Squeenix Best Final Fantasy

[HeatEXTEND]

Whatever disadvantages there are in this process of "fan editing", if you are serious about gameplay and the mod makes the gameplay better, why ignore it? Of course you should always qualify the game with the mod's name. After all, you're referring to a particular vision of the game and at least someone is going to be unhappy. Then again, I'd dispute the notion that the commercial release of a game should be treated as the pure embodiment of that game's vision.

Yeah I can get behind this as long as there is a clear distinction being made. Also I'm an asshole and was just poking Ash a bit

 

[Ash]

...although now you have to justify why 8 is your favorite, haha.

Now that I have got all the praise out the way, let's dig in:

-Fucktarded balance. Easily fixable, of course, but it really dragged the game down before the glory of mods and made it the worst of the best FF.
-Inconsistent level design. Some of it is absolutely great. But others, as we've discussed, could be better. Dollet for example is linear asf on the first visit, but with reasonable purpose as the story dictates. It's fine I guess, as the whole game is not like that. However when you return after the fact, the town opens up to you and yet there is nothing to do. Just that one tavern with the card master dude for the most part. This is decline by series' standards, but luckily most locations do have purpose and good design.
-A super fun story, but with a non-negligible amount of cringe, inconsistencies and not so fun parts (orphanage).
-Interactivity with the environment is toned down. There's still some: occasional puzzle elements and such in dungeons, various kinds of draw points, occassional pickups and frobbables, but it's just less than the other 90s gems.
-Various misc gameplay event criticisms: The chocobo forest mini game sucks hard. The Shaman village sidequest sucks, a lot of stupid running around. Same for the Fishing Master's side quest in FH. Getting Tonberry GF is annoyingly grindy, what it is, 30 tonberrys you have to slay? God bless emu fast forward in this case, that was such a chore. Otherwise, all the many miscellaneous gameplay events are pretty great as per series standard.
-Enc-None ability is decline. Half is reasonable. this ability is often present in other FF but usually right near the end for backtracking/exploration purposes. Here you can get it pretty early, though it is gated by a beastly boss battle I suppose (Diablos). If you're good enough, engaged in the systems enough to be able to beat him, and still decide you hate the combat and want to enc-none, it's probably fair. Also, almost all non-standard command abilities are total shit. Doom? Mad Rush? Devour (it's good but grindy, I always just ignore it). Card mod is cool though. And it's integral you don't get items (or was it xp, I forget) when you use it, otherwise every enemy would get card modded. It would become a no-brainer.
-Once you get the ragnarok, there is plenty to do, but most of it extremely minor. Visit Lunar Tears? Two screens. Visit lunatic pandora lab? Two screens. Visit Sorceress memorial? Two screens. There is of course the two magic islands but they're not that hard because it is the world map where you can save or fly away at any time. they should have been made dungeons. and the deep sea research facility, but that's it for notable locations. Basically, it could be better. But this same thing is an "issue" (it's not really an issue, just could be better) for 9 and 7 too. They all have a fair amount of late game freedom, optional content and exploration, but nothing meets 6's standard here with multiple optional dungeons, redesigned towns as a result of the world of ruin, re-amassing the rest of your party in non-linear fashion etc.
-world map draw points are super vague, or otherwise not frequent enough to teach the player to constantly spam interact, and are never mentioned in the game I think. I wouldn't be surprised if most players played the entire game not knowing there is world map draw points. The magic drawing islands, how are you supposed to know that's its purpose without a guide? MAYBE it is hinted at in-game by NPC dialogue but I don't recall any mention.

 

[Tweed]

Where's the Mystic Quest option?!

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

...although now you have to justify why 8 is your favorite, haha.

I just have a lot of fond memories related to it. I bought it at the height of my Squaresoft infatuation and replayed it endlessly in those years. There are a lot of locations I really like, such as Balamb, Dollet, Winhill and Fisherman's Horizon. I love the melancholy of the world map theme and I remember how good it felt to explore it back then. Backgrounds, models and animations are still wonderful to look at (look at how they animated dogs and cats!). I think Squall is an interesting protagonist. I like Laguna and wished I could play an entire adventure with him. From a gameplay perspective, it may not have been the most balanced game, but for me it was the most interesting. Junctioning magic in any number of ways, balancing GFs, refining items from cards(and Triple Triad itself, obviously). That's why I still come back every now and then.

