Final Fantasy

[Havra]

I am an obsessive Final Fantasy nut and while I like to say that is the best game ever I accept that it has flaws. I also accept that I am by no means an "original fan" of Final Fantasy series as the first one I played was Final Fantasy VIII.

I wanted to start this thread for three reasons:

1. I wanted to hear what people like and dislike about the line of games. This means all of them, not just the numbered games. If you are busting your pants to rage on about how good Crisis Core is knock your socks off.

2. Final Fantasy is one of the main reasons that I am the obsessive Japanese-loving, Gaming and Manga freak you see before you and I need a place to hang out while I search the rest of the forums.

3.I didn't see another tread of it.


As said, want to know what you think of the games. Anything, anything at all.

Just before the PS2 was released my Auntie gave my brother an I the old Playstation and with it Final Fantasy VIII and IX. I grew up with Final Fantasy nurturing me in my darkest hours and as I hated Primary School I played the game all the time. I wasn't too keen on FFVIII but I loved and still adore FFIX and lucky me the game doesn't seem to get as much attention as the others and the games aspects haven't been re-used as much.

I love the game-play but mind you I like having to grind levels a little. I think the stories are good but are becoming more farfetched the longer the series drags on FFVI being the simplest and easiest to enjoy without ripping you head off. I am slowly distancing myself from the games as FFXII was a big plie of shit for me as I have played for more than 50 hours and am still only a little way through the story. I like the grind but FFXII was ridiculous! I don't even know if I should bother with FFXIII.


I love Final Fantasy but I do think it is going downhill. At what point this happened? Who knows

 

[SlowShootinPete]

I've heard good things about the Final Fantasy series from 7 and before, but 8...

The writing, oh my god the writing was terrible.

Quistis (was it her, I don't remember): "Hey guys, we've got this magic collar here that could maybe possibly take away that sorceress' powers if she wears it."

Rinoa: "That sounds awesome! I'm going to take it, run over to her lair real quick, and meekly ask her to put it on. Delivering our secret weapon directly into the hands of the enemy."

Sorceress: "***** please."

That was painful.

 

[Havra]

I've heard good things about the Final Fantasy series from 7 and before, but 8...

The writing, oh my god the writing was terrible.

Quistis (was it her, I don't remember): "Hey guys, we've got this magic collar here that could maybe possibly take away that sorceress' powers if she wears it."

Rinoa: "That sounds awesome! I'm going to take it, run over to her lair real quick, and meekly ask her to put it on. Delivering our secret weapon directly into the hands of the enemy."

Sorceress: "***** please."

That was painful.

I'm not sure if it was the writing or the translations that were bas but either way the idea of Rinoa tricking the fucking SORCERESS to wear a ring that strips her powers is beyond me.

It was Rinoa that was planning it because she felt trapped and useless. I shouldn't remember but I do.

 

[Vampire cat]

I played III... It sucked... Never played an FF game ever again =3

 

[SlowShootinPete]

I'm not sure if it was the writing or the translations that were bas but either way the idea of Rinoa tricking the fucking SORCERESS to wear a ring that strips her powers is beyond me.

It was Rinoa that was planning it because she felt trapped and useless. I shouldn't remember but I do.

The sniper, who shoots people in the face for a living, suddenly hesitating to shoot a clearly evil woman whose death would save who knows how many innocent lives because he would be "changing history" was pretty special too.

 

[Havra]

The sniper, who shoots people in the face for a living, suddenly hesitating to shoot a clearly evil woman whose death would save who knows how many innocent lives because he would be "changing history" was pretty special too.

Irvine. Hmmm... I didn't like him and it was strange that FFVIII made the start look so melodramatic.

 

[Amnestic]

I wanted to hear what people like and dislike about the line of games. This means all of them, not just the numbered games. If you are busting your pants to rage on about how good Crisis Core is knock your socks off.

The dialogue can often be abysmal. Music can be hit-and-miss. Level up systems often have rather glaring or annoying flaws in them. Stories can come across as a bit clichéd at times.

And they're still some of the best JRPGs on the market, because even though they're flawed they do it very well.

FFVIII was riddled with annoyances and its sole real redeemer was the Triple Triad. Junction system sucked monkeyballs and the scaling enemies were annoying too, not to mention the colossal clusterfuck that was Ultimecia's Castle.

...man it seems like I'm ragging on them a lot in this post. Take it that everything I haven't mentioned I generally liked.

FFX-2's storyline, dialogue, music and characterisation all reeked of poop, but the battle system was great and I adored the Garment Grid.

Tactics is nice, but the intro is always sooooo~ looooooong~.

 

[Mercurius507]

I've played every ff game and I have to say that VIII is my favorite; despite its flaws I just love the junction system. IX was the last good ff because as soon as they hit ps2 the games became insufferable. X was filled with annoying characters; Tidus is still my second most hated character ever (Sora from Kingdom Hearts is my first) and X abandoned the world map. X-2 was the worst ff ever made with its joke story and crappy battle system. XII still had no world map, bland characters and an unoriginal cliche 'defeat the evil empire' story which hasn't been done well since Star Wars. Finally XIII is like a tutorial on how not to make a game, awful battle system, bland, cliche and annoying characters, boring and long-winded story which expects you to read half the damn thing in that stupid codex or whatever its called, bland environments with insanely linear pathways and no shops. But this is just my opinion, I know plenty of people who can list a million reasons about why XIII is the best ff ever but I just can't see it myself.

 

[WhiteHowl]

Things i don't like about FF:
- the fact that it's oozing japanese, and by that i mean cute/fluffy/comic-relief characters that are taken REALLY seriously, serious characters that fall into humiliating or ridiculous situations (the very essence of japanese humor, that i really hate) and entire areas of the game designed over things like that (why hello there, Gold Saucer, pinnacle of bizzaro pseudo-humorous ridicule)
- the relative age of the cast, and how they are more competent than people who should do their job in the first place: a cast of spiky-haired angsty teenagers goes out and defeats the evil plaguing mankind. If this were to happen in real-life, we'd all be facepalming till our faces hurt. Moreso, many of your party members just seem to join you without a properly thought-out reason (see: Yuffie, who joins you because... you're a fucking moron who lets random ninjas who attack you and steal your money join up with you, i guess). Now i know the story is supposed to be light-headed, but if it wants me to take it seriously (and it definitely does), then it needs to make up its mind over whether it's serious or not.

That's all i can think of at the moment, i guess.

The whole character archetypes in Final Fantasy happened when the art and writing direction went from the Amano/Sakaguchi to Nomura/Nojima. It's pretty funny, the franchise became more japanese in all the wrong direction, i.e. pandering to the otaku subculture. Nojima... can't write. At all. I'd say that partly due to the fact that Nomura isn't very creative, but a lot of what gets put out by Nojima is just horrible. FF8 is that perfect example. FF6 has and will always be the best FF until Square actually does something completely different. FF7 at the very least still felt like a Sakaguchi grade work, but the canon somehow got destroyed by the Nomura/Nojima team with their shitty shitty spinoff titles.

Eh, maybe the magic will respark in the Last Story.

 

[UPRC]

Only a few games in the series are really "great" in my opinion. 6 was amazing. For a 16 bit game, it had a beautiful soundtrack. 4, 9, and 13 (in no particular order) are just behind 6 for me.

I didn't think 13 would be that good, to be honest. I'm still playing through it and am almost finished, and I have to say that it shaped up to be a very good game. It was very iffy for a few hours, but it pulled through in the end.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

FFX. Laughing.
"AH HAAA HAAA HAAA." If ever one moment has put me off a series...

 

[Koganesaga]

I've never finished any of them, not 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 7 or 10 or 10-2 or 11 (which I know you can't technically finish but I never reached a point where I would be content enough to call it finished) or 12, and because of that I haven't even bothered with 13, well that and snow looks like a fucking douche, every time I saw him in the commercials I was thinking of all the different ways I could kill him in game.

If I had to pick a favorite, easily 10 for 3 great reasons. First, I actually gave a shit about the plot. Second, it's nice that the summons actually stayed for the fight instead of doing little hit and run *****-boy tactics. Last but not least, Blitzball was the shit, that may have actually been my favorite part of them game. I'm not sure what it was about Blitzball but it was my football to all the raving drunks around America.

P.S. Yes, that was a minor shot at football fans, I don't love the sport or usually the people who enjoy it, but that's my opinion which will not change so suck it up.

 

[Havra]

Things i don't like about FF:
- the fact that it's oozing japanese, and by that i mean cute/fluffy/comic-relief characters that are taken REALLY seriously, serious characters that fall into humiliating or ridiculous situations (the very essence of japanese humor, that i really hate) and entire areas of the game designed over things like that (why hello there, Gold Saucer, pinnacle of bizzaro pseudo-humorous ridicule)
- the relative age of the cast, and how they are more competent than people who should do their job in the first place: a cast of spiky-haired angsty teenagers goes out and defeats the evil plaguing mankind. If this were to happen in real-life, we'd all be facepalming till our faces hurt. Moreso, many of your party members just seem to join you without a properly thought-out reason (see: Yuffie, who joins you because... you're a fucking moron who lets random ninjas who attack you and steal your money join up with you, i guess). Now i know the story is supposed to be light-headed, but if it wants me to take it seriously (and it definitely does), then it needs to make up its mind over whether it's serious or not.

That's all i can think of at the moment, i guess.

I can understand why you don't like the Japanese humor that is make the cute serious and the serious cute but that is one of the things that I liked about the game. I liked that Aerith could make Cloud look like a child with every sentence. However, like all games, it is up to personal opinions.

I agree with you that the ages are off. Although it was good to think "My God! I'm the same age as (insert child's name here)". However, it was scary and very annoying to think that they are smarter and more capable of things than you are. I remember thinking "I'm the same age as Garnet/Dagger/Sarah" then thinking "How can she can rule a kingdom so well?". I always put it down to the fact that the world was different to out own and that if I were back in time a couple hundred years I would have had a child by now.

I've played every ff game and I have to say that VIII is my favorite; despite its flaws I just love the junction system. IX was the last good ff because as soon as they hit ps2 the games became insufferable. X was filled with annoying characters; Tidus is still my second most hated character ever (Sora from Kingdom Hearts is my first) and X abandoned the world map. X-2 was the worst ff ever made with its joke story and crappy battle system. XII still had no world map, bland characters and an unoriginal cliche 'defeat the evil empire' story which hasn't been done well since Star Wars. Finally XIII is like a tutorial on how not to make a game, awful battle system, bland, cliche and annoying characters, boring and long-winded story which expects you to read half the damn thing in that stupid codex or whatever its called, bland environments with insanely linear pathways and no shops. But this is just my opinion, I know plenty of people who can list a million reasons about why XIII is the best ff ever but I just can't see it myself.

I agree, as soon as FFX started I could see something had left the game. I did like FFX though, whenever I wasn't cringing at Yuna's voice that is. Tidus was a pain. I didn't understand blitzball at all.

Also, as a person who has played all of them what one did you like best?

 

[AboveUp]

I agree with you that the ages are off. Although it was good to think "My God! I'm the same age as (insert child's name here)". However, it was scary and very annoying to think that they are smarter and more capable of things than you are. I remember thinking "I'm the same age as Garnet/Dagger/Sarah" then thinking "How can she can rule a kingdom so well?". I always put it down to the fact that the world was different to out own and that if I were back in time a couple hundred years I would have had a child by now.

I think it's more that they understand the average age of their players and like to give them a special over the top escapism world to run free in and change things. It's the same reason most of the characters are flawed in really awkward ways.

I've grown tired of seeing lonely teenage main characters who nobody understand that stand up against the wrongs in society because they like the magic user girl and end up being right all along. It's so... I dunno, teen-y for lack of a better word.

 

[sephiroth1991]

I personally like the story and characters of a FF game, 7-9 are my fav ones. Lately the final fantasy games have not been that impressive in terms of narritive.

 

[Havra]

I personally like the story and characters of a FF game, 7-9 are my fav ones. Lately the final fantasy games have not been that impressive in terms of narritive.

I do like the Play Station Final Fantasy's. Going back to play the earlier Final Fantasy's was a little off putting at first as I wasn't really used to the 16-bit.

And yeah, Final Fantasy has turned a little teen-y but I was a teen playing it. I think Final Fantasy didn't really follow one generation.

 

[Kurokami]

I've heard good things about the Final Fantasy series from 7 and before, but 8...

The writing, oh my god the writing was terrible.

Quistis (was it her, I don't remember): "Hey guys, we've got this magic collar here that could maybe possibly take away that sorceress' powers if she wears it."

Rinoa: "That sounds awesome! I'm going to take it, run over to her lair real quick, and meekly ask her to put it on. Delivering our secret weapon directly into the hands of the enemy."

Sorceress: "***** please."

That was painful.

What collar?

