@sotojuan#12023 Use an ODE for faster loading. your PS1 laser could be worn out or your disc could be scratched. Load from flash storage like SD card and the load times will be as fast as is physically possible.
I played through FFIX and FFVII this year using my PSIO flash cart for ps1 and had a wonderful time.
Iāve been replaying the Final Fantasy games that I loved as a kid, with my wife in tow, which is interesting because sheās really turned off by the systems and numbers in RPGs but is really into the stories for some reason. She watches tons of sci-fi and fantasy television so sheās been a good gut check and has helped me figure out what I think is really good and what I just enjoy as nostalgia. Iām positive that as a kid I understood approximately zero percent of what the games were trying to do. I just enjoyed them as spectacle.
So far we've replayed VII and VIII and started IX but she didn't like IX mostly because of Zidane's uh, fuckboy vibes (a classic Sakaguchi archetype lol)
This is rehashing what I said in another thread but there are just too many battles in any of the SNES Final Fantasies for me to really enjoy them. They feel very old. The furthest I've gotten in any of them was to the Moon in FFIV, which I gather is pretty close to the end, but I just ended up putting it down because I couldn't stomach the battles anymore. So somewhere in my basement is an SFC FFIV JP cart with my pretty late-game save sitting on it.
I think Kazushige Nojima coming on as a writer with VII was a huge turning point in the series, and I see him as a good writer, better than his circumstances maybe, who's done very well inside some of major restrictions. His biggest strengths are dialogue and pacing. When Nojima joined the team, for me, FF characters suddenly became relatable people instead of just archetypes. By pacing I mean that he gives you time to build an emotional attachment with a character before delivering a dramatic scene.
I do think his plots tend to unravel after a while, though Iām not sure whether heās writing within a defined scenario or if heās coming up with the plots himself. In VII, for example, the plot starts to run out of steam a little ways into disc 2 and the game has to introduce new elements to keep it going. I remember making a list of them as I was playing and it ended up being like 15 things, and I gleefully sent this to several friends in text message but now I can't find it, darn. He also has a bizarre penchant for informing you later that characters you already know well are actually related. And guess what else. That guy is also Aerith's dad. Me: OK
Still I think heās great. The series ramps up in quality for me as he gets more involved. But thatās counteracted by Square taking the training wheels off Nomura and letting him do more of what he wants around the same time. By FFX thereās just an absurdity to me in Lulu fighting monsters and picking her way through jungles in an extremely low-cut dress made of belts. Tidusā hair. etc. VII and VIII are the sweet spots for me.
Well I have a lot more to say but Iām gonna stop here to avoid bringing the thread to a screeching halt with a giant turd of a post
@CidNight#11971 would you say the DS version of IV has the same encounter rate as the original, or did they alter it?
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@Syzygy#12031 FF9 is extremely slow.
Yeah, this I think is forgotten. I (re)played the PS4 remasters of 7, and 9 roughly one after another and there were a lot of quality of life things I appreciated about 9, but that game was surprisingly long. Playing the PS4 port which speeds up battle loading is pretty cool though. The last time I played it was on my new PS2 on the couch in college and I made it through and enjoyed my time with it, which was much more than can say for 8.
I know that 8 has had some resurgence in popular opinion in recent years, but I don't like the characters, plot, or the mechanics. Music has some good parts though.
@Syzygy I agree itās all a bit obvious but I really like how fast battles go in X. As I see it JRPG battles are there to provide a sense of progression and maybe be a playground to test out your builds, or put uncharitably, theyāre there to lengthen the game. And if thereās enough battles to lengthen the game, then each one canāt be challenging to the point of being engaging, so all else equal I'd just prefer them to go fast. I like that about X
@GigaSlime I love VIII very much, love Lion Heart, love the outstanding NPC dialogue
Been waiting for this one! Should say before this that my criteria for FF games being good or not usually has very little to do with the combat. I come to this series for stories and characters and can mostly slog through anything if I like those elements enough. Sometimes I find genuine joy in the combat but itās just not what Iām here for.