It's a very personal preference. I think 7 is a better game, overall. Better characters, better pace, a more interesting narrative, better villain, better equipment choices. The combat is more varied, since it relies less on Limit spam and you have more layers like character rows and MP management. FF8 drives off a cliff after Disc 1, while FF7 is consistently good until the very end. I voted on 7 for this reason.

 

[Ash]

FF8 drives off a cliff after disc 1? There is definitely some issue there, but I wouldn't necessarily say drives off a cliff. Unless you are referring to balance or the orphanage shit of course, and maybe a few instances of level design. But there is still plenty to love otherwise.

7 is . I tire of edgy retards and storyfaggots on the internet pretending it's not a great game. Though again, it does need the hardtype romhack to see its full potential.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Back when I was still on Gamefaqs, FFVII had a legion of fanboys and was consistently getting voted the best game ever. It became trendy to hate it, like Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton. "huhuh you should play a REAL RPG like SMT NOCTURNE!"

I say FF8 drives off a cliff given the expectations it creates. You have your rookie team engaging in high stakes political intrigue and even trying to assassinate the sorceress, then immediately after you get treated to a boring prison level, go back to Garden to find out it's being ruled by Jabba the Hutt, have to go through the cringiest group therapy shit with the whole orphanage thing, cringe romance with a character no one cares about. Yeah, gameplaywise there's still a lot there. The Missile Base is great, for example. But you're constantly getting eggs thrown at your face. I even start feeling sorry for Squall, which is not a good thing.

 

[Ash]

I...I like the romance part of the story Usually I hate romance in media too. It depends. The Terminator's few scenes, FF9 also, typically any romance from the man's perspective not garbage chick flick girl self-absorbed shallow nonsense.

Way better than the orphanage shit or listening to Zell and Selphie anyways.

 

[Vic]

I'm surprised that 6 is winning by such a large margin. Sure, it's probably the best but 7 is not far behind.

 

[Ash]

7 > 9 > 5 > 6 > 8.

Romhacked, 8 moves up to third place for me, probably. Better than 5 and 6.

6 could maybe be the best if it weren't for the retard-tier first third as well as RPG systems with lesser substance.

The internet used to champion 7 as the other guy said, but over time it became cool to hate it, and hip/esoteric to say 6 is better. Basically, just people being dumb and parroting the crowd as usual. Prefer 6 if you want, no problem with that, but loving 6 and hating 7 is pure retardation. No more no less. They're very similar games (very different too, but the core is the same).

Eventually, maybe 5 will become the hive mind's favorite for its gameplayfaggotry and prestige, but that is far less likely because it doesn't have much to offer psuedo-intellectual storyfags who cant appreciate a lighthearted goofy fun story.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I...I like the romance part of the story Usually I hate romance in media too. It depends. The Terminator's few scenes, FF9 also, typically any romance from the man's perspective not garbage chick flick girl self-absorbed shallow nonsense.

Way better than the orphanage shit or listening to Zell and Selphie anyways.

I think 7 did romance very well. You have a love triangle with an alluring and mysterious woman who tends to disappear and then dies tragically, and a childhood friend and companion who's always there for Cloud. Both speak to different parts of Cloud's personality, who's trying to discover himself at the same time.

9 was also OK. Zidane is a rogue, Dagger is a princess. Two opposite worlds in conflict. The premise is not terribly original, but it works.

With 8, you just have two very young people who "fall in love" apparently for no other reason that they're both young and attractive. If you're 17 and a hot girl starts flirting with you, guess what, you're going to like her. Biology 101, more than Romeo and Juliet. There's also the backgroud of Rinoa's relationship with Seifer. We don't know how far they took it, Rinoa just says they spent the summer together and she has really fond memories, lol. It makes Seifer look like a Chad, while Squall is just the guy who does her homework. Anyway, the whole thing seems shoehorned to catch the J-Pop crowd ("Let's put teenage romance in our game, so teenage girls will buy our game! What can go wrong?")