 

[Remzer]

Since FFVII, there have mainly been two types of protagonists in Final Fantasy (I'm voluntarily excluding FFIX and X-2, which I haven't played yet, as well as FFXI, for obvious reasons) :

- the angry, silent, serious, troubled teen who half-heartedly gets involved into something bigger than him/her and then gets through a journey in self-discovery (emotions, friendships, etc...). Cloud, Squall and, from the little I've seen, Lightning. Notable thing they're likely to say: "I don't wan't to do this. This is not my war. Why me? Ah, what the hell, I guess I WILL save the world... *sigh*"

OR

- the energetic, somewhat happy-go-lucky, optimistic, benevolant teen who...(you guessed it)... half-heartedly gets involved into something bigger than him/her and then gets through a journey in self-discovery (emotions, friendships, etc...). Tidus and Vaan, for example (and I'm pretty certain I'd include that tailed dude from FFIX, had I played it). Notable thing they're likely to say: "Wow! Big enemies like I've never seen! We have no chance of surviving this fool's plan! Hah! Not a chance in a million! Let's DO IT!"

They either:

a) get to learn that they're not alone in this world and that there are other beings whose life is also worth something and who might give back what is given to them (love, friendship, etc), in the case of the first type,

OR

b) for the second type, learn the hard way that life isn't just flowers and bees and star-pooping unicorns. They often discover a darker part of themselves and the world they live in, or a strength to fight they never knew they had.


This is CLEARLY overgeneralization on my part, but I feel like it's still somewhat accurate. And the worst part is : it works, to some extent. Those are two archetypes that most teens can related to at some point, I think. Not COMPLETELY, of course, but I know I've been through some dark patches in my teenage years, as well as periods of generalized and inexplicable hapiness and optimism...

I'm currently playing through FFVIII again, and I'll be very honest, it was better a while ago. It's still fun, but yeah, as was mentionned, Irvine and Rinoa messing up the sorceress thing was kind of horrible, as far as writing goes...

Favorite : FFVI. The best, period.

 

[Havra]

- the angry, silent, serious, troubled teen who half-heartedly gets involved into something bigger than him/her and then gets through a journey in self-discovery (emotions, friendships, etc...). Cloud, Squall and, from the little I've seen, Lightning. Notable thing they're likely to say: "I don't wan't to do this. This is not my war. Why me? Ah, what the hell, I guess I WILL save the world... *sigh*"

OR

- the energetic, somewhat happy-go-lucky, optimistic, benevolant teen who...(you guessed it)... half-heartedly gets involved into something bigger than him/her and then gets through a journey in self-discovery (emotions, friendships, etc...). Tidus and Vaan, for example (and I'm pretty certain I'd include that tailed dude from FFIX, had I played it). Notable thing they're likely to say: "Wow! Big enemies like I've never seen! We have no chance of surviving this fool's plan! Hah! Not a chance in a million! Let's DO IT!"

They either:

a) get to learn that they're not alone in this world and that there are other beings whose life is also worth something and who might give back what is given to them (love, friendship, etc), in the case of the first type,

OR

b) for the second type, learn the hard way that life isn't just flowers and bees and star-pooping unicorns. They often discover a darker part of themselves and the world they live in, or a strength to fight they never knew they had.


This is CLEARLY overgeneralization on my part, but I feel like it's still somewhat accurate. And the worst part is : it works, to some extent. Those are two archetypes that most teens can related to at some point, I think. Not COMPLETELY, of course, but I know I've been through some dark patches in my teenage years, as well as periods of generalized and inexplicable hapiness and optimism...

I'm currently playing through FFVIII again, and I'll be very honest, it was better a while ago. It's still fun, but yeah, as was mentionned, Irvine and Rinoa messing up the sorceress thing was kind of horrible, as far as writing goes...

Favorite : FFVI. The best, period.

I understand the generalising but you aren't all that far off storywise. Especially the ones you haven't played. I also think it's not (a) OR (b) it's (a) AND (b)because both of those types of characters are in there.

In FFIX Zidane is more a confident man then an explorer. I liked that there were characters in FFIX that were: "Wow! Look it's amazing!" but they were children.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

I've heard good things about the Final Fantasy series from 7 and before, but 8...

The writing, oh my god the writing was terrible.

Quistis (was it her, I don't remember): "Hey guys, we've got this magic collar here that could maybe possibly take away that sorceress' powers if she wears it."

Rinoa: "That sounds awesome! I'm going to take it, run over to her lair real quick, and meekly ask her to put it on. Delivering our secret weapon directly into the hands of the enemy."

Sorceress: "***** please."

That was painful.

What collar?

I remember it being some sort of round piece of clothing, but not a belt. It's been a while.