I guess there's something to be said for "worst of the series" being better than games from other series... I guess that's why so many people have such high standards for it.The_Decoy said:
Hey Dragon, You Can Have Her: Final Fantasy VIII
- Thread starter SavingPrincess
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I liked FF8, it was by no means a perfect game.
Squall being the Emo kid, Zell annoying 7 different shades of hell out of me. The second tier characters were largely forgettable, the third tier ones offered some amusing relief. Ultimecia, as the main villain, seems to be a contradiction in terms of characters. All the first, most of the second and even some third tier characters had lengthy and detailed storylines. Someone as important as the main villain not having a fleshed out background always struck me as anti-climatic? I suppose the term might be.
The storyline, I followed that rather well, but I have something of an interest in temporal mechanics. It does raise the concern that if you need a phd in physics to understand the story then you probably made the wrong choice for a mainstream game.
I found the Magic system to be a refreshing change, bored was I with the standard RPG fare of mana bars and memorised spells.
I avoided FF7 like the plague, the bobbleheads that they chose, all I said when I saw it was No.
Squall being the Emo kid, Zell annoying 7 different shades of hell out of me. The second tier characters were largely forgettable, the third tier ones offered some amusing relief. Ultimecia, as the main villain, seems to be a contradiction in terms of characters. All the first, most of the second and even some third tier characters had lengthy and detailed storylines. Someone as important as the main villain not having a fleshed out background always struck me as anti-climatic? I suppose the term might be.
The storyline, I followed that rather well, but I have something of an interest in temporal mechanics. It does raise the concern that if you need a phd in physics to understand the story then you probably made the wrong choice for a mainstream game.
I found the Magic system to be a refreshing change, bored was I with the standard RPG fare of mana bars and memorised spells.
I avoided FF7 like the plague, the bobbleheads that they chose, all I said when I saw it was No.
I don't see how thought out posts on either the shortcomings of a game, or in this case, a write up about the behind-the-scenes reason for a drastic change in a game series' direction is "flamebait." People will flame what they want; if they actually read the OP odds are they don't... it's only people that see that I've said something negative about their favorite game that get up in arms, and hey, it's the internet... the only way to write something "flame retardant" is to write something that no one will read.tellmeimaninja said:
Flame isn't just the automatic gainsaying of anything someone says. Yeah, this topic is going to draw some fire, but it is possible to disagree without "flame." FFVIII was my personal favorite of the series. Yes it was a vast departure from what FF had been so far. And I for one thrived on the change. On chore vs. grind. That's what I liked the most. FFVII was almost unplayable due to grind. Materia took forever to level. Way longer than drawing 100 of any spell. Until VIII I had not finished a FF game since American II on the SNES. Just lost interest in VII, too much grind (plus roomate spoilered the ending.) Going back to it, I've never made it. Too much grind, not enough free time anymore. VIII I can still breeze through. Never even bothered to try chocobo breeding, that just adds hours more grind.
FFVIII was good, but far from my favorite of the series. That honor goes to FFIV. Truly the start of the modern Final Fantasy game, with fleshed-out characters and such.
The worst for me has to be XII though. Interesting ideas, just way too boring for me.
The worst for me has to be XII though. Interesting ideas, just way too boring for me.
I gave up on these kinds of games a long time ago so I can't really say if I agree with you or not, but I like your review, at least to me it feels honest. No matter how good something is there will always be someone who hates it, and no matter how bad something is there will always be someone who loves it. Opinions aren't something that can/should be attacked. When considering a game, we should always look at multiple perspectives. Princess's (lol) perspective is negative, but his points are still valid and worth taking into consideration, as long as everyone keeps in mind that what someone hates, other people might love.
My first FF game was IX, and while I at first didn't like it that much, I came to love it, even to the point of almost finishing it (I pushed too far ahead and forgot to save at an earlier spot). The story was fun, the characters were enjoyable and easy to remember, with interesting designs (even the knight character, whose name I don't remember because I haven't played the game in years, if only because no other hero in gaming looks like a cannon fodder enemy but acts and moves like a comic relief supporting character while still feeling very much like a main character... for the first disc), and the places you went would stick with you.
