Final Fantasy

Soldato
Joined
27 Dec 2011
Posts
5,741
Discuss!!

Apologies, that was lazy. I'm just not the greatest thread starter and wondered what you all thought about the Final Fantasy franchise. Any big fans over here, or any big haters? It's cool, don't hate the player, hate the game and all that.

My favourite is Final Fantasy VII, but to be honest I love all the original PS games, as well Final Fantasy X and X-2 on the PS2. Tactics Advance was incredibly deep and engaging, and I thoroughly enjoyed Tactics Advance 2 on the DS.

Any of you guys ever play Ehrgeiz? It was a fighting game on the PS1 that included Cloud, Tifa, Vincent, RED XIII, Sephiroth, Zack and a character resembling Red XIII. I thought that was pretty neat too.

I recently sampled some of the iPhone iterations (except Final Fantasy III) and have found them tedious at best. Tactics is awful!
 
I'm a huge fan of the 'main' franchise up until FFX. I'm not a fan of the MMO, handheld and spinoff titles.

For me the games have always been about storyline & characters first, world second and gameplay third. I know that sounds strange but RPG combat that is too complex often takes away from the story and ruins the 'flow' of the game. Battles are meant to be quick, sharp but have at least some scope for tactical play (for use in the big boss battles which need to be epic in order to help contribute to said story).

The problem i've got is that around about FFX-2, Square (or rather, Square-Enix from this title onwards) forgot to put effort into the story and characters. Sure XIII had some semblance of a story but the issue was that the majority of characters didn't truly have any stake in this story, for several they just seemed to be along for the ride. In every FF before then each character had a very important reason to be there, sometimes a few would share their reason, but there would always be a variety and they would always be believable (aside from possibly Yuffie in FFVII, but hey, she was an optional character. She was still way more fleshed out than most optional RPG characters).

I was at this point going to talk about X-2, but I don't need to rage myself out at this time in the evening.

Skipping forward to XIII, again the characters were lacking, possibly even more-so than in XII. I actually disliked around 50% of the cast which is unheard of for a FF game. There were always characters i preferred, but never any i truly disliked, realizing this was a rather big blow when i was trying to convince myself it was as good as its predecessors. But now, imo, even the storyline was lacking. Many will jump on me and claim i 'didn't get it', but i strongly disagree. I very much DID get it, i know what happened and i know 'why', but what annoyed me is that the story determined the characters decisions, rather than their personality and motives determining the outcome of the story. For me this is the laziest form of writing, any old mug can make up a few varied characters and stick them in an adventure, what's clever is making their personalities create the adventure.

I moan and moan, you'd think i don't even like Final Fantasy, but i do, i really do. I rate both FFVII, FFX and FFVIII among my top 10 games of all time. I love that the characters can be both strong but flawed, yes there usually is a truck-full of angst thrown in there (I'm looking at you VIII) but it just seems to work. You find yourself loving these characters not in-spite of but because of their flaws and issues. Their blind determination to prove something, be it to themselves, their friends, their family or their enemy is both their downfall but also what makes their nose-dive into near certain oblivion believable.

I love the story-lines, they're often clichéd in many ways, but they were always epic and always contained a surprise you'd never see coming (without using cheap deus-ex-machina writing techniques). They always managed to construct them in a way where it would show the personal interests the protagonists have in their quest, then expand it to show the global (or even galactic) implications of them. This is where both FFXII and XIII fell short (particularly XII), they jumped straight to the big picture without carefully crafting the personal world our protagonists exist in, before showing us the epic scale. As an example, look at Cid in FFVII, he showed up after we had learned of the global implications Sephiroph represented, this should have completely downplayed his very personal motivations for moving against Shinra. But the writers did something very clever, they essentially put the story on hold for a while in a believable way, this allowed you to spend time with the character and learn of his personality and his life and, eventually, the reason he follows you into almost certain death.

I could go on forever but i know already that only the most dedicated of fans will have read this far, so i'll stop going into detail. I'll simply finish by saying that, for me, Final Fantasy is what got me into 'intelligent' gaming, by this i mean beyond shooters and beat em ups. More importantly though, FFVII is the thing that got me into stories in general. I never cared about motivations, intricate plots or character development until i played it. This then led me into a love of both film and books, it's always been very important to me.



Yes, i'm sad.
 
The problem i've got is that around about FFX-2, Square (or rather, Square-Enix from this title onwards) forgot to put effort into the story and characters.
See, the last FF I played was XII, and I stopped for much this reason. I really enjoyed the new style of gameplay, but the plot bored me solid, and the characters were utterly forgettable.

I've got XI Advance, and I'm determined to get into it properly this time, as I've heard it's good.
 
