Anime Which Final Fantasies do you think are actually decent?

[Bigg Boss]

The best Final Fantasy games are Final Fantasy Tactics (which you can now run on ePSXe with a translation patch that vastly improves the original Engrish; definitive edition for sure), Final Fantasy 6 (which is the pinnacle of the 2D Final Fantasies and by far the best "traditional" Final Fantasy), and (throwing a bone to the 3D ones)... it really depends on your tastes, but either 8, 9, or 12. Perhaps all three. The "safest" choice is 9. 8 is unpopular in many circles for various reason; 12 is quite good in some respects, but modern retardation and decline had started to creep into FF by then, and it shows.

7 and 10 are shit, and anyone who defends 7 or says that 7 is superior to 8 is autistic and retarded. Please kill yourselves. 10 is just painfully linear even by the jRPG standards of its time, and pretty gay to boot. 11, 13, 14, and 15 are trash, although in the early 2000s, 11 was a quite respectable Everquest ripoff.

Oh, right. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance/A2 are decent gameplay-wise (although arguably inferior to FFT), but their stories, unlike the original FFT, are childish bullshit.

I found someone else who thinks 8 is better and also likes Tactics and 6. Yay. The advance Tactics plays good, but as you say is childish beyond belief.

 

[Haplo]

FF9 was so unambitious and mediocre it made me stop playing FF games

Yes, it was very mediocre. Very disappointing after the high point of FF7 and intriguing if confused FF8.

" 7 has the better story, characters, world, villain, gameplay."

FUK OF RETART.

But he's telling the truth.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Better music too.

 

[Trodat]

Most people don't like 10, but IMO it still feels like a proper Final Fantasy game. Yes it is not perfect by any means, is very linear, but looking at the latest releases and now XV, I can't even motivate myself to try them out because apparently SE has lost it's soul in the endless void of open world which they can't do very well. Even XII felt like a... I don't know part time Final Fantasy but after that XIII was just nothing like it should be.

I guess one problem with SE and the series is that since FFVII the series has been put in a place where it sort of has to be "driving the industry forward" where I feel SE just doesn't know how to implement that strategy. VIII and IX were successful because they didn't need to change any of the main principles.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Final Fantasy has always pushed the limits of the hardware though. FF6 cost my dad $95 after taxes. I talked my parents into driving me to Babbages and waiting for the gate to open. I'm still not sure how it happened since it was the only game I got that wasn't birthday/ xmas/ my own money. I worked a lot of fields in my younger days for Zelda, Castlevania, and Street Fighter.

 

[newtmonkey]

You don't have to grind at the end if you've, 1) kept your levels up throughout the game, 2) don't fight any random battles between healing up at the last save point and reaching the last boss. Yes, you'll take some damage on the way, but running from all the battles will keep the damage level quite manageable with healing items until you get to the end. Least that worked for me on the SNES and PSX versions.

My problem was that my healing couldn't keep up with the damage the final boss was doing, and that the weaker characters simply didn't have enough HP to survive if the boss decided to do two powerful attacks in a row. I just had to level up a couple times and he went from impossible to easy, so I think I was just underleveled.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The Spirits Within.

 

[Wayward Son]

The Spirits Within.

Is that the movie that came out recently? I watched (on Netflix/Hulu) that with my dad and he said, "They should make that into one of them games that you play."

 

[Siveon]

Is that the movie that came out recently? I watched (on Netflix/Hulu) that with my dad and he said, "They should make that into one of them games that you play."

If 15 years ago means recent, then yes.

EDIT: You must be talking about Kingsglaive or something from Final Fantasy XV.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The Spirits Within.

Is that the movie that came out recently? I watched (on Netflix/Hulu) that with my dad and he said, "They should make that into one of them games that you play."

Recenly? That must be the Gay-Pop Boy Band Fantasy aka Kingsglaive or whatever.

I'm talking about this:

400,000 triangles to jerk off to.

 

[Wayward Son]

The Spirits Within.

Is that the movie that came out recently? I watched (on Netflix/Hulu) that with my dad and he said, "They should make that into one of them games that you play."

