@SU2MM#12086 I think going back to X-2 now with fresh eyes would be great. It’s def gonna feel a bit dated wrt the whole pop star trio thing which was very much rooted in the period of time it came out in. But it genuinely does a good job of showing how a society is to rebuild after large world shattering events. I think it’s a real gem in the franchise.
Alright, I‘m happy to follow the approach of others and go through a list with my thoughts on each game, then I’ll rank them. I might do a separate post later re: non-numbered FFs.
1: I played this sometime in the Playstation era. I never beat it and found it pretty difficult to play with the years of later experience. I think I would have loved this if I'd played it when it first came out.
2-3: I never played either of these. I own the DS version of 3, and my wife really liked that, but I've never played it.
4: This game has a very special place in my heart. When I was around 7 years old, my oldest brother won a Super Nintendo at his high school prom (pretty sweet). Since he had lost interest in video games many years before, he gave it to me. My best friend's older brother was a huge Final Fantasy nerd, and my friend and I "borrowed" FF4 and played through it together on a tiny CRT in his bedroom. Shortly thereafter, a friend of my brother's, as a way to mess with _his_ kid brother, lent me his copy of FF4 and then never asked for it back. This thus became the first game I ever beat entirely on my own without the help of my brothers or friends. I renamed Rosa after the girl I had a crush on in second grade.
I also played this for the first time when it was released in a collection for the Playstation. I remember loving the job system, but felt the story and characters were inferior to those in FF4, 6, or 7.
This is _my most important game_(tm). I did eventually give FF4 back to my brother's friend. That Christmas, I asked my mom for my own copy of FF4. She, not understanding video games, accidentally bought me a brand new copy of FF6 which was just released. I had no idea FF4 had a sequel! I'll never forget the feeling of mild disappointment transforming slowly into massive excitement. This is the game that solidified my lifelong game-likeitude. It also helped me learn to read and expand my vocabulary. The game was just such a spectacle. If FF4 seemed like a massive step up in complexity from the Commodore 64 games and the NES Mario games I had previously played, FF6 seemed like another massive step forward from FF4.
FF7 pushed the spectacle yet another step further. If you haven't ever watched it, watch Tim's Let's Mosey series about his comparison of the English and Japanese versions of the game. He goes much deeper into his feelings about the game than the title would suggest and they perfectly mirror my own.
This is where the series started to lose me. I played the wheels off it, like I did with every FF, but the convolutions of the plot, without the grounded character work that FF7 had really turned me off. I did unabashedly like the love story between Squall and Rinoa. I liked Rinoa enough for both of them. Squall suuuucks.
This game did not feel like a return to form for me and was actually a low point in the series for me. I felt like the game was a slog. Still played it to death though.
This _did_ feel more like a return to form. I really enjoyed 10. I liked the characters, I liked the story, I liked how weird it was, I liked the overt politics of it all.
10-2. What the hell is this
Never played it
I enjoyed the gambit system a lot. I played this game for dozens of hours but only sort of enjoyed it? It felt like eating a ton of McDonald's.
I disliked 13 a real lot. I didn't actually mind the linearity of it, and the battle system was fun. I really really disliked that every line of dialogue included three words that were completely meaningless outside of an in-game encyclopedia. it felt pretentious and weird.
13-2, 3. I did not play either of the sequels to 13. My wife liked them - especially 13-3 which is apparently pretty good. These games do _look_ excellent, graphics-wise.
Never played this one either.
I have a lot of weird feelings about 15. Like many others, I enjoyed the road trippiness, and I enjoyed the bros and their relationships. But the game was just such a damn mess. This includes the first half, to me. What is the point of having a humongous, massive world, and having 99.99% of it be completely empty. The sidequests genuinely sucked, and the game had the same problem as 13 in that huge portions of the game were indiscernible except to the most hardcore of outside readers. I think this game had the same problem that CP2077 has now in that it was released about a year before it was done and bit off way more than it could chew.
FF7R. This game ruled. It wasn't perfect, but it did rule. It restored a little bit of my hope for Square Enix after they had in recent years given me FF15 _AND_ the atrocity of FF6 on mobile devices.
