Final Fantasy and why it is enjoyed.

[The Wooster]

At the very least, JRPGs are cultural experiences that display sophisticated craftsmanship on the part of Japanese developers.

I tip my hat to thee sir, that was truly a great way to look at things & an excellent choice of words. If this sounds sarcastic, it isn't.

I respectfully disagree good sir. While many JRPGs show a high level of polish more and more these days are relying on antiquated battle systems filled up with antiquated storylines and frosted with delicious antiquated graphics. The genre would best be described as a mountain of horseshit, in which, one may find the occasional diamond.

 

[Amnestic]

I always prefered Aeris. It just sounds nicer. Plus I've always prefered localisation to direct translation. Guess what guys. It's not Cloud. It's fucking CLOW-DO. Absurd.

Troll.

Not at all. I'm simply pointing out that some Japanese words don't translate into English very well and vice versa. That being said I personally prefer English aproximations to simply carting the word over. Like the whole 'Shinigami/death god' shit that went down with Bleach.

What shit? eh? Do tell, I've not heard this.

 

[-Seraph-]

At the very least, JRPGs are cultural experiences that display sophisticated craftsmanship on the part of Japanese developers.

I tip my hat to thee sir, that was truly a great way to look at things & an excellent choice of words. If this sounds sarcastic, it isn't.

I respectfully disagree good sir. While many JRPGs show a high level of polish more and more these days are relying on antiquated battle systems filled up with antiquated storylines and frosted with delicious antiquated graphics. The genre would best be described as a mountain of horseshit, in which, one may find the occasional diamond.

I find that statement to be applicable to any genre.

 

[The Wooster]

At the very least, JRPGs are cultural experiences that display sophisticated craftsmanship on the part of Japanese developers.

I tip my hat to thee sir, that was truly a great way to look at things & an excellent choice of words. If this sounds sarcastic, it isn't.

I respectfully disagree good sir. While many JRPGs show a high level of polish more and more these days are relying on antiquated battle systems filled up with antiquated storylines and frosted with delicious antiquated graphics. The genre would best be described as a mountain of horseshit, in which, one may find the occasional diamond.

I don't know if I should be offended or take that as compliment.
I kinda of agree with you, there's tons of JRPGs out there and only few stand out amongst them but still that's saying it a bit harsh isn't it? Oh and the faster JRPGS move away from the turn based combat the better, don't get me wrong I loved it. It fit the original games, but now? Now it's just antiquated.

Sadly I don't think so. While no genre is entirely original (hey I'm an FPS fan, we love originality) JRPG's take repetion to new heights. Even if a game avoids the story cliche pitfalls there's the fact that 90% of JRPGs seem to be strained through some kind of saturday morning cartoon moral message bullshit filter. Even those telling a story based on a fantastic concept do so in the same, tired, childish (not necesarily child friendly though) and generally black and white manner. Occasionally they get it right though and, like anime, although 90% of whats out there is pure unadultered dogshit there's always going to be a few gems that make it all worthwhile.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Because there is evil, and there is good. The middle ground is surprisingly small, and mostly a result of middle-class hand wringing and guilt. Personally, I'm tired of games that make everything so fucking ambiguous, decoy. Killing someone who killed someone you cared about is not immoral, it's a fucking good idea. Killing someone who harms hundreds of people simply out of greed is not immoral, it's damn good fun and a good idea. Killing sociopathic lunatics with delusions of grandeur is not ambiguous, it's a good idea.

Why does everything have to be so....reasonable!

 

[Demon_Zeya]

okay, the FF series is pretty good, but I liked VII, although i played a japanese version and couldnt understand the story, but in general I liked it. If you value your lives you won't dare touch the DS versions of final fantasy games. they made horrible versions of III and IV, and I'm only going towards the PS2-3 copies of the game.

 

[PsykoDragon]

At the very least, JRPGs are cultural experiences that display sophisticated craftsmanship on the part of Japanese developers.

I tip my hat to thee sir, that was truly a great way to look at things & an excellent choice of words. If this sounds sarcastic, it isn't.

I respectfully disagree good sir. While many JRPGs show a high level of polish more and more these days are relying on antiquated battle systems filled up with antiquated storylines and frosted with delicious antiquated graphics. The genre would best be described as a mountain of horseshit, in which, one may find the occasional diamond.

While what you say is true, that's just what I would look for. There's another thread nearby that i posted in, about games lacking in artistic quality or story. I totally agree that Final Fantasy games have been unentertaining as of late, & I even admit that the game environment & artistic quality of it is somewhat repetitive. But they will always have a high standard when in comes to art & story, & eventually this will birth an FF game that is actually fun AND great to look at.

 

[MintyFreshBreathGuy]

What about spin-offs anyone try those out at all?

 

[gamerdude4eva]

What about those of us that really don't like JRPGs and the FF series in general?

They also like to give the impression that they're part of some super-secret underground deviant organisation, when in reality Final Fantasy VII is one of the most unfashionable games in existence (and the anti-FF bandwagon has been a-rollin' for quite some time now).