Then I got 7, and I slowly felt myself losing interest the further I got from Midgar. Cloud wasn't as interesting as Zidane in terms of lead character (in fact he was sort of flat to me) and I really didn't see any place like the steam powered town or destroyed stone village of 9. Character design was still interesting though, and I have to admit the story was coherent and easy to follow, even if it decided to take a back seat for the backstory sometime. Oh, and characters would matter up until you resolved their backstory before they could instantly be dropped without anyone noticing (Barret... I'm looking at you).
I'm going to come back to 8, as the main point in a second, but first I'd like to talk about X. This was the one I actually enjoyed. Though I may get stoned to death by rabid fans, I liked Tidus. He had a story, and excluding his creepy laugh, was fairly enjoyable to keep around (though that may be because he had a kickass underwater game). Some characters were less enjoyable, but each of them suddenly gained relevance to the plot every single time I started to think they could be dropped (though the I still hate the blue lion for his sphere grid). Their designs were... well creative atleast, and certainly memorable. The story had to be one of my favorites in gaming, with plot twists of the I-didn't-see-that-coming variety, as well as obvious ones that you still had a slight feeling of shock about. I actually could hate the bad guys (especially seymour), the environments were very varied, and the summons were creatively done in both design and significance. It also had a mystery in there that you really wanted to solve, rather than one you just wanted resolved.
As for 8... well... This was not my favorite final fantasy. In fact, every time I got stuck, I was actually glad for the excuse to quit. Difficulty could vary all over the place, the battle system of equiping summons, or gf's or something was a pain, the story was one of the worst I've seen, and the character designs varied from "ok, but still memorable" to "you weren't even f*cking trying, were you?" (which even 13 still beats, and for the most part the cast looks pretty ordinary). Like you've said, most of it felt like they were pandoring to the camera rather than trying to give me something to play (sort of like bayonetta). Things got really bad with the first few missions (get ifrit and attack a small town for no described reason). I could never really wrap my head around what everything was, and why everyone was doing what they were, and the inclusion of timed missions into the FF games was just awful. I could barely stand it in 7, and in that game those felt right. For all the time that I played it, none of the characters seemed to develop at all. If anything, all they did was just reveal secrets before I actually cared about them.
Also, what is with making the park that students hang out in full of monsters, and why did my teacher lead me there to tell me she was retiring? There was a T-Rex in there! A T-REX! I didn't feel sad for her, or any other emotion other than anger. She could have sent me an email or something, instead of bringing me through monster infested terrain to tell me that she was quitting.
Going back to my comment about not knowing what was going on, I could never tell if I was a good guy or a bad guy with slightly worse enemies. Seriously, I don't know what the Gardens are, my first real experience with them was killing my way through a town to knock out a radio tower, then retreating on a boat. And that was my exam?! Geez, what the hell are these kids' senior thesis? Extracting vital information from an enemy using only a pocket knife?! Why were we attacking that place? Why did they think students should be the one to do so? Why do I eventually try to snipe some emperess person? I couldn't follow anything as I trudged across the world, having even wierder flashbacks to stuff that I couldn't see having any connection to me except that I was travelling through the same places as them. Even reading through the spoilers about this game I was confuse. Some of it seemed like halfway through the game they were retconning the other half. Also, the end plan of the big bad makes no sense. Atleast with the others it's mostly: I hate this world so much I think I'll erase it! or I'll change the planet by using the rules of the planet itself, though it might result in everything that I don't care about dying! or I'm a god and that's just how I work. Suck it. Which feel perfectly understandable as a villain. However, from what I've read, the main villain here has sort of a problem with her plan for conquest.
The others didn't really plan to rule after they were done, or if they had were planning to leave something to rule over, or were a god, and that's how they work. Suck it! The point is sanity and destruction don't go together, and neither does god complex and complete destruction. (I know the others' plans border on the same sort of stupidity as hers, but most of them have something that saves them).
My last big problem is that most of the plot twist, like the rest of the plot, were either difficult to grasp, pointless, or just stupid. Underneath this are spoilers for FF7,9, and 10. You are warned.
All of these turn out to be useful and important as it means
However, 8's twists just fall flat, having mostly no impact that lasts (and the whole flashback things feel like they were trying to go for the flashbacks Cloud had in the previous game but fell on their faces.
