LordNue said:
They've never really been...that good. People are probably going to freak out at this, but not even six or seven were that amazing. There have always been better Jrpgs around.
Not always. IV was really the first of its kind; it laid the foundation for the JRPGs we have today. FFVI wasn't all that special in terms of gameplay but the characters and story made the experience. It had charms the later games lacked.
FFVII was hardly a bad game. It was the first one I played and I loved it at the time. It hasn't aged well; I don't know that I could go back and play it again, though it's partly because I can see where they started ruining the series. FFVIII was absolute garbage, I have no idea how anybody can like that game. There were good ideas present but they were all poorly implemented, the story was a mess and the characters were a bunch of unlikeable douchebags. When I want the heroes to die something is wrong with your game.
IX was superb for its time, it was the best of old and new and I really wish we'd seen more games in this vein. It's still good today but again, it hasn't aged as well as the 2D entries. X was... God. It wasn't as big of a mess as VIII in my opinion but again, there were the elements of something great but they didn't bring it together. As an FFIV, first of its kind sort of thing, I can admit that it has its merits. The problem is that they didn't advance with the game most similar to itself, FFXIII.
I loved FFXII. There are a couple of things I'd change had I designed it but for the most part it's as good as the most beloved games in the franchise, and it was actually mature. Not teenage-emo mature, but actually mature. This is the direction I want to see video game storytelling take. It was far from perfect but for all the risks it took and for all the things it managed to do well I have to give it props.
As far as the FF series stands today, I'm not thrilled about it but I wouldn't say it's done and over, they just need to figure out what they're doing with it. FFXIII feels similar to IX in that they took different elements from well-liked games and mashed them together except it didn't work nearly as well. Lightning is a lot like Squall and Cloud, the overall design is a lot like X, etc. I think people overblow just how bad it is but there's no denying that it lacks a lot of what made the series compelling in the first place. And FFXIV, I don't know what to say about that. I expected it to be good but it looks like they didn't learn anything since they made FFXI, and the identity crisis is front and center in the design of the game. (It's poorly balanced for hardcores and casuals, it's not well made as a PC or console game, etc.)
So moving forward, if they can resolve the series' identity issues we'll see good things from them. If they can't, there's always Dragon Quest.
VIII and VII are my two favorite games out of the whole series. I'm apparently in the minority for loving VIII though.