Ranking (only including games I played all the way through at least once): **6, 7, 4, 7R, 10, 5, 12, 9, 8, 15**
@CidNight#12093 I think it helped make that world seem more lively and gave it some additional hangout qualities. Gwent had a similar effect for me in TWIII because you could always find someone in a tavern to play, there were tournaments to participate in, and you could run into other gwent fans. Also helps I think that it and blitzball are elaborate for a minigame. Triple triad was less so, and didn’t connect to the world like blitzball did. Don’t have any insights into X, but remember enjoying the chill towns and cities quite a bit
my list (excluding tactics which would be #1)
V
XII
VIII
X2
XI
VI
IV
XIV
VII
X
XIII
IX
XV
Have not played nes FFs or the other XIII games
New question for the group: What is your favorite non-mainline FF that isn't Final Fantasy Tactics? I exclude FFT because as some clever writer on Kotaku wrote many years ago, “picking FFT as your favorite Final Fantasy is like picking Jeb Bartlett as your favorite president. It is simultaneously absolutely correct, and absolutely cheating.”
To further flesh out the rules, I would say the other FFT games are in play, as well as FFs on any system and from any era, including mobile games. Direct numbered sequels (X-2, XIII-2 and 3) and remakes (FF7R) count as mainline games and are thus out of bounds.
[For Reference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Final_Fantasy_video_games)
@espercontrol#12105 my unsought for advice? Pretend that's where XV ended! Let it stay an experience you loved
I kept playing XV trying to find some different clothes for those guys to wear but quit once I realized there was no hope
>
@CidNight#12111 What is your favorite non-mainline FF that isn’t Final Fantasy Tactics?
That's easy, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance
I've actually never really gotten through FFTBasic. I think maybe it's a bit too dry.
FFTA as I understand it is most of what's good about FFT but it has a little more sweet and sour to it if you know what I mean
My list would be:
IX
V
X
VII remake
XV
VII
XII
VIII
XIII
VI
IV
My pendings of course are the Tactics game and also Zero.
@Gaagaagiins#12114 Man, I played both the Tactics Advance games and they could have been great… if they just got rid of the damn judges. It made it impossible to just build a party - instead you needed to have 10 jack of all trades who could somehow win a match without attacking, or using magic, or whatever.
I hope FF7-3 has Bizzaro Sephiroth and JENOVA Birth but more complete-form demigods. Jenova birth looks like it’s trying to form a Sphinx or something that would just fly around the world reigning destruction. :j
@CidNight#12117 I really liked that system! Although, if I remember correctly to some degree the best thing to do was often just refresh the upcoming laws or save scum if you got a really crappy one. So maybe I'm viewing it throw rose tinted glasses a bit here.
Also, hey @SU2MM , how do you format those spoiler tags? I wish that was in the baked into the posting box like other formatting options are.
Another thing I find funny about having threads about specific JRPG franchises is that I feel like if we had a Dragon Quest one it would feature way fewer like, Paragraphs of text lol.
It'd be like...
>!aaaa!<
>!Oh I figured it out!<
it's this without spaces in between the angle brackets and the exclamation marks > !Text! <
Somewhat awkward on this platform because of how it semi-helpfully closes in your angled brackets when you type in the left one, at least it does for me
Alright, I like this format of speaking about each game separately. Haven't played I-VI but I intend to change that soon (I just started IV!). Alright, this is my FF experience:
X: Already did a big post on this one above! I love it, the story really resonates with me and contrary to what other people said above, I love the battle system. Being able to use the whole party at the same time and changing members on the fly is what every jRPG should be, to be honest. It makes you so much more attached to the whole group and coupled with each party member having a special role and commands sells the idea of a group of people working together so much better. Also you don't lose customization, by the end of the game you can create hybrids and make other characters learn skills from one another, you can lose some of the identity of each character but that only happens so late into the playthrough it's not a problem at all.
VII: The only reason I can't put it above X is because it's been 20 years since I beat this thing, barely remember anything outside the most famous plot beats. This was, as happened to many other children at the time, my first jRPG and also my first RPG period. I was so unfamilliar with the genre my first time trying this game borrowed from a friend I had to call him asking what the hell happened with the characters during the battles, they didn't move at all! The idea of choosing the actions from a menu instead of actively controlling the characters was so bizarre to me at the time I had my friend come over to my house and explain the thing to me. The mark this game left on me is deep, and it's probably the most taste defining game I have ever played. I feel like I owe my affinity towards japanese media to this game in a lot of senses.
