Square freeforall

[The Yosemite Bear]

best over all square RPG

best lead male
best lead female
best supporting male
best supporting female
best magic system
best experience/advancement system
best combat system
best story
best ceneima.

[Sam Or I]

I have not played all Squares RPG's, but I will answer my best,

you should also include best villian. It is just as/more important than the lead


Male lead: I like Squall. I know most don't, but I did.

Female Lead: It will go with Rhinoa.

Best Villian: Delita, For many different reasons, cunning, and planning, but most of all. He succeeds.

Male Supporting: I like Auron.

Female Supporting: Aeris.

best magic system: I liked the FF VII and linking the magics together

best advancement system: I liked FF Tactics

best combat system: FF Tactics

Best Story: again FF Tactics

best cinima:FF VI (III) who can forget the opera scene. Its not all 3d, but this one still rings in my head.

[Sam Or I]

I forgot, best overall is Final Fantasy Tactics, it is the only one which I can play over and over again and still be entertained.

[NeoGoomba]

Best Lead Male: Final Fantasy Tactics guy, I forget his name.
Best Lead Female: Terra
Best Supporting Male: Auron
Best Supporting Female: LuLu and her massive cans
Best Story: Final Fantasy Tactics
Best Combat System: Chrono Trigger
Best Villain: Kefka
Best Badass: The Magus

[SirNitram]

Best Lead Male: Edgar(FF6)
Best Lead Female: Ashe(FF12)
Best Supporting Male: Auron(FF10)
Best Supporting Female: Beatrix(FF9)
Best Magic System: Chrono Trigger
Best Experience System: FF5 Job System
Best Combat System: FFX
Best Story: FF12(At no point is a Bishi or clown trying to blow up the planet)
Best Cinema: FF12.

Additionals:

Best Romance: Beatrix/Steiner.
Least Annoying Androgynous Child: Lord Larsa of Archadia.
'Didn't See That Coming' moment: Kefka wins, remakes world into World Of Ruin.
Lingering Boil On Ass Of Franchise: Dirge Of Cerebus.

[Ghost Rider]

Off to G&C.

Best lead male: Locke

Best lead female: Ashe(she was no where near as whiny as many).

Best supporting male: Auron

Best supporting female: Lulu

Best magic system: FFVII....I could abuse it better then any other.

Best experience/advancement system: FFT, mostly because it was a great depth of FFV.

Best combat system: FFXII

Best story: FFVI

Best cinemas: FFXII

[Molyneux]

best lead male - Zidane, largely because he doesn't whine all the time. He saves the world because it's fun and the right thing to do...in that order.

best lead female - Tifa. No way to get around it, she's the most badass female in the FF franchise (except maybe Freya).

best supporting male - Frog. 'Nuff said.

best supporting female - Celes Chere(with Freya Crescent and General Beatrix as close seconds). The opera solo puts her over the top.

best magic system - Crono Trigger
best experience/advancement system - FFXI; you can't beat being able to level up every class and mix-and-match them. (FFT and FFTA run second.)

best combat system - Kingdom Hearts.

best story - Crono Trigger. No doubt about it.

best cinema - Kingdom Hearts I & II.

[General Zod]

[quote="The Yosemite Bear"]best over all square RPG

best lead male: Cecil, the Dark Knight
best lead female: Aya Brea (If you count Parasite Eve as an RPG)
best supporting male: Cid (take your pick, though 7's was probably the best)
best supporting female: Lucca
best magic system:Tie between Final Fantasy 6 & 7
best experience/advancement system: Chrono Trigger
best combat system: Chrono Trigger
best story: Xenogears
best cinema: Xenosaga

[Vendetta]

Best overall: Crono Trigger

Best Male Lead: Cecil
Best Female Lead: Tifa
Best Supporting Male: Cid Highwind
Best Supporting Female: Paine
Best Magic: FFIV, the only game where it's worth using.
Best XP: FFV
Best Combat: Kingdom Hearts II
Best Story: FFIV
Best Cinema: FFVIII

