Concerning Final Fantasy 7, 10, and 12.

[Fugitive Panda]

I have a strained relationship with Final Fantasy, or more specifically, Square Enic. I can maybe manage to convince myself I'm having fun for a little while, but I eventually just give up. The spinoffs on the other hand I can play forever. The Tactics games, Crystal Chronicles, etc.

I own 7 and 8, but never got close to completing them for one reason or another.

10 I own and thoroughly enjoyed. I really liked it's linear progression, it felt like I was really on a constantly evolving journey, and they did a great job crafting and presenting the world. And 10-2 was fun as hell, I absolutely loved the fast-paced battles and the return of the job system.

12 was flawed, but I still love it. Everything about it is really underrated, it has a fantastic story that people seem to outright miss because it's not shoved in their faces, and a great cast that people seem to hate because they're not force fed their background. Granted, when I first picked it up I hated it too, for the same reasons - not enough cutscenes, Vaan, etc - but when I started playing it again later I had a blast and appreciated everything about it so much more. The Gambits and Licenses were the only real problem I had, since they seemed to ultimately invalidate your choices and effort.

Of course, that's not even touching the best FF, 11.

 

[DirgeNovak]

FF VII is a good game. The story is awful, the translation is disgusting and all the characters are completely unlikeable, but gameplay-wise, it's great.

FF X is my second favorite in the whole series. If it weren't for the terrible usage of voice acting (the problem isn't the actual voice acting, but the way the actors were directed, e.g. the laughing scene or all the reaction noises which Tidus and Rikku can't get enough of, as well as the weird pauses between lines of dialogue we see often in older games) and the existence of Rikku, it might have been number one. It also has the greatest combat in any FF game to date.

FF XII was the first FF game I played. I hated it in the beginning, but the story totally hooked me after about 5-6 hours, and the gameplay grew on me as well. I prefer most of the other FFs, but it's still a very good game. Vaan and Penelo can die in a fire, though.

10 had a great story, fun combat, and good music. My favorite in the series.
13 was a pile of steaming shit that I regret getting at midnight release. Worst combat in the series, VERY limited questing options, and WAY TOO MUCH LINEARITY.

I don't get it. Wasn't FF X as linear as XIII? You couldn't go back to previous areas for 95% of the game.

 

[JWRosser]

If you can follow whats going on in that the first time you watch it you're better than I

One of my favourite scenes in the game.

Anyway, I loved FFX, and thought that FFXII was still really good. The main character, Vaan, was a bit wank, but apart from that I really enjoyed it. Final Fantasy VII is also very good, but it's not my favourite - that title goes to IX.

Hell, I don't even think XIII is a bad game! I had fun playing it. Yes, it's the worst one, and at points it didn't really feel like a Final Fantasy game, but I still enjoyed it - although I traded it in as soon as I completed it, whereas I've kept all my other Final Fantasy games and enjoyed several playthroughs on each.

 

[Twilight_guy]

FF is really the biggest name in JRPGs. Obviously they are going to be talked about a lot and opinions are always divided so its just how the dice rolls.

 

[rvbnut]

I hate 7, I dont understand the love for it, I played it, beat it, got everything, then played the others again and found playing IX and X for the 4th time much better with storyline and characters. (ignoring laughing scene)

Yeah that laughing scene is pretty bad.

VII is good, I like the materia mechanic but not the best FF game I've played. X is my fav and XII is close behind. But I can see where people would fall out of the series once playing those games.

 

[Vibhor]

I loved 4 and 6 and thats it. My whole experience with the series summed up.

 

[Lullabye]

I liked 7. Was one of the first 3d rpgs i'd played and quite frankly the story was not much to be had. I did however get very involved with the characters so Aeriths death was probably the first time I ever cried for any fictional characters death ever.
8 I never played, I have a friend who plays it alot. I gotta say it doesn't look that appealing to me but then he says its good and i trust his opinion on these things.
9. Never played. Hear its good.
10.....I hate the characters. I cannot stand teh characters. I'm sorry, but no amount of epic story can get me to like those characters. Gameplay was good though.
10-2 I dont know what to say. Better than 10? Maybe. If so I can't tell.
11 never played
12 I LOVE THIS GAME. More specifically the story and characters. It comes together well. I just pretend Penello and Vaan don't exist whilst I ogle Balthier.
13 Most Linear FF to date. This game played itself(far more than 12 did) and holy christ who gave the go ahead for those characters personas? I have this inexplicable hate for vanille. She's like a fail version of Aerith. Lighting is alright, and its refreshing to have a decent female protagonist(in any game).
My favorite final fantasy, the one I think did it damn perfectly, is Tactics. War of the lions to be exact. Honestly I've played and replayed that game to no end and probably will for many years to come. Great story. Great characters. Great gameplay. Great everything.

 

[Spencer Taylor]

while i have never played VII I have played X and it is easily in the top twenty games list for me. XII Was not very good in my opinion though

 

[Richardplex]

Coming from someone who dislikes JRPGs, I thought FF& was alright, but overrated as heck, and while FFX had afore-mentioned scene, overall it was really good, though a bit repetitive with random encounters. The combat was great, the story good, the characters likeable enough, I liked it. I couldn't complete it because I'm a terrible player, but I still recognise it as a good game. The only JRPG I liked, bar Mother 3. And earthbound if I wasn't so terrible.

 

[Byere]

So far from what I gathered popular opinion is that: 10 and 12 were absolutely wretched horrible games that embodies everything that is supposedly wrong with Final Fantasy now a days, and opinions on FF 7 are like Nicolas Cage in that they don't do middle ground, it is either the greatest thing ever made or it is the single most over rated game in existence and is actually pretty bad.

Am I the only one who thinks every one of those people are talking out their asses? I mean I actually like JRPGs but I think the games range from "yea its pretty good I guess" to "I enjoyed it quite a bit".

I mean take for example number 12. Many criticisms aimed were incredibly over-blow when you get right down to it. Like the art style, I liked the it. It was different, lively, and brought a good deal of character to the world (and ummm yea, Viera, O_O ........ *droool*). People were going on and on that it didn't look like Final Fantasy. Wait what? Name one FF that looks like another (not including squeals). There was also a big uproar that "The game plays itself". Bull, the game ONLY did that if you abused the living crap out of the gambit system and ONLY to a Minor extent. I can think of far worse jrpgs than this (including #8, sorry but that game was pretty damn bad.)

Then you have the big huge debate over #7. Ok so when exactly did this even start? I dont even remember reading any discussions till far into the ps2 lifetime. Yea the game is above average (Others like Legend of Dragoon and Xenoblade did it better in the same console life-span) but I dont see where all the hate/idolisism is coming from.I tell ya the game is a bit nostalgic to me, I mean come on, I grew up playing it how can I not be? To my mind the game did the style more than competently but didn't break barriers.

Seriously where is this coming from? Or is it just because Squenix is just the punching bag of Rpgs? To me I consider each game to be a separate game unto itself with cross over themes, thus I judge each by the game its sel, and taken by themselves they are pretty good, not Fantastic, not Horrible, but just pretty good.

I, too, am a huge fan of JRPGs. I like them because I don't care for loads of action-based combat, I can't stand sports or war games (though I do like some FPS games), etc.
I don't understand why the popular opinion on 10 is that it's a wretched game. I thought it was quite good. X-2 was just a fanboy game though. Still, 10 wasn't bad in any sense IMO, other than the occasional point of bad voice acting/awkwardness (laughing scene...).

In answer to your question of "Name one FF game that looks like another (not including sequels)", I point you to Final Fantasy Tactics/Advance and then point you to FF12. Both are set in Ivalice, both having the same species, the only difference is the storyline, and even then it's about a kid who is pissed off at a bunch of armoured judges and has to fight the monarchy/government.
I fail to see how 8 was worse than 12 though. At the risk of sounding like one of these "popular opinion" people, I feel that 8, while it has its flaws, was a lot more solid than a game who's combat system (while based on turn-based combat) is effectively a hack-n-slash game.
As for why 7 is so iconic, it's because it was the first big game (4 discs and all) on the PS1 that used fully rendered backgrounds with polygon-based sprites. Many games stemmed art styles from that first use of it. Legend of Dragoon, as you exampled, made use of such an art style. As did other later games like Parasite Eve, etc. That aside, the story (while quite mundane and unoriginal, even at that point in time, ("Guy joins rebels, chases big bad guy, finds out stuff about himself and that he's lying to his friends, defeats bad guy") was well written and depthed well. The characters aren't forgettable like in most games. Even in FFVI, a game that is superior to VII, I can't even remember most of the player characters because they're so useless.

