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Uraniun235 wrote:I've watched my friends play them. Specifically, I've watched my friends wander around for hours looking for random battles so they could level up.

Maybe that's fun for some people, but I never found that sort of gameplay satisfying.

That might be true of the Playstation-era ones, I don't know. But 3/6 is certainly nothing like that.

The SNES ones were good, but they lacked replay value. After finishing them once or twice (maybe thrice), there isn't much else left to see. I've been continually playing FF1 for years, and enjoying it every time.

Are you nuts? If replay value is your criterion, FF1 fails miserably. The only reason worth playing it through again would be to try the different character classes - that's it. There are NO sidequests to warrant a replay, there are no secrets to unlock. There is nothing that FF has as far as replay value goes that isn't done better elsewhere in the series - FFV and FF Tactics, for example, offer a far wider variety of character classes to replay the game with, and FF6 and each of PS and PS2 era FFs offer literally dozens of sidequests that are easy to miss. It's true that RPGs are notorious for low replay value and that's just a weakness of the genre, but to say FF1 is superior to its descendants in replay value is insane.

It's not mind-numbinly easy like the 3D ones

Actually, FFX could be quite challenging at times, provided you didn't just go to GameFaqs and learn how to do exactly what you needed to do. The combat was highly strategic. And FFT is just plain hard as hell. Point, though, on FF7-FF9.

Even the story of VI, which was good, got lame in the second half.

True, it did decline during the second half, but this was more the simple consequences of the fact that the plot required all the characters to be separated. Still, there was considerable character development during the second half for many characters and the ending was fantastic.

And waiting for all the dialog when replaying the game is a pure waste of time.

Turn up the dialog speed in the configurations window...

And the fucking magic effects that take all damn day!

No, the magic effects don't take particularly long, the summon effects do. This was only true for FF7 and FF8 however, in FF9 they were whittled down considerably and haven't been much of a problem since.

Now, story sections in a game aren't bad, but they have to be done well. I can play the Lunar games and enjoy every second of it. But the Final Fantasy stories could use some real work.

Lunar TSSS' story is trite as hell and the characters are one-dimensional as can be. Maybe it was better than average when it was released, but when placed next to RPGs with incredible depth like FFVI it fails miserably.

I'm torn. FFVII was really quite good, but its a HORRIBLE game. They're all HORRIBLE games. Random encounters, levelling up, random encounters, laughably low levels of interaction, random encounters, basically zero replay value - on account of the random encounters, random encounters, the ''9999'zor we're so cool' thing, long-ass summons, ridiculous battles, and random encounters.

All the FF I've played would make a good movie, or book, or graphic novel. As GAMES, they're 1992-Gold box level of stupid. Which is irritating: I find the 6-8 stories to be quite good, but digging through the 'kill five guys every two steps to level up over ten hours of random encounters' gameplay just isn't worth it.

Isn't there some hilarious satire animation on the internet somewhere that takes the piss out of final fantasy? It's hand-drawn with stick-figures and has hilariously bad voices. There's a great bit where they do some super special attack power (viewed from a planetary perspective) and the enemy monster gets something on the order of -3.

Stark wrote:I'm torn. FFVII was really quite good, but its a HORRIBLE game. They're all HORRIBLE games. Random encounters, levelling up, random encounters, laughably low levels of interaction, random encounters, basically zero replay value - on account of the random encounters, random encounters, the ''9999'zor we're so cool' thing, long-ass summons, ridiculous battles, and random encounters.

All the FF I've played would make a good movie, or book, or graphic novel. As GAMES, they're 1992-Gold box level of stupid. Which is irritating: I find the 6-8 stories to be quite good, but digging through the 'kill five guys every two steps to level up over ten hours of random encounters' gameplay just isn't worth it.

You're pretty much describing the entire RPG genre.

All Final Fantasy installments have their good and bad points, some more bad than good, some vice versa. I'm personally inclined to see more good than bad in most of them, but that's my personal attitude. In addition to being RPGs, which many people either love or hate, the FFs have their own particular flavor that can either attract or repel (the former in my case).

On top of that, each FF has its own style, which is why we get intercine squabblings with FF fans. For example, compare the first FF with, says FFV. While you'll definately see hallmarks, they're also wildly different in many ways.