FF I-V:
Havenāt played any of them and the only one Iām interested in is IV which I have the PSP version of. I have such a hard time connecting with JRPGs of the 8 and 16 bit eras so not sure Iāll like it but Iām interested at least. Might also give that 3D remake of III a try at some point too.
FFVI:
As stated in the other thread: hate it. Have tried to play it multiple times and I dislike it more every time.
FFVII:
My favorite cast in the series. Gameplay is good but the characters tend to just be Materia vessels without that much differentiation of their own. Classic locations and music. Great story. Piecing Cloud's mind back together is an all time great sequence.
FFVIII:
Another one Iāve tried a few times and havenāt been able to find the fun in. I donāt know that itās bad but the junction system is weird and confusing to me. Is a game I constantly feel like Iām not playing well and that Iām going to be punished for it later on. I have the remastered one though and am determined to one day get through it. If only to see the weirdo plot through.
FFIX:
This one is interesting because I see people always say that is a nostalgia grab and a game for you if you like old FFs. I donāt have any attachment to those games though and I love this one. Sublime character work and an beautiful world. Vivi's story is the best stuff in the entire franchise IMO.
FFX:
Timeless story and characters for me. Heavy handed in its religion criticism but still hits well. Fun gameplay, like switching the party around. Genuinely sweet. Very easy to get absorbed into. Some really bullshit bosses. Seymour is mad creepy.
FFX-2:
Really underrated. One of the only FF games where I come back to it for its battle system more than the characters. Chaotic fun.
FFXI:
Played it when I was a kid for two months and then stopped being able to afford it. Liked it.
FFXII:
Missed this one when it first came around and then played a good chunk of it when Zodiac Age hit. I like it and want to finish it some day. I think the gambit stuff is brilliantly designed but idk if itās for me. I donāt have fun being in menus like that too much. Have a feeling that the speed up function in this game is a god send.
FFXIII:
Played a handful of hours of it and honestly thought it was pretty good. Has maybe the worst case of jargon brain of any game ever. Really confusing to find your footing in the story. Really relies on you going into the well written and very extensive encyclopedia to actually learn what anything is. Gameplay is fun. Characters are weird. I wanna finish it and play itās apparently much better sequels one day. Put them on Switch. Oh great fucking music too.
FFXIV:
Working through it but love.
FFXV:
I donāt even feel like pretending to be nice to this game. Itās horrific. What story is there is depicted in the most incompetent way. They took scenes from the terrible CG movie and just inserted them into the game and call that story telling. Characters are flat boring wet cardboard scraps. Combat works as intended like 7-12% of the time. Terrible DLC episodes. The worst female lead in the series. You might forget sheās there! The just unbelievably bad fights against the giant bosses. I agree with the post here that the open world was the best part. It was kinda barren and janky but it was genuinely the only part of the game I enjoyed.
FFVIIR:
To me this is the best single player FF since X-2. Outside of a few pretty annoying and not at all fun encounters I enjoyed the combat a lot. Loved the character work. Loved the ending. I didnāt have much faith in SE going into it since it has been uhhhh a while since they really produced a great single player FF but I think they nailed it. Padding and all lol.
Spin-offs:
Kingsglaive FFXV:
lmfao
Crisis Core:
Bad game, loved seeing all the story content though.
Theatrhythm FF:
Fantastic rhythm game if you like FF music. Pick up Curtain Call if you want a good time.
World of FF:
Cute but mostly just kinda boring.
The various FF mobile gacha games:
Mostly not worth playing. Record Keeper is kinda cool.
Dissidia in all its forms:
Truly what the fuck is going on here
I was surprised to read negative opinions about the PSP version of IV earlier in the thread. I remember it being strongly recommended and the DS version being the one thatās derided. Personally I prefer the DS one, but itās the first version I played at age 13 or 14 so it had a big impact on me. I like Augments as well.
I think the PSP version is fine and probably the best 2D version but eh, you can't go wrong with any version outside of the original US release.
Didn't they update ARR to be shorter and less padded? What was the deal with that?