I have to say that for the console generation the game was created in, the graphics were pretty amazing, and i would bet that if it had been made in this generation we all would be praising it for its lovely graphics

FF VII had a story line that twisted and developed the characters they weren't as one sided as most typical games and of course their was the big one. Aeris death cemented something in a lot of peoples' minds. Here was you watching as a key character, who you may have developed and used suddenly being killed and not that fake will turn up at a later point and let you play her again killed, but genuine dead and gone. Something that I had never seen before in a game and not seen since.

this is the sort of thing that truly got me hooked into FF VII. If a game doesn't have a good story to back the rest of the game up, all it ends up doing is trying to look pretty, and if it doesn't look pretty, then well.. we all know what yahtzee will do to a game without a good story or good visuals

 

[EzraPound]

Final Fantasy VII did alot of things well, in spite of its detractors... the plot was excellent (if a movie has a confusing plot it's "ambiguous", if a game does it's "confusing"), it was the first RPG to make pervasive use of FMV, orchestral scoring, 3D graphics, etc., and the artistic design of the game tended to be affecting. Not to mention that the gameplay was, in the Final Fantasy tradition, commendable.

In my opinion, alot of the critical backlash against FFVII has to do with the nature of game criticism, which is still fixated on the "mechanics" of a game more than the extent to which it's emotionally affecting. This is a throwback to when video games were perceived as "toys", and is still obvious in the way that a site like IGN ranks games on the categorical basis of how their various attributes stack up.

 

[hellthins]

Final Fantasy VII did alot of things well, in spite of its detractors... the plot was excellent (if a movie has a confusing plot it's "ambiguous", if a game does it's "confusing"), it was the first RPG to make pervasive use of FMV, orchestral scoring, 3D graphics, etc., and the artistic design of the game tended to be affecting. Not to mention that the gameplay was, in the Final Fantasy tradition, commendable.

In my opinion, alot of the critical backlash against FFVII has to do with the nature of game criticism, which is still fixated on the "mechanics" of a game more than the extent to which it's emotionally affecting. This is a throwback to when video games were perceived as "toys", and is still obvious in the way that a site like IGN ranks games on the categorical basis of how their various attributes stack up.

Don't simply dismiss all criticism as that. I hate FVII because I find its story to be terrible and have difficulty relating to any of the characters. I see them more as shallow cardboard cut outs of people than I do actual character. Still played them in my youth, but I also read Hardy Boys in my youth.

 

[EzraPound]

Don't simply dismiss all criticism as that. I hate FVII because I find its story to be terrible and have difficulty relating to any of the characters. I see them more as shallow cardboard cut outs of people than I do actual character. Still played them in my youth, but I also read Hardy Boys in my youth.

Well, I'm not going to debate how well-written the characters are, since it's subjective anyway (though I personally liked the Mistah Kurtz-like Sephiroth and Aerith's Catholo-naturalism), but I will say that the plot did other things well: it's one of the first RPGs to plunge head-on into post-modern storytelling, for example, and eschew knight-in-shining-armor clichés (Final Fantasy VI only dipped its toes in the contemporary well, by contrast).

In any case, I've always felt the best FFs were IV, VI, and VII (I consider the Holy Trinity of early-3D Japanese releases to be SM64, FFVII, and LoZ: OoT). The early NES ones are trumped by the Dragon Quests of the time, and FFVIII, FFX, and FFXII I all find unsatisfying for different reasons.

 

[hellthins]

Well, I'm not going to debate how well-written the characters are, since it's subjective anyway (though I personally liked the Mistah Kurtz-like Sephiroth and Aerith's Catholo-naturalism), but I will say that the plot did other things well: it's one of the first RPGs to plunge head-on into post-modern storytelling, for example, and eschew knight-in-shining-armor clichés (Final Fantasy VI only dipped its toes in the contemporary well, by contrast).

In any case, I've always felt the best FFs were IV, VI, and VII. The early NES ones are trumped by the Dragon Quests of the time, and FFVIII, FFX, and FFXII I all find unsatisfying for different reasons.

I'll give you that, it did help bring about the popularity of non-High Fantasy themed RPGs for the console and to a small extent the PC, and oh how I hated generic High Fantasy after a while of nothing but, I am particularly annoyed with the Nature vs Tech theme Nature wins that it made somewhat prevalent. But that's a personal gripe about the story's direction, and I'm not sure anyone wants to sit here and have a discussion about the story's writing itself.

 

[EzraPound]

What about IX?

Pretty good, not earth-shattering though.

I am particularly annoyed with the Nature vs Tech theme Nature wins that it made somewhat prevalent.

Final Fantasy VII is basically just really, really post-modern/left-wing. So if you have some aversion to those ideas (not to insinuate you do), it may be difficult to get into.

 

[hellthins]

Final Fantasy VII is basically just really, really post-modern/left-wing. So if you have some aversion to those ideas (not to insinuate you do), it may be difficult to get into.

I have more gripes with the story than that, but in particular I disdain that trend that FFVII helped spawn.

 

[EzraPound]

I have more gripes with the story than that, but in particular I disdain that trend that FFVII helped spawn.

Well, it's hard to begrudge a game for the bad imitators it spawned - I think T.S. Eliot once said something to this effect regarding the number of hacks writing modern poetry.

 

[hellthins]

I have more gripes with the story than that, but in particular I disdain that trend that FFVII helped spawn.

Well, it's hard to begrudge a game for the bad imitators it spawned - I think T.S. Eliot once said something to this effect regarding the number of hacks writing modern poetry.

Again, it's far more than just that. It just doesn't help that it created a series of games based around a theme I couldn't stand in the game they're imitating.