When did Final Fantasy die for you?

[-Seraph-]

It has not died for me. I just stay away from the ones I personally don't like. I mean you can't possibly think a game franchise that has been around for 20 YEARS would not have at least ONE shitty game in it's collection. I can't like em all and I can't hate em all, thankfully I enjoy most of the series with few exceptions, it will not die for me until the entire franchise stops.

I eagerly await FF13 with open arms, regardless of the franchises recent history which is debatable as it all boils down to taste, so I wont be overly enthusiastic or pessimistic over 13. Lets hope all 3 games in the 13 saga turn out great, 13 is looking good and Agito has some nice concepts going for it while the elusive Versus 13 is still rather mysterious but looks so damn enticing from the teaser footage.

 

[keptsimple]

XII was the best Final Fantasy in years. So never, I guess. Although IX and X were somewhat disappointing. I don't even consider XI because I don't like MMORPGs.

 

[quack35]

It hasn't.

 

[sokka14]

XII is my favourite, but it will probably be my last.

 

[Romaru]

I can only really comment on the games from 7 onwards as I have not had the time to review the others. Also please do not jump on the fact that this is my first post ever as some boards do.

As 7 was the first FF game I played I will admit that the story line was a lot more mature than most games I had picked up and I really enjoyed it. Even after playing other FF games and indeed other RPGS I can still go back to it and play it again. (Off topic: If they do rerelease it for next gen I imagine a lot of content will disapear because of censorship [SPOILERS]Honey Bees, Barrett's bad case of tourettes, the brothel scene, hell I wouldn't be surprised if Aeris survived just so the little kids playing it don't have nightmares) [END SPOILERS]

8 again I found was an interesting story and had some nice drama in it. While the main character was again a bit quiet and alternative crowd, (personally I would have played the entire gaem as Sifer) but the plot had some nice twists and turns to keep things interesting and the new magic system was ok once you got used to it.

9 I enjoyed but I felt that the graphics had taken a downturn, as well as some of the gameplay. I was forever getting annoyed with the Trance system always activating as the enemy gives it's last gasp to bite me on the ankle before dying, thus depleting the limit bar. There were a couple of characters that just confused me (Quina for one) and there seemed to be too many. While most of the cast of 7 could contribute to the main plot, 9 seemed to have too many side characters trying to masquerade as main players. And I don't understand to this day why the final boss only turns up virtually 2 minutes before the final part of the game and I'm expected to hate him? Why? I don't know who he is?

10 was pretty dire. The story had completely taken a left turn at maturity which is what attracted me to the other games. Where the other games felt more aimed at an adult audience, this felt like it was going for the Western market which is predominatly made up of a much younger audience so story ideas like [SPOILERS]cross dressing to get into the local dons harem, or being part of a mercenaryt fighting group comprised of school kids were probably thrown out by the kid friendly design team.[END SPOILERS]

I don't have a clue what 12 was trying to do... With all the over verbalisation I couldn't understand what the hell was going on. Vaan was the only one who seemed to be talking in plain English and at times it seemed to me like he didn't have a clue either. Something else that annoyed me about 12 is that you obviously follow Vaan as the main character but as the game goes on it feels more and more that he is like an annoying tag on, and that frankly the group could easily still finish their mission if he wasn't there. [SPOILERS]He doesn't contribute at all apart from Basch killed his brother supposedly and even then it is forgiven and forgotten so quickly it feels like it was just tacked in to give him some sort of plot input related to the story[END SPOILERS] And the plot had more twists then a slinky in a paper shredder but as a result I had trouble following who was the big bad behind the whole thing

Woo... First post. Now back to lurking

 

[quack35]

It was showing signs of dying during 10 and then had a heart attack in 12.

They can still resuscitate it though.

 

[Rycane_HHS]

Storywise, the death started on the 7th installment. When they made the eighth, I facepalmed heavily. Ninth episode corrected some flaws... but then came FFX. And lo and behold, the lethal blow for the Final Fantasy came - in the form of Final Fantasy X-2.

X-2 killed it off for good. XI I will never try, and XII screwed up the gameplay to a point that I can't try it. I just can't, without remniscing how it used to be. How it worked just fine back in the day.

 

[Devildoc]

I'm going to put on my Trolling pants and flame resistant jacket for this one, but I seriously think it died when they took FF6's story, made it cyberpunk/tech grunge, and called it FF7.

Why, when so many people consider it the best FF (and usually their first FF)?