I'll have to agree here that the dragon can indeed have this one
Then I got 7, and I slowly felt myself losing interest the further I got from Midgar. Cloud wasn't as interesting as Zidane in terms of lead character (in fact he was sort of flat to me) and I really didn't see any place like the steam powered town or destroyed stone village of 9. Character design was still interesting though, and I have to admit the story was coherent and easy to follow, even if it decided to take a back seat for the backstory sometime. Oh, and characters would matter up until you resolved their backstory before they could instantly be dropped without anyone noticing (Barret... I'm looking at you).
I'm going to come back to 8, as the main point in a second, but first I'd like to talk about X. This was the one I actually enjoyed. Though I may get stoned to death by rabid fans, I liked Tidus. He had a story, and excluding his creepy laugh, was fairly enjoyable to keep around (though that may be because he had a kickass underwater game). Some characters were less enjoyable, but each of them suddenly gained relevance to the plot every single time I started to think they could be dropped (though the I still hate the blue lion for his sphere grid). Their designs were... well creative atleast, and certainly memorable. The story had to be one of my favorites in gaming, with plot twists of the I-didn't-see-that-coming variety, as well as obvious ones that you still had a slight feeling of shock about. I actually could hate the bad guys (especially seymour), the environments were very varied, and the summons were creatively done in both design and significance. It also had a mystery in there that you really wanted to solve, rather than one you just wanted resolved.
As for 8... well... This was not my favorite final fantasy. In fact, every time I got stuck, I was actually glad for the excuse to quit. Difficulty could vary all over the place, the battle system of equiping summons, or gf's or something was a pain, the story was one of the worst I've seen, and the character designs varied from "ok, but still memorable" to "you weren't even f*cking trying, were you?" (which even 13 still beats, and for the most part the cast looks pretty ordinary). Like you've said, most of it felt like they were pandoring to the camera rather than trying to give me something to play (sort of like bayonetta). Things got really bad with the first few missions (get ifrit and attack a small town for no described reason). I could never really wrap my head around what everything was, and why everyone was doing what they were, and the inclusion of timed missions into the FF games was just awful. I could barely stand it in 7, and in that game those felt right. For all the time that I played it, none of the characters seemed to develop at all. If anything, all they did was just reveal secrets before I actually cared about them.
Also, what is with making the park that students hang out in full of monsters, and why did my teacher lead me there to tell me she was retiring? There was a T-Rex in there! A T-REX! I didn't feel sad for her, or any other emotion other than anger. She could have sent me an email or something, instead of bringing me through monster infested terrain to tell me that she was quitting.
Going back to my comment about not knowing what was going on, I could never tell if I was a good guy or a bad guy with slightly worse enemies. Seriously, I don't know what the Gardens are, my first real experience with them was killing my way through a town to knock out a radio tower, then retreating on a boat. And that was my exam?! Geez, what the hell are these kids' senior thesis? Extracting vital information from an enemy using only a pocket knife?! Why were we attacking that place? Why did they think students should be the one to do so? Why do I eventually try to snipe some emperess person? I couldn't follow anything as I trudged across the world, having even wierder flashbacks to stuff that I couldn't see having any connection to me except that I was travelling through the same places as them. Even reading through the spoilers about this game I was confuse. Some of it seemed like halfway through the game they were retconning the other half. Also, the end plan of the big bad makes no sense. Atleast with the others it's mostly: I hate this world so much I think I'll erase it! or I'll change the planet by using the rules of the planet itself, though it might result in everything that I don't care about dying! or I'm a god and that's just how I work. Suck it. Which feel perfectly understandable as a villain. However, from what I've read, the main villain here has sort of a problem with her plan for conquest.
http://beta.gamesradar.com/f/the-top-7-stupid-plans-for-world-conquest/a-20100111152510437054/p-2
My last big problem is that most of the plot twist, like the rest of the plot, were either difficult to grasp, pointless, or just stupid. Underneath this are spoilers for FF7,9, and 10. You are warned.
Cloud wasn't a SOLDIER and his memories are of his friend. Zidane wasn't from the world and was actually part of a plot to steal souls without knowing it, and Tidus' existance was a dream or the summons
All of these turn out to be useful and important as it means
Cloud isn't the badass we all think he was but rather is a cannon fodder grunt, meaning he's now at a bit of a disadvantage. It also means that a lot of his life as he remembers it isn't true at all. However, it does turn out that this reveals that Sephiroth can be stopped as Cloud helped do it before.
Zidane now has a plight on his hand and the big bad actually has a relationship to him previously unestablished, and it is one that makes the big bad go insane with rage over (Zidane was created to replace him since he's dying).
And Tidus is now faced with the plight of if they truly save the world, he will be erased. Also similar to the two above, everything he knew about himself was a lie
Zidane now has a plight on his hand and the big bad actually has a relationship to him previously unestablished, and it is one that makes the big bad go insane with rage over (Zidane was created to replace him since he's dying).
And Tidus is now faced with the plight of if they truly save the world, he will be erased. Also similar to the two above, everything he knew about himself was a lie
However, 8's twists just fall flat, having mostly no impact that lasts (and the whole flashback things feel like they were trying to go for the flashbacks Cloud had in the previous game but fell on their faces.
I'll have to agree here that the dragon can indeed have this one
Kudos for writing a reply that I think is actually longer than the OP and does a better job explaining the intricate ways this game failed in a lot of respects.Delock said:
I have to ask, have you played any of the pre-PlayStation titles?
I was just talking about this with someone actually.SavingPrincess said:
Unfortunately, I really didn't get into console gaming soon enough to get the orignials, and have only played remakes of 1, 2, 5, and 6.
6 does happen to be my favorite of all of them, with a brilliant story, great handling of the subject and mood, change in objective (world's already destroyed. Time for revenge), and the fact that the final boss literally goest through the Divine comedy. I'd like to say that I myself actually got that far into the game (I saw someone play it, but I was still impressed) but sadly I took the "Week of Death" (in final fantasy games, it is lethal to your progress to take a week off on the first playthrough, as you lose your place, your momentum, and some of your interest). However, since I just discovered that the PS3 slim plays PS1 games, I know exactly what I'll be playing once I finish 13.
5... ugh... V. I really don't like this one. I even like it less than 12 and 8, but that's just because it suffered the "Week of Death" at the same time as 6 since they were bundled, and I got the least amount of progress in this one than of all others. The story was so cliched, to the point where I suspected that it was meant to be so. Boy rides chocobo into crater, discovers a woman and a guy with amnesia. While this wasn't quite as bad as 12... excuse me a moment... EVIL TWIN?! EVIL F*CKING TWIN?! ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?! ARGH! ...Ok, so while it wasn't quite as bad as a plot twist that was bad from it's very invention, it was sort of like I was playing one of the most bland games around. Four crystals control the elements, heros have to protect them, sealed evil, evil will eventually get free anyways, amnesiac is actually from another world, party goes to that world... blah, blah, blah... it didn't actually do anything that surprised me and keep me hooked. 6 surprised me by the world being destroyed, 7 surprised me when my cell door suddenly opened up into a floor of carnage (along with them destroying a whole section of a city by dropping the ceiling on it), 8 surprised me when my first mission was an attack on a town, 9 surprised me with the kidnapping plan, 10 surprised me with blitzball followed immediately by sin attacking, 12... er, neverind 12. But the point is, there was no real reason to continue (reading the plot summary on wikipedia, it looks like it gets much better later on, but the entrance didn't grab me at all, and even 13, the game considered by so many to have a very slow beginning got me). I know the rule of cliche really shouldn't be applied to Final Fantasy, but it just fell flat to me. Didn't get far enough into the job system to really evaluate it.
Final Fantasy has aged a bit too much for my tastes, though I will acknowledge that it is a good game. It feels very much like a role playing game should, and does have a clever plot twist later on. However, I feel that the almost lack of story in a final fantasy really does feel noticeable. I mean, I really do like games that give me the ability to fill in the blanks, but this feels a bit simple for a game franchise that created such epic stories later on (your first mission is to save a princess from an evil knight... ok...) however it does turn it around in the end. That alone makes me feel good when I look back and see how I started out pretty small and worked my way up to defeating Chaos.
Final Fantasy 2 on the otherhand, starts out really well and actually keeps pace. You do start out on the bottom of the ladder like before, but you're in a world where even that bottom is exciting. In fact, first hour in, you are literally crushed, saved by rebels, denied entrance into the army, fight until you reach the dying fiance of the rebels' leader, learn of a plot to destroy them, join up with them to go on to perform sabotage I don't remember a lot about this game, but I remember getting to the final boss, meaning the game was interesting enough for me to go that far.
