Are these Final Fantasy games worth it?

[samonix]

Someone's first Final Fantasy is nearly always their favourite. Here's my opinions.

7 - Good all-round, except the text boxes hang for an enragingly long time (sounds a ridiculous complaint but you will definitely notice).
8 - The first I played so my favourite. Gameplay terrible, characters horrible, but a good story that stays interesting for four discs (even if it gets a little ridiculous)
9 - The main character has a tail.
10 - The best gameplay, tactical and well-balanced, a very good story that suffers from bad voice acting.
12 - Horrible. The absolute worst gameplay (by the end you literally press no buttons at all) a boring story about politics and the main character has nothing to do with anything. Retarded.
13 - Does a strange thing where the story and characters are really good in the first half, when the gameplay is terrible, and then picks up the battle mode in time to abandon everyone's plot threads and deliver a bizarre ending.

Or just play Grandia.

 

[Sluhzer]

9 is still my favorite to date, it's the only one I went back and beat again and again just because of the story and motherfucking Vivi baby.

 

[CMDR Zero C]

8 was a really good game, 9 was shit. 10 Could have been better but after trying to play 12... it could have been much worse.

 

[HappyPillz]

God. It's impossible to say.

The FF fanbase is fractured on EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.

Just try 'em.

Prety much what I was going to say. Its always something like "The series got shit at 10" "no 7 ruined it" "everything after 10 is bollocks" "youre all idiots, 6 was the best, and everything after that is utter rubbish".

Theyre all wrong though, the series died with 13.

See? I love 13. Think it's the series BEST.

So, you really can't come to any consensus on FF anywhere.

I suppose that's mainly because Final Fantasy isn't really a series. None of the games have anything to do with eachother, except for X/X-2. Some of the terminology is the same, but other than that, 'Final Fantasy' is just an umbrella name. They could have named all the games something unique and nothing would have changed.

 

[michiehoward]

Every week there are at least two threads like this. So I'm not going to do another summary plot of opinion on each FF I've played.

If you like FF as a series, and your an completionist, play the bloody games. Both are them are fun, the stories are interesting, the characters good even if they are cliche. (I'm talking to you FF8)

I will give one personal opinion though, if you like having brain matter instead of brain mush, skip FF13.

 

[Pearwood]

8 - terrible
9 - best in series.
12 is worth checking out too, far too underrated.

 

[Seriin]

As a person whose favourite game is FF8 you're going to get a bit of bias from me. I do understand why people don't like it, but general consensus or the overall approval of a game is never equal to what an individual experiences. That being said, there really isn't a truly bad main series Final Fantasy game. Some are subjectively better than others, but that doesn't make the lesser ones bad games.

So of course, the answer to your question would be: No, they are not bad. However, by my line of thinking your claim of 10-13 being really bad would put us at disagreement so I suppose you can take my opinions with a grain of salt.

Also, I agree with this:

I suppose that's mainly because Final Fantasy isn't really a series. None of the games have anything to do with eachother, except for X/X-2. Some of the terminology is the same, but other than that, 'Final Fantasy' is just an umbrella name. They could have named all the games something unique and nothing would have changed.

 

[michiehoward]

12 is worth checking out too, far too underrated.

qft, exactly, 12 is underrated, I actually enjoyed the whole story not revolving around the character you control, you have a part in "saving the world" and its the not the same old formula about the fate of the world solely resting on your actions, cause to be frank I ALWAYS find it abit ridiculous playing a character under 19 and a some old wizened fellow tells me

"Hey put some shit in your backpack, its time the save the world from "insert enemy title"!!!!

 

[Noctis_XZ]

While I haven't read this whole thread I just wanted to point out that Spoony is ridiculous. Not because he is negative about Final Fantasy but because he points out the most trivial things.. especially in FFX and proceeds to make them seem far larger of a problem than they really are. Also.. when he was previewing FFXIV (Yes I know it's a bad MMO but it's currently getting better) and pointing out what he didn't like about it without really knowing anything about what was going on made me laugh. More so when he was literally drooling all over the guy he was interviewing for Guild Wars 2 knob.

Anyway.. personally I thought FF9 was the best in the series but here we go!

7 - One of the highest points in the FF series and for gaming in general. Because of this people like to call it the overrated FF just for the sake of it
8 - Doomed to not be as well received by gamers due to FF7's success, The draw system was a little meh but other than that it was an excellent game
9 - Amazing.. in my opinion of course. Personified what FF really is
10 - Great game. Voice acting was dreadful though.. XD
11 - I absolutely loved it! It had the FF feel even though it was an MMO and it was insanely difficult which I enjoyed. Wasn't nearly as solo friendly or casual as it is now for the first good 5 years or so
12 - Good. Fell a little short to me when it came to the characters and the plot though
13 - Good. I felt it had a nice story, which I was able to understand from start to finish with no problem but the combat.. well, you can pretty much go on auto pilot if you want until later in the game. Emphasis wasn't really on picking individual attacks but switching paradigms at the right time.
14 - Bad.. it's slowly gaining speed and becoming a better game but it still has a ways to go. Even as a FF "Fanboy" I can say the screwed the pooch on this one at launch

So really the only "bad" FFs were 13 and 14 and I use bad loosely.. except for 14, it's just bad.. for now! FF X-2 is just misunderstood really. An all girl main cast?! The story pick ups and the game play is descent though

This is all opinion of course

 

[The Madman]

Play em and judge em for yourself.

Personally I've only played a couple of the games, but of them 6 was my favourite. The much applauded 7 wasn't bad by any means either, but I found it got pretty tiresome after a while and frankly I didn't like any of the characters nor the story in general. Still, not bad. The others I've played were all years and years ago, they've since blurred together so that I have no clue which is which though I remember enjoying them at the time. We're talking NES and SNES era here, so make of that what you will, I've no clue of the naming conventions.