@ātapevultureā#292 If she doesnāt like Zidaneās extreme hormones, sheāll hate FF6 because what bothered me most even as a kid is how horny every single dude character is in that game. At least IX has varied characters like Vivi who is mega asexual, Quina who's just tryna eat, and Beatrix who will murder you.
Yo before I post here, how do you format spoiler tags?
@sotojuan#12041 Same here, I had always heard that it was the definitive non-remake version of IV. Iām not really sweating it though, sounds like itās fine.
oh boy, with Final Fantasy there is always so much to talk about.
I haven't beaten more than a few of 'em, some I've only played once if barely at all.
It's probably more interesting if I just talk about FFX, because I guess that's the one I feel I like for interesting reasons.
Narrative-wise I think it's got to be the overall best executed one. I might like FFVII more on a thematic level, but it's pretty close, and FFX is so much more of a complete package in terms of execution.
Even the stuff it's often given shit for, I think is honestly pretty good, and I can forgive some of the technical limitations. Sometimes I think the mocapping had more to do with peoples' perception that the voice acting and characterization was awkward... it's always strange to me to see what looks like to me, Japanese physical gestures and mannerisms, matched up to English speech and language. And the clipped way in which translations end up not always having creative solutions for cramming longer English phrases into lip movements that are too short for a natural sounding line. I played the HD version not all that long ago after I had thought about this one for a while, and was sort of casting a critical eye on it in that light, trying to forgive awkward mocapping and lines that sound clipped mostly because of needing to shove a line in a place it doesn't fit. Long story short, I think one of the best performances in the game is Auron, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that that might at least partially be because in most scenes... his mouth is completely covered by his collar, giving Matt McKenzie much more license than most other characters to give a more natural delivery of his lines.
Even with that in mind though, I like most of the voice acting (no excuses here for Wakka's embarrassing fake patois though), and on top of that I like most of the characters (I still can't dislike Wakka as a character!). Preaching to the choir here, but you ever notice how often Gamers and the like complain about things specifically because they actually just Missed The Fucking Point? Tidus is a bit annoying and Yuna is a muted sometimes and silly others, and suddenly Gamers are complaining about it for a decade. As if Tidus being a bit of an unbearable twerp and Yuna going between either having a lot on her mind or just being no thoughts head empty is kind of the point. But I guess because Main Character isn't just an uninterrupted power fantasy and Gamers might have to understand how people respond to you if you're a bit of an unbearable twerp, it somehow doesn't resonate.
Narratively speaking, I think FFX is easily the best _told_ story in the flagship series, single player wise (a weird statement only serving to remind everyone that FFXIV is easily the best story in a FF game). Framing the lion's share of the game as Tidus recollecting on the journey thus far, with his occasional disembodied commentary and reflections, I think does a lot of great tone setting. Games don't use stuff like this nearly often enough, I'd say. Especially considering that above point about how Gamers being annoyed by Tidus just literally didn't get the fuckin' point because you have already been promised a character arc that will be moving very far in the direction away from "unbearable twerp." The structure of the journey as a pilgrimage as a main story objective was a fantastic choice and allows the story to keep moving when it needs to move and rest when it needs to rest. Working toward an always known and obvious destination combines brilliantly with having good reasons to stop everywhere along the way.
It's one of the few FF games where I really feel connected with everything in the world and in a world where everything is connected. It's really cool how much work they put into giving each part of Spira you visit if not its own fairly fleshed out identity, at least its own distinct visual aesthetic. I like the idea that you get to see almost every corner of Spira and see all of those people and communities. In contrast to a game like, say, XII, I feel I don't really understand all that much about Dalmasca, or, the other two, other than that that's where the game is set (sidenote, I love FFXII but that game's story is a total non-starter for me and fails to deliver on any of its most interesting promises... I think the moment I grew up was the moment I was confronted undeniably that the "political intrigue" in FFXII that Electronic Gaming Monthly promised me was going to turn into Anime Teens With Good Hair And Their Crystals Saving The World Because That's What You Do When You're A Crystal Aligned Anime Teen). It's a curious quirk of Final Fantasy to often tease at the idea of geopolitics but rarely do much work to convey a world with convincing geopolitics or using that level of worldbuilding with much substance (this is also a reason why FFXIV is by far the best story in any FF game). I even like there are some races and cultures in Spira that remain mostly a mystery. I love those shoopuf guys, but like, who are they?? I wanna hang out with them way more.