 

[HeatEXTEND]

6 is the strategic vote

two very young people who "fall in love" apparently for no other reason that they're both young and attractive

 

[Ash]

With 8, you just have two very young people who "fall in love" apparently for no other reason that they're both young and attractive.

*shrug*

That's how all my real life romances went for the most part.



But yeah, maybe there could have been more depth or uniqueness to it than that. Nonetheless the execution of it in my opinion is quite good.

"Let's put teenage romance in our game, so teenage girls will buy our game! What can go wrong?"

Stop with these accusations of no soul. Maybe that's the case, but I don't think so. Most of 90s FF was from the heart, and pure tasteful artistry. Just look at modern games by comparison, or Bioware trash.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

That kind of stuff gets handed down from above. "Our game needs to have X, figure it out". I'm sure they did their best.

 

[Ash]

Today it most definitely does operate that way, but in the 90s things were very different. And as I mentioned before, if you read into the background of many squaresoft games, it's a passionate director with a vision creating the initial concept. Not execs in suits or publisher demand chasing trends.

Here you go, I did some research instead of senselessly talking shit about these legendary devs:

From the beginning, Kitase [the director] knew he wanted a thematic combination of fantasy and realism. To this end, he aimed to include a cast of characters who appeared to be ordinary people

In an interview with Famitsu, Naora described that the game was generally designed to be a "bright, fresh Final Fantasy".[33] The main reason was that the team had dealt extensively with dark and "weird" imagery with VII.[38] The designers felt a need to invert the atmosphere of previous games in the series, which had feelings of "light emerging from darkness".[33] This decision was easy for the developers to make, because most of them had worked on Final Fantasy VII and felt that a new direction was acceptable.[38] The world designs were also developed with the knowledge that most of the staff were now used to computer graphics, which was not the case with VII.[33] The developers also noted that with Final Fantasy VIII, they attempted to "mix future, real life and fantasy".[33] As part of a theme desired by Kitase to give the game a foreign atmosphere, various designs were given to its locations using the style of internationally familiar places, while also maintaining a fantasy atmosphere. Inspiration ranged from ancient Egyptian and Greek architecture, to the city of Paris, France, to an idealized futuristic European society. Flags were also given to some factions, their designs based on the group's history and culture.

The plot of Final Fantasy VIII was conceived by Kitase, with the story and the characters provided by Nomura and the actual scenario written by Nojima.[33][35] During the game's pre-production, Nomura suggested the game be given a "school days" feel. Nojima already had a story in mind in which the main characters were the same age; their ideas meshed, taking form as the "Garden" military academies. Nojima planned that the two playable parties featured in the game (Squall's present day group and Laguna's group from the past) would be highly contrasted with one another. This idea was conveyed through the age and experience of Laguna's group, versus the youth and naïveté of Squall's group.[45] Nojima has expressed that the dynamic of players' relationships with the protagonist is important to him. Both Final Fantasy VII and VIII feature reserved, quiet protagonists in the form of Cloud Strife and Squall. With VIII, however, Nojima worked to give players actual insight into what the character was thinking, a direct contrast with his handling of VII, which encouraged the player to speculate.

In the 90s, even super high budget games were conceived solely by game designers and directors, with far less meddling than today's hellscape. It should be obvious just from what you experienced in the game ("soul"), but you're the second person to sling accusations of trend chasing now, so I had to clear that up.

Kitase is a legend, worked on 6, 7, 8 & 10 as director, as well as significant role in 5 as "Field planner, event planner, scenario". What exactly those are I don't know, they use weird terms.

Also the overarching story concepts was by Nomura? Lol, explains a lot. That is one Square dev I will talk shit about (primarily because awful 7 remake) even if his contributions to the classics were still valuable.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J-pop#1997–1999:_Commercial_peak

 

[Ash]

I'm confused. J-pop (a different industry) peaked around the same time, and that apparently explains that FF8's concepts were conceived primarily to chase market trends and wasn't just born from artistic soul & inspiration how? In fact, for the romance song they even hired Faye Wong, who is a Chinese singer based in HK, not Japanese. And have you considered that what is going on in their lives and culture at the time can have an influence on the art they want to produce, by its own merit - not with the intent to trend-chase.