The only one I actually hated, which was coincidentally also the last Final Fantasy game I would ever play, was 8. I deplored that game then, and I continue to deplore it now. I tried to like it, oh I did, but how that backfired! My multiple attempts to slog through the game in some vain hopes it would become good only resulted in creating within me a burning hatred which has since then tainted my very perception of Final Fantasy as a series, resulting in me having not touched the series since. I can think of nothing I like about the game save perhaps that it had very good, if wasted, CGI for its time. Beyond that the whole experience is a black stain upon my subconscious which only years of intensive therapy has managed to lessen to the point where I'm capable of subduing the manic depression, flashbacks, nightmares, and urge to kill indiscriminately... until now anyway, thanks for bringing those disgusting memories back into the light.

Back to the shrink I go!

But seriously, play em for yourself. For some mysterious reason many people seem enjoy 8, perhaps you'll be among them so go ahead and try. Ain't my job to judge peoples taste in games after all... that would be Yahtzee's. Lucky bastard!

 

[Jonesy911]

Well my personal feelings are:

FF1: Boring
FF2: Boring
FF3: Mediocre
FF4: HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS AMAZING WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? HNNNG
FF5: Offt, not as good as 4 but still very good
FF6: OMG THIS IS BETTER THAN 4!
FF7: Better than 4, worse than 6
FF8: Wtf is going on again. "Time compression, drawing...". Eh, I can dig it I guess
FF9: Hmmmm, back to crystals again are we? FUCK YEAH!
FF10:Ffs Tidus shut the fuck up, this game is too good for your stupid voice acting

Every other FF: They can all fuck off

 

[MrAkuma201]

FFX I loved and 13 was OK I hope FF13-2 will be OK and Verses 13. I really hope they are at least 6 or 7 out of 10.

 

[thiosk]

9 was the last game in the series i bothered with.

 

[Udyrfrykte]

This is a tender topic for many I think.

Personally I cringe when I see people not saying FF7 is the best FF, just because I am so incredibly biased towards it. Got such strong nostalgia tied up with it. I've downloaded some mods for the PC version of FF7 (updates the graphics, etc), and planning to play it again. Afraid I'll just cry my way through the game in nostalgia tears though.

And you know what? I've only played FF6 and FF12 besides FF7. I really liked FF6, it was incredible too. I'm kinda enjoying FF12 at the moment, but the main character annoys me and the story doesn't grip me. And I just reached a point where it's bloody hard so I dunno if I can get past it.

People seem to have mixed feelings about FF8.

 

[Aedrial]

I personally loved 9, especially Vivi's side story.

 

[Scars Unseen]

The people who say 1-7 are great and 10-13 are crap clearly have some bizarre standards for coming to that conclusion (or they're just trolling).

Or they just have a different taste in games than you.

FFX: Hated the main character. I liked the ability to switch party members, but hated that you had to switch them constantly if you wanted them to level evenly. Voice acting was painfully bad. I finally finished it right around when FFXII came out.

FFXII: Dislike the FFXI influence on the battle system. Vast improvement to the voice acting, and the characters don't draw my hate like Tidus does, even if Vaan is forgettable. Haven't finished it yet. Maybe I'll get around to it one of these days.

FFXIII: If a Japanese guy could constrain vomit into disc form, it might look something like this game. I've only played a few hours, but I hate every character. I hate the battle system. I hate the (lack of) level design. I don't care if the story is supposed to be good. I really don't care if the game magically gets better 10-20 hours down the road. I wouldn't read a horribly written book because it had a good ending. Why should I force myself through hours of awful gameplay and shitty characters because it might get better later on.

As for the ones that I do like... Well I started with FFVI, so I have an undeniable bias toward that one. FFIV is fun every now and then. FFVII may be overrated, but that doesn't mean it's not good. I genuinely liked FFVIII, though I admit that the Guardian Force system was annoying (too much micromanagement) and the fact that the game punishes you for leveling is stupid. FFIX was outstanding, and I still put that one in every now and then.

I mostly indifferent to the rest I'm also not including the offshoots like Tactics and Mystic Quest(which had a pretty awesome final boss theme).

 

[Black Prism Adel]

speaking in matter opinion, i agree that 10 onwards is crap but 10-2 isn't all that bad they give you abilities to learn and a LEVELING system which 10 doesn't!

but on 8 and 9 they're ok, rather they're very story based! i mean the story hits you like a ton of bricks, but they also give you the element of exploration.

 

[LightspeedJack]

Could never get into 8. Too complicated and difficult and I never really engaged with the characters. 9 however is one of my favourites, just a purely awesome, old school JRPG that simple to play but difficult to master. Great plot and characters too.

I don't think it's fair to say 10 and 13 are utter crap, 12 can burn in hell though.

 

[Fazz-2k]

With the release of a gameplay video for ff vs13 of the ps3 i think square-enix are getting back to greatness the battle system is like kingdom hearts best way i can explain It. The only reason ff13 was so bad was cos it was a linear exp till u got to disk 3 then your in pulse but its not a big area and the combat system wasnt that good really if they use the same 1 that is being used for vs13 in 13-2 and make it more open world like every final fantasy before it i think it will be a great game.

But get rid of Hope i hate that kid so much

as for the final fantasy vs13 gameplay video check the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZvdT3QS4k

let me know what u think????

 

[Lord_Nemesis]

I think it was FFX-2 that it started to go down hill. I like all the FF games up until then, FFXII being my favourite! I cried at FFXII and then nearly killed myself after 1 fucking hour of FFXIII.

Unless they make a seriously big back step or amazing re-vamp, it's not worth the dissapointment.