Best final fantasy after 8?

[Folksoul]

XIII. It's a shiny Persona 3. Identical characters going through identical character development and near identical game play. Linear dungeon crawl broken up with cutscenes of character interaction.

Except Persona 3 wasn't on autopilot for twenty five hours and didn't have a terrible skill tree system, had the daily life bits being as enjoyable if not more engaging than the dungeon crawling(oh, and it has dungeon crawling where XIII has a hallway) and didn't drip feed the mechanics until you finally got them all at the very last set of fights.

The open-ended style and time management also let you take on which part of the game you wanted as you wanted it as well vs the strictest linearity its respective franchise has seen. The dungeons themselves are a proceduraly generated tower of different maze-like structures compared to a singular path with the occasional side branch to pick up loot or an extra fight.

Really, I want to know how you drew them to be so alike when the only thing that ties them is genre.

Okay, in no particular order....

Plot is inconsequential compared to character development and JACK is explained properly in both games until act 3.
Villain reveal at exactly 2/3 through. 1st act is all setup and the worst part of both games.
Ice queen becomes mother figure that increasingly fetishized in subsequent appearances.(Lightning-Mitsuru)
Youngest party member has mother die because of older party member with trench coat doing something foolish.(Ken-Shinji) (Hope-Snow)
Ambiguous bordering on blatant homosexual romance between two party members.(Shinji-Akihiko) (Vanille-Fang)
Antagonist who is a major asset to the party. (Cid-Ikutski)
Antagonist who comes to respect/sympathise the heroes after being defeated and commits suicide. (Raag Rosh-Chidori)
Party members have a large character development set-piece(Eidolon Fight-Persona Ascension)
Both games have personality specific combat skill trees for each party member.
They are both 50/50 grinding and cut scene.
Arbitrary grinding cap(Crystarium levels/ Dungeon sickness)
Party's moral choice is "die, or everyone dies."(Handled differently in both games. Elizabeth and Theodore are attempting to create the third option the l'cie had, appeal to divine intervention to undue P3's ending, as of P4 arena.)
Sh*t crafting system that is nothing but a money sink.(Persona fusion- Trapezohedron farming)
Cannot control party in combat aside from leader, only influence types of abilities used.
Constant insta death from generic encounters if battles are not initiated properly. (Active persona weaknesses-Paradigm deck mismanagement)

I can go on for weeks here, and have, to the great irritation of my friends. They are, in a general sense, THE SAME DAMN GAME. That's why I like 13 and its spin offs and not so much the rest of the franchise.

 

[Alarien]

6, 7 and 8 were my favorites. I also loved 1 and 2, but have not played 3, 4, and 5

9 was a good story, hampered by really a really unlikeable and yet ultimately forgettable main character.

10 was terrible. The story was convoluted timetravel/not timetravel/projection bullshit hampered by an awful main character and some very irritating side characters. If the story had revolved around Auron, it would have been a lot better.

10-2 was goofy and stupid. However, it was also fun, because it didn't really take itself seriously. I actually enjoyed 10-2 significantly more than 10.

12 had a good basis for a story. It would have been 100% better if Vash and Penelo didn't exist and the story was shown from the eyes of the real main characters.

13 was... ugh.. was 13 even a FF game? God, that game was horrid. A corridor RPG for 3/4 of the game. Really? A corridor RPG?! Oh, and all the characters were pretty much unlikeable stereotypes. I still can't get over the fact that they had a black man with an afro that was being used as a bird's nest. I mean... I'm fairly forgiving to things that might be considered offensive to others, but holy cow, who greenlit that?

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

Despite the two terrible main character's I really really liked FF XII.
I'm not even a huge fan of the FF games but this one was different enough to keep me interested all the way through.

 

[Cybylt]

Okay, in no particular order....

Youngest party member has mother die because of older party member with trench coat doing something foolish.
Party's moral choice is "die, or everyone dies."
Cannot control party in combat aside from leader, only influence types of abilities used.

I can go on for weeks here, and have, to the great irritation of my friends. They are, in a general sense, THE SAME DAMN GAME. That's why I like 13 and its spin offs and not so much the rest of the franchise.

A chunk of those feel pretty coincidental. JRPGs having a history of not revealing anything substantial for the majority of their plots if not until the final hour. The supporting traitor? That one's been around since the SNES days if not earlier.

"Antagonist who comes to respect/sympathise the heroes after being defeated and commits suicide. (Raag Rosh-Chidori)" Chidori didn't support or sympathize with the heroes as a whole though, she loved Junpei, and only acted in support of him alone. On top of that, it's another pretty common trope in both the honorable warrior type and the antagonist love interest type.