[Cao Cao]

Best Overall Square RPG: Romancing SaGa 3

Best Lead Male: Fei Fong Wong (Xenogears)
Best Lead Female: Katrina (Romancing SaGa 3)
Best Supporting Male: Citan Uzuki (Xenogears)
Best Supporting Female: Agrias Oaks (FFTactics)
Best Magic: FFX-2
Best xp/avancement: FFTactics
Best Combat: FFXII
Best Story: Xenogears
Best Cinema: FFXII

And..

Cid of Cids: Cid Highwind (FFVII)
The Sociopath Award for Maladjustment: Squal Leonhart (FFVIII)
I Steal the Spotlight: Seifer Almasy (FFVIII)
Whiner's Award for Whining: Ramsus (Xenogears)
Best Villian Who Got Away With It: Delita Hyral (FFTactics)

[Sunstreaker]

best lead male

Squall (FF8)

He maybe whiny and unsure of himself, but in the end aren’t we all. He was the one I could relate to the best.

best lead female

Kid (Chrono Cross)

Scantily clad strong female types are cool and yummy.

Tifa would be up there if she actually had a character.

best supporting male

Edgar Figaro (FF3 [US] / FF6 [Jap])

It’s good to be the king. That’s all I’ve got.

TG Cid is close for shear raw game breaking power.

best supporting female

Selphie (FF8)

She’s so happy go lucky I just have to like her. And she also piloted (rammed) the Ragnarok into the Lunatic Pandora.

best villain

Kefka

Some villains talk about destroying the world; he actually accomplished it…and he’s crazier than the Joker.

best magic system

Final Fantasy 3/6

Magic actually came in handy throughout the game instead of being brushed aside for things like summons or limits. There was also the economizer and gem box to make magic a bit more customizable.

best experience/advancement system

Chono Cross (experience)

Leveling up the main character levels up everyone makes things a little less of a time sink. It’s also not so complex that it takes away from the story.

Final Fantasy Tactics (advancement system)

The character customization options are staggering.

best combat system

Final Fantasy Tactics

It’s fun.

best story

Chrono Trigger

Time travel

Final Fantasy 3/6 is a close second though.

best cinema

Lunatic Pandora assault with the Airship, Ragnarok (FF8)

It’s like what the Enterprise would have done to the Borg cube if Star Trek if it was produced by Square.

best airship

The Epic (Chrono Trigger}

It goes back to the future.

best music

Chono Cross

I actually bought the soundtrack for this game.

[Cao Cao]

Squall (FF8)

He maybe whiny and unsure of himself, but in the end aren’t we all. He was the one I could relate to the best.

Yeah but.. he was such a control freak.
My sister dated a guy like that, pissed me off no end. Which is part of why I ended up wanting to smack him.

[NeoGoomba]

Gah! Xenogears totally slipped my mind.

I'd have to put Graf as "Most Badass". That guy was friggen hardcore. His dialogue, his music, FIGHTING GIANT MECHS WITH HIS HANDS, yeah, he was badass.

[Xisiqomelir]

Zod wins many internets, except I would pick Aeris over Aya Brea.

[General Zod]

Zod wins many internets, except I would pick Aeris over Aya Brea.

Aeris is too much of a Mary-Sue for my liking. So Aya > Aeris.

[Vendetta]

Gah! Xenogears totally slipped my mind.

Xenogears is nine entirely different brands of suck. It's got one of those stupid stories that are oft associated with mecha anime and RPGs that confuse hundreds of twists and turns, endless cryptic plottery by villains we won't actually get introduced to for fifty hours, and a whiny prat as the main character with interesting story and character development. There are far too many simply unwinnable fights (fights you are meant to lose. For every one of these that appears in an RPG, the people responsible should be hung by the neck until they are sorry), and the whole thing proceeds at a genuinely leaden pace, so much so that they couldn't even finish the fucker, and the entire second CD consists of "here's what we would have done, if we had the time and money", with two uninteresting dungeons, and screen after screen of exposition presented as a Wall of Text.

