dscross said:FF1 wasn'tMonsterCrit said:. You had 4 quiet protagonists that didn't go on and on about how their life sucks and how their life is unfair and how sad they are. I mean geez. It took me ytears to finish that game because by around half way through I literally lost all interest in seeing the rest of a story. I wanted to play something enjoyable.
There's a rule writers tend to follow.:
"You have to make them laugh before yoiu can make them cry."
I mean granted Most FF games are kinda like this but the good ones at least lead you into it. No thank you. I enjoyed FF5 but FF6 was just a straight up miserable slough. I wouldn't come across a FF8 that so made me hate the people that I'm playing with until... FF8.. wow that didn't take long. FF2 was the same but at least we got 2 decent and one medicocre games betrween that and the next emo fest.
Final Fantasy - My Retrospective of an Entire Series.
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Edgar Sabin, Umaro and Mog were really the only bright spots. Can't believe you went with Cyan mir Boo hoo my wife and child are dead and the kingdom I served was poisoned.).Silvanus said:
I liken FF6 as to trying too hard bto add emotional weight and thusly failing. IUt's like the Aeris death scene in FF7. I was completely unmoved. All I could thinkewas.."I have life 30 Phoenixz downs and 6 elixir potions in my inventory, I have no less that 22 people in my party that can cast life."
NNow what happened to Bloodwing in Bl2, that got me emotional.
Well, yes, he's sad about the tragedies that befall him, but he doesn't really mope. He spends the vast majority of the game acting in a bombastic fashion, including after the fall of Doma. It's even a running joke in the game.MonsterCrit said:
Even Auron?Phoenixmgs said:
I'm currently nearing the end of a replay of FF7 (just need to do a bunch of bird races for Knights of the Round, then go stab Sephiroth in the face). What struck me about that scene in this playthrough is the game itself doesn't even seem to give a crap. "Hm, that's a shame. NOW WHO'S UP FOR SNOWBOARDING?"MonsterCrit said:
Actually...
So I've never played any of the FFs except a tiny bit of the first one just to see its combat. But one day I was curious, so I went on to Wikipedia and read the plot for every Final Fantasy game. And the one that stood out most to me...
Was the original Final Fantasy.
But how can that be, you may ask. The original FF was filled to the brim with dumb fetch quests and there was rather little dialogue. And to that, I'd say you're absolutely right. But the thing is, the first FF doesn't actually truly shine until at the end of the game, reaching the climax where everything begins to finally come together. Then it really wowed me. You should read for yourself:
The original Final Fantasy strikes me now as an old relic. Ancient and aged badly, yet if you look closely, you'll notice an incredible legend written on it that just feels timeless. And when I considered it all together, including the awesome dev story in context of it, it quickly became my favorite without me even playing it. Even the name is badass and fits the game VERRRYY well. If there was ever a FF game that deserved it's namesake, it was this one.
I can't recommend anyone to actually play the game though. This is by far the biggest problem with it. The gameplay really has aged so horribly, and it's a crying shame. The setting has potential too. Which is why it is in dire need of a remake. Take the fetch quest filler out and revamp it into the ancient tale it was meant to tell. And be sure to keep that badass ending. And boom. You got the makings of the next best FF.
So I've never played any of the FFs except a tiny bit of the first one just to see its combat. But one day I was curious, so I went on to Wikipedia and read the plot for every Final Fantasy game. And the one that stood out most to me...
Was the original Final Fantasy.
But how can that be, you may ask. The original FF was filled to the brim with dumb fetch quests and there was rather little dialogue. And to that, I'd say you're absolutely right. But the thing is, the first FF doesn't actually truly shine until at the end of the game, reaching the climax where everything begins to finally come together. Then it really wowed me. You should read for yourself:
With the Four Fiends defeated and the Orbs restored, a portal opens in the Temple of Fiends which takes them 2000 years into the past. There the Warriors discover that the Four Fiends sent Garland (now the archdemon Chaos) back in time and he sent the Fiends to the future to do so, creating a time loop by which he could live forever. The Light Warriors defeat Chaos, thus ending the paradox, and return home. By ending the paradox, however, the Light Warriors have changed the future to one where their heroic deeds remain unknown outside of legend.
The original Final Fantasy strikes me now as an old relic. Ancient and aged badly, yet if you look closely, you'll notice an incredible legend written on it that just feels timeless. And when I considered it all together, including the awesome dev story in context of it, it quickly became my favorite without me even playing it. Even the name is badass and fits the game VERRRYY well. If there was ever a FF game that deserved it's namesake, it was this one.