Edit: here, more fact-checking your shit:

Near the end of the production of Final Fantasy VII, the developers suggested to use a singer, but abandoned the idea due to a lack of reasoning based on the game's theme and storyline.[10] However, Nobuo Uematsu thought a ballad would closely relate to the theme and characters of Final Fantasy VIII. This resulted in the game's developers sharing "countless" artists, eventually deciding on Faye Wong, a Chinese vocalist. Uematsu claims "her voice and mood seem to match my image of the song exactly", and that her ethnicity "fits the international image of Final Fantasy". After negotiations were made, "Eyes on Me" was recorded in Hong Kong with an orchestra.[11] IGN claimed that she was reportedly paid $1 million US dollars for her work.[12]

Y'all are blind if you can't see these guys are true designers and artists. It's very evident in the end result. The only thing that makes me question otherwise is the difficulty being on the easier side, but again they still provided super tough optional encounters to keep those with higher expectations engaged.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't think FF has had a major romance plot in every game since 6 because of artistic inspiration. You could argue some did it better than others (they all seemed pretty trite to me) but they were all definitely in there as a calculated move to increase profits, same as they're always in hollywood movies.

I'll say this much, the romance subplot in FF8 was about the only thing in the story that DID make sense. The amnesia stuff and 'time compression' nonsense were basically word salad. I played through the entire game twice and I've no idea why anything happened. I'll take trite and formulaic over complete nonsense any day.

 

[Vic]

pls don't cry

 

[Ash]

I don't think FF has had a major romance plot in every game since 6 because of artistic inspiration....
...they were all definitely in there as a calculated move to increase profits,

Citation very much needed.

I suppose poets back in ancient times wrote odes in honor of women for optimal profits, always and without exception, too?

Even mediocrepoet would probably acknowledge your statement is very dumb, unless you happen to have proof? You must do as you talk so confidently.

I played through the entire game twice and I've no idea why anything happened.

Lol. I'm not at all surprised. The story is stupid on occasion but it is largely clear as to why everything happens.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Do you have proof to the contrary? My reasoning is Occams Razor. "It'll make us money" is a simpler explanation than "5 different stories in a row were all concieved of as wildly complicated world ending disasters averted by plucky heroes... and also there happens to be a romance involved, coincidentally"

There's nothing artistic about slapping a barebones romance subplot into an entirely unrelated story. It damages both aspects. One of the things I liked about Lufia 2 is that it's romance subplot was not, in fact, a subplot at all. It was a major part of the story- you have a kid and the villains kidnap him in the surprisingly logical move to kill off the hero of destiny while he's still filling diapers instead of waiting for him to come kick their asses.

Imagine if every FF game also had a subplot about say... freeing slaves. Would you assume it was all out of artistic inspiration, or that there was some sort of agenda behind that?

 

[Ash]

Or maybe they just think it adds depth? Maybe are hopeful lovebirds by nature? Or think, quite sensibly, that it makes sense for an epic adventure to save the world involving male and female characters to have some romance? "Entirely unrelated", lol.

Also, 5 stories? the love stories started with 4 and ended with 10. That's 7 games. Anything after doesn't count because...those games don't count for shit. Except maybe 12, which if I recall did not have a love story. Makes sense because very different core team.

Also if I recall, 6 even had multiple love stories going on. Locke and Rachel. Locke and Celes. Setzer and Daria. Terra and unknown (she has a bout of confusion). Clearly love bird devs. Please stop being ridiculous. Please.

 

[Vic]

reminder that a large percentage of Final Fantasy fans are female

 

[Damned Registrations]

4 and 5 had no love stories. Rosa and Cecil are an item before the game even starts, and it's barely referenced. 5 has... literally nothing that I can recall, aside from some oggling of Faris early on. 6, