News:

"Forbidden Fruit [L-H]"
Congratulations Mellific & Swashbuckler for completing your RP!

Main Menu

Final Fantasy

Started by AndyZ, July 02, 2012, 09:44:12 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

AndyZ

For discussing the Final Fantasy series.  Some of us were already on this in another thread, but I figured it'd be good to start one here.
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

Ons/Offs   -  My schedule and A/As   -    My Avatars

If I've owed you a post for at least a week, poke me.

Mossberg

Quote
You spoony bard!!!


xD
"I killed the whole world, and you can too, if you try hard."
-Lews Therin Telamon

Eislynn

I'm sorry! I threw everybody off topic!!  :-[

But now its safe so I can do dis:

Final Fantasy Classic WITH LYRICS

And dis:

Final Fantasy Victory Theme WITH LYRICS

Capone

Truth told, I really do miss the original Final Fantasy, or at least some of the stuff it did. There was nothing like the first moment your fighter did a ton of damage and the game said "Hit 2 times!". Then the number kept growing, and growing, and the Fighter continued to be awesome.

There was also such an interesting assortment of armor and weapons with weaknesses and strengths that seemed to die out as the games progressed.

A real shame, I tells ya.

Chris Brady

What series?  There are only four things that every Final Fantasy has had, everything else can be up for grabs in terms of plot and story and world.  Those four things?

Plot Device Crystals.

Airships (Which may or may not have a Cid attached to it.)

The Boss, AKA Bahamut.

And finally, the most recognizable feature of the Final Fantasy franchise:  the Chocobo.

Every game that doesn't have a -2 at the end of it has been a totally and completely different experience.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

AndyZ

The first one I ever played was 1.  I didn't beat it (I didn't really understand the concept of level grinding at the time) but it was fascinating.  It was nearly double my life later before I discovered the joys of non-console roleplaying.

I played a lot of the games with the Final Fantasy namesake, though I didn't beat many of them.  I actually loved Mystic Quest, though I know I'm in the minority for it.

7 and 8 I played on the computer and enjoyed both, though my Disc 1 of FF8 is scratched.  I tried to start playing it again a few months ago and it wouldn't work ;_;  I remember how my computer was so crappy that I had to play 8 on a quarter-screen (1/4 the size) just so that it could handle the game.

9, 10 and 10-2 were rather meh.  I don't really remember much of anything about the stories, and my favorite girl from 10 got knocked up and didn't get to go along for the sequel, instead replaced by Generic Goth Girl #19417.

I liked 12 in many ways, though I can see the argument that the main character was just along for the ride.

13 and 13-2 were pretty meh, and 13-2 (very minor spoiler) had one of the worst things that you could do to a game ending: not have a freaking game ending.  To Be Continued?  Really?  Why do you hate me?

I want to play 6 someday, but I'm worried about how dated I know it will inevitably be.  Since I just replayed Mystic Quest, though, maybe I can get over it.

Quote from: Chris Brady on July 02, 2012, 10:40:40 PM
What series?  There are only four things that every Final Fantasy has had, everything else can be up for grabs in terms of plot and story and world.  Those four things?

Plot Device Crystals.

Airships (Which may or may not have a Cid attached to it.)

The Boss, AKA Bahamut.

And finally, the most recognizable feature of the Final Fantasy franchise:  the Chocobo.

Every game that doesn't have a -2 at the end of it has been a totally and completely different experience.

I actually like the way that they test out new things, keep some and drop others.  The mechanics are a completely different issue, though I can certainly go into that.

But then, I'm crazy enough that I enjoyed FF Mystic Quest, played a lot of 4E D&D and am looking forward to 5E of it.  Innovation is an exceptional way to find the best new ways to do things, even if some of them don't always work.

I can see the argument for having a more coherent setting, but it also means that every new game gives a completely new area to check out.  Zelda's followed this example in many ways as well, but it keeps it from having the feel that it's the same game with a few minor splashes of paint.
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

Ons/Offs   -  My schedule and A/As   -    My Avatars

If I've owed you a post for at least a week, poke me.

Revenent

*clears throat*

Well, to go off what was going on in the other thread, VI is probably my favorite overall, but I have a lot of "department" favorites: VI or VII were probably my favorite for story (since at least they paid a lot of attention to the characters), X was my favorite for gameplay, XII and XIII were my favorite for environments.

Least favorite? Although I haven't beaten it, II. Such a marvel of design, I got lost on the goddamn world map and had to quit.