Well here's some reasons:

#1: It borrowed too heavily from FF6's story elements. Replace "the Returners" with AVALANCHE, replace "the Empire" with Shinra, replace Magitek with Jenova/SOLDIER, replace batshit insane prototype Magitek Knight with batshit insane prototype (okay they retconned and made him version 3.0 or whatever) SOLDIER, both of which wanted to destroy the world and become a god. As we all know, FF6's villain actually succeeded, Sephiroth failed hard.

#2: I don't like the move to a more technologically advanced world. I think the steampunk style of FF6 was about as advanced as I could tolerate. I like playing in fantasy worlds more than sci-fi when it comes to role playing games (except Star Wars). We're playing Final Fantasy, not Final Science Fiction.

#3: Anime art style and androgenous male protagonists.. sorry but I don't like Nomura's designs. It's almost fortunate that 3d graphics weren't very advanced in VII so the designs were obscurred by Popeye armed characters. It went really downhill in VIII and beyond when you could SEE how effeminate your heroes were. Also fuck belts and zippers.

#4: Animations for summons became TOO FREAKING LONG. Yes they look cool but holy crap they are way too damn long after the first time you see them.

#5: Loading...

 

[Flour]

Can a series be dead when there are only two games I like?

I loved FF5.

FF9 is my favourite, it's not perfect and I've only finished it once, but it was the most enjoyable of all the FF games I've played(FF5, 7, 8, 9 and 10) unfortunately the story focused too much on Zidane, Garnet/Dagger and Vivi. This turned all other characters in nothing more than an audience for whenever there was an Heroic BSOD [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicBSOD].

 

[Tony Grande]

I can only really comment on the games from 7 onwards as I have not had the time to review the others. Also please do not jump on the fact that this is my first post ever as some boards do.

10 was pretty dire. The story had completely taken a left turn at maturity which is what attracted me to the other games. Where the other games felt more aimed at an adult audience, this felt like it was going for the Western market which is predominatly made up of a much younger audience so story ideas like [SPOILERS]cross dressing to get into the local dons harem, or being part of a mercenaryt fighting group comprised of school kids were probably thrown out by the kid friendly design team.[END SPOILERS]

Don't you think you matured a little over the years and so your opinion of what is mature has changed? This has been taken into account, yes?

 

[Fronken]

FF X was the only one i actually thought was really fun to play.

And yes fanboys, i have tried FF VII, and i think its overrated as hell.

 

[Avida]

It never did, deserters

 

[Romaru]

Don't you think you matured a little over the years and so your opinion of what is mature has changed? This has been taken into account, yes?

Hmm. True. Maybe not so much mature story as slightly less bright fuzzy and happy as the later games seem to be. I would say that it is personal taste but from what I hear of 5 and 6 (having never played them yet I can't be 100%) the story in those games is more... mature?

I can't think of a better word to really describe it...

 

[Monkeysicle]

I started the playing the series at FFVII and liked all of them till FFXI & FFXII. I even liked FFX-2 and by that I mean the gameplay was so fun that I did not pay much attention to the dreadful story.

 

[Pyro Paul]

Final fantasy X-2 killed it for me.
subsquent games simply drove the knife deeper and twisted the blade several times.

when they started to twisted their ATB system into something which mimiced real time MMO combat... yeah... that was the nail in the coffin.


i hope... hope... the next FF game will revert back, but from the demo reels of the thing... that wont happen.

 

[InvisibleMilk]

I only indulged in the 7th one, as most have. JRPG's can hurt me after prolonged exposure.

 

[Damien the Pigeon]

FFXII was a nightmarish clusterfudge. I never tried XI, and X is still waiting on my shelf for me to try it.

 

[NeutralDrow]

It hasn't died for me, though I've only played one game (not counting Tactics, which bored me), FF6. I own FFX, but I've yet to play it (and it will probably be a while, since I've got two Tales and a Kingdom Hearts game to get through).

Given how divided opinions are on any given game in the series, I rather suspect I will enjoy most if not all of them. Besides, I'm willing to forgive much for any series in which Nobuo Uematsu does the music. The man's brilliant.

 

[Jonny The Kay]

8 was when it started to get story inspiration from modern Japanese manga instead of mythology so i guess that one.

 

[elricik]

I don't think it ever died for me. Their were periods when I hated it. The only two Final Fantasy main games I really hated was FF9 and FF12. 13 looks really cool though. And so does verses.