I get a lot out of FFX thematically as well. It's maybe the only FF game where there is a convincing arc of a character being downright xenophobic for purely emotional reasons, having those xenophobic preconceptions challenged and his assumptions dismantled, seeing the error of his ways and growing and changing as a person. Tidus' relationship and overall arc with Jecht is pretty great, just, in general. It has things to say about grief, loss, coping, celebrity, corruption, destiny, personal sacrifice for the greater good, all sorts of things. My maybe more unique and most resonating thing is probably its statements on tradition and complacency. You get a writer starting to talk about major disruptions in a social order, you got my attention. I might be reading into this way too much, but I also tend to pay close attention to when Japanese media seems to even come remotely close to acknowledging things like colonialism or cultural imperialism (I live in a country that likes to pretend it does but never actually does). A big part of me wants to think that the references to Okinawan and Southeast Asian aesthetics were about more than just a visual aesthetic and also about at least a subtle nod as part of some of the other broader themes present in the narrative.
One of the things FFX is about to me is shared societal complacency and the acceptance of a false history. Hence why I feel there is a tiny little chance the evoking of Okinawan aesthetics isn't just a coincidence or a shallow choice as these are the sorts of things that are integral for the day to day functioning of a former empire but also maybe a cultural empire that isn't so former. It's much harder to see the problem with the present if the dominant culture has done a very good job at revising the historical truth. So getting to reject a simple answer with major moral caveats, and undoing a safe but ultimately corrupt and morally bankrupt social order, is an exciting exercise for me.
Anyway. You know what I'm not even remotely ashamed to admit I think would be really cool? A FFX Remake
The thing that always sticks out about FFX for me is the Tidus/Yuna romance, maybe the best romance in JRPG history. None of this blushing next to each other for forty hours until they work up to a hug. Tidus and Yuna actually have honest to god sexual tension. Remember that scene where they make out in the pool? That was fuckin' hot
@GigaSlime#12080 This is an extremely brave and powerful thing to say, and it's also correct
One of the things I hate in fiction more than anything is when romance is put in a story seemingly because someone was of the opinion that it isn't a story without a romance subplot. Fairy tale shit basically. There are probably more FF games where it just doesn't add a damn thing to the game's story than ones where it actually matters to the plot, as if they can't think of a reason why your male protagonist would want to involve themselves with Girl if not to Obtain Her. COUGH ZIDANE COUGH
But with FFX I can buy it. Superstar unbearable twerp who has Zanarkand Babes hanging off of him 24/7 despite his odious personality gets taken to a new world and suddenly he's on the other side of that equation, being fascinated with someone unattainable. And so on.
Even if you can't see it as a timeless lasting romance I think it would be very hard to argue that Tidus isn't exactly the sort of boneheaded hunk a woman in her position would want to just swirl around in some erotic magic water with, to cope
I genuinely enjoyed blitzball and got really into it. I love detailed fake videogame sports
Long stream-of-consciousness incoming. While a lot of it is related to Final fantasy and FFX in particular some of it veers off towards only tangentially related topics. So be warned.
I agree with much of what has already been said about FFX by @JoJoestar and @Gaagaagiins, but I'd like to add a few of my own cents. Also, seeing so many people love FFX makes me happy and I should probably get over myself with the constant references to nebulous āgame-likersā who hate it as I'm sort of beating up on a straw-man. But it's hard for me to let go off, because of the annoying discourse surrounding the game I subjected myself to in the mid to late 2000's. So I apologize to anyone on the board who doesn't like FFX and feel like I am straw-manning their opinion. I promise I am mostly fighting ghosts from circa 2007.