Will

I would definitely say 6 is still worth playing, a very good game.  But then, I still love to play old 2D RPGs, so take that for what it's worth.  I think the characters and story are among the best in the series, if not the best.

My absolute favorite Final Fantasy, though, is Tactics.  It was pretty much the culmination of the Job system, which I loved, and the story was epic and well done.  Convoluted, I'll admit, but well done in spite of that.

I pretty much despised 12.  For so many reasons.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

Revenent

I still feel pretty bad that I just never finished Tactics due to it being too difficult, and getting to a point where I just couldn't manage to advance. I'd go back to it, but I had War of the Lions, and now my PSP doesn't turn on anymore...

SinXAzgard21

I have played and beaten all most all of them.  11 was boring as hell for an mmo and 13-2 well I play it here and there. 
If you know me personally, you know how to contact me.

Galactic Druid

VI was the best Final Fantasy with the best villain. You can go ahead and lock the topic now, everything that needs to be said has been.  :P
A/As last updated 11/27 - Halfway past busy season!

Shjade

Quote from: Revenent on July 02, 2012, 11:56:08 PM
I still feel pretty bad that I just never finished Tactics due to it being too difficult, and getting to a point where I just couldn't manage to advance. I'd go back to it, but I had War of the Lions, and now my PSP doesn't turn on anymore...

There are a couple of bottleneck missions where people tend to get stuck: the Ramza vs. Wiegraf 1 on 1 map, and the cathedral rooftop where you have to protect Rafa from the vampire guy and his two horrible insta-kill bitches. Did you by any chance get stuck at one of those two points? If so, I offer the most sympathetic of hugs.
Theme: Make Me Feel - Janelle Monáe
◕/◕'s
Conversation is more useful than conversion.

Will

Ramsa v. Wiegraf really was a pain.  My first time through I had to change Ramza to a dragoon and find a lucky rhythm with jumping, to avoid a few of Wiegraf's attacks and squeak out a win.  I died many times in the process.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

Chris Brady

Personally, 10 lost me.  That was when I realized that Square (Not yet Enix) couldn't do gameplay.  I mean, unless it was a minigame, the most basic action hadn't changed from the FF2 (AKA FF4 in Japan) days.  You pushed a button and you watched it go.  All the flashy effects and music was there to distract you from the fact that combat was minimally interactive.

That's when I put my love of the franchise under scrutiny and realized it didn't hold up to my love of interactive mechanics.

But damn, if the games aren't pretty though.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Florence

replying to a few quote from the FF8 OOC thread to avoid derailing that one again :P

Quote from: Capone on July 02, 2012, 08:48:20 PM
If we do a posting limit I think it is important we keep in mind how many folks are doing the speedy posting, as you said. This way speedy posters won't be TOO limited, but there will be enough to keep things more manageable.

If we're simply counting the numbered entries of the franchise, then I'd also have to say FF6. However, as similar as they are, FF4 and FF7 have a weird sort of ease in playability. It's easier to just get sucked into the combat and dungeons than it is in FF6. But the story and characters in 6 just propel it above all others, not to mention the music. I will always believe 6 is Uematsu's best.

I haven't played a main entry FF since 10, but I found 9 and 10 fun enough to beat. In fact, 10 was the first whose combat and gameplay I actually enjoyed since 7, even if I wasn't a fan of the story.

But when it comes to anything Final Fantasy, Tactics. Best one hands down. I could write essays about that game and how it excels in both gameplay and story.

God, just...so fucking good.

Mossberg: Confessing to beating Mystic Quest means you are one of five people who have actually played it. Google Stalking you has become that much easier. Be careful with such information, my friend. :P

-has also beaten Mystic Quest- :P

Also, remind me to put down Tactics as my next group rp idea after this one xD; Its my absolute favorite, but... I really, really wanted to do and VIII RP.

Quote from: Fenrir on July 02, 2012, 09:39:01 PM
I was disappointed in 12 for a lot of reasons.... one of the main reasons being that the central character that you play as- don't ask me to remember his name- does almost nothing to effect the actual story... he simply watches it all and all the other characters are the important ones- it was a bizarre shift that I despised.  I want to feel bad ass when I play a FF!