Personally, I don't differentiate much between early FFs (NES and SNES) and later ones (PS, PS2). There's definately different feels, but I don't care to say the early generation is better than the later games by default (FFVII can beat the snot out of FFII any day). By the same token, I thought FFIV was better than FFVI, and while 6 was a good game, it wasn't the be-all-end-all some folks seem to think it is (again, IMO).

Personally, I think FFIX is the best game out of all of them, while II is the worst. Scratch that actually, II isn't the worst. That title's reserved for a little something called Mystic Quest, which drew my amusement only as a poorly-executed gooffest. Anyway, IX and IV are my favorites. Cyran hates IX, but I say 'what the hell.' and move on. When it comes to things worth arguing over, video games don't rate all that high on my list.

Vympel wrote:Isn't there some hilarious satire animation on the internet somewhere that takes the piss out of final fantasy? It's hand-drawn with stick-figures and has hilariously bad voices. There's a great bit where they do some super special attack power (viewed from a planetary perspective) and the enemy monster gets something on the order of -3.

Because I can laugh, even at stuff I like:

http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/ff7.htm

And this "the summon effects are too long! WAAAAAH!" nitpick is fucking retarded. It was like that in only TWO games out of over a dozen!

I hate the general lack of customization of characters in your party, which I view as the corner stone of a good RPG and the Final Fantasy series just does not have that to the degree that most PC RPGs do. There is also very little freedom in what kinds of stuff you can equip your charachters with and sidequests and such. I do enjoy the series storylines, as long as I dont have to read pages of text like you do in the ones before FFX.

Plot lines range from crapity crap crap on a crap cracker to decent, the sound is good, the magic has its ups and downs; but what really grates on me is that random fight encounter system... bothers the hell out of me.

I'm innocently running along to the next area when bam.. I'm in a giant battle which lasts forever. Okay, I'm done with those badies, so off I go again and BAM, again, in a battle. That just bothers the crap out of me. I like RPG's where I can see my enemy and try to avoid it. Give me Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Seiku Dentatsu 3 (sp?) or other such great games.

Final Fantasy never grabbed me, not even back in the 1-4 days.... Then it became this huge unstoppable juggernaught of blah-ness and mediocrity that relied on shitty gimmicks like FMV to carry it.

Final Fantasy 3(6), final fantasy 2(4) and Final fantasy tactics are the only games that are good in my opinion. Wits 3 and tactics being some of the best rpg's on a console system ever made. Oh and Kefka is a much better villian than seph.... for one reason, Kefka has personality heh oh and the great laugh. Now i hate what the series has become. Just a mediocre cash cow with sure sales. But cest la vie. There are still good rpg's out there.

Vympel wrote:Isn't there some hilarious satire animation on the internet somewhere that takes the piss out of final fantasy? It's hand-drawn with stick-figures and has hilariously bad voices. There's a great bit where they do some super special attack power (viewed from a planetary perspective) and the enemy monster gets something on the order of -3.

thats awesome. Whats even funnier is the actual gameplay of some freakly little midget in tights attacking a monster the size of a small office building with a sword and winning. No, maybe thats just sad...

Col. Crackpot wrote:

Vympel wrote:Isn't there some hilarious satire animation on the internet somewhere that takes the piss out of final fantasy? It's hand-drawn with stick-figures and has hilariously bad voices. There's a great bit where they do some super special attack power (viewed from a planetary perspective) and the enemy monster gets something on the order of -3.

thats awesome. Whats even funnier is the actual gameplay of some freakly little midget in tights attacking a monster the size of a small office building with a sword and winning. No, maybe thats just sad...

No, maybe it's just taking ram and rom limitations into consideration?

If you want to talk about the silliness of old FF games, it's all about the standing in one spot and waggling your sword in the enemy's general direction.

But stylistic points aside, the series is still limiting itself in ways that were imposed in hardware on the NES but should have been given the boot years ago. Particularly with Random Battles. Which are the bane of the genre. FFXII appears finally to have caught on and ditched them.

Joe wrote:And this "the summon effects are too long! WAAAAAH!" nitpick is fucking retarded. It was like that in only TWO games out of over a dozen!

It's much worse in the game Skies of Arcadia, which in my opinion is the most overrated underrated RPG for Dreamcast (hell, the far more interesting and combat-innovative Grandia II came out about the same time).