<color=purple>Well, that was quite a post for a newcomer to the escapist. That was rather interesting and it seems you've done your research. I had no idea that the staff of the core Final Fantasy games went through such change at quite a crucial point in their series. While I would have to play Final Fantasy VIII in order to judge it and offer my opinion to this thread, you have certainly given me an idea(and a detailed, mental image even)of what to expect out of the game. I always meant to go back and play final Fantasy VII-IX, but I just never have.
Your post has actually inspired me to go out and play this game, even if only to form an accurate opinion of it.
Your post has actually inspired me to go out and play this game, even if only to form an accurate opinion of it.
If you read the behind the scenes stuff (like I talk about in this thread) you will see WHY you like and don't like each of the games you listed. It absolutely has everything to do with who is involved in making the project.Delock said:
If you follow the team that made Final Fantasy VI, you'd likely like the other games you mentioned. If you didn't like Final Fantasy XII then you also probably didn't like Final Fantasy Tactics or Vagrant Story as that team is the team that made Final Fantasy XII.
You might also be interested in this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.181071] if you haven't read it already.
Pretty much summed up NICELY my opinion on the game.
Oh how I hated 8 so much, and for the very reasons littered throughout this thread so me repeating them would simply be redundant. Really I gave this game 2 full chances to prove itself and failed both times.
The first time I was merely a youngster and played it some 10 years ago and I hated it, just said "fuck it" after the 2nd disk before I fought myself to finish it. The second time was only some 3 or 4 years ago to see if my young age made me not fully understand it or appreciate it which does sometimes happen....nope. Trudged through it AGAIN, beat it, wanted my 30 hours of wasted life back. Everything save for the graphics and music were annoying or terrible.
I really don't know what went wrong with this game, or what the writers and designers were thinking. The game play choices I will give them credit for trying something rather unique, but credit is all they will receive because in execution is was a boring, nagging chore. The story, ESPECIALLY disk 2 and onwards was a total train wreck with a terrible cast to add insult to injury. I have never come across such an uncompelling, annoying, and shallow cast of heroes AND villains. Not even the villains were worth acknowledging, they were shallow, unremarkable, and carried no weight. They weren't even threatening, just comically shallow. The heroes were equally as uninteresting and again half of them felt unnecessary and came off as shallow and quite literally stupid (I'm looking at you Irvine, Zell, laguna, and Selphie!!).
Oh yea and back to the story....what? WHAT WENT WRONG!! god, ham fisted and terribly forced love story (and that was supposedly the main emphasis of this game...) and the multitude of bullshit moments and plot holes. The romance was just so unnatural and spontaneous. The fact that half the game feels so friggen disjointed and random just hurts the story even more. THE STUPID FLASHBACKS THAT SERVED LITTLE TO NO PURPOSE!!
God...what went wrong, did no one bother to read the script and actually EDIT it!? Just...what went so horribly wrong? *sigh* I guess every series has to have it's low point, I mean a series that's been around this long has to have a few bad games and have its low point in the series. I tried to like you FF8...but it's best if you just burn in video game hell where I never have to see you ever again.
Oh how I hated 8 so much, and for the very reasons littered throughout this thread so me repeating them would simply be redundant. Really I gave this game 2 full chances to prove itself and failed both times.
The first time I was merely a youngster and played it some 10 years ago and I hated it, just said "fuck it" after the 2nd disk before I fought myself to finish it. The second time was only some 3 or 4 years ago to see if my young age made me not fully understand it or appreciate it which does sometimes happen....nope. Trudged through it AGAIN, beat it, wanted my 30 hours of wasted life back. Everything save for the graphics and music were annoying or terrible.
I really don't know what went wrong with this game, or what the writers and designers were thinking. The game play choices I will give them credit for trying something rather unique, but credit is all they will receive because in execution is was a boring, nagging chore. The story, ESPECIALLY disk 2 and onwards was a total train wreck with a terrible cast to add insult to injury. I have never come across such an uncompelling, annoying, and shallow cast of heroes AND villains. Not even the villains were worth acknowledging, they were shallow, unremarkable, and carried no weight. They weren't even threatening, just comically shallow. The heroes were equally as uninteresting and again half of them felt unnecessary and came off as shallow and quite literally stupid (I'm looking at you Irvine, Zell, laguna, and Selphie!!).
