Square Enix Unveils Gargantuan Final Fantasy Anniversary Box Set

[gim73]

Just out of curiosity, can you point me to the similarities between Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII, other than extremely broad things like "They use big swords"?[/quote]

FF VI: "Focuses on a group of rebels as they seek to overthrow an imperial dictatorship."

FF VII: "Focuses on the eco-terrorist rebel organization AVALANCHE in their quest to stop the world-controlling megacorporation Shinra."

FF VIII: "Focuses on a group of young mercenaries who are drawn into an international conflict, and seek to protect the world from a sorceress manipulating the war for her own purposes."

Powerful group doing bad things, usually a government or big business. Rebels join forces to stop them. Every Final Fantasy game ever made.[/quote]

Wait, Final Fantasy is a rip-off of Star Wars? I'm surprised George Lucas didn't sue.[/quote]

Yeah, because George Lucas was telling an entirely new story with star wars...

What the final fantasy games have is interesting stories, combined with great combat systems and fantastic music. Sure, FFXIII was linear as crap and you essentially couldn't interact with any NPC for the entire game, but it still had great music and a chocobo in the fro... Final Fantasy X was essentially a linear path to Zanarkand too, but it didn't really feel all that restrictive because you could use the airship and go back to earlier places, plus the world felt larger.

Don't get me started on FFXI. That game was great. The only things that held it back was the gil-farmers camping all the rare mobs and their insistence on mixing the populations of all the servers, forcing you to use the auto-translate feature to get anything done in a party. Didn't really bother with FFXIV, and I'm kinda miffed they made another numbered FF an MMORPG.

Long and short of it, people generally love it if they like RPGs, and hate it if they don't like RPGs, or don't know exactly what an RPG is.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

For some reason I thought "11 pounds" was the price...

Basically a Final Fantasy fan's dream. . . Too bad all the fans stopped caring around the time FF X came out, about 11 years ago. I have FF I on the PSP, as well as FF IV, and FF VI and VII on the PSN.

Minus the bad games in the series, i.e. FF II, VIII, X, XII, and XIII, I would be paying for FF III, V, and IX. FF V and IX available on PSN for $10 USD each, and I can buy a used Nintendo DS with a copy of FF III for about $40 bucks including shipping.

This is just a terrible deal, ladies and gents.

I don't know why you would pay $40 for a used copy when a new one is $17 on amazon. It's also available on Android and iOS for $15.

$40 bucks for a copy of FF III and a used DS to play it on, since I do not have one myself.

 

[Aeonknight]

Twenty five years of--at best--mediocre, cloned and repackaged snooze fests. Nice.

Just out of curiosity, can you point me to the similarities between Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII, other than extremely broad things like "They use big swords"?

FF VI: "Focuses on a group of rebels as they seek to overthrow an imperial dictatorship."

FF VII: "Focuses on the eco-terrorist rebel organization AVALANCHE in their quest to stop the world-controlling megacorporation Shinra."

FF VIII: "Focuses on a group of young mercenaries who are drawn into an international conflict, and seek to protect the world from a sorceress manipulating the war for her own purposes."

Powerful group doing bad things, usually a government or big business. Rebels join forces to stop them. Every Final Fantasy game ever made.

If all of FF7's plot took place on Disc 1, you'd be spot on.

But I'm sure your opinion would be harder to prove if you didn't overgeneralize the games. I'm guessing the Persona series is nothing but the japanese high school student version of Pokemon too right?

Seriously, can't you just say "meh Final Fantasy isn't for me" rather than try to burn it down for the rest of the people who enjoy it?

 

[the_green_dragon]

They could be bothered to collect them all, but they couldn't be bothered to make them all playable on the same device? Pass. If there was a "All of them for the PC" or heck even just a "All of them for the PS3" bundle, I might be interested, but on four separate consoles, none of which I own and one of which (The PS1) is not exactly common anymore? Nope.

Can't the PS3 run PS2 and PS1 games?

I know PS2 can run PS1 games.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Did anyone else notice that there are apparently four discs dedicated to FF VII in this release? The American version only had three discs, and since the International version is just the American version translated back into Japanese (or, more accurately, with the Japanese script reinstated), I sincerely doubt that it was four discs long, either. So there it is: what's on the extra disc?

Anyway, this is an awesome boxed set. Why does the coolest Final Fantasy stuff never make it out of Japan?

 

[Erja_Perttu]

They could be bothered to collect them all, but they couldn't be bothered to make them all playable on the same device? Pass. If there was a "All of them for the PC" or heck even just a "All of them for the PS3" bundle, I might be interested, but on four separate consoles, none of which I own and one of which (The PS1) is not exactly common anymore? Nope.

Can't the PS3 run PS2 and PS1 games?

I know PS2 can run PS1 games.

