Final Fantasy and why it is enjoyed.

[ZenMonkey47]

People like Final Fantasy for the same reason that people like any other franchise (in general, not just games). Whenever they buy their product they're assured of a pretty good JRPG.

FFVI was my first, and I was blown away by the story (granted I was just starting Jr High at the time), characters and the gameplay. I played backwards from there and enjoyed them as well. However, though as sequels wore on, I became less and less impressed. FFX was the first one that I didn't finish. Titus and Yuna can drink bleach and die for all I care.

As for the whole FFVII naming question, I'll just throw in my 2 yen and say from what I know of Japanese I believe that their original intent was Claude and Alice because of the katakana and the fact that to a Japanese person they would sound mysterious and foreign. However, to us Westerners, they sound like a 30's era gangster duo at best. Hence the change to the more "fantasy-ish" names of Cloud and Ar(however you want to spell it).

 

[GloatingSwine]

Riku (Means Earth)
Kairi (Something to do with Sea)

Riku means Sea, Kairi means Separation.

 

[Wargamer]

On the subject of some of the other games in the series...

I think a lot of people are guilty of that most terrible of crimes, known as wearing rose tinted glasses.

I honestly can't believe there are people out there who would claim, with a straight face, that the original is the best. I've played every single FF game except 11. I own all the others, save for FF8 which I gave to a friend as a present. I've only completed three of them. I also have some of the spin-offs - FFX-2, FFT:A and Dirge of Cerberus. I've played through most of Bahamut Lagoon.

It's fair to say I've had pretty good experiences of the series. I'm by no means a fanboy of the FF games. FF12 lost me very quickly when I realised, as Yahtzee would put it, that I was playing a MUMORPUGER, only I was playing it by myself. It worked for dotHACK, it doesn't work for Final Fantasy.

I was never drawn in by 8. It was insanely pretty, the Card Game was fun, but I think Squall dragged it down too much. Yes, Cloud is a two-dimensional muscle-head, Zidane's a Jack The Lad and Tidus is so embarrassing at times that I had to make sure no-one else was in the room, but Squall is so fucking clueless it hurts. Worse yet, he's got a bloody big Emo streak. Hands up everyone who wants their Hero to be socially awkward, shit with women, almost certainly gay, dressed like a **** and unable to contribute to a conversation beyond reciting poems about how depressing his life is?

 

[EzraPound]

Okay, question:
Would you be able to enjoy a book long enough to BE "emotionally-affected" if every page--every paragraph--hell, every SENTENCE--left you wanting to tear the book apart and throw it into the garbage disposal? Games are meant to be played, not watched/read--that's why they're not movies or books.

Well, I did read the entirety of Ulysses.

But I disagree with the statement that Final Fantasy VII is not a great game because its mechanics pale in relation to its plotting - games, as a medium, often function as hybrids of gameplay and artistic design/storytelling, so to pretend that one factor must always outweigh the other in terms of significance seems exclusionary. So much of what's appealing about games functions as an arm of storytelling, anyway, how is it possible to discriminate between what contributes to the immersion? Would anyone describe OoT as having strong gameplay if its characters consisted of stumps, and the game featured drab environments, no plot, and .midi music?

That said, I find it difficult to believe anybody would complain about FFVII's mechanics, unless he/she's talking about the equations and such under-the-hood that nobody normally gets to see anyway...I mean, it's not as though the controls were some new, experimental hocus-pocus scheme...

Well, yeah, but the critical line is that a game cannot exceed its mechanics, and so Final Fantasy VII is 'good' not 'great.' Interestingly, though, this criteria seems to have become a bit looser in the past few years - Killer7, for example, received generally positive reviews in spite of a litany of mechanical faults.

Tidus was dislikeable for other reasons I've yet to figure out...all I know is he annoyed me.

It's because he was a dumbass. Like, intellectually inept.

 

[-Seraph-]

Am I the only one here who thinks FF VI along with VII to be the gem of the series?

*raises hand* well add Tactics:WoL and 4 to that and yea...

 

[GloatingSwine]

Okay, okay so I should have put relatively rare compared to other JRPG series, also the voice acting tends to be a little better; have you tried playing Enchanted Arms?

Atsuma... You....Are....Such...A...Pain...In...The.....

Yes the character actualy speaks that line exactly as I typed it; every word is emphasised in flat monotone and its painful to hear.