I also enjoy the palpable sense that death and rebirth permeates everything in the world of Spira that @JoJoestar mentioned. It feels thematically consistent and constantly we are presented with how the people in this world has come to terms with sudden violent death as an inevitable part of life. While the concept of the monster Sin is of course pretty on the nose, as the people think of it as a literal punishment for their sins I think that it does ultimately work. ||Particularly, as it is revealed that Sin has no real purpose besides self-perpetuation and the entire religion of Yu Yevon is essentially a coping mechanism trying to find meaning in meaningless destruction through self-flagellation.|| It is not exactly subtle, but then again subtlety is not something that I associate with Final Fantasy. I do think that it is a pretty crude criticism of religion, at least on the surface, what with almost all the leaders of the church being corrupt and āin on the secretā. However, I also take it as being about stifling traditions and corrupt power-structures in general, not limited to religious ones although that is the main focus.
There are some attempts at presenting priests lower in the hierarchy as sincere and I do think that there is also an attempt to show that religion can present relief in the face of a hostile world, although this is ultimately depicted as a false sense of relief preventing people from solving the problem. This is of course in line with many criticisms people have of real-world religions as well (insert something about opium for the masses) and while these definitely have potency they can also sometimes lack nuance. While I never got further than about halfway into FFX-2 I do think the fallout of what happens when the church leaders are revealed to be corrupt and and the empirical foundations of the scriptures ||(i.e. the physical manifestation of Sin)|| is revealed to be bogus would make for good story material. As that game had a faction of new Yu Yevon worshippers trying to hold to their religious tenets in spite of the above, it might interesting. I don't know if a good job is done with this though, anybody who played the game fully and are willing to weigh in?
Obviously it is possible to criticize the story in FFX for becoming convoluted towards the end, for certain structural issues such as the repeated kidnappings of Yuna etc., but ultimately I think what decides your overall view is how you feel about the characters and the world/theme, rather than the specifics of the plot.
I can't really parse out the non-spoiler stuff from the spoiler stuff so I put the whole discussion of Yuna's character inside one. Not sure how much spoilers for such an old game matters, but better safe than sorry.
||Yuna is a character who could have easily been boring. Indeed, I have seen criticism of her character that pretty much reads her in this way.Self-sacrificing saint stoically, almost passively going towards her death for the greater good. However, I think that this is a very superficial reading and ultimately not justified by the text. While she obviously feels an immense sense of pressure from being her father's daughter and her wrestling with his legacy is a large part of her character, going on the pilgrimage was ultimately an active choice she made because she wanted to bring joy to the world, however fleeting. It might not be the best decision and as she starts to question society and her faith she struggles with the decision. However, what I really like about her is that she is not all doom and gloom all the time or completely consigned to her fate with saintly composure. Because she is traveling to make the ultimate sacrifice she wants to enjoy things along the way. While part of this is an attempt to look happy in order to sooth others it is also a genuine desire on her part. In part because she does enjoy many aspect of life and in part because she is ultimately not at peace with the idea of her own death and wants to distract herself from it and have fun while she can.||
||I think this is in large part why the romance subplot with Tidus works well. Here is someone who initially does not treat her with the solemn distance reserved for the potential high summoner, in fact here is a character who is not even aware that she is going towards her death. While Lulu and Wakka obviously care for her, the issue of her pilgrimage is ever present in every interaction she has with them. She can interact with Tidus unencumbered by her ultimate fate and it allows her to express genuine joy. Indeed through this we see that she likes having fun with a more playful personality hidden beneath the somewhat somber face she has to put on as the potential high summoner. Her individual desires are however in constant conflict with her sense of duty towards the people of Spira and comes to a head multiple times throughout the game. Tidus influence as an outsider also allows her to reevaluate some of her assumptions about her own role as the high summoner and of course ultimately she decides to forge a better path rather than simply submitting to tradition.||
Tidus can initially come across as somewhat obnoxious. He is loud, kind of rude, brash and has seemingly no respect for the rules and culture of Spira. His extroverted confidence which is clearly an attempt to overcome the self-doubt instilled by his father, can be grating. However, as the game moves along he starts to overcome his feeling of inadequacy and as a consequence he becomes more reflective. He thus becomes less rude and brash, while his confidence becomes more of a positive assertion that a better path can be found. I think there is quite a lot going on with his relationship with his dad, but I already wrote too much about Yuna, so I will leave this aspect for now.
Also, the Japanese voice-acting in the game is really good ā particularly Yuna whom I feel is not quite done justice in the English voice track. I agree that Auron is very good in English though! As a 13-year old boy he was definitely my favorite character, being the epitome of ācoolā. I still have a soft spot for him and I do think that his character has some depth as well, what with him essentially thinking of himself as a failure, driven both by his hatred of the church which betrayed his faith (and by extension his hatred of his naive younger self) and his sense of guilt towards his fallen comrades, while the audience (and the other characters) initially just sees him as this totally legendary badass with a somewhat cynical attitude.
While the story and characters are probably the main reason that I like the game so much, I would be remiss not to explain why I also enjoy it more as a game than the majority of the series. I honestly don't like the ATB system that much, preferring fully turn-based particularly the system of FFX and I therefore enjoy it more than any entry with an ATB system. In fact, while I was initially skeptical, I was pretty happy with the battle-system they ended up adopting for FFVII Remake and found it much more fun and engaging than the ATB system of the original. Here are a few reasons that I enjoy the turn-based system in FFX: It if quick and responsive. I like the ability to switch characters on the fly. The main reason though is the turn-order mechanics. I really like how I can see the next couple of turns and how an action I am about to take will affect the order. This allows me to plan things much more than the ATB system. This was mostly useful for boss battles, as random encounters didn't need much in the way of strategy, but here the fast pace of the battle system helped a lot and I felt less annoyed by these encounters than those of say FF7.
I also think that the expert sphere grid is pretty fun and I like the equipment customization options that allow for some interesting game-changing abilities to be added to equipment. Mind you, I think both sphere grid, weapon customization and battle strategy completely breaks down if one attempts to do end-game stuff, devolving into a grind for +4 spheres at the monster trainer that eventually make all characters the same, with the battle strategy essentially being to exclusively use quick hits. While I did some of this post-game content when I was younger I don't have the patience for it today and I don't think it is worth it as it's just one long grind.
As I acknowledged in the Suikoden topic I think that FFX being my favorite FF is in large part due to it being the first FF I really played at the right age (13 in my case). I had played a little bit of FFVII and FFIX before, but never gave them a real shot (I didn't own them). Buying FFX soon after it came out was actually quite a risk, because it represented a lot of money for me at the time. I remember that I thought it looked really cool, I had this idea that I ought to enjoy games like Final Fantasy, but at the back of my mind I did wonder whether I was making a mistake. As is evident from this post, I ended up loving it. It is my pet idea that people's favorite FF is often the first (or maybe second) one they played particularly if at the right age, say around 11-15. I could however be completely wrong, maybe many of you actually prefer one that you played years later?
On the flip-side I am loath to use ānostalgiaā as a criticism against people for their prefered entries, as I think this has a tendency to not engage with the substance of that preference instead insinuating that emotional attachment rather than any stated reasons are the only reason that someone likes something. As someone who have often enjoyed older media (including plenty of stuff from before I was born) I find this particularly annoying as it seems to imply that old things simply cannot be good on their own merits.
Also I am not a real connoisseur of Final Fantasy games. In fact the only FF games I have finished are FFVII, FFX and FFVII Remake. I have however played about half of FFVI,FFX-2, FFXII, FFXIII and maybe 8 hours of FFIX and FFXV. In the case of FFVI it was long ago on an emulator and I remember liking it, but just sort of stopping at some point. I played and finished Chrono Trigger and Lufia II within the last two years and enjoyed those quite a bit. I therefore think I would like FFVI better if I were to play it again and I plan to play both it and FFIV within the next few years. For FFX-2 and FFXII it is a somewhat similar story, liked them fine but then lost interest and just sort of stopped at some point. For FFXIII I stopped when most people said that āit got goodā, i.e. in gran pulse. I just realized that I didn't really care much for the battle-system and as I was no longer being pushed forward quite as much I sort of stopped. I would be interested in playing it again from the beginning though. I don't think I will give FFXV another chance as it just bored me, but I would like to get into FFIX as I like the style but it's just so very slow...