Oh yea and back to the story....what? WHAT WENT WRONG!! god, ham fisted and terribly forced love story (and that was supposedly the main emphasis of this game...) and the multitude of bullshit moments and plot holes. The romance was just so unnatural and spontaneous. The fact that half the game feels so friggen disjointed and random just hurts the story even more. THE STUPID FLASHBACKS THAT SERVED LITTLE TO NO PURPOSE!!
God...what went wrong, did no one bother to read the script and actually EDIT it!? Just...what went so horribly wrong? *sigh* I guess every series has to have it's low point, I mean a series that's been around this long has to have a few bad games and have its low point in the series. I tried to like you FF8...but it's best if you just burn in video game hell where I never have to see you ever again.
I read that. It was actually really interesting.SavingPrincess said:
What I find most interesting is that I really like (the original) tactics, and though I'd never say it was one of the best Final Fantasies, I will still say it is sort of like a work of art. Ivalice was really well fleshed out and the political turmoil causing your problems felt natural. Even when demons stepped it, it never felt like it was something that could never happen in that world. My two biggest gripes with it are that in the end you'll be letting go of some of the soldiers you've worked for most of the game with all because the newcomers (the main characters) happen to be a step above whatever they could hope to be and that my disc was damaged so that right before the final cutscene finished, the game froze (that is probably the most pissed I've ever gotten at a game). The new games of Tactics all have Ivalice as a complete fantasy land with nothing that feels really serious. The political strife is all done in a way that is just laughable compared to the original with an evil queen in the first Advanced. Plus, your character seemed to be the only one who saw the truth rather than in the original where you were as blind as everyone else.
Then 12 came along with some AWFUL story telling, the only interesting characters (the judges) existing for the pure purpose of being killed, a political strife that that is way too clear cut again (especially since you can instantly tell who the evil one is). They also have all these races from advanced and yet seem to just pretend they don't exist (except for the veira once, and only because your party had one in it). Mass Effect showed us how to deal with multiple races, with some people clearly being intolerant of them, some of them having very different values, some of them assimalating into the grand society, and others that just seemed to end up with certain jobs based on the fact that they were best suited for them. In addition, the game decided to try something similiar to the sphere grid, though ended up grasping the entirely wrong idea when it wasn't just abilities but equipement. They tried to have it so that each character was free to develop as the player saw fit, but that's not how Final Fantasy works. You're confined by something, whether that be job, class, role, or just how that character was made by developers. While the job system they used in the original tactics where you developed a character in a certain job to unlock more abilities worked as the character would be developing in a set way as that job and only able to equip weapons and armor suitable to that job, the grid in 12 was just too open, meaning characters never really grew but rather got more stuff. 12 also felt much more like a fan service to Tactics Advanced with all the things it took from that rather than a completely new experience. What was the point of having guilds in there? They had no relevance to the story! Lastly, there was no excuse for the combat system. Even in the Tactics games, you felt involved in the fighting. You were constantly managing your party, using certain tactics when you recognized how to beat the enemy. 12 jerked those controls from the player and gave them to the computer. Sure you could install how to fight in the thing, but it never really felt like your battle. Even when you were in control, the way the fighting when on, it felt like you were just watching the battle unfold. 13 almost fell prey to this, but managed to avoid it by having you be in control of the job changing and able to control when you attack and what you attack with by interrupting your ATB charge (I'm not letting them off the hook for not letting me move though. That was unnessarily stupid). It also had characters act differently in each role, as I noticed some characters as Commandos would attack my same target, while others would make sure not to. All the characters in 12 felt the same to me when we got into combat (they could have atleast gave them elemental affinities or something to easily distinguish them).