Urgh, don't remind me. Atsuma has one of the most annoying voices in videogame history, irrespective of what language you play it in.

However, Enchanted Arms gets points for the fact that you are being manipulated by the villain into doing his bidding not just for most of the game, but until amout the third form of the final boss fight...

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Am I the only one here who thought Tidus was an interesting character?

He starts out as a stupid spoiled brat with a big head then finds something so worth fighting for that not only is he going to grow up for it, he's willing to die for it. Tidus is interesting because at first he is so dislikable, but as the game goes on he grows as a person and becomes more interesting.

 

[GeeseH]

oh man, i played blitzball until i 'liked' it

btw overall i didn't like vii although i did appreciate the scope of it
storywise i dug viii more & irvine rocks!

and it always bugged me a little that the FF games didn't have a '+' option like CT

 

[Ace of Spades]

Occasionally I get a sudden impulse to play a turn-based game. I play one of the FF games, then I do something else.

 

[Wargamer]

Am I the only one here who thought Tidus was an interesting character?

He starts out as a stupid spoiled brat with a big head then finds something so worth fighting for that not only is he going to grow up for it, he's willing to die for it. Tidus is interesting because at first he is so dislikable, but as the game goes on he grows as a person and becomes more interesting.

I must confess that the first time I played through, the game did move me. I honestly felt really bad for Tidus when

Spoiler

he discovers Yuna is going to die during the Final Summoning.

So yeah, okay, Tidus did grow on me it seems.

 

[ZenMonkey47]

You have a valid point, Omni. However consider VI where we have the main character (though it is debatable who exactly is the main character) Terra. Good ol terra firma right? Not exactly. Her original name was Tina. It was changed by Ted Woolsey (for the better imho), the translator for most of the Square SNES era.

Am I the only one here who thinks FF VI along with VII to be the gem of the series?

If you look up 4 posts from this one you'll see that, no you aren't the only one.

 

[Vortigar]

Onmi:
And like Shinji Ikari, we hate Tidus' guts (speaking for those with this opinion). Believable, yes, perhaps, but still annoying to no end. Just as I find Yuna a completely bland character. And then being forced to watch those two through untold unskippable (!!!!) cut-scenes. With that laughing thing making me cringe for a full three minutes, he isn't whiny in that scene and he's still annoying.

But this is a very personal thing, depending on the way the game/show impresses upon you. Have you ever seen the anime Claymore? There's a guy in there who's infamous for whining all the time, but seeing it I really didn't mind the guy that much at all, in fact there was another character that got on my nerves way more (and that character has the biggest fanclub of any character in the bloody show).

ZenMonkey47:
I always took the thief dude to be the main character of FF6. The bit where you control Terra at the start was all part of the intro before the credit roll.

Like you said FF remains a series that always delivers an interesting world and always changes things up to remain fresh. Some parts may not gel with a certain person, but in general its simply a quality series that deserves a pretty high regard in general.

Aside:
According to some posts in this thread I don't exist or something.

I didn't really care Aeris died (and it wasn't spoiled for me beforehand). I got a bit bugged with it, I had put some time into levelling her and she was the only thing you could call a mage in the game, but I always preferred Tifa over her anyway.

My first thought was "I knew that 3 minute invulnerable limit break was way too powerful".

ps.
My ranking of FF's I played is
#1 FF5, also the first FF I finished btw (FF2 was the first I played)
#2 FFX-2, despite everything I really wish this battle system gets another chance
#3 FF2(4)
#4 FF7
#5 FF3(6)
#6 FFX and FF8 and FF1

 

[-Seraph-]

ZenMonkey47:
I always took the thief dude to be the main character of FF6. The bit where you control Terra at the start was all part of the intro before the credit roll.

I will never understand why people ever got that perception that Locke was more of a main character than Terra. I mean the story focused on ALL the main characters (mog, gogo, umaru excluded)but mainly on Terra and Celes. It just really baffels me where people get that claim when most of the story did revolve around Terra.

 

[The Wooster]

Am I the only one here who thought Tidus was an interesting character?

He starts out as a stupid spoiled brat with a big head then finds something so worth fighting for that not only is he going to grow up for it, he's willing to die for it. Tidus is interesting because at first he is so dislikable, but as the game goes on he grows as a person and becomes more interesting.

I quite liked him. But damn if some of that dialogue wasn't mortifying.

10 really recaptured the 12 year old romantic FF fan in me. I moped around the house for days after the ending.