Recenly? That must be the Gay-Pop Boy Band Fantasy aka Kingsglaive or whatever.

I'm talking about this:

400,000 triangles to jerk off to.

Sorry, I only saw it recently and the fact that it had good computer animation made me think it was more recent.

 

[A user named cat]

FF8 was one of the dumbest fucking games I've ever played. Seriously the most retarded "plot twist" I've ever encountered, even by Japanese writing standards. Level scaling? Emo characters? Spell drawing? Just terrible. Anyone arguing it was better than 7 which basically revitalized the entire genre is beyond help. There is shit taste, then there are people who praise FF8 and call masterpieces like Arcanum bad. Get out.

 

[Volourn]

How about those who like FF8 and Arcanum? LMAO

And, FF7 'revitalzied' the entire genre? ARE YOU FUKKIN RETARTET?

 

[HoboForEternity]

4,6,9, tactics

 

[Haplo]

Well it sure did. Was nothing short of revolutionary.

 

[Alkarl]

The problem is that, aside from graphically(at the time), there was nothing interesting about Final Fantasy 7. It's better than 8, sure, but revolutionary? Revitalized the genre? Those are some bold statements. Especially considering Final Fantasy 7 was a damn near straight rip of the systems and even the story found in the direct previous series installment, Final Fantasy 6.

Both games use magic rocks to power up your characters (materia and espers).
Both games feature the atb combat.
Both games feature characters with their own abilities independent of magic etc. Although in 6 you didn't need to fuck around with filling up a limit bar to use a characters unique attack.
Both games feature a mandatory battle with Ultima Weapon (Atma in the original SNES translation)
Both games feature an impending cataclysmic event that will bestow great power upon one individual (at least Kefka was slightly more successful than Sephiroth)
Both games feature a theme of nature vs machine. In 6, its the Emperors desire to harvest the Espers in order to make a magi-tech empire; in 7, its Shinras desire to harvest the lifestream in order to... build a magi-tech empire. Both of these organizations are searching for a "holy land" - in 7, Shinra seeks the Promised Land; in 6, Emperor Gestahl seeks the land of the Espers; both to similar ends.
Both games see the primary antagonist cast away near the finish line for a shadow antagonist. I.E. neither Kefka nor Sephiroth have have any direct interest in the PC's till towards the end of the game.

I'm not saying that FF7 == FF6; just pointing out some very obvious similarities.

As far as why 8 is such a piece of trash, well:

FF8 was one of the dumbest fucking games I've ever played. Seriously the most retarded "plot twist" I've ever encountered, even by Japanese writing standards. Level scaling? Emo characters? Spell drawing? Just terrible. Anyone arguing it was better than 7 which basically revitalized the entire genre is beyond help. There is shit taste, then there are people who praise FF8 and call masterpieces like Arcanum bad. Get out.

This pretty much says it. If I had to elaborate though, I supposed I would list off FF8s failings as follows:

1. Squall. Squall is a horrible main character, and like most of the side characters in this game, he can be largely characterized by his personality. Squall is the angst and nothing else. A lot like how Zell is the loud obnoxious one and nothing else. The characters in this game are largely forgettable, and nothing meaningful ever happens with or to any of them. Sure, we find out at some point that they all grew up together in an orphanage (minus Rinoa) but the game does absolutely fuck all with this revelation.

2. Speaking of Rinoa, and how her and Squall have such an enchanting love story, maybe you oughta go and watch Grease first. In one particular scene when the party thinks Seifer has been executed, Rinoa heavily implies that her and Seifer shared some Summer Nights magic. In other words, remember the opening scene to FF8 where Squall and Seifer are crossing swords? Yeah, I'll leave that as it is.

3. Ultimecia. Who?! Yeah, just, fuck. If I need to tell you whats wrong with Ultimecia, then you're probably just never going to get it. Ultimecia is dumb cause she's an act three shoe-horn for a final boss. Imagine another, better game, if it pulled some shit like this. Imagine FF6, if you've just beaten Kefka, but all of a sudden everyone starts talking about, "Oh, uh, we gotta go to the end of time or something and fight John. Don't ask why, just shut up, dick."