Nope. Unless you get a specific old version of the PS3, it's not backwards compatible. It's one of my biggest gripes with the damn machine, I'd love it to pieces if it would do it. Damn you Sony... DAMN YOU!

OT: It's gorgeous and lovely and I already own everything in it already. I don't get it. It's only selling point is that is looks pretty. That's just rubbish.

 

[Tropicaz]

I got excited cos, as others said, I thought I might get them all on 1 console. Would have bought it had they all been on 1 console, but not bothering now. I already have most of them anyways.

 

[superspartan004]

Im ridiculously surprised how many gamers forget that ALL PS3 systems are PS1 backwards compatible, so if all you have is a PS3 you can play everything except III, and X-XII.

 

[Char12]

Im ridiculously surprised how many gamers forget that ALL PS3 systems are PS1 backwards compatible, so if all you have is a PS3 you can play everything except III, and X-XII.

Really? I thought only the 60gb models were.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

The flaw in the formula is anyone that cares about the anniversary probably already has most or all of those games.

Yeah...

As a long-time fan (didn't like FFXIII so much, but still) this definitely has a certain appeal, but I already own all of those games (except for FFV and FFXI) in some form or another, so I don't see how I could possibly justify this purchase.

I suppose I could try to sell my old games on eBay to re-coup some of the cost, but there are a lot of problems with that approach. I wouldn't be okay selling them until after I bought this, there's no guarantee that people would buy my old games for a good price, and my old games are rarer and have more collectible value (as well as sentimental value).

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I'd like to reference the Megaman Collection [http://www.amazon.com/Mega-Man-Anniversary-Collection-Playstation-2/dp/B00019HNNC] and Megaman X Collection [http://www.amazon.com/Mega-Man-X-Collection-Playstation-2/dp/B0009XBWY6] here. Despite both of these having games that were on a variety of platforms (NES/SNES/PSX), they managed to consolidate it all onto a single format (PS2). And they cost me $20 a piece.

So why was this so bloody impossible for Square to do for something that costs more than twenty times as much? I'm fairly sure (if nothing else) that they could have the PS3 just straight up emulate anything on the PS1 or PSP. And would it be that hard to just recompile the PS2 ones? This is sheer madness.

Agreed. You could fit so many of those game on one Blu-Ray. There are plenty of current-gen collections, such as Prince of Persia Trilogy with THREE PS2 games on ONE PS3 disc.

It could easily be FFI-FFVI on a disc, FFVII-FFIX on another, FFX-FFXII on another, then FFXIII to itself. And that's being relaxed about it, you could probably cram even more. I wouldn't be surprised if FFI-FFIX could all fit on one disc. Also, you could play them all on one system, which is a BIG draw for PS3 owners, and most hardcore FF fans (to whom a collection like this would appeal) are likely PS3 owners.

 

[superspartan004]

Im ridiculously surprised how many gamers forget that ALL PS3 systems are PS1 backwards compatible, so if all you have is a PS3 you can play everything except III, and X-XII.

Really? I thought only the 60gb models were.

Those are the only ones that are PS2 backwards compatible, and they run any Sony Console game, but any and all PS3's can run PS1 games.

 

[Manji187]

One nostalgia-based cash grab to recover some financial losses, Squeenix?

 

[JasonKaotic]

...What. Come on. After all my effort to get together every Final Fantasy, Squeenix are throwing out a box set containing all of them? And I can't brag about it anymore?
I feel empty now.

 

[crazyrabbits]

Did anyone else notice that there are apparently four discs dedicated to FF VII in this release? The American version only had three discs, and since the International version is just the American version translated back into Japanese (or, more accurately, with the Japanese script reinstated), I sincerely doubt that it was four discs long, either. So there it is: what's on the extra disc?

Anyway, this is an awesome boxed set. Why does the coolest Final Fantasy stuff never make it out of Japan?

IIRC, the International version fourth disc had bonus supplemental information, some map images and character sketches. It seems like they just ported this over without thinking about disc space concerns - you could easily put the entirety of VII and its bonus discs on one Blu-Ray. What a waste of space.

 

[mirasiel]

Pity I only have an Xb360 & a PS2, thanks square but no thanks.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

It's a pretty nifty idea, but I already have all of these games so... not really worth it for me. It's also so expensive that I can't imagine anyone wasting their money on this. I imagine anyone that's an FF fan still has copies of their old games laying around, and if you're not an FF fan, why would you drop such a huge amount of money on this?

Now if they sold all of the extra stuff separately that'd be cool, otherwise I could see only see this being worth it for serious collectors. If any of my friends bought this, I'd be a little disappointed in them.

 

[Doom972]

Couldn't they get all of these games to work on the PS3? I'm sure it's not a problem for long-time fans (who probably already have these games), but other people might decide it's not worth the bother because of the need to have 4 different consoles to play all the games.