortunately, i never really caught on to FF, it seemed a bit too repetetive for my liking, and i thought it similar to pokemon, in some respects, im weird, so disregard my opinion if you wish

Name a game that isn't repetitive. Every FPS you shoot people throughout the whole game. Every racing game you race a car through the whole game. Every RPG you do quests, fight monsters, gain levels, rinse repeat until the game tells you you're finished. Every RTS you build troops, send them out to die, rinse, repeat. I think that saying a game is "repetitive" is not really trying very hard to find any plausible reasons to dismiss it. But that's ok, fortunately you don't have to like anything.

With that said.. my favorite Final Fantasy will have to be Final Fantasy VI. I guess you have to ask yourself "Why do I play Final Fantasy?" For me, the answer to that question is undeniably because I enjoy the stories being told. That one in particular was amazing to me, and I've played it through 5 times, the last time I played it until every one of my characters were level 99. I was able to kill the end boss in 2 attacks! But I digress, the story was fantastically told. I also enjoyed there not really being one "main" character, but rather several "main" characters, in which the story emphasized their importance at different intervals throughout the game.