The Final Fantasy Series Thread

[Overread]

At some point the DS is also getting a copy of the new tactics as well!

[Mithridelle]

Mith will have to check this out....

[WriterDoug]

I have basically played them all, and some to absolute death and beyond.

Final Fantasy VI has remained my favorite in the series for over ten years now, and I don't foresee this changing anytime soon. I feel the series reached its highpoint at FFIX, which was perhaps a brilliant game, mixing together all the classic elements of the previous installments plus a few new bits. As you can probably guess, it is without question my second favorite of the series. After this game, the series lost something, and I am not sure what. The tenth installment certainly was not bad, but it just did not grab me the same way previous games had, nor any of the titles that came afterwards.

I still love the series, but not quite like I used to.





Cheers,
WD

[Sephiroth]

Cheers for the link, Lucien.

It looks good. I haven't played any of the Tactics games, and they haven't been heavily discussed here, either.

Does anyone have something to say about them?



Doug, I agree that the series has lost something of its original charm. In this age of rampant commercialism, when there are something like fifteen FF titles scheduled for release over the next year-and-a-half, I suppose that was inevitable.........

Still, if it had maintained its momentum through to the end, FFX would have taken its place alongside VI and VII as a truly great game. I loved the gameplay, but the story ended up being a real let-down..........

You have good taste, though; VI is a classic. It's my second-favourite, behind VII (as everyone knows, I guess), but I understand why those who played it first rate it the highest. I played it again recently, and was thnking how cool it would have been on a more powerful console (note: that does not mean I want to see it remade!!). I felt a bit the same about XII as you seem to have about X. But then, others, like Lith, rate XII highest of all...........

Your man Kefka was a cracking villain. Almost as good as me.

[WriterDoug]

Perhaps my Terra Branford avatar had been a dead give-away, too?

To be honest, I have not given FFXII the fair and full treatment it deserves; I just keep forgetting to do so.

As for FFXIII, well, I am not sure what I can say yet since the games are not out? It does seem odd that Squenix is making a trilogy out of it, one of which is a cell-phone based game (meaning I will NEVER see it!) I had heard rumors long ago that Square did not possess the rights to number games in the series beyond XIII, so perhaps they are delaying the inevitable, or perhaps it is just a coincidence they want to overkill this particular roman numeral?

I have a feeling already you may scold me for this, but I treat VII and VIII almost as equals. For me, FFVII has (clearly) the superior story, but strangely I find the gameplay in FFVIII far more enjoyable. It could be that I found the Junction system to be more fun than handling 100+ pieces of materia, and I certainly appreciated Square's effort at the time to be wildly unique. When it comes down to characters, again I award FFVII over FFVIII in this department, but the former tends to be such a depressing game, and I have never quite gotten over the death of Aeris, no matter how many times they decide to reincarnate her. FFVIII's questionable love story and plotholes were more than dismissed by its amazingly long and satisfying game ending. (FFIX still wins in this department, good GOD! At just over 42 minutes in length, FFIX is perhaps my favorite game ending of all times.)

Both VII and VIII suffered heavily from easy abuse. in FFVII, it was almost painful to observe the glitch that allowed items to be duplicated endlessly with W-Item (mind, strength, luck sources, etc anyone?) The main problem with FFVIII ended up being something that made me love playing the game immensely. Because mastery and manual control over the Junction system allowed your characters to basically become gods, I chose to beat the game the 3rd time around with a party of Squall, Rinoa and Zell all at levels 9, 11 and 9, respectively. I had literally gone AFK on Griever/ Ultimecia for over ten minutes to make a sandwich because they had no chance of taking me down.

Also, I did enjoy Advent Children a lot, but I can easily see how it would not appeal to non-FF fans. I think they hit a bit closer on the money with this particular film. The Spirits Within was god-awful, and AC was certainly eye-candy and some of the best rendered action sequences I have ever seen. Square/ Squenix still has yet to truly capture the "essence" of the games in a movie, but I expect them to try again!

I have much more to say, and I regret not knowing this thread existed! For now, I must go.



PS: Have you seen the FF Retrospective at GameTrailers.com? This series is absolutely wonderful! If watching a 4-5 hour documentary on the history of Final Fantasy and all FF games therein is your cup of tea, then you cannot go wrong. I applaud the guy who made this entire project, because it is both highly entertaining and informative. In case you haven't seen it (though I suspect you have) here is the link: Gametrailers.com - The Source For Video Game Media

Cheers,
WD

[Talysia]

FFVI is one of my favourites, too. Again, the characters were great, and the storyline was spot-on - it kept me intrigued right up until the end. Kefka sticks in my mind as one of the great FF villains, although I have to say, Sephiroth was my favourite. I'm another FFVII fan.

I must admit, though, I never used the W-materia in VII, although I did pick it up. Instead, I morphed a lot of power/speed sources from monsters. I must have a really complicated mind, though, because I liked the materia system.

And I love the Amano avatar, WD (ok, I'm biased - I like all of Amano's art).

[Quokka]

Should never have switched to xbox when the price drops enough I think I'll go out and get a PS3 I haven't played a FF game since VII and would like to try them again. Anyone know how playble the earlier games are on the PS3? I don't suppose PS1 games are playable but what i'd really like to do is have a go at FF Tactics.

Always liked the matera system and its a nice touch that the PC game I'm currently playing (Divine Divinity) has basically done a direct rip of it.

[Overread]

PS2 is supposed to be getting a new upgrade at some point with increased backwards compatability - so I am waiting for this and for a price drop - problem was that the PS3 was released far earlier than it should have been to try and keep the market from the 360

[Lenny]

Diggage.

Twelve hours in, I've just started the crossing of the sandsea on my way to King Raithwell's Tomb, and I thought I'd take a small break to give my views on FFXII.

---

The first thing that struck me when I started the game was the opening FMV. Now I'm playing the game on my PS3, which is good as much as bad. The bad, to begin with, the version that I'm playing (or edition, if you will) has minor problems when playing, compared to none at all with later editions of the game. These minor problems really are minor - a bit of blur during FMVs and cutscenes, and the odd flickering. The good - full upscale to 1080p, a colour palette with more depth, blacker blacks and whiter whites. Now I though FFX was a pretty game when I played it in, with some of the best FMVs I'd ever seen. They ain't a touch on the FFXII ones!

The next thing I noticed was the new battle system. It took a while to get used to it, but I love it. It's refreshing to have a system that shows you fighting enemies in real time in the explorable environment, rather than having the thirty second transition into a new screen, then the battle, then the transition back to the environment. And I'm glad the random encounters have been done away with - after a while, they got old. Really old. So old that I'd be running around, trying to get somewhere, and wasting a minute every time to flee a battle because I just couldn't be bothered. Being able to see the enemy before it pulls the Sneak Attack card on you is a nice addition, as are the coloured lines showing who is targeting whom. And to finish off the battle system - Gambits. I'm finding them really useful. Currently I've got them set to heal at certain points, and attack anything in sight, which means I can jump in and take greater control with magic spells when I need to. It's been a long time since I last played an FF religiously (FFX! !), so I may be wrong in thinking it's a new addition, but I'm thankful for MP recharging as you run.

The third thing to really strike me was the story. I can't quite place my finger on why, but the way the story is told in FFXII...makes sense. Now don't get me wrong, I loved the story in FFX, and from my dippings into FFVII, I can see that that story isn't too shabby, but there's something about the story in FFXII thatI really like. It's leaps and bounds above other RPGs.

Characters. As always, there's some good voice acting, and there's some not-so-good voice acting. I think the best voice acting of the main party charcaters so far has to be Fran's, with the award for best voice acting of non-party members going to Lamont/Lasra (though it took me a while to figure out his gender!). As far as favourite characters go - Lamont/Lasra is up there, sitting just behind Balthier. I can see why so many people really like Balthier, and I can see why so many don't really like Vaan... sure, he's alright, but please stop whining! And the last thing I'm going to say is, "Moogles! So cute! ".

[kaneda]

Ooooooo how the HELLL did I miss this thread??

I'm absolutly obsessed with FF. Specifically FFVII. I've played VII, VIII, X, X11, and a bit of VI (but played it after i got the PS2 so it wasn't rocking).

As I said, my absolute favourite game, is VII (playing it again at the moment, cloud has just found himself, and now I'm going to raise my chocobos!).

I really don't get the appeal on VIII. I've played it twice, and each time, hated it and felt was a waste of my time - I just don't understand why people like it, much less, love it. It's one of the most frustrating games ever!.

Back to VII, has anyone here, actually gone on a date with yuffie or barret. I tried to do it this time round, but failed, so ended up dating Tifa hehe.

[kaneda]

Lenny - I also really enjoyed XII. I loved the fighting in the game, and really liked the story (I won't ruin anything for you).

However, it does not compare to the story of ffvii. The fact that ffvii, actually tackles questions like "what is memory" "how to we define who we are" is what makes the game great.

*kaneda is in ffvii rocks and nothing else can or will ever compare mood* lol.


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On a side note, did anyone here hear the rumour that ffvii is going to be rereleased on the ps3 (this all came on the tec demo). Well apparently, the developers are too busy working on ffXIII at the moment to focus on that, BUT they have not ruled it out. How incredible would that be.

If anyone hasn't seen the tech demo,let me know and I'll link it!

[Lenny]

The last thing that was said about a possible FFVII remake was by... a fella whose name I forget. He was one of the key folks on FFVII, though. What he said was that it would only be possible if the schedules of the original team members were free - his and Nomura's being the key two. Now the only problem is that Nomura seems to have a plate the size of Wales at the moment. Not only is he doing FF Versus XIII, which we have still yet to see only gameplay from, but he's also got three Kingdom Hearts spin-offs going, as well as the third console KH title to start. And seeing as he like to release a game every five years, it might be a long time before we see an FFVII remake.

[Wayward Ho!]

I recently bought FFI and FFII for the PSP, enjoying both of them at present. Though I will admit that I couldn't wait to finish FFI before I started on FFII, as II is a lot more fun. A shame they have taken me away from War of the Lions... ah well, so much Final Fantasy so little time. I still need to go back and replay VII, VIII, IX, X and XII...

Well pleased with the PSP titles. Hopefully they will bring all of the earlier titles out so those of us who only started at VII can get a bash at them.

[Cayal]

Originally Posted by kaneda

*kaneda is in ffvii rocks and nothing else can or will ever compare mood* lol.

I am always in that mood.


----------------

On a side note, did anyone here hear the rumour that ffvii is going to be rereleased on the ps3 (this all came on the tec demo). Well apparently, the developers are too busy working on ffXIII at the moment to focus on that, BUT they have not ruled it out. How incredible would that be.

If anyone hasn't seen the tech demo,let me know and I'll link it!

They haven't ruled it out but it isn't any time soon it will happen. However I do think they will remake it and it will look amazing.

[McMurphy]

I know what you mean. When the rumor first spread about a possible Final Fantasy VII remake, Square Enix officials practically pounded their fists on the podium swearing it wasn't going to happen. It sounds like, by the discussion you all have been providing, that they have softened somewhat on their stance, which is a good sign. It just seems foolish to absolutely ignore the fan base's pronounced desire to see a remake of the game.

I also saw some props for Final Fantasy IX about a page up. I totally agree. I love that chapter and, really, it is my personal favorite of the franchise.