Final Fantasy

[SirPumpkinLongshanks]

"It was bad, but compared to other bad things it was ok" I'm not buying it. Just because it was slightly better compared to shit doesn't mean it's not bad. IV was nothing special. It had terrible dialogue and terrible characters. It wasn't even the translation's fault. The script was just bad.

Eight was good, nine...I'm honestly confused as to how anyone can like it. They tried to hard to make it an MMO full of grinding or something. The single player lacked everything that I liked about DQ while the post-game stuff was just dull even though everyone said it was the main reason to get the game, to which I replied that a game shouldn't bank on it's post-game content to be good. Nine was entirely the series trying to be something it wasn't. It tried to be a final fantasy game. I'm glad they kept puns in though. Zere Rocks made me smile.

That's the way it always worked for video games. Now it doesn't hold up because we've come a long way since then. We don't have the memory constraints we had with cartridges, graphics have improved, we can include voice acting when appropriate, etc. FFIV came about when the medium was much younger and early attempts at anything are going to be pretty clumsy. It doesn't hold up at all today-its only merit is nostalgia-but for the time it wasn't that bad. Standards evolve with a medium.

And note that every game had a shitty story compared to other media back then, which is the only thing I made a direct comparison to. Even classics like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger would belong square in the kid's aisle if they made a novelization (without drastically expanding on the premise). It really wasn't until the PSone era that we got jrpgs with some really deep and engaging storylines, like Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross. Those could easily stack up against novels and films. (And Chrono Cross would make a fantastic novel with a little re-working.)

Regarding DQ, to each his own. At least the DQ series hasn't put out an abomination like FFVIII. I know FF games are all different from one another but that felt like it belonged to a different IP.

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

Meh, have you played the old final fantasies recently?

I have been working my way through them recently and just hit x-2 (I've already palmed it off on the wife, who seems to like it). my opinion?

short version.
The series has never had an overall best period. I love these games but they aren't as good as we make out. The biggest achievements were technical, not as games. Honestly the best JRPG's I've played are (predictably) chrono trigger and star ocean 2 , the only final fantasies on par are, I think, 6 and 12.

longer but concise version.
The first four games haven't aged well at all and the stories are poor. As significant and impressive as they were at the time all the context that culture at the time granted them is gone. Replaying those four was a blow, like watching eighties children's TV today as an adult it just ruined the memories gained from my bootleg translations.

5 has solid gameplay but really weak plot

6 had a fantastic plot, fantastic characters and really solid gameplay

7's made out it was a political storyline but was just a standard big monster hunt and quite badly told (very enjoyable mind) I love it but find it hard to justify to anyone.

8's plot was utter nonsense and the junction system was so very,very broken.

9 was a nice whimsical game with a solid storyline and nice levelling system, I'd use it as the benchmark for final fantasy average. It just felt a bit old somehow.

I think 10's plot was a wasted opportunity. such a fantastic opening. Such a lame mid section.

x-2 was an abomination, less said the better.

12 is just brilliant I'm sure some people ***** about the story simply because it's not typical JRPG fodder. Not being the lead man probably put a lot of people off it too but I think playing a boy being swept along by politics made the story better. the only issue is that it should have had internationals grid system from the start.

13? I dunno, it's good but I just haven't given it the time it needs.

FF doesn't need a rest, we just need to stop holding up unreasonable expectations for it. It's square's platform for experimenting and it's not always successful.

You gotta bear in mind, they cant constantly pump out the same game with updated graphics, that would get very boring very fast.... if they did the same thing all the time, itd soon get boring and repetitive, so they need to keep things a bit fresh and spice things up a bit..... which i think will apply to the upcoming FF titles, you know what i mean?

Anyone else agree?

wholeheartedly

 

[Daedalus1942]

It seems to be that the final fantasy games have been getting worse and worse since FF10, but the last 2 games especially have been disasters. Is final fantasy really going to go on forever, or is it on it's last legs.

For me, as much as I love the series, I think that they just need to leave it alone for a while. Maybe they can reboot it in a few years with new ideas and a new staff, but the Final Fantasy franchise has become bloated and needs to take a break for a while. Thoughts?

wait... apart from throwing you in the deep end and the subscription fees, what's so bad about Final Fantasy XIV?
I doubt you've even played it. Give it a chance before you judge something.
-Tabs<3-

 

[Safaia]

I went to E3 a few years ago, probably 2006 after the Treasures expansion for FFXI, and I was at the SE booth. They were doing trivia for the games to win raffle tickets to get free stuff and everything. I remember clearly that a guy from the SE booth said "well we like to forget FFX-2 existed." Granted it was just a guy running the booth, I don't know if he was an actual employee, but they knew that the series started to jump the shark even back then.

At the same time, however, I don't think XII or XIII have been as memorable for me. I played XI for years so I guess I didn't dislike it or anything. Like most people I just never really thought of it as a final fantasy. The XIV beta I was in was horrendous though. It was nothing but server issues and horrid bugs. There was a point where beta testers were emailing patches to each other because the client was so bad. If your beta testers have to do that then you're doing it wrong SE.

I'll still enjoy the games and I'll still play them just because I do like the series so much but at the same time I think SE should shift it's focus to other things. The World Ends With You was amazing and deserved much more time in the spotlight. Releasing information on more Kingdom Hearts games. Jumping into the Chrono worlds again. They have other material they could work on as well as doing the final fantasy games.

Oh and releasing XIII-versus since it was revealed at that last E3 I went to in 2006.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Meh, have you played the old final fantasies recently?

I have been working my way through them recently and just hit x-2 (I've already palmed it off on the wife, who seems to like it). my opinion?

short version.
The series has never had an overall best period. I love these games but they aren't as good as we make out. The biggest achievements were technical, not as games. Honestly the best JRPG's I've played are (predictably) chrono trigger and star ocean 2 , the only final fantasies on par are, I think, 6 and 12.

Excellent post. I pretty much completely agree with you. FFXII is the game in the series I had the most enjoyment out of by far and it's still a very flawed game. FFXII wasn't even that different once you know what's going on under the hood of the game; FFXII combat-wise is the exact same thing as its older FFs. In FFXII, instead constantly going through menus to attack, heal, etc., you use the gambit system to stay out of the menus. The gambits are just doing what you would've done anyways. My tank is at <40% of health, so I'm going to heal him or I'm going to raise by dead character. There's no difference except you don't have to go through menus, which is completely outdated now. I tried playing through FFVI way back when it came out but I just couldn't because I HATE HATE HATE random battles; fighting enemies every 3 steps in a burning house is just bullshit. FFX is such an overrated game it's not even funny; no matter how much you like the story or characters, the gameplay is just bad. And, RPGs aren't games that can be carried by story alone like Heavy Rain, there's 50+ hours of GAMEPLAY in a standard JRPG. If the gameplay fails, the game fails no matter if it has the greatest story ever told featuring the greatest characters ever.

 

[zehydra]

lol, could it be THE FINAL FANTASY????

lol. had to say it. if someone ninja'd me then congrats.

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

IX was superb for its time, it was the best of old and new and I really wish we'd seen more games in this vein. It's still good today but again, it hasn't aged as well as the 2D entries. X was... God. It wasn't as big of a mess as VIII in my opinion but again, there were the elements of something great but they didn't bring it together. As an FFIV, first of its kind sort of thing, I can admit that it has its merits.

You know there's a reason that X is the only FF game with a true sequal. Honestly it was my favourite Final Fantasy game, that and Kingdom Hearts are pretty much what my PS2 years consisted of.

The thing about the Final Fantasy series that sets apart from other is that each game is completely different. The characters, story, battle system are all overhauled after each game and we are left each time with just Gil, Moogles, Chocobos and Cactaurs to remind us that yes, Square Enix have made XIV other games by this title.

face it; if there was no such thing as the Final Fanasty series but all these games were released regardless yet under a different name we wouldn't even be having this conversation, because half of us wouldn't have played these games. What Square have done was intelligent, each new game in the series gets the hype of being a new FF game, while still being it's own game in itself (X2 excepted - but we don't talk about that).

The Final Fantasy series is by no means done, I think it is just a matter of figuring out where they want the series to go and then you know, making it go there. Oh and they should hurry the fuck up and tell me when KH3 is coming out so I can save up for a PS3 accordingly...

 

[-SazhKatzroy-]

You know there's a reason that X is the only FF game with a true sequal.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
Fortress (FFXII)
(I'm leaving out all those shitty VII Sequel movie/TPS...things)
....................
Fanboyish Douchebaggery aside.

I had typed up a long explanation on my thoughts on all games in the series.

Long story short is that while I love all the Main FF games (Including XII, XIII, and VIII which I had my middle name legally changed to Leonhart, true story) the "True Fans" Won't be happy unless they release a stream of VI and IX clones because it "became too much about substance and no story" and the "Nomura Era Fanboys/Fangirls" won't be happy unless they "Remake teh Fenal Fantasy VII on teh PS3....Sephy is god"

We all need to just play the games for what they are worth and stop holding each individual game that doesn't meet up to whatever impossibly high standards were set by whatever game is your favorite game...There's a reason that none of the sequels are unrelated.