The only redeeming feature was that they crucified Chu-Chu. (and even that was a fucking stupid scene. They crucified giant fucking robots and the pilots were reduced to helplessness. What, could they not get out and cut themselves free, or at least fight on foot.)

[Cao Cao]

Gah! Xenogears totally slipped my mind.

Xenogears is nine entirely different brands of suck. It's got one of those stupid stories that are oft associated with mecha anime and RPGs that confuse hundreds of twists and turns,

You're confusing stupid with deep.

endless cryptic plottery by villains we won't actually get introduced to for fifty hours,

How so? Xenogears actually has quite a low amount of pointless exposition; if a villians going to do something you damn well see the consequences of it soon enough.

and a whiny prat as the main character with interesting story and character development.

Fei quits being so whiny after the prison section.
Late in the game he gets a little worse again, but at that point he has some damn good reasons to.

There are far too many simply unwinnable fights (fights you are meant to lose. For every one of these that appears in an RPG, the people responsible should be hung by the neck until they are sorry),

This is untrue. You can even win the "unwinnable" fight against Alpha Weltall on board the Eldridge.

and the whole thing proceeds at a genuinely leaden pace, so much so that they couldn't even finish the fucker, and the entire second CD consists of "here's what we would have done, if we had the time and money", with two uninteresting dungeons, and screen after screen of exposition presented as a Wall of Text.

Yeah that was a downer. But hey, no game's perfect.

The only redeeming feature was that they crucified Chu-Chu. (and even that was a fucking stupid scene. They crucified giant fucking robots and the pilots were reduced to helplessness. What, could they not get out and cut themselves free, or at least fight on foot.)

Who knows? Maybe the bad guys pumped in knockout gas. Maybe they couldn't get out of powered down mechs. Maybe they knew they'd get shot if they tried.

[Damaramu]

best lead male- Cecil

best lead female- Yuna

best supporting male- Cid (FF7ver.)

best supporting female- Lucca (Chrono Trigger)

best magic system- Chrono Trigger

best experience/advancement system- Final Fantasy Tactics

best combat system- Chrono Trigger

best story- Front Mission series

best ceneima- Final Fantasy X

[NeoGoomba]

Xenogears is nine entirely different brands of suck

Well I can't really argue with you there. The pacing was awful, the plot points, original or blatantly stolen from other mediums, you can see coming a mile away (OH NOES, THE SOYLENT SYSTEM IS PEOPLE!?! SHOCK AND AWE), and it had vibes of Evangelion, which I really never liked. Plus all of disc two. And let us not forget the 8 year old who rode her giant robot instead of piloting it, and Blanka from Street Fighter armed with Zangief's movelist.

Now, all of that being said, I DID think Graf was hardcore (before his backstory was introduced), and probably the only bright spot to the game other than the soundtrack, which I also enjoyed.

But to everything else you said, yeah, pretty much

[Vendetta]

You're confusing stupid with deep.

Funny, because that's exactly what I'm accusing Xenogears fans of doing. Xenogears, in spite of, nay, because of all the twists and meanderings in the plot, is not deep, it's stupid. The plot changes direction and focus so many times it seems like it has Dissociative Identity Disorder, until by the third or fourth "shocking revelation of the true enemy" (and well before everyone turns into goo, because, yep, that's what they did in Evangelion) you really just don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock any more and just want it to end.

How so? Xenogears actually has quite a low amount of pointless exposition; if a villians going to do something you damn well see the consequences of it soon enough.

Oh come on! The game is dripping with scenes with Emperor Cain, the SOL-9000, and Grahf all wittering on about things that don't actually come into play until the second goddamn disc! Hell, the whole point of who Grahf actually is and what he's up to isn't revealed until nearly the end.