It takes like 15 damn seconds to even cast a heal or an attack spell. You have to watch them pose, then squeal in their terrible voices, then see some big animated gliph appear and watch it set itself up for a few seconds. The whole game is like that in battle, and add the fact there's nothing really different about the game, it's just a tedious RPG with a slightly-good story. I tried to start playing it again, and only did so long enough to finish the battle with Gigas and then go to the green knigdom or whatever. Then I popped in Grandia II and played that for 7-8 hours over 2 days.

Skies' spell animations are skippable though. The Start button is your friend.

The Gamecube version is better, as they halved the random battle rate.

It gets the praise it does because the world design is unique, it has some great setpieces, especially the escapes from Valua, and it has a sense of energy and adventure.

There is also the major bonus that Vyse isn't a whiny bitch, like the modern Square leading man.

It's not as good as Grandia II, or Grandia, but it's still better than any given Final Fantasy.

Panzer Grenadier wrote:I hate the general lack of customization of characters in your party, which I view as the corner stone of a good RPG and the Final Fantasy series just does not have that to the degree that most PC RPGs do. There is also very little freedom in what kinds of stuff you can equip your charachters with and sidequests and such. I do enjoy the series storylines, as long as I dont have to read pages of text like you do in the ones before FFX.

the problem with customization is that too much customization leads to generic characters that have no individuality whatsoever. FF6 managed to balance this fairly nicely, giving characters the ability to get all kinds of neat abilities while maintaining individuality and abilities unique to certain characters.

Im not FOR FF or agaisnt FF.

I like 7, 10 & 11. And i hate the rest. Overall i hate FF other then those two games. The games are just ....the same really. To me its all a boring rpg thats the same thing every time it comes out but with new people but in a diffrent setting with another overly exotic looking artistic game.

7 had a good story and good charecters. 10 was just good all around but had a dull main charecter. And 11 was like 7 in the same sense!

Customisation is stupid. By that, I mean any game allowing you to take Generic Big Gun Probably Black Beardy Guy and make him the Uber Druid of Antioch is lame, lame, lame. Changing equipment is enough; the stupid 'oh no I'll use my sword instead of that Death Gun' thing is the REAL problem.

But yeah, I hate RPGs. I like STORIES, though: playing tedious games is just tedious.

The FFs can be summed up as so:

FF6: A court jester lookalike takes over the world
FF7: Chasing feminine dude with gray hair
FF8:

FF9: Monkeykid tags along with big oaf of a knight and his tomboy princess
FF10thru12: Fuck if I know, I've never played them

OK, so the plot blows goats and the mechanics diseased monkeys.
For all that I enjoyed FFVII and VIII.

It's the cheese. You zoom around, killing shit and looting the bodies. There is a simplistic plot. You are consistantly railroaded into doing things so dumb that even the ameoba, known to his friends as "Thicky the Ameoba" would not do them.

Doesn't it just take you back? To those days when you were 11 and you came up with plots this inane? When you (or your friend) handed out overblown magic items like free samples at the supermarket? When no-one really died?

Playing crappages is like wanking. It's fun, based on fond memories but you get embarrassed when you admit to doing it.

dworkin wrote:OK, so the plot blows goats and the mechanics diseased monkeys.
For all that I enjoyed FFVII and VIII.

It's the cheese. You zoom around, killing shit and looting the bodies. There is a simplistic plot. You are consistantly railroaded into doing things so dumb that even the ameoba, known to his friends as "Thicky the Ameoba" would not do them.

Doesn't it just take you back? To those days when you were 11 and you came up with plots this inane? When you (or your friend) handed out overblown magic items like free samples at the supermarket? When no-one really died?

Playing crappages is like wanking. It's fun, based on fond memories but you get embarrassed when you admit to doing it.

Define inane plot. I'll give you a pass for FFVIII since its story was just objectively retarded.

Hamel wrote:FF10thru12: Fuck if I know, I've never played them

That'd be kind of hard to do, since I think Final Fantasy XII is still in development.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:

Hamel wrote:FF10thru12: Fuck if I know, I've never played them

That'd be kind of hard to do, since I think Final Fantasy XII is still in development.

I know, that's why I included 12