Granted on the same note- I loved the monster chain system/hunts *nods*

I both agree and disagree. Vaan was a useless twat, and I'll never understand why he's in Dissidia 012 instead of, say, Balthier or Fran. But I think the overall game was amazing, especially if you try to think of Vaan as less of a 'main character' and more of a generic point of view character. I think the gameplay was amazing, and the OTHER characters were all brilliant, with Balthier and Fran being two of my all time favorite FF characters. The storytelling style was sort of a prototype of XIII's I think, the concept of not having ONE central character, but instead focusing almost equally on each character. But XIII did it a lot better, I think. XIII didn't give you one boring main character, and then a bunch of interesting side characters, it gave you a group of equally interesting characters, whom your perspective shifted between for the first half of the game.

With all the valid complaints of XIII, I have to say... it's not really that terrible in my opinion. Linear as shit? Definitely. More cinematic than substance? Oh certainly. But in my opinion it DID still manage to be entertaining. I enjoyed the characters (except Hope, the whiny cunt), I enjoyed the story... the gameplay was... sufficient enough to carry the story, but... nothing special. All in all its certainly not one of my favorites, but I did enjoy it.
O/O: I was going to make a barebones F-list as a rough summary, but then it logged me out and I lost my progress, so I made a VERY barebones F-list instead: Here.

AndyZ

Quote from: Chris Brady on July 03, 2012, 02:15:03 AM
Personally, 10 lost me.  That was when I realized that Square (Not yet Enix) couldn't do gameplay.  I mean, unless it was a minigame, the most basic action hadn't changed from the FF2 (AKA FF4 in Japan) days.  You pushed a button and you watched it go.  All the flashy effects and music was there to distract you from the fact that combat was minimally interactive.

That's when I put my love of the franchise under scrutiny and realized it didn't hold up to my love of interactive mechanics.

But damn, if the games aren't pretty though.

They actually can do gameplay; they just choose not to for the Final Fantasy series, for whatever reason.

Kingdom Hearts does a fantastic job of combining the elements of RPG and Action game.

Of course, the story of Kingdom Hearts isn't exactly better...

It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

Ons/Offs   -  My schedule and A/As   -    My Avatars

If I've owed you a post for at least a week, poke me.

Will

Quote from: Finn MacKenna on July 03, 2012, 05:28:05 AMI both agree and disagree. Vaan was a useless twat, and I'll never understand why he's in Dissidia 012 instead of, say, Balthier or Fran. But I think the overall game was amazing, especially if you try to think of Vaan as less of a 'main character' and more of a generic point of view character. I think the gameplay was amazing, and the OTHER characters were all brilliant, with Balthier and Fran being two of my all time favorite FF characters. The storytelling style was sort of a prototype of XIII's I think, the concept of not having ONE central character, but instead focusing almost equally on each character. But XIII did it a lot better, I think. XIII didn't give you one boring main character, and then a bunch of interesting side characters, it gave you a group of equally interesting characters, whom your perspective shifted between for the first half of the game.

I actually thought the characters in XII were about as static as you could get.  Balthier and Fran at least had personalities, unlike the rest, but they didn't really change or grow at all in the course of the story. : /  Basch and Ashe were entirely one-dimensional.  Vaan and Penelo were zero-dimensional.  The world was beautifully done, and I enjoyed a lot of the side questing and hunts (until Yiazmat.  Don't even get me started).  I also thought their stat growth was a little screwy; Fran ended up not being good at anything.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

AndyZ

I'll try to keep this next post as spoiler-free as I can while still making my point.  I apologize if a few things end up peeking out which people consider more spoilerish than I would, but anything overtly spoilerish will be tagged.

Regarding villains: one thing that both 7 and 8 really had going well was fantastic villains.  This is most likely true for 6 as well, I hear fantastic things, but I cannot independently verify it because I haven't really played 6 yet.

There's always a balance with villains in games.  You can defeat them, but it can get very frustrating to have a good recurring villain who doesn't die no matter how much or many times you spank him.  However, if you don't have some recurring theme, it becomes villain-of-the-week and you don't feel any sense of accomplishment when you finally take an enemy down.

Take Final Fantasy 9, for example:

Final Fantasy 9 Spoilers
After you get through everything, the end boss is Death, or something like that.  Death suddenly pops out of nowhere and you have to beat the crap out of him after the guy you already defeated.  Wait, what?  Who are you?  Why should I care?

I may have just missed the point because 9 was one of the few FF games where I was able to beat the final enemy on the first go.  Everyone ended up with Haste, Regen, and some other crap, and I had to turn the game from Wait to Active and just constantly kept on hitting attack.

When I talk about good villains, I personally point to how they did it in Max Payne 1.  MP had a pretty nice contrast and comparison in that you started out low on the pole and worked your way up, each time taking out stronger and more villainous enemies as you pieced together the clues to the murder case you were solving.  You knew what your enemy was and could see its effects but didn't know how to find it, but the entire game left you with the feeling that you were pecking away at it bit by bit, always accomplishing something, until you finally take your foe down.