Fei quits being so whiny after the prison section.
Late in the game he gets a little worse again, but at that point he has some damn good reasons to.

The whole point of Fei's character is that he's a whiny bitch! It's his whiny bitch nature that keeps id in check. He doesn't stop being a whiny bitch until he gets to fuck Elly.

This is untrue. You can even win the "unwinnable" fight against Alpha Weltall on board the Eldridge.

By a stupidly convoluted method that involves excessive level and item grinding that no-one in their right mind would ever do, because the game just carries on as if you'd lost anyway. Because these fights are stupid. Always. And it's not like this is the only fight that the game flags as unwinnable either. There's Wiseman at Aveh, the first fight with Rico, Weltall-id... They're all over the fucking place.

Who knows? Maybe the bad guys pumped in knockout gas. Maybe they couldn't get out of powered down mechs. Maybe they knew they'd get shot if they tried.

Or maybe the scene was just the product of a bunch of idiots who had somehow been turned loose on a videogame script and wanted to throw in one more religious reference because that's what Evangelion did. Just like the rest of the damn game. (I mean come on, did the stupid not cause your head to explode when they build up that Merkava fortress as a doomsday weapon, only to have the Macross-7 swoop down and kill it in an unlosable fight!).

Everyone involved in Xenogears needs to be beaten with sticks.

[Cao Cao]

Well I can't really argue with you there. The pacing was awful, the plot points, original or blatantly stolen from other mediums, you can see coming a mile away (OH NOES, THE SOYLENT SYSTEM IS PEOPLE!?! SHOCK AND AWE)

The Soylent = people thing was never meant to be a plot twist, it was just used to gross out Fei who had just eaten a fuckton of the stuff before finding out.

Funny, because that's exactly what I'm accusing Xenogears fans of doing. Xenogears, in spite of, nay, because of all the twists and meanderings in the plot, is not deep, it's stupid. The plot changes direction and focus so many times it seems like it has Dissociative Identity Disorder, until by the third or fourth "shocking revelation of the true enemy" (and well before everyone turns into goo, because, yep, that's what they did in Evangelion) you really just don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock any more and just want it to end.

All RPGs are guilty to that to an extent. I really didn't see Xenogears being worse than others in that respect.
I mean you cite FFIV as having a good story, but it too suffered from "no, he's the real enemy!" syndrome along with the hilarious Kain the Serial Backstabber routine.

Oh come on! The game is dripping with scenes with Emperor Cain, the SOL-9000, and Grahf all wittering on about things that don't actually come into play until the second goddamn disc! Hell, the whole point of who Grahf actually is and what he's up to isn't revealed until nearly the end.

Except Cain isn't actually a villian, and the Gazelle Ministry's ramblings do have relevance to what's going on. Grahf? He's just crazy.
The real villians such as Miang and Krelian patently did not waffle on and on before getting to the point.

The whole point of Fei's character is that he's a whiny bitch! It's his whiny bitch nature that keeps id in check. He doesn't stop being a whiny bitch until he gets to fuck Elly.

Cite some examples after the prison sequence then.

By a stupidly convoluted method that involves excessive level and item grinding that no-one in their right mind would ever do, because the game just carries on as if you'd lost anyway. Because these fights are stupid. Always. And it's not like this is the only fight that the game flags as unwinnable either. There's Wiseman at Aveh, the first fight with Rico, Weltall-id... They're all over the fucking place.

Those are obvious "you lose" fights, and are over quickly enough. I was thinking of the fights against Grahf and such.

(I mean come on, did the stupid not cause your head to explode when they build up that Merkava fortress as a doomsday weapon, only to have the Macross-7 swoop down and kill it in an unlosable fight!).

*shrugs*
The Xenogears was already built up as the ultimate power bar none so it's not like it came as a surprise.