XIV: The game that has made me fall in love with FF again. Yoshida and his team just GET IT. After Sakaguchi and Uematsu left there was a clear change of direction in the franchise. Everything became pop and style over substance and abandoned the whole opera and western classic tales influence. This game remembered what FF used to be and just fucking hit the nail in the head, bringing life to a world and characters that are truly memorable. I know it's an MMO and honestly I don't like the battle system based on skill rotations very much, but the story, side content and secondary characters are so good this stands as my third favorite FF ever.
IX: Didn't love this game at the time and hated the final boss and weird metaphysical ending, and also the side stuff wasn't as involved as in the other games. BUT I replayed it many years later and it just clicked. The opening with the theater performance is probably my favorite videogame first scene ever. The way they explain and tutorialize the battle system through fake battles taking place during the stage play is honestly genius. Vivi's plotline is another hightlight of the whole franchise and the epilogue is so bittersweet. Great game, bummed that folks around here don't like this game for some reason!
XII: Matsuno's FF wasn't as great as it could have been due to production problems, but it honestly is quite good. I don't like the level design (maps are too big) and feel like the whole thing is too geared towards learning an overcomplicated battle system. It takes sort of a gameplay first approach to the game I'm not a huge fan of, remember playing like 20 hours and the plot barely advanced. But I love the characters, the tone and the vibes of the whole thing, so I liked it despite my criticisms.
XIII: Honestly, the extreme linearity kill this game for me. I need towns and dungeons in my jRPG man, I just do, give them to me, and this game doesn't. The thing is, I liked the story and pace, I liked the characters and the battle system is great so, in the end I finished in positive. Not my favorite FF experience and the first game of the Nomura period. Disclaimer: I really don't like Nomura AT ALL, so from XIII everything goes downhill for me.
VIII: Didn't like it too much at the time but suffers from the same problem described with FFVII, it's been so long since I played (finished it at launch) I can't honestly be sure if I really don't like it. At the same time, I'm not compelled to play it again, so I don't know if I'll be able to revise my opinion on it.
XV: At times is very hard for me to divorce the actual quality of this game from the huge disappointment I experienced with it. I ATE everything they said during the marketing campaign regarding this game being a return to form taking FFVI as its main inspiration. That title that appears when you boot the game "A Final Fantasy for fans and newcomers alike" made me SO excited. Then you get a very plain and boring ubisoft sandbox and a second half that is so rushed and poorly narrated that manages to suffocate all the attachment you could have developed with the first part of the game. The battle system is so simple and boring and the magic system (throwing grenades WTF) sucks ass real hard. That said, I love the main cast and camping and enjoying their banter and interactions was the heart of this game, and it nails that part. The ending was also very emotional and well put together, it made me hate the game a bit less, but yeah, to me FFXV is a 4/10 game, and I'm very sorry to say that.
VII Remake: I also wrote about this game in an earlier message. I don't hate this game, but I don't like it either. I... just... don't care. The side stuff is horrible and "please can you kill the sewer rats for me" levels of bad. I hated everytime they did the uncharted thing in which they deliberately slow you down and make the character walk, or when you walk sideways through a tiny gap. Cinematic and prestige presentation ain't what I'm looking for in an FF game, sorry. This game drags, I find it excruciatingly slow. The battle system is great, and I like the minigames and how they tried to imitate the RPG structure within the context of this cinematic/movie style pacing but yeah, ain't my thing, sorry.
Aaaaaand, I haven't played XI so no thoughts on that either!
Also you can do spoilers by putting || in front and after the text you want to hide.
||Like this!||
Third post in a row let's go!
@Gaagaagiins#12122 I think that's mostly due to the fact the majority of us are western and FF is better known here than DQ. I figure we would all be writing long ass posts about Dragon Quest if we were on a japanese forum lol
EDIT: Oh dangit, @Syzygy broke my combo.
@Syzygy#12132 Oh man, that is a flex.