Final Fantasy is at best an anthology, a collection of seemingly unrelated stories that are in fact related by certain underlying currents/plot elements and cliches and the more you ***** about the games you don't like instead of just i don't know....do something more constructive with your time (insert time waster here).

...I've ran out of stuff to say so...i'mma go back to watching some more Zero Punctuation....Bye y'all!

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Final Fantasy has been declining in quality since FF6, but thats because FF6 was so bloody amazing. I'm a massive fan of Final Fantasy but to be honest I kissed that series goodbye after FFX. There are much better Jrpgs on the market now (Persona 3/4, Resonance of Fate, The World Ends With You etc.) and Final Fantasy is lagging behind in innovation, creativity and overall originality.

I mean FF13 was literally running down some corridors for 30 hours finding a big open space and then going right back to running down corridors for the last 15 hours. The charm has left this series alongside Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobou Uematsu (who by the way are making very good rpgs for the new company "Mistwalker")

I'm sorry...Resonance of Fate? Better than Final Fantasy? I haven't played persona and I'm willing to admit that TWEWY could possibly be better than FFXIII but RoF really isn't that great, yeah it has some nice little features but as a whole game it's generally bog standard.

In addition, Mistwalker has made 2 games, Blue Dragon was awful and Lost Odyssey, while enjoyable, was still very much just above average.
Also Nobou is nothing to do with Mistwalker, he gets commissioned from his own company now so expect his awesomeness to be doing soundtracks for a lot more games.

 

[Jonesy911]

Final Fantasy has been declining in quality since FF6, but thats because FF6 was so bloody amazing. I'm a massive fan of Final Fantasy but to be honest I kissed that series goodbye after FFX. There are much better Jrpgs on the market now (Persona 3/4, Resonance of Fate, The World Ends With You etc.) and Final Fantasy is lagging behind in innovation, creativity and overall originality.

I mean FF13 was literally running down some corridors for 30 hours finding a big open space and then going right back to running down corridors for the last 15 hours. The charm has left this series alongside Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobou Uematsu (who by the way are making very good rpgs for the new company "Mistwalker")

I'm sorry...Resonance of Fate? Better than Final Fantasy? I haven't played persona and I'm willing to admit that TWEWY could possibly be better than FFXIII but RoF really isn't that great, yeah it has some nice little features but as a whole game it's generally bog standard.

In addition, Mistwalker has made 2 games, Blue Dragon was awful and Lost Odyssey, while enjoyable, was still very much just above average.
Also Nobou is nothing to do with Mistwalker, he gets commissioned from his own company now so expect his awesomeness to be doing soundtracks for a lot more games.

Yes I do believe Resonance of Fate is better than all the recent Final Fantasy's, so was Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. I didn't even like Blue Dragon that much at all but at least it was average, Final Fantasy 13 however was far far below average in my opinion.

Also play Persona, they're so much better than Final Fantasy its ridiculous. It's good to hear the Uematsu has his own company, I look forward to hearing him in many more games now

 

[Jonesy911]

You know there's a reason that X is the only FF game with a true sequal.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
Fortress (FFXII)
(I'm leaving out all those shitty VII Sequel movie/TPS...things)

HEY! Final Fantasy: Advent Children Complete was a good movie :I

 

[GundamSentinel]

I loved XII and XIII. XII is my overall favorite. I know that makes me a small minority, but what the hell. People should stop snobbing about how everything was better in the past and accept that things should change.

 

[JWRosser]

FFXIV does seem like a complete fail.

It is true that the older Final Fantasys were better. I still really enjoyed FFX, and even FFXII was a good game albeit a fair amount of flaws. FFXIII was ok...I think it was worth playing but now I've completed it I probably won't play it again, unlike FFVII - X, which I can play over and over again. FFX-2 was what you would expect from a spin off...poor with some redeeming qualities (I liked the battle system) but yeah, it seems that this could well the THE Final Fantasy....and this is coming from a huge fan of the PS1 generation games.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

FFXII was easily my favorite Final Fantasy, and is probably my third or fourth favorite game of all time.

Yes, Vaan sucked. But in all honesty, I think I've hated every FF "main" character since 7. Cloud, Squall, that monkey dude, Tidus, and now Vaan, they all SUCKED.

But what FFXII does better than any of those games, with the arguable exception of MonkeyDude, is put him in the background. He's the player character, but he's not the MAIN character. The story isn't about him, and he only exists as a witness.