I am particularly interested in playing FFX-2 again as I remember finding aspects of it quite interesting. Mostly the idea of seeing how Spira changes due to the massive upheaval of religion, tradition and material conditions that would be a consequence of the ending of FFX. Just a shame about some of the very questionable āhumorā like the Leblanc massage scene...
This is slightly related to what @Gaagaagiins mentioned about some gamers missing the point, but it's something that has been on my mind lately. Perhaps it would be better sectioned of into a different thread, but let me just give the short version here as it relates to criticism of Tidus in particular. I remember a lot of criticism of Tidus related to both his physical appearance (i.e. he looks like a woman etc.) and his character (i.e. he is a whiny little bitch and Jecht was right to treat him coldly) that essentially seemed rooted in the idea that he is not a proper manly man. This criticism was not limited to Tidus, in fact it was very common towards any ābishounenā character in Japanese media, even if they were otherwise coded masculine by western standards, although the vitriol was of course worse if they also happened to have emotional issues of any kind. I think it was more common among gamers, however, and I do wonder how related this is to later and much worse outpourings of toxic masculinity with the advent of the Gamergate crowd. I mean nowadays many of those people hail Japanese games as untouched by the āevil SJWSā, but I still think some of the impulses that led to the intense hatred of characters like Tidus are similar.
Don't get me wrong I am not claiming that games with such characters were super-progressive or anything, it's just that what is within the acceptable limits of proper masculine behavior was different in Japan then in the West. So while such characters were not pushing social boundaries much in Japan the reactions to them from some people in the west do seem to stem from an aversion to characters that are not āmanlyā enough.
@JoJoestar#12022 Yeah, possibly. I think there needs to be a game that has that XV vibe or something very unique that completely disregard those missions that are that āgo to point A then take that thing and go to point Bā. Death Stranding made something different from the formula A to B in that sense, but it feels like someone needs to take that step and I think Square Enix is possibly one of those that shouldn't be afraid to make that extra step.
@yeso#12085
Yeah, at some point my first two playthroughs of FFX turned into Football Manager for me as I was increasingly solely dedicated to playing blitzball. I absolutely loved the mechanic of being able to just recruit randos off the street to play for your team, and some of the fun quirks like being able to pull Wakka out of retirement, Michael Jordan style. I realize now that the recruitment mechanic was FFXs version of the FF8 and 9 card games, neither of which grabbed me in the same way.
blitzball ownsā¦ā¦ā¦ I will restart and rewatch all those dang cutscenes as many times as I need to win the initial blitzball tournament
in the Love Hated Games thread I was twice asked to explain my valuing of XIII as the second best of all Final Fantasies. i will now proceed to do so:
cloud is my favorite video game character, and lightning is my second favorite video game character. i like quiet kind of mean hypercompetent weirdos who are extremely bad at everything except the thing they know how to do.
final fantasies 1-5: didnāt play em, might some day.
6: have never gotten past the second town, seems fine but never grabbed me.
7: the best one.
8: pretty good
9: a lot of people sure seem to like this for some reason
X: i have come to appreciate this game a lot more even in the past year or so. I miss y2k visuals.
11: this was an MMO
12: i like fran and balthier, and penelo a little, but every other character in this was annoying.
13: when you play this, please imagine Sazh as a real human from our world who got sucked into a Final Fantasy by mistake.
14: I watched my partner play the whole thing and: this is an MMO.
15: i love this game (I only played up to the first big town)
ADDENDUM:
X-2: this game totally rules. I rented it from gamefly (a younger me was decidedly Not immune to the charms of Lady Yuna In Hot Pants, as well as Another Hot Goth Lady). imagine my surprise when I found out the *whole thing* was about cute girls changing outfits and having fun together. there's a mini game where you give the antagonist a back rub!! what a fluffy delight.
Tactics Advance: this game rules
7R: this game *extremely* rules. i want the platinum trophy, if only to hang out in this world with these characters. *this* is the real Final Fantasy XVI.