santaandy said:
That's a very subjective statement of opinion, my friend.
I've played every main game since I, and I was basically the reason I started playing video games altogether!
Many people love I-VI and sometimes even more than VII-XII.
You could just as easily bash VII-XII for any number of things.
I particularly enjoyed the plot and characters of IV, and V may not have been the hallmark of the series, but I found it enjoyable and amusing (something which VII-XII can't seem to do, at least as well).
Even if you didn't like them, you could hardly call them stiff or forced any more so than any other FF (VIII-XII comes to mind).
They have some of the best art and music too.
You may disagree with me liking them, and *why* I like them, but I don't feel it's correct to say the standards were low when they were developed.
IV, V, and VI only came out a year apart each. Not much chaned in those years.
Subjective is exactly what an opinion is. It's impossible to have an objective opinion by an accepted definitions of the terms.
Well, Super Mario Bros was my introduction to video games (besides PC games), but I fail to see the reason one started to play is relevant today. I've also played Final Fantasy I, III, IV and VI and beyond, while also briefly trying out II and V.
A great majority of those who do love I-V(I) have a nostalgic attachment to the games.
Sure you can. You can bash them for having contrived plot points, iffy voice acting and battle systems that weren't enough like ~insert favorite game in the series here~. But you know what? All of these elements are still more developed and polished than in earlier games.
Oh, my problem with FFIV? The plot is very undeveloped; things spontaneously happen without giving any sense of a proper flow to the chain of events, character and plot revelations pop up without even an ounce of foreshadowing, and the characters themselves receive very little actual characterization. I can not care for Cecil's struggle against his dark side because he's basically a cardboard cut-out with dialog boxes. The characters pre-FFVI don't deliver emotion very well, due to both unnatural dialog and primitive sprite animation. Remember Cid's scene with the bomb near the end of FFIV? I couldn't feel sad about that. Rather, I laughed at how silly it looked, and that's as much emotion as the game gave me.
As you've seen, I CAN indeed call them stiff and forced. But in all honesty FFXII suffers greatly from being stiff too, so I can't seem to find much of an interesting in finishing the game.
The artwork is nice. On paper. Not in the games in most cases, though, as Square didn't really master the graphical capabilities of the SNES until FFVI and CT... and unfortunately spent quite some time on ugly industrial areas. The music I fully agree with you on.
But the standars WERE lower then. That's how it is with all medias as they develop. It's the same with books, plays, movies and comics. They've all advanced and becomes more sophisticated as time has progressed, and flaws that were previously overlooked would eventually become unacceptable in more modern creations.
Things did change. IV was originally developed as an NES game and basically just ported to the SNES. V developed the battle system far beyond what III had done with it years before, and utilized the hardware better. VI took storytelling to new levels, while also advancing how characters could convey emotion, and for the first time they introduced attack concepts that would give the battles a better sense of action. Most of the concepts introduced by FFVI were a bit rough on the edges, though, and "perfected" in the games following it.
Those are my thoughts on the subject.