...Crap, now I'm tempted to start up a Villains post in the GM area.
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

Ons/Offs   -  My schedule and A/As   -    My Avatars

If I've owed you a post for at least a week, poke me.

Shjade

Quote from: AndyZ on July 03, 2012, 10:31:22 AM
Regarding villains: one thing that both 7 and 8 really had going well was fantastic villains.

Fantastic how?

Honestly, I've never understood Sephiroth's fanbase. He's a psychopathic mama's boy lab experiment. What's the big deal?

Re: Ramza v. Wiegraf, the go-to strategy for that fight, generally speaking, is to move Ramza to a class/equipment setup that will let him move farther than Wiegraf each turn, then run laps around him spamming Yell and Accumulate until you've basically turned yourself into god by having infinite speed and attack power. Then you move in and kill Wiegraf in one combo because you get 3 or 4 turns before he gets one. It takes forever, it's boring as hell, but it's the idiot-proof "I really just want this fight to be over so I can get on with the game" strategy.
Theme: Make Me Feel - Janelle Monáe
◕/◕'s
Conversation is more useful than conversion.

Boxy

Final Fantasy has been fun.  Have only gotten into it recently, and even then I don't seem to enjoy any of the newer ones as much.  I tried 10 for maybe all of 15 minutes(admittedly I only had so long to play it at this friends house, anyway, but I did watch the rest through NintendoCaprisun's Let's Play of it, and it looked ok enough.  I bought 13 right when it came out, and just could not get into it at all - the story and presentation, at least for the first couple of hours, seemed as bad as that of a Sonic game.  After my first game over at what seemed to be the first boss, I gave up and returned it.  The 13-2 demo, while a bit easier to understand and a bit better with some other gameplay features, didn't convince me enough to spend money on it.

Didn't know what I was getting into with My life as a king.  It's still fun and enjoyable, but also still a spin-off.

The older ones seem to be a lot more suited towards me.  I've got 1, 2(4?), and 3(6?), as well as 5 on the GBA.  Almost done with 6, and got pretty far in both 4 and 5.  Haven't tried much of 1, and Mystic Quest seems to just be another spin-off kind of game.  Not sure if I have a favorite, as there are things I like about 4, 5, and 6 that each of the others don't have.

Maiz

I got my start in Final Fantasy with X-2 (a relative saw it was girl centered and bought it for me lol), and then X, then VII, then I, II.

My favorite is 12. I'm replaying it right now. I like the voice acting, the political plot, and the gaming system. Although, when I first started to play it the first time it made me so angry that I threw my controller.

I'm not a fan of Vaan as much as the others, but I think I read somewhere that Basch was supposed to be the lead but wasnt marketable enough?

SinXAzgard21

Quote from: xiaomei on July 03, 2012, 01:02:54 PM
I got my start in Final Fantasy with X-2 (a relative saw it was girl centered and bought it for me lol), and then X, then VII, then I, II.

My favorite is 12. I'm replaying it right now. I like the voice acting, the political plot, and the gaming system. Although, when I first started to play it the first time it made me so angry that I threw my controller.

I'm not a fan of Vaan as much as the others, but I think I read somewhere that Basch was supposed to be the lead but wasnt marketable enough?

What, Final Fantasy not having an emo girl looking lead? /sarcasm....  That is how that would have went.
If you know me personally, you know how to contact me.

Silverfyre

I started with the NES original, Final Fantasy.  I grew up on the NES and the SNES, right in the middle of Squaresoft's hay day.  I will forever cherish FF II (IV) and III (VI) as the best in the series.  I loved IX and VII was worth a play-through but otherwise, I haven't really been much of a fan of the others.  X-2 was basically a "Bitch stole my clothes!" Barbie clothing simulator. 


Inkidu

I started at about five with Final Fantasy. Played IV (as II) personal favorite of all time. I have bought it for every system I have). Played VIII (loved it, despite the majority) then VII (don't love it as much as some people think I should), I adore IX. It's like the magnum opus of the pre-PlayStation games. It has all the allusions to the series. I like the system. X was impressive in a lot of ways. XII was horrible and shook my faith. XIII put the nail in the coffin.

Ah, good times.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Revenent

Hey, anyone else remember Versus XIII and Agito XIII? You know, those two spin-offs that were announced about four decades ago?