Regardless, he's an annoying tool, and all of the worst moments of the game are him. To be fair, some of that loathing isn't even the character...it's the appalling audio quality of the voice overs. Everyone sounds like they're talking into soup cans. So I'd like to believe that with better sound, maybe the character would be less annoying.

I don't even know how to distill what I loved most about the game. I really liked the Gambit system. Yes, it's essentially a system that plays the game for you, but there are so many options and conditions that it turns into a mini-strategy game all by itself. The more you want the system to work for you, the more work you have to put into it to make it work. It's pretty satisfying when you find the right balance.

The other thing I really liked about it was the fact that you could access just about any area at any point in the game, even places you had no business going to, and it doesn't adjust the levels of the enemies. Sure, you can run through the Necrohol early in the game to grab the Zodiac spear, but only at your own great risk.

I think ultimately the reason I liked it so much was that it just felt a lot like FFXI to me. I liked FFXI a lot, but didn't end up playing it a whole lot, and by the time I tried to get back to it, it was totally dead. So FFXII filled that void.

 

[Bakuryukun]

I have enjoyed the Final Fantasy series since I was young, and continue to do so. I thought 13 was alright not the best for certain but also doesn't really deserve all the rabid hatred that it gets.

That seems to be a consistent problem too, 7 has a similar issues, It's a pretty good game, but now people can't help but either try to kill it with fire, or put it on an impossibly high pedestal as the pinnacle of human creation, both of which I consider ridiculous. I'm not saying everyone should like the damn thing, but so many people don't even give it a chance, and when some people DO they're all like "THIS IS NOT AS GREAT AS I WAS TOLDED" now there seem to even people who hate on 7 as if it gives them gamer cred, it's all so bloody ridiculous.

With the exclusion of the online titles, the orginal NES version of 2 and some of the spin-offs, I've found something to enjoy in just about every FF title even FFX-2 with it's ridiculous and horrible, plot, atmosphere and music, had a pretty nifty Battle and job class systems.

I'd say the bigger issue then that of a supposed "decline of quality" is that video game fans are becoming bitter creatures of hatred, hating on anything that does or doesn't change, only occasionally breaking the surface to actually take the time to LIKE something once in a blue moon.

 

[-SazhKatzroy-]

I have enjoyed the Final Fantasy series since I was young, and continue to do so. I thought 13 was alright not the best for certain but also doesn't really deserve all the rabid hatred that it gets.

That seems to be a consistent problem too, 7 has a similar issues, It's a pretty good game, but now people can't help but either try to kill it with fire, or put it on an impossibly high pedestal as the pinnacle of human creation, both of which I consider ridiculous. I'm not saying everyone should like the damn thing, but so many people don't even give it a chance, and when some people DO they're all like "THIS IS NOT AS GREAT AS I WAS TOLDED" now there seem to even people who hate on 7 as if it gives them gamer cred, it's all so bloody ridiculous.

With the exclusion of the online titles, the orginal NES version of 2 and some of the spin-offs, I've found something to enjoy in just about every FF title even FFX-2 with it's ridiculous and horrible, plot, atmosphere and music, had a pretty nifty Battle and job class systems.

I'd say the bigger issue then that of a supposed "decline of quality" is that video game fans are becoming bitter creatures of hatred, hating on anything that does or doesn't change, only occasionally breaking the surface to actually take the time to LIKE something once in a blue moon.

I couldn't agree with you more!

 

[TheSupremeForce]

Why would Final Fantasy need a reboot? It's already the most varied "series" of games out there. Of course, that's much of the reason why "fans" complain so often. People with different tastes are going to be drawn to the games in the series that offer what they want.

 

[CrankyStorming]

You know what they should do? Make a Final Fantasy game with a properly original aesthetic. If they keep changing up the mechanics every week then why does it always have to be the same colour pallet, environments and architecture all the time? Seriously, FF6, 7, and 9 were the only ones that didn't look like the rest of the series but 8 and everything since 10 have overused cyberpunk-realism so much that it's become as predictable as my attack strategy in a typical instalment. Perhaps a bit of '20s-esque art-deco would be nice for number 15, maybe some charachetured people.

 

[Rewold]

I like them fine. Though I'd like them to go back to their roots just like in FFIX. I'm starting to look for other JRPGs aswell...Any suggestions for great JRPG's with awesum story for PSP and PS3? D:

 

[KILLERTHING]

I thought XIII was great (playing it right now actually) but ive noticed its a marmite game as people seem to love it or hate it.

Shame they cut so much out though