IV – Too many battles and don‘t like Sakaguchi’s writing
VI -- Too many battles and don't like Sakaguchi's writing. Too many horned up dudes
VII -- Really awesome, pretty obvious criticism of capitalism, very cool for fuckin 1997 when this kind of thing was just not discussed in the US media. It's an exhibition of inevitable environmental catastrophe but is also a very personal story about someone who was just basically run over by the capitalist combine and spit out on the other end, mangled and barely alive. Somehow had marketing tie-ins with noted human rights abusers Pepsi and Coke. They must have regarded the game as some weird thing from Japan and just missed the subversive aspects. Kazushige Nojima's first Final Fantasy; suddenly characters act like human beings. Very cool almost detective-story aspect to the narrative where you are slowly piecing together details of a man's life. The absolute most fascinating detail in the story is how ||in re-writing his memories, Cloud of course chose to forget the parts where he was a genetic engineering guinea pig, but also the part about how he was merely an acquaintance of Tifa's, not a close friend. i.e., some of his most painful memories stem from the same banal social anxiety stuff that all of us deal with in one way or another.|| I was fuckin reeling when I realized this
VIII -- I have a deep affection for this game. After VII, Square realized that people worldwide liked their games and made the bizarre decision to make VIII a game for that global audience, instead of continuing to do the thing they had been doing forever. So the "theme" of the game is "love." It's funny, there's an interview with Nojima where he recounts when they told him that the theme would be love and he's like "I didn't know what that even meant so I just decided to make it about falling _in_ love." I think Tim Rogers is right when he says it's "about teenagers." It has the best dialogue, the most relatable characters and the funniest writing in the series. Disc 1 is just packed with outstanding writing. There are too many moments to recount but I love the hot dogs; I love Zell rolling up on his hoverboard, only to get it confiscated; I love the little argument that develops over how shitty Rinoa's model train car looks; I love Zone getting a stomachache. I love so much. I love Jumbo Cactuar, I love Wishing Star, I love the way the music and the screen blur are timed when you fight a sorceress. I love the music. I have much to say about the Junction system but I have to stop. I love Rinoa. Selphie and Rinoa are my GFs <3
IX -- It is hard to play now but Sakaguchi's writing is much better here, I think after watching Nojima do his thing lol. It is competently paced. Really neato characters; Quina is absolutely sickening to look at. My wife cannot look at Quina. Freya is awesome. The loading times are just unacceptable in my view. The game spends 8 seconds loading the battle textures the first time you get into a new area. Just a bad decision from a design perspective. Coupled with how slow the battles themselves proceed, it really hampers the game. Really good music. In the first 10 hours of the game the main character grabs a girl's ass and you are given the opportunity as a 30-something man to turn around to see a 16-year-old girl changing her clothes, after she specifically asks you not to turn around. That's Sakaguchi, baby!!
X -- I am replaying it as an adult for the first time so I say nothing for now about the story. I like how fast everything in the game goes. Blitzball is a good approximation of a real sport. I played so much Blitzball as a kid. Just the other day I was playing the Ronso team and one of the Ronsos did a three-man breakthrough on my three defenders, slowly swam up to my goal and scored on me. The equivalent of a roided out fullback just swatting away defenders en route to a touchdown. Yeah, that's cool
XI -- DNP
XII -- I had a blast programming the party member battle routines in this. I don't remember it at all. Actually I was mad at the time about no Uematsu music. Oh yeah, I also remember my friend from up the street bringing his PS2 and little LCD TV over and we'd go into the basement and play our separate FFXII games for like 10 hours, just hanging out. I was pretty fat in this period
My ranking of ones that I've played:
VIII (VII is better but I like VIII more)
VII
X
XII
IX
IV
VI
@JoJoestar#12133 Thank you!! I was trying it earlier and I thought it wasn't working in the preview! But ||I got it now||
Here's a question…
Does everyone's wild n' weird theories about what's going on with The New Stuff in FFVIIR warrant its own thread
I was tempted the other day to put up a thread where those of us who are involved with that sort of speculation to create almost like a betting pool... the winners of various predictions receiving Insert Credit Forum bragging rights
I have this theory that would be so hilarious if it's what they end up doing