I can't recommend anyone to actually play the game though. This is by far the biggest problem with it. The gameplay really has aged so horribly, and it's a crying shame. The setting has potential too. Which is why it is in dire need of a remake. Take the fetch quest filler out and revamp it into the ancient tale it was meant to tell. And be sure to keep that badass ending. And boom. You got the makings of the next best FF.
FF8 was my favourite, I got the demo on a demo disk with a gaming magazine. I was hooked right away. In contrast, I found the junction system easy and straight forward. Yeah Squall cops a lot of flack for being dull, but he was conscripted in to a private mercenary army at a very young age. A military upbringing doesn't really teach you how to be a human being. If they ever released it on Google Play, I'd buy it again. It's odd, they have 6, 7, and 9. But not 8.
Yeah but in FF6 eaxh caracter have a tragedy in they backstory, that lead them to fight, but actually resolve their past somewhere in the game, in the world of ruin for most of them. Cyan had his whole kingdom poisoned, and in the Doma castle he make peace with the fact that his kid and wife is dead and learn to accept it. Locke is fill with guilt about Rachel's death, but revived her long enough so that she can tell him that it's not his fault, Setzer make peace witht the death of Daryl, sabin forgive edgar for making peace with the empire after their father death, celes was also torn between her role as an empire spy, and her will to fight evil that she regain with Cid (but i always let him die, the story is better when he die), Shadow decide to let himself die because the guilt he have for letting his friend die in the robbery that had plan and for having abandonned Relm and her mother. Gau finding his father and why he was abandonned. Terra learning to care by saving the children after the destruction...MonsterCrit said:
actually, playing FF at release was much more harder than paying it afterward i think. back then, first there was no internet to help us when we were stuck. and then, FF established a few basis that was reusein each game, but that we needed to figured out at first. i played nearly half the game without realising that putting the equipement on the caracter wasnt enough, i had to actually equip them, realising that lighthing is good against water, fire against ice, etc.CritialGaming said:
anyway, i've played in order(going with the japanese numbers) FF 1, magic quest, 6, 4, 7, 10, 9, 8 , 2, 12, 3, 5. to this day, final fantasy 6 still hold up the top ranking in FF games for me.
In my opinion:
VI(GBA)>IX>VII>IV(GBA)>>>MASSIVE POWERGAP>>>X>XII>I(PS1)>>>XV>XIII>>>>>Maure>>>>>FFVIII
The list above is of all the Final Fantasy games I've completed. I've completed both 7 and 9 on both PS1 and PC. I failed to play 6 and 4 on the SNES, and did not get the oppurtunity to play them until the GBA realease. As for all the other titles, I played the international version as soon as they became available in my region. I should also note that I played the PS1 version of FFV until the last third, but was unable to muster the willpower to finish it (I found it to be a bit of a slog - heresy, I know). While that fact alone will tell you a great deal about what I thought about the game, I decided that it would be unfair to rank it, as I have yet to finish it.
6, 9, 7 and 4 are all masterpieces, and I would easily recommend them to anyone. The powergap titles tend be mediocore titles, usually let down by massive dips in quality after a certain point (12) or just have some poor design decisions (along with poor voice acting) that really drags the overall quality down (13 and 10). 1 is just decent, although enjoyable. I don't want to talk about 8.
If I was allowed to include Tactics, I would place it just behind 6.
VI(GBA)>IX>VII>IV(GBA)>>>MASSIVE POWERGAP>>>X>XII>I(PS1)>>>XV>XIII>>>>>Maure>>>>>FFVIII
The list above is of all the Final Fantasy games I've completed. I've completed both 7 and 9 on both PS1 and PC. I failed to play 6 and 4 on the SNES, and did not get the oppurtunity to play them until the GBA realease. As for all the other titles, I played the international version as soon as they became available in my region. I should also note that I played the PS1 version of FFV until the last third, but was unable to muster the willpower to finish it (I found it to be a bit of a slog - heresy, I know). While that fact alone will tell you a great deal about what I thought about the game, I decided that it would be unfair to rank it, as I have yet to finish it.
6, 9, 7 and 4 are all masterpieces, and I would easily recommend them to anyone. The powergap titles tend be mediocore titles, usually let down by massive dips in quality after a certain point (12) or just have some poor design decisions (along with poor voice acting) that really drags the overall quality down (13 and 10). 1 is just decent, although enjoyable. I don't want to talk about 8.
If I was allowed to include Tactics, I would place it just behind 6.
First Final Fantasy: FFVIII
Favorite Final Fantasy: FFVI for the characters, but FFX has the best battle system.
Favorite Final Fantasy: FFVI for the characters, but FFX has the best battle system.