4. Nojima. They let Nojima design this abomination. It isn't unheard of to promote other writers and even developers to the level of lead designer, but Nojimas only other noteworthy work prior to this was telling Sakaguchi that killing Aeris in FF7 was a pretty good idea. *sigh* Nojima would later go on to be a lead designer and co-founder of Nova Fabula Crysta-agh, it hurts. He would later go on to make the FF13 trilogy. The guy is hot garbage as a writer is what I'm saying.

5. Everything about its combat system and design. Holy fuck, you spend more time in menus in this game than anything else. Swapping magic charges, Gfs, junctions, using abilities to create items from cards to use those to make magic, using lesser magic to turn into higher magic. And then we have the damn Draw command. Followed closely by level scaling. Gross. Not to mention, every playthrough has the same dominant strategy. Grind up gfs while keeping your chars levels low, create and junction powerful magic, get Lionheart, cast aura, win. Wow, so simple for all the dicking around getting to that point will cost you.

Those are my top 5 issues, but I could seriously write a book about how much Final Fantasy 8 sucked. Don't get me wrong, I can tolerate it. I occasionally enjoy playing it, but I don't delude myself that its in anyway a great game. Maybe it's special to you, and that's just dandy, but to say its the bestest one EVAR is just ignorant.

 

[Volourn]

FF8 > U AND EVERYONE ELSE.

So, in conclusion, FUK OF.

 

[abnaxus]

 

[MRY]

4 is the narrative masterpiece. At the time, the combat was good, but its dated now. Graphics, IMO, are superior to 6, as are the characters and the more focused main narrative doesn't hurt either. Golbez is one of the best antagonists in the series, hands down.

It has been a long time since I played it, but color me skeptical. Even as a young child, there were several things that didn't really work, though I suppose that this might have been a product of shoddy translation on Square's part or poor comprehension on mine. In particular:

- Notwithstanding some foreshadowing with the moon in a telescope sequence in Palom and Porom's town (is that where it was?), I always thought the whole moon sequence came out of nowhere and wasn't connected in any thematic and structural way to the rest of the game. It particular, it stands in very poor comparison to how the similar plot moves were handled in the Phantasy Star series.

- Golbez as your brother comes from nowhere and is a bizarre Star Wars ... homage?

- Kain double-crosses too many times. Also, Kain as a traitor's name is a little much.

- The underworld sequence, though having a couple of my favorite scenes as a kid (the evil dolls and the crazy Dr. Lugai horror sequence, which is totally inconsistent with the game's tone elsewhere), doesn't feel meaningfully connected to the earlier plot. If the crystals are just a McGuffin, then they need to stay consistent as an object of attainment, without changing the rules as you go. If they're meant to have some narrative heft, I certainly didn't get it.

- There seems to be something thematic going on in the game about light and dark (Cecil's transformation, light crystals and dark crystals, light moon and dark moon), but damned if I can actually figure out what it is. Sometimes, dark is equated with evil (e.g., Cecil's transformation), but sometimes it isn't (e.g., dark crystals).

Anyway, it's been like 20 years since I played it, so I'm sure I'm forgetting details that would smooth things over. I remember liking it at the time and finding Final Fantasy III/6 to suffer from the lack of focal character like Cecil, though the histrionics of III/6 are so great that it was impossible not to love as a kid.

 

[A user named cat]

And, FF7 'revitalzied' the entire genre? ARE YOU FUKKIN RETARTET?

JRPGs were pretty much fizzled out by '97. Were they not? Garbage like Beyond the Beyond and other early PS1 releases weren't doing the genre any favors. Then FF7 came along, became a huge hit and gave birth to countless titles inspired by it. Whether or not you think it's a bad game, you cannot deny its importance. I can personally say it very much got me back into RPGs again as a whole as well. Without it, I would've never even played Planescape Torment or Fallout.