So yea, there are reasons why 7 is seen as iconic or over-rated, but, just like you said at the end of your post, it's only your opinion that should matter to you.

 

[scar_47]

7 was my first rpg so theres some nastalga there also it was pretty cool when I was 13 the story gets pretty indacypherable but back then it wasn't such a big deal to have a good story although I'm half tempted to replay it to see how the story holds up and if I can follow it now after years of crazy anime and manga stories. Looking back its not the greates example of an rpg but it broke a lot of ground and should be recognized for that. I've never played the rest of the series except the original FF so I can't really comment there but hearing the argument that it gets good 20 hours in is a bad sign.

 

[Eefness]

I liked 7. Was one of the first 3d rpgs i'd played and quite frankly the story was not much to be had. I did however get very involved with the characters so Aeriths death was probably the first time I ever cried for any fictional characters death ever.
8 I never played, I have a friend who plays it alot. I gotta say it doesn't look that appealing to me but then he says its good and i trust his opinion on these things.
9. Never played. Hear its good.
10.....I hate the characters. I cannot stand teh characters. I'm sorry, but no amount of epic story can get me to like those characters. Gameplay was good though.
10-2 I dont know what to say. Better than 10? Maybe. If so I can't tell.
11 never played
12 I LOVE THIS GAME. More specifically the story and characters. It comes together well. I just pretend Penello and Vaan don't exist whilst I ogle Balthier.
13 Most Linear FF to date. This game played itself(far more than 12 did) and holy christ who gave the go ahead for those characters personas? I have this inexplicable hate for vanille. She's like a fail version of Aerith. Lighting is alright, and its refreshing to have a decent female protagonist(in any game).
My favorite final fantasy, the one I think did it damn perfectly, is Tactics. War of the lions to be exact. Honestly I've played and replayed that game to no end and probably will for many years to come. Great story. Great characters. Great gameplay. Great everything.

Lol, as a guy i really dont see the appeal of Balthier .................. then again I was always oogleing Fran ( .......hot freaking damn, her character is sooooooo awesome! Hot as hell, personality that kicks ass, and is part of a race of only female rabit people .... the mind races). I also love how you can completely ignore characters you hate because it more along the lines of follows the party not specific characters (thank god for the skip cut-scene).

Yea I forced to play 13 and then just up and stopped playing ... couldn't take it anymore (also yes please kill Vanille, Snow, and Hope in a god-damn fire).

 

[Pyroguekenesis]

I like FFVIII, I have tried FFVII and I like FFX and FFXII as well.
Well, technically they each have a unique combat system.
And I enjoy each one cause I like analysing stuff. And it has good music.

FFX - It's definitely one of the more spiritual ones, and perhaps show what happens when we screw too much with technology. "Sudeki Da Ne" wonderful song...and beautiful use of the PS2 graphics...

FFVIII - Military Schools etc, and interactivity in cutscenes! , I haven't played any other game that actually has cutscenes and you can still move around in it...maybe MGS. Oh and Gunblade tapping to pull off extra damage, interactivity again. And who can forget Liberi Fatali!

FFXII - You can atleast see what monsters your fighting now and I forgot since I haven't played for a while... Myst system does piss my off occasionally from time to time..

FFVII - Brought the franchise into the wider market, although I only played up to the first boss....at which I died then got bored. Maybe in terms of storyline was what made it different and interesting. Aeris' death...opps..that was a killer for fans etc.

Looking forward to FF13 Versus, Kingdom Hearts combat system YES!! And Type-0 looks interesting for PSP.

 

[mighty_honour_korea]

BUT I LOOOOOOVE XII!!! How can people say it was bad...

That's how.[/quote]

Sounds like the scene in Short Circuit where J5 learns how to laugh.

 

[simmeh]

stuff

more stuff

I'll offer a different explanation as to why FFVII's story didn't make sense: the translation was a great pile of ass. I've talked to someone who played the Japanese version, and he told me that the story is actually pretty decent and follow-able, but the English translators just butchered it. While I can't comment on the Japanese version myself, I think it's fairly obvious just by playing the English release that the translation is terrible. There are the blatant lines ("This guy are sick", "Off course") that are comical but you can still make sense of, and then there are conversations that seem to be happening in a different game (I remember one at the Chocobo ranch just after you leave Midgar were Cloud says something and then Tifa says the exact same thing, word-for-word).