Well everyone I am back and it's time for my airport experience to be shared with ya'll. Oops, did I say airport? I meant Hallway. Errr wait...what thread is this?
Thirteen! That's right I meant to say Hallw...err Final Fantasy XIII.
So by now everyone has hate stories about FFXIII at this point. How the game is one big hallway, how the story is a custerfuck of nonsense, how the gameplay is a press "A" simulator. WE all know the deal, and frankly all those criticisms are correct. The characters in FFXIII suck, and if you were to look at all the general feedback about FFXIII you would assume the game is total dogshit because other than the graphics, everything about the game is a mess.
Then why do I fucking love it?
To me Final Fantasy 13 is a beautiful game, both graphically and gameplay wise. I know most people don't agree with me and I'm not going to try to convince anyone in this recap. But I will say that the hallway running didn't bother me, because I was used to in from FFX, and I don't give a fuck what you think, FFX was just as much of a hallway as XIII was end of story. The difference between them, is the hallway is forgivable when the rest of the game is great as well.
Even though I love XIII, the story is shit. The Fal'Cie fuck people over into L'Cie and give them a riddle in their mind that is like a quest they must finish or they become Ceth, or some shit. But the Fal'Cie really just want the L'Cie to destroy the Fal'Cie for some reason or whatever. I dunno, there are also two planets really really really close together somehow and one planet is good and the other planet is monster planet? The fuck even?
Doesn't matter, I love pressing A. Okay first off the combat to XIII has a lot more going for it than pressing A. While the characters pretty much control themselves, the player is required to be on their toes in order to swap characters into the proper roles for the fight with paradigm shifts. These shifts will swap the characters in the party into a list of different "job class" combos that the player sets up before the fights. These roles range from different types of damage in order to stack a break meter which will cause the enemy to take a large multiplier of stacking damage, to buffers, healers, and debuffers. There becomes a sense of strategy in how you start the fight, how quick you can get buffs and debuffs out, then swapping back and forth from dealing damage to healing and protecting the party. Some of the enemies are really though and you do have to be quick on your toes. During boss fights I find myself swaping roles and paradigm shifting so often that if I also had to select all the parties commands, there would be no fucking way I could do anything fast enough and the game would be impossible to finish. To me the people who call it a press A simulator clearly haven't played the game enough to know what the fuck they are talking about.
So I like FFXIII, so much so that I have beaten the game twice. I plan to play it again soon while actively trying to do all the hunts and such that appear later in the game.
FFXIII is by no means a perfect game, bad story, poor characters (Fuck you Hope you fucking worthless piece of shit), an obsession with Lightning so waifu-hard that they gave her 3 games, a mediocre leveling system that actively tells you when you've leveled enough, yeah FFXIII has a lot of faults. But it's gameplay isn't directly one of them, and at the core of having fun in a video game, gameplay means everything to me. So to me FFXIII was great, fantastic graphics (especially on PC maxed out oh my god it's fucking sexy looking), and great gameplay. That is all I need.
Next I played the debately hardest game in the series.
Thirteen! That's right I meant to say Hallw...err Final Fantasy XIII.
So by now everyone has hate stories about FFXIII at this point. How the game is one big hallway, how the story is a custerfuck of nonsense, how the gameplay is a press "A" simulator. WE all know the deal, and frankly all those criticisms are correct. The characters in FFXIII suck, and if you were to look at all the general feedback about FFXIII you would assume the game is total dogshit because other than the graphics, everything about the game is a mess.
Then why do I fucking love it?
To me Final Fantasy 13 is a beautiful game, both graphically and gameplay wise. I know most people don't agree with me and I'm not going to try to convince anyone in this recap. But I will say that the hallway running didn't bother me, because I was used to in from FFX, and I don't give a fuck what you think, FFX was just as much of a hallway as XIII was end of story. The difference between them, is the hallway is forgivable when the rest of the game is great as well.
Even though I love XIII, the story is shit. The Fal'Cie fuck people over into L'Cie and give them a riddle in their mind that is like a quest they must finish or they become Ceth, or some shit. But the Fal'Cie really just want the L'Cie to destroy the Fal'Cie for some reason or whatever. I dunno, there are also two planets really really really close together somehow and one planet is good and the other planet is monster planet? The fuck even?