"Ambiguous bordering on blatant homosexual romance between two party members." Again, coincidental since I don't think Shinji or Akihiko were first written as a woman and then changed at the last second like Fang was, even then the relationship never crosses over into that boundary unless you're looking at it way too hard.

"Party members have a large character development set-piece(Eidolon Fight-Persona Ascension)" Revelatory battles and/or cutscenes? Really? Those are properties so unique to these two things that it warrants saying they're nearly identical games?

"They are both 50/50 grinding and cut scene." I think you can fit all of Persona's cutscenes into the length of one or two of XIII's... I mean, I guess that depends on what you define as cutscene but the day to day sim stuff were part of the gameplay, hell you could even call them a type of grind since they were another way of unlocking more persona and many people treated them as such, skipping the dialogue in them and looking up guides to pick only the best answers.

"Both games have personality specific combat skill trees for each party member." Classes. The word you're looking for is classes. Persona didn't invent them and XIII wasn't trying to be like it in their use of them either.

"Sh*t crafting system that is nothing but a money sink.(Persona fusion- Trapezohedron farming)" Except the Persona fusion is central to the game, you won't get very far into the game at all without using it, and it's entirely possible to not put a cent into it. Trapzohedron gives you those shiny final tier weapons but it isn't a necessity.

"Constant insta death from generic encounters if battles are not initiated properly. (Active persona weaknesses-Paradigm deck mismanagement)" Though one comes from the standards of its franchise and the other is from poorly defined systems, and have entirely different executions.

"Ice queen becomes mother figure that increasingly fetishized in subsequent appearances." I know the whole ice queen thing, but mother figure? Where does that play into them? Older Sister type, sure, but mother figure? Lightning's fetishization was always there, it was just that Toriyama's muzzle got looser and looser as the years went on. Mitsuru on the other hand got one bump up between appearances and it was done to Akihiko as well with the constant shirtlessness and innuendo-filled dialogue. All of it intentional and played for laughs. One was done out of silliness and the other was dead set the director jerks off to this character what the fuck are you doing Square... er... ness.

"Arbitrary grinding cap(Crystarium levels/ Dungeon sickness)" Welcome to JRPGS! No really, you're naming a lot of things super common to the genre and then acting as if they are wholly unique to these two games. That may explain your friends' annoyance. Only ones where nothing comes to mind are what I left in the initial quote. Even then the way the games handled some of those, revenge bent kid for example, were handled pretty differently and had wildly different outcomes.

 

[Artina89]

I really liked Final fantasy IX, and after that I have very little to no interest in the series, beyond the remakes they brought out on the DS. I really liked the story and the characters in IX, but I detested Tidus in X, I just found him to be so whiny and he really irritated me. Lulu was pretty cool though.

 

[Aeonknight]

Final Fantasy IX was pretty good, great characters and music (the loading times on battles was a bit much sometimes, but said load times made Regen absolutely broken.)

FFX returned to more turn based combat than ATB, and people really enjoyed the sphere grid system for leveling. The characters weren't awful, but they could be awkward at times. Still worth a go.

Played FFX-2 for a good 30 minutes, but when I saw how they rewrote a main character's entire personality just to fit a Charlie's Angels archetype, I put it down and never gave it another look.

FFXI... my first MMO. Dumped a good 12 years into it if that says anything.

FFXII was the last of the PS2 entries. It was very heavily influenced by Star Wars and FFXI's combat, but it has HOURS of content to do. Whether or not you're compelled to do that content is a different story.

FFXIII... There hasn't been an entry into the series this divisive since FFVIII. Some love it, others hate it.

FFXIII-2 Fixed some of the criticisms with FFXIII, but by adding a time travel feature to the plot, it only made it more convoluted.

FFXIII-3 Didn't play it actually.

FF Dissidia series wasn't a bad little distraction. It's basically fan fiction: the game, but what fan of the Final Fantasy brand hasn't wondered about what it would be like for characters from different games to fight? It also gave us an avenue to finally settle the age old question of which villain was better: Kefka or Sephiroth.

Spoiler

FFVII Crisis Core, if you enjoyed FF7 at all and you don't mind mission based gameplay, this is a must have. It did what was essentially a cliff note in FF7's backstory a lot of justice. Some would even say Zack is more popular than Cloud now as a direct result of this game.

FFXIV, I'll let you know in 12 years....


So! Are my fanboy colors showing through yet?