[Vendetta]

All RPGs are guilty to that to an extent. I really didn't see Xenogears being worse than others in that respect.
I mean you cite FFIV as having a good story, but it too suffered from "no, he's the real enemy!" syndrome along with the hilarious Kain the Serial Backstabber routine.

Really? You didn't notice how every major plot phase completely ignored the last major plot phase, introduced a new set of antagonists, and made everything you'd done up to that point completely irrelevant (Another bugbear in RPGs. It kills any connection you might have with the environment in that part of the game on replay. Seriously. FFIV introduces one major new villain at the end, Xenogears does this about five goddamn times!

Except Cain isn't actually a villian, and the Gazelle Ministry's ramblings do have relevance to what's going on. Grahf? He's just crazy.
The real villians such as Miang and Krelian patently did not waffle on and on before getting to the point.

Cain's status as a villain or otherwise is irrelevant, he's still guilty of having no other function throughout 90% of the game than to foreshadow events that won't happen until right at the end. Likewise the Gazel ministry's endless wittering doesn't actually become relevant until they press the "turn the world into goo" button, nor does anything Cain says. Until that point, nothing they have said has any impact on or relevance to the plot!. They explain nothing, they speak in the standard Xenogears code of -Veiled Hints- and -Allusions-, and rather than actually alluding to or hinting at anything relevant, their endless foreshadowing is actually used in large part as a substitute for actual plot, because as mentioned none of it is relevant until right near the end of the game, yet it starts unaccountably early and carries on, over and over, all the way through. Like I said before, by the time the real big bad actually turns up, you don't give a fuck any more.

Cite some examples after the prison sequence then.

Coincidentally, I do not have the script of Xenogears memorised. In fact, I have repeatedly tried to forget the experience of playing it, having realised I can never claw back that lost time. But howabout when he has a complete spaz attack, removing him entirely from the party, or on Solaris when he finds out about id...

Those are obvious "you lose" fights, and are over quickly enough. I was thinking of the fights against Grahf and such.

The point is that "you lose" fights are fucking stupid. They're irritating as a player, because the events are completely out of your control. If they wanted you to lose the fight, have a fucking cutscene, not a battle (and make it one that isn't stupid, like the capture in FFX, piddly men that do two or three digit damage are not scary at that point in the game).

*shrugs*
The Xenogears was already built up as the ultimate power bar none so it's not like it came as a surprise.

Again, it's not about it being "a surprise" it's about it being a stupid piece of game design, as well as a monumentally stupid deus ex machina. The level of challenge should escalate as the game goes on. It's nearly as bad as Yu Yevon. (though an unlosable last boss fight is fucking inexcubable).

[RogueIce]

Best Overall: Final Fantasy VI (I just really enjoy this game, a lot. Can't really describe it)

Best Lead Male: Locke (FF6)
Best Lead Female: Terra (FF6)
Best Supporting Male: Cid Highwind (FF7)
Best Supporting Female: Yuffie (FF7)
Best Story: Final Fantasy VI
Best Combat System: Final Fantasy Tactics (because it was different)
Best Villain: Kefka
Best Magic System: Materia, from FF7
Best Cinematics: I really, really like the Assault on Midgar from Dirge of Cerebus, but overall FF12 has it beat.

[Darth Fanboy]

-best lead male:
1-Crono, Chrono Trigger.
2-Zidane, ff9
3-Squall, ff8

best lead female
1-Terra ff6
2-Aeris ff7
3-Yuna ff10

best supporting male
1-Auron, ff10
2-Vivi, ff9
3-Balthier, ff12

best supporting female
1-Quistis, ff8
2-Celes ff6
3-Beatrix ff9

best magic system
1-ff10
2-ff9
3-ff7

best experience/advancement system
1-ff10
2-ff12
3-ff9

best combat system
T1-ff10
T1-ff9
3-ff12

best story
Honestly cannot decide. Love them all.

best cinema
FF10's cutscenes are still some of the most visually appealing things to me