VII was the first one I played and remains one of my best gaming memories ever. I think this was due to it being my first RPG and the age I was at the time (13 or so). It stirs up emotion just by thinking about it and that hasn't and I doubt will happen ever again with a game.
I don't know if that's attributed to the game being great or just all the circumstances mixed in, like being a kid and having no worries etc.
I skipped VIII as I couldn't afford it and have to say I dodged a bullet after trying to play it later on. I've got IX but not played properly yet and I've tried pretty much all of the earlier ones but yet to complete.
X was the only one I bought and didn't finish, I found it utterly boring and had no desire to continue past a stage (cannot even remember a place name or the characters because it had no impact on me) I did enjoy Blitzball though.
I played and completed (Platinum) XIII, I read so many negative things about it but actually I enjoyed it a lot after reflecting. A lot of people crying out about some of the 'missing' features were just nostalgic fans wishing it resembled the FF they loved before. I'm actually glad it was so different as I really don't think I'd enjoy a battle system like the earlier ones any more.
I'm hopefull about XIII-2 and Versus to deliver more excellent gaming.
One of the main things I like about FF is the music score and not one FF has ever let me down in that respect.
 

Epic post and exactly how I feel. 7,8,10 also being my favourite games of the series. I'd write more but cba on my phone.

You can write more though Streeteh, I enjoyed reading that :)

Edit: in before the "VII is best" fanboi train arrives.
 
I really enjoyed XII to be honest.

I quite liked XII, the gameplay and particularly the side-quests were some of the strongest i've ever seen in the series. As i said in my over-long post though, the characters just didn't feel all that interesting and the storyline focused too much on the 'big picture' for me. There was no real fleshing out of individual characters' motivations and backgrounds. Sure they fleetingly explained them but you never really 'saw' or 'felt' any of it. If you could combine the storytelling and characters of FFVII with the gameplay of XII and the graphics of XIII you'd have my perfect idea of a Final Fantasy game.

I even thought XIII was a better than average RPG, it just doesn't feel like Final Fantasy to me any more.

[EDIT] Oh and the really strange way they dealt with chests in XII really bugged me. Make the most powerful weapon nearly impossible to get because i opened a random chest right at the start of the game with no indication it would affect anything? Yeah, because that's fair.
 
Last edited:
Well said streetah, i would like to say im a big fan, ive finished 7,8,9 and 10. But the biggest fan in my house is my 70 year old granfer. He sits up with me pretty much every night for 2-3 hours going through a FF game. Hes currently doing FF7 for the god knows how many times. We got all the FF games from 1-13 except for the online and other handheld ones.
We currently got XIII-2 on preorder, i wont touch it, but it should be out in time just as he finished FF7 again (currently breeding for his gold chocobo) so plenty of time still:D

Me personally im not gonna touch FF again not cause i dont like it anymore but cause ive finished them enough times and i see it on the tv next to me every night:) But yeah its the best franchise ever, wont be beaten.
 
I liked 7 - 12. Loved the loot system of 12, best system implinented. Even if the story wasn't the strongest. Still enjoyable!! The judges were great. I liked the final fantasy 11, it was the first time I'd been able to play online on 360 along side my brother and his friend. Who were playing on PC! 7 and 8 will always be the best 2. I didn't really enjoy 9 very much. And 10 was great at the time, but for some reason its fallen from grace much more so than the others for me. Oh and I'm one of the heathens that also like 13, albeit not to the same level as the predecessors.
 
You see I missed out on the early games. And I don't get why. I had a nes and a snes. I played zelda and illusion of time. Yet I managed to miss out of 1-6 of this and breath of fire. I know its just gaming, but I feel sad at the fact I robbed myself of playing those games back when they wouldn't have been dated :(
 
I found my old FFX game yesterday, got my PS2 together and now I'm about 5 hours into it and damn its bringing back memories... FFX = Best game I've ever played.
 
VII, VIII and X were all excellent games, so much so i still occasionally listen to the OST's for nostalgia. (HATED IX with a passion!! :/) also tactics: WOTL for psp was soooooo epic. i was so gutted to find out i mistakenly traded in breath of fire 3 for psp...and it had my tactics disc in :'( ergh. need to really pick it up again. such an awesome game with so many classes and abilities!

all in all if i had to choose my favourite FF game, it would obviously be 7. so many great memories playing that back in 97/98. i wish i could re play it with an erased memory :(
 
A lot of the FF series have been reduced to £3.99 each on the PSN store. Tempted to pick up a few of them but does anyone know if the versions on the PSN store are the ones which have been updated throughout the years?
 
If you look at the hotukdeals thread (and the huge heat the deal has), it really is a true testament to how loved the original I-IX games are (and how unloved, the current gen games are).

Don't worry, I won't bring Final Fantasy XIII into this thread as long as you (plural) don't.
 
I badly want to get into either 7, 8 or 9 but i just don't think i could handle the graphics in this day and age and i'm not sure id enjoy them as much as i think.

My first and only JRPG was Final Fantasy XIII and i loved it, which makes me believe i won't enjoy these games at all as it was more fast paced combat rather than turn based :p
 
My first and only JRPG was Final Fantasy XIII and i loved it

gQCdc.gif
 
Back
Top Bottom