 

[Sunrider]

As much as I love Final Fantasy X, IX just blows it out of the water if you ask me. Both are fantastic games though, you can't really go wrong with either.

 

[Tiamattt]

9 - Was a funny, cute game that got pretty deep and serious at the end. They really overdid it in the secret stuff though(whoever thought of Excalibur 2 is completely nuts, not to mention the one that took 15 years for people to find) stealing was much more of a pain in the ass than it needed to be and it's limit break system was lousy. I still rank it higher than 8 though

10 - 10 was great, the battle system just worked well enough to be simple yet still have elements to keep things interesting. The voice acting is still heavily debated to this day, for me I like to think of it being tied to their personal growth as characters and that helps the experience quite a bit. And of course the music and graphics were amazing for their time, some of that music will probably stay as some of my all time favorites. It isn't all perfect though as whoever thought of Excalibur 2 crap for FF9 got their hands on the getting the secret stuff part for this game, seriously that person couldn't find the word fun in a dictionary if their lives depended on it.

10-2: I can see all of the various reasons why it turns some people away right off the bat, part of me surprised they were willing to take the risk. But it is still a great fun game if it's given it's leeway. Oh and they weren't so harsh on the secret stuff in this game, which is a big plus for me.

12: This is one of the more heavily debated ones. Personally I didn't like it for a whole mess of reasons (Crappy limit break system, boring "main" character, WAY too many MMO fetching quests, the pain in the ass secrets guy is back etc etc) but I've seen a lot of other people like it so maybe I'm missing something. If they do make a remastered version I MIGHT pick it up since I've heard the job system is better there, but I kinda doubt it since I rank 12 pretty low.

13 series: Ah the crazy ones. I don't think I'm going to talk about this one, lets just say a lot of patience is definitely required.

 

[ExtraDebit]

I guess you can play all the FFs after 8 up to 12 minus the MMO, all the FF after 12 is shit.

Edit: the highlight between 8 to 12 is 9, 10 and 12. They all bring something different and yet fun to the series.

9 is an updated FF to the FF of old.

10 Bring voice acting and movie like cut scene and a pretty good story.

12 had some unique game play and made you feel like part of guardian of the galaxy flying around in your ship causing trouble where ever you go.

I guess you can also check out dissidia and crisis core, it's part of the franchise but not exactly RPG, I really loved dissidia though.

 

[Folksoul]

Okay, in no particular order....

Youngest party member has mother die because of older party member with trench coat doing something foolish.
Party's moral choice is "die, or everyone dies."
Cannot control party in combat aside from leader, only influence types of abilities used.

I can go on for weeks here, and have, to the great irritation of my friends. They are, in a general sense, THE SAME DAMN GAME. That's why I like 13 and its spin offs and not so much the rest of the franchise.

A chunk of those feel pretty coincidental. JRPGs having a history of not revealing anything substantial for the majority of their plots if not until the final hour. The supporting traitor? That one's been around since the SNES days if not earlier.

"Antagonist who comes to respect/sympathise the heroes after being defeated and commits suicide. (Raag Rosh-Chidori)" Chidori didn't support or sympathize with the heroes as a whole though, she loved Junpei, and only acted in support of him alone. On top of that, it's another pretty common trope in both the honorable warrior type and the antagonist love interest type.

"Ambiguous bordering on blatant homosexual romance between two party members." Again, coincidental since I don't think Shinji or Akihiko were first written as a woman and then changed at the last second like Fang was, even then the relationship never crosses over into that boundary unless you're looking at it way too hard.

"Party members have a large character development set-piece(Eidolon Fight-Persona Ascension)" Revelatory battles and/or cutscenes? Really? Those are properties so unique to these two things that it warrants saying they're nearly identical games?

"They are both 50/50 grinding and cut scene." I think you can fit all of Persona's cutscenes into the length of one or two of XIII's... I mean, I guess that depends on what you define as cutscene but the day to day sim stuff were part of the gameplay, hell you could even call them a type of grind since they were another way of unlocking more persona and many people treated them as such, skipping the dialogue in them and looking up guides to pick only the best answers.

"Both games have personality specific combat skill trees for each party member." Classes. The word you're looking for is classes. Persona didn't invent them and XIII wasn't trying to be like it in their use of them either.

"Sh*t crafting system that is nothing but a money sink.(Persona fusion- Trapezohedron farming)" Except the Persona fusion is central to the game, you won't get very far into the game at all without using it, and it's entirely possible to not put a cent into it. Trapzohedron gives you those shiny final tier weapons but it isn't a necessity.