As for the game itself, it's a very good game that just hasn't aged well. The Materia and Limit Break systems were slick, it had an awesome sounddtrack, the battle and pre-rendered graphics were great for their time, and it had some cool minigames that didn't get in the way of the actual gameplay.

In my mind, though, what it should be most remembered for (yet isn't) is how it epitomizes the transition of console gaming from cartridges to CDs. If I'm not mistaken, part of the reason it was made for the PS1 and not the N64 was because Squaresoft wanted to make a game so huge that it just wouldn't fit on a cartridge.

As for the other games mentioned in this topic, briefly:

- FFX is my favourite in the series, because I wear rose-coloured glasses while playing it. I also really liked the battle system. The ATB system was getting a bit stale after six games, so it was nice to see a change-up. The voice acting was bad at times, but it was only really unbearable in one instance (you all know which). Also, Blitzball was a breath of fresh air after all of those card games from VIII and IX.

- FFXII was hugely disappointing for me. It showed great promise with an intriguing, politically driven plot and a protagonist that was much smaller than the mess he was getting himself into. Unfortunately, it seemed to lose interest in itself, and didn't really go anywhere with any of it's characters. It's the first FF game where I felt that more effort was put into making the sidequests than the main game, and that troubled me.

 

[Biosophilogical]

I liked X and XII, people are simply resistant to change.

Agreed. Though I can't replay FFXII, it just doesn't have much replay value for me. Now X, I've replayed that about 3-4 times, and loved it to bits (though that laughing scene ... grrr)

 

[Jessta]

Didn't like seven because it was slow paced with god awful graphics and somewhat stale story, liked it because at the time it came out there was nothing quite as fancy as it and as opposed to other games like super mario and contra it felt like the beginning of something beautiful and epic and my imagination was able to fill in the rest.
didn't like 10 because the lack of shirts on men, I was like 14 when I first got it so as far as sexual security went I was pretty low on it, loved it for the graphics, the mushy cut scenes, the combat system was enough to wake me up and the level up system kept me interested in it as a game and not just as a story, the music was epic, the aesthetic felt like I was whisked away to some amazing new world.
Didn't like 12 because VAAN and PENELO and that is all... that and its to fucking long, I kind of lost track of what was going on anymore in the middle and was left itching my head. Loved it because for final fantasy games it marked an important part, real walk around exploration and combat, the combat system was amazing and I felt if the world was a bit bigger and it gave me a little more free reign it would be perfect. I loved 12 because it made me dream of how awesome 13 would be if they only fixed the problems of 12.
Basically 12 felt like the ultimate prototype experiment game and 13 decided to just throw its research notes away for a nice impromptu.
Hated 13 because it might as well have been on rails with the ability to go in reverse and combat ended up boiling down to leave a healer in the group get two strikers and tap X as I watch an episode of family guy until the battle is over. It was great until I ran out of episodes of family guy_in existence.

 

[YunikoYokai5]

VII - hated it. I found Cloud to be extremely annoying :/ the story was hard to follow too. I gave up about...20 hours in or something on this game.

VIII - never played...need to grab my brother's copy. Heard good things about it (my brother liked it too) .

IX - my favourite of the series. ^.^ Love the characters, story is pretty good.

X - My second favourite of the series XD some flaws but hey, every game has flaws

X-II - tried it, but it was very eh. Need to watch a walkthrough of it, heard it's not great though

XI - Never played

XII - played about an hour before giving up. I could not stand the combat system X.x I hear it's good though

XIII - played, got near the first Eidolon fight and haven't picked it up since (been meaning to, but its been so long I may need to restart just to remember how everything works XD ). The Paradigms are just confusing for me (my brother completed this game, missing 1 trophy off platinum, and said you get used to them eventually) ...and I don't like the 'you can only control 1 character's actions! And if your leader dies, you all die!' system either...saw a walkthrough though, not a bad game (shrug)

 

[Manji187]

I pray to see the day that everybody realizes that "I liked it" is not an argument.

 

[ramboondiea]

7 was fun, but wasnt as great as people make it out to be.

10 had a good story, but suffered from voice acting and strange caracters, but had some interesting mechanics.

12 was fantastic, infact i love all the ivalice games, i think they were the best crafted, bot story and game mechanic wise, te biggest problem with 12 was shoehorning vaan into the story, who wasnt a bad character but suffered from being shoehorned in, the biggest flaw was those weird abs muscle things