 

[Volourn]

Oh, please. FF6 was a pretty major hit itself. JRPGs were not 'fizzled out'. As for trying to give credit to FF7 for PST (even though there are similarities) and FO (in which there is no non artificial similarities) is bullshitz...

btw, I like FF7 fine but to say it 'revitalzied' anything is bullshit.


P.S. The only reason you played PST was because of BG1. no BG1 no PST. PERIOD.

 

[HoboForEternity]

the worst thing about FF 8 is how it took xeonogear's budget and made XG disc 2 a nightmarish pile of deformed tranny ass.

all that sacrifice to a decent JRPG just to make that pile of shit

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I won't vote in this poll right now because I haven't completed enough of them. I have a long history of dabbling with Final Fantasy games to try the systems, but I've hardly ever got past the first few hours.

I have III for iOS but don't like the save system - lost quite a bit of progress thanks to that, and I really can't be bothered to go back to it at this point.

I was going to buy VI because lots of people say that is the best, but the PC version seems to be crippled with some really awful decisions in the porting, so I'll give it a miss.

VII is fugly. I'm really not a graphics whore, to be honest - I think it is the art direction that is stopping me from gertting into the game. They went 3D too early, and the characters look like rectangles and triangles attached to circles.

I really like VIII and I'm going to finish it soon, but I can understand why people don't like the main mechanic of junctioning magic. Fortunately I'm using a really great guide so I know how to get all the GFs, get the best junctions, cards etc. You would be right to call that decline, but I'm not playing Final Fantasy games for the challenge, so I just want to powergame my way through this one. The story is confusing and actually quite dull after you get through the first few hours, which were actually pretty good - but the music is nice, the occasional CGI cutscenes are well done if pointless, but playing in downscaled 4K, with texture mods, without the blurry lines, and various other mods, the game looks great.

I like what I've played of IX so far, but my playthrough is on hold until I finish VIII.

I finished X and really liked it, especially the systems (levelling, combat, equipment etc).

I've played a few hours of X-2 but the combat seems to be everything X wasn't and the story doesn't make much sense. My playthrough is on hold for now.

I played about ten hours of XI back in the day but barely remember anything about it. I think that was the point of the game - grind grind grind combat combat combat with nothing else.

I nearly finished XIII but got stuck at some mobs near the end. Even though I spent 5 hours grinding so I could cheese my way through every fight, it seems I haven't grinded enough, and it'll take me too long to go running back to the grind zone to level some more. So I really can't be bothered to finish it at this point, especially with all the performance issues.

 

[Bigg Boss]

FF6 was not a huge hit in the US when it came out. They didn't even really get that we liked that game here for years iirc. It doesn't get the respect it deserves in some circles but generally old school gamers see where the influences in 7 came from. I think some hardcore CRPG fans forget some kids in the 90's often got into CRPG's because we migrated from easier JRPG's that popped our cherries due to the low barrier of entry. I was introduced to the genre when I was 4 or 5 when I rented Final Fantasy 1 for instance. So yeah Final Fantasy 7 did a lot for RPG's in the 90's thereby drawing more attention to the genre when computers took off. The end of the 90's marked that point when we had maximum saturation from both sides of the pond. FF7 revitalized the genre for better or worse. I know it hurts to hear that things you don't like sometimes make things more competitive but eh....if you think the quality of FF7's cinemas, graphics, and soundtrack didn't shake the genre up you are blinded by your hatred for inferior RPG stock. Say what you will, but they told their story in a very entertaining way that appealed to a wide variety of people. It really is a shame they couldn't do a spinoff Final Fantasy that actually had C&C with real dialog options and multiple endings.

 

[Mozg]

Anyway, it's been like 20 years since I played it, so I'm sure I'm forgetting details that would smooth things over. I remember liking it at the time and finding Final Fantasy III/6 to suffer from the lack of focal character like Cecil, though the histrionics of III/6 are so great that it was impossible not to love as a kid.

Congratulations on your brain man. I know I've played that game completely through to the end and the only thing I remember is the wall monster that casts reflect on itself.