"Constant insta death from generic encounters if battles are not initiated properly. (Active persona weaknesses-Paradigm deck mismanagement)" Though one comes from the standards of its franchise and the other is from poorly defined systems, and have entirely different executions.

"Ice queen becomes mother figure that increasingly fetishized in subsequent appearances." I know the whole ice queen thing, but mother figure? Where does that play into them? Older Sister type, sure, but mother figure? Lightning's fetishization was always there, it was just that Toriyama's muzzle got looser and looser as the years went on. Mitsuru on the other hand got one bump up between appearances and it was done to Akihiko as well with the constant shirtlessness and innuendo-filled dialogue. All of it intentional and played for laughs. One was done out of silliness and the other was dead set the director jerks off to this character what the fuck are you doing Square... er... ness.

"Arbitrary grinding cap(Crystarium levels/ Dungeon sickness)" Welcome to JRPGS! No really, you're naming a lot of things super common to the genre and then acting as if they are wholly unique to these two games. That may explain your friends' annoyance. Only ones where nothing comes to mind are what I left in the initial quote. Even then the way the games handled some of those, revenge bent kid for example, were handled pretty differently and had wildly different outcomes.

Eh, whatever dude. I said I liked a game and compared it to another where the set pieces come suspiciously beat for beat with each other, similar combat gameplay, and emphasis on inter party character dynamics over any "organic" gameplay. You went after me like I threatened to kill your pet. I played XIII first and noticed similarities later when playing P3. This was after I'd played P4, after the Extra Credits episode gushing about it. The first non Pokemon RPG I played was FF XII. The one where I needed a licence to wear a hat. I have zero FF nostalgia goggles. I read up on what the game was about before purchase like any responsible consumer, including mythology, because that was a big part of its announcement. Three and potentially more games all with different stories but sharing the same mythological building seed. I caught all the foreshadowing. Every time the words Fal'cie, Etro, Lindzei, or Pulse was mentioned I got it instantly. The game was a puzzle and I walked in with the border filled.

Is the exposition sloppy? Oh hell yes. No question. Too many writers and executive mandates. The engine/console jump didn't help. Objectively 6.5/10. Did I enjoy it un-ironically and on its own merits, and is it and its sequel(not so much LR) two of my favourite games? Absolutely!

 

[CannibalCorpses]

10 without a shadow of a doubt...excellent game that got plenty of replays over the years.

9 is odd...i played it and all i remember is that shitty card game that drove me mad.

12 was pretty poor in comparison to the rest but it did have some merit...

13 is plain and simple graphics over gameplay.

Is it the story or the game play that make 10 good compared to 9?

I think it's the levelling system that i liked best...the story is just the story and i'm not much fussed about such things.

 

[Keystone]

Here's how I'd rank them, although I honestly don't know what I'd think of some them if I played them now.

FF7: This was the first RPG I ever played, and still my favorite.
FFT: Might be my favorite video game plot of all time, and I really enjoyed the game play.
FFX: I thought the journey was great and really liked the ending. This was the peak of the combat system, imo.
FF8: Everything in the game (mercenaries, int'l politics, spaceships) was awesome imho.

FF9: At first I was disappointed, but I grew to like the game for what it was.
FF6: The first 2/3 or so of the game was great, but I was really disappointed with the last part of the game.
FFX-2: I wasn't expecting to like the game all that much, but it was really quite enjoyable.
FF12: Took me about three years to finish. The game had a lot of good qualities, but the combat was such a chore for me.

FF13: I played this for a couple hours, but got bored and gave up.
FF11: Pretty much as above, but I've found that I don't really like MMORPGs.

 

[dscross]

Here's how I'd rank them, although I honestly don't know what I'd think of some them if I played them now.

FF7: This was the first RPG I ever played, and still my favorite.
FFT: Might be my favorite video game plot of all time, and I really enjoyed the game play.
FFX: I thought the journey was great and really liked the ending. This was the peak of the combat system, imo.
FF8: Everything in the game (mercenaries, int'l politics, spaceships) was awesome imho.

FF9: At first I was disappointed, but I grew to like the game for what it was.
FF6: The first 2/3 or so of the game was great, but I was really disappointed with the last part of the game.
FFX-2: I wasn't expecting to like the game all that much, but it was really quite enjoyable.
FF12: Took me about three years to finish. The game had a lot of good qualities, but the combat was such a chore for me.

FF13: I played this for a couple hours, but got bored and gave up.
FF11: Pretty much as above, but I've found that I don't really like MMORPGs.

What disappointed you about the end of 6, just out of interest? That's actually my fav that I've played...