I understand where you're coming from for the most part. Though I do have to say that I totally didn't mind the grid system in Final Fantasy XII for the sole reason that they finally went away from the "You get the sword, you get the gun, you get the staff" thing... having a semblance of control over what weapons your character can use is a huge thing for me, because it adds a bit of depth to the gameplay. Having it "grid" based, where you had to choose what you wanted your characters to "train" in added a sense of realism to the character progression rather than just having every character use every weapon; however, calling them "license points" was a horrible idea and was almost fourth-wall breaking.[footnote]Do I really just have to get "permission" to use certain things? I always looked at it more like, I have to learn HOW to USE this accessory rather than just wear it and automatically gain its benefits. That's why I like the whole "leveling up" of weapons and items in Final Fantasy XIII though I wish they were experience based instead of item based.[/footnote] I can totally see how the grid system was off-putting to people however after the simplistic nature of the previous four games (Final Fantasy XI not included).Delock said:
The "awful" storytelling I think was a victim (as someone pointed out to me) of a last minute switch of main character from Basch to Vaan... I think that following Basch through everything would have made for a much more interesting narrative. Basch "was" an interesting character, but never truly got the chance to be. Throwing the perspective of the story into the head of Vaan was a terrible decision in my opinion. Seriously, go play Vagrant Story and you'll see what I'm talking about. [footnote]If there were ever a game that would have been better served being released in THIS generation, it would be Vagrant Story one, that game was a victim of being far too ahead of its time.[/footnote]
I've said it before, but I give Final Fantasy XII a total pass. I see it from the boardroom perspective; you have a talented team of designers who've made some great games (Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story) and they finally get the chance to do a canon Final Fantasy title, and every interesting move they try and make is shot down by the "board" that says it's going to alienate fans of the series. So what you ended up with was an interesting game that was actually redesigned to be less interesting.
I honestly would not minded in the slightest if Final Fantasy XII stayed in the "Strategy RPG" genre while still being a "numbered" Final Fantasy. It would have pissed off quite a lot of people, but I probably would have loved it. Having the "tactics battle grid" in the Final Fantasy XII graphics engine be something fluid and just lay out on the field whenever you encountered an enemy would have been awesome; it would have been a totally unique experience for each battle and truly challenged the player to be aware of the environment and plan each battle. I envisioned a button that initiated combat that would expand the "tactics battle grid" so you could choose when to initiate battle as well as the enemy being able to do the same if they were made aware of your presence. In that you could also allow the player to spend experience to expand the battle grid and have harder enemies also be able to create a larger grid to further balance initiative of combat. It would have been fun, awesome and totally immersive. [footnote]... which FireFox apparently doesn't believe is a word... on that note, FireFox also does not believe FireFox is a word.[/footnote]
Final Fantasy VIII was still terrible though.
son of a *****, more 8 hate, i loved 8! it was my first final fantasy and i love it, its tied for 1st in my final fantasy games (9 shot up there after playing it again) i thougth the battle system was awesome and different, and lets get to my point here, i thought 7 was bad.
Brad Shepard said:
...Brad Shepard said:
Different than... the previous Final Fantasy's that you didn't play? What?
It's often the case that if this was someone's first exposure to the series, that they were more forgiving of what was basically the most nonsensical plot in Final Fantasy history and some of the most truly unimportant characters in a video game.
When I say "unimportant characters" I basically mean that if you took Zell, Selphie and Irvine (and others, but those were the main ones) out of the game entirely, the game's story would have not changed in the slightest, only less useless dialogue.
But hey, if I'm inclined to like a genre, I usually "love" the first game I play in it too, even if that game is terrible.
I love a ton of honestly terrible games. I'm just able to admit they're honestly terrible games (Onechanbara, Dead or Alive: Xtreme, Tomb Raider etc.)Dedae said:
People that wanted a love story with some epic battle behind it somewhere tended to like this game, as pretty much all that matters in the entire plot are "OMGHAWTSQUALL!" and "SUPERKAWAIIRINOAYAY!" while the rest of the narrative takes the biggest uninteresting and nonsensical backseat in years. I however, went in expecting something, which was my first mistake; and that something happened to be a deep intertwining narrative between the characters and their world.
What do you mean by "this type of game" exactly? jRPG's? Final Fantasy's?
even after ive played all but 3, i still love 8, comon, you talk to me onthe group, you know my 8 love. The combat was great, i liked the fact that you could be powerful a lot more easy then in the other games (100 quakes on atk) and the junction system was intresting, sence the GFs played a key role in the first 2 disks.SavingPrincess said:Brad Shepard said:...Brad Shepard said:
Different than... the previous Final Fantasy's that you didn't play? What?
It's often the case that if this was someone's first exposure to the series, that they were more forgiving of what was basically the most nonsensical plot in Final Fantasy history and some of the most truly unimportant characters in a video game.
When I say "unimportant characters" I basically mean that if you took Zell, Selphie and Irvine (and others, but those were the main ones) out of the game entirely, the game's story would have not changed in the slightest, only less useless dialogue.
But hey, if I'm inclined to like a genre, I usually "love" the first game I play in it too, even if that game is terrible.