Doesn't matter, I love pressing A. Okay first off the combat to XIII has a lot more going for it than pressing A. While the characters pretty much control themselves, the player is required to be on their toes in order to swap characters into the proper roles for the fight with paradigm shifts. These shifts will swap the characters in the party into a list of different "job class" combos that the player sets up before the fights. These roles range from different types of damage in order to stack a break meter which will cause the enemy to take a large multiplier of stacking damage, to buffers, healers, and debuffers. There becomes a sense of strategy in how you start the fight, how quick you can get buffs and debuffs out, then swapping back and forth from dealing damage to healing and protecting the party. Some of the enemies are really though and you do have to be quick on your toes. During boss fights I find myself swaping roles and paradigm shifting so often that if I also had to select all the parties commands, there would be no fucking way I could do anything fast enough and the game would be impossible to finish. To me the people who call it a press A simulator clearly haven't played the game enough to know what the fuck they are talking about.
So I like FFXIII, so much so that I have beaten the game twice. I plan to play it again soon while actively trying to do all the hunts and such that appear later in the game.
FFXIII is by no means a perfect game, bad story, poor characters (Fuck you Hope you fucking worthless piece of shit), an obsession with Lightning so waifu-hard that they gave her 3 games, a mediocre leveling system that actively tells you when you've leveled enough, yeah FFXIII has a lot of faults. But it's gameplay isn't directly one of them, and at the core of having fun in a video game, gameplay means everything to me. So to me FFXIII was great, fantastic graphics (especially on PC maxed out oh my god it's fucking sexy looking), and great gameplay. That is all I need.
Next I played the debately hardest game in the series.
Probably II, because despite some cool ideas(you kill the villian before the end, and then he proceeds to take over both Heaven and Hell, so now you have to kill even stronger versions of him now), the leveling system is broken as hell, the first half of the game is full of fetch quests and beef gates(which you can randomly stumble upon) and it just feels like the game hates you.McMarbles said:
Dalisclock said:
Lol. From the sounds of it, if you actually managed to finish that then you should have no problems with Demon's Souls.
Kinda disappointed to hear you bought the guide before finishing number 7 for the first time. Beating FF7 without cheating was one of those life changing events that turned me into the gamer i am today...a ruthless hardcore completionist with a penchant for leaderboards
I'm sure once I get back into DeS I'll really enjoy it. I just need to get myself to sit down and play it again. Now that I've gone through DS, DS2 and BB I won't feel like I'm holding off on a game I really want to to play, if that makes sense.hanselthecaretaker said:
And since DS3 is the last game in the series(excluding the possibility of BB being set in the far future), I'm saving that for last.
As for FFII, It's probably the only game in the series other then X that I have no urge to ever play again. I did it to see what it was like and then just so I could say I finished it. That really feels like the only reason to play it.
I do appreciate the fact FFII tried to do something more then "Like the first game, just a little different" and the idea behind the "Raise your stats by using them" was a good one. Unfortunatly, it was poorly implemented(and I've heard in the original version for the Famicom, running from battle could cause your stats to go DOWN).
So Final Fantasy III then. I heard nightmare stories about this game. About how fucking hard it was, and that it easily had the worst final dungeon in the series ever. Bu tit also had a lot of good points too. This was the FF that brought a true class system to the series, something that would only ever be done again in V. Of course every Final Fantasy had "classes" to a degree, but this was the first game to have a ton of different classes that your party could almost freely swap at will.
This game made me hate the job system.
Let's start things off with the story. Final Fantasy 3 is an epic RPG where you and your party go on an adventure to save the for crystals of the elements....gee I've never heard that before - (Projared). Anyway this game was still in the time where they really didn't know how to do story in an RPG for real yet, though this is the closest to a solid story that they'd get on the NES. For the most part it's just a bare-bones story that leads you through the game and is nothing to write home about.
Let's talk gameplay. So as I mentioned this game was the first to really have an interchanging job system. AS your progress through the game, you gain access to all kinds of different jobs. Dragoon, Knight, Black Mage, Red Mage, etc on and on. You can change your party outside of combat however you want, however changing jobs issues a debuff that limits your character's capabilities for a few fights before they remember how to do shit. I hate this system. First off, the game's balancing is all over the place, and there are several moments in the game where there definitely is a "right" job and a "wrong" job to have in the party and it sucks to be you if your favorites are in the "wrong" job category because even with a shitload of grinding, you're probably fucked. There is a boss a little more than half-way-ish through the game that really wants you to have dragoons on your team, because the ability Jump is totally not broken at all.
I'll be honest, I just looked up the most OP jobs in the game and stuck with those the whole time. Changing jobs was tedious and frustrating and not worth it in the slightest. It made me realize that I hate the job system. I like having a bunch of characters that all have different roles or "jobs" during the game, but the "freedom" of a job system just doesn't feel very free to me because there is almost always a right and wrong set up. I don't like having the fear that my "choices" can simply be wrong and make the game extremely hard or near impossible because I make a wrong choice. I feel that when basic characters have set jobs, it makes the games far more balanced.
As typical for me by now, I grinded my ass off and entered the final Dungeon at max level. Nobody warned me. The final dungeon can go fuck itself. No save points, all the bosses ever (except the easy ones of course), and ridiculous length. I thought I would be overpowered being max level and shit, and I kinda was, but the dungeon is so long that my level didn't matter because it just wore my ass down. I never saw the end boss of this game, because I died three and a half HOURS into progressing through the dungeon, and since there are no saves, I lost all that time and I refuse to do it again.
For the most part though, I did enjoy FFIII. The game progress was fun, and once I had my jobs set to go, grinding was easy and fun. The final dungeon is fucking stupid and I'll never see the end, and the job system frankly sucks, but hey whatever, it's not like I'll need to worry about it again right?
This game made me hate the job system.
Let's start things off with the story. Final Fantasy 3 is an epic RPG where you and your party go on an adventure to save the for crystals of the elements....gee I've never heard that before - (Projared). Anyway this game was still in the time where they really didn't know how to do story in an RPG for real yet, though this is the closest to a solid story that they'd get on the NES. For the most part it's just a bare-bones story that leads you through the game and is nothing to write home about.
Let's talk gameplay. So as I mentioned this game was the first to really have an interchanging job system. AS your progress through the game, you gain access to all kinds of different jobs. Dragoon, Knight, Black Mage, Red Mage, etc on and on. You can change your party outside of combat however you want, however changing jobs issues a debuff that limits your character's capabilities for a few fights before they remember how to do shit. I hate this system. First off, the game's balancing is all over the place, and there are several moments in the game where there definitely is a "right" job and a "wrong" job to have in the party and it sucks to be you if your favorites are in the "wrong" job category because even with a shitload of grinding, you're probably fucked. There is a boss a little more than half-way-ish through the game that really wants you to have dragoons on your team, because the ability Jump is totally not broken at all.
I'll be honest, I just looked up the most OP jobs in the game and stuck with those the whole time. Changing jobs was tedious and frustrating and not worth it in the slightest. It made me realize that I hate the job system. I like having a bunch of characters that all have different roles or "jobs" during the game, but the "freedom" of a job system just doesn't feel very free to me because there is almost always a right and wrong set up. I don't like having the fear that my "choices" can simply be wrong and make the game extremely hard or near impossible because I make a wrong choice. I feel that when basic characters have set jobs, it makes the games far more balanced.
As typical for me by now, I grinded my ass off and entered the final Dungeon at max level. Nobody warned me. The final dungeon can go fuck itself. No save points, all the bosses ever (except the easy ones of course), and ridiculous length. I thought I would be overpowered being max level and shit, and I kinda was, but the dungeon is so long that my level didn't matter because it just wore my ass down. I never saw the end boss of this game, because I died three and a half HOURS into progressing through the dungeon, and since there are no saves, I lost all that time and I refuse to do it again.
For the most part though, I did enjoy FFIII. The game progress was fun, and once I had my jobs set to go, grinding was easy and fun. The final dungeon is fucking stupid and I'll never see the end, and the job system frankly sucks, but hey whatever, it's not like I'll need to worry about it again right?
I really liked 3, though I agree the Job system was better done in 5(and in many ways, 5 feels like an enhanced version of 3). Three had an interesting world to explore and some interesting ideas(including using mini and frog as a way to enter and move through dungeons, instead of just a status effect spell like in every other game they've shown up in).
While the final dungeon is cool in theory, as the OP said, it ends up being a massive Pain in the Ass. I actually beat it but boy it wasn't fun. And you don't really get anything special after beating the game. However, the idea of recruiting the Dark Warriors to help you fight the final boss was cool, even if you had to fight 4 also hard bosses to recruit each one.
While the final dungeon is cool in theory, as the OP said, it ends up being a massive Pain in the Ass. I actually beat it but boy it wasn't fun. And you don't really get anything special after beating the game. However, the idea of recruiting the Dark Warriors to help you fight the final boss was cool, even if you had to fight 4 also hard bosses to recruit each one.
All this content (from the main contributor) seems more the kind of thing you'd put on a blog rather than a forum. It's ok, I mean, put your posts where the relevant people see it - but if you are going to the trouble of writing all this in the way that you are, I hope you are putting it somewhere a bit more permanent where it won't get lost in the ether. That's not a dig or anything, I just thought since you are writing so much it deserves its own webpages. You could post links in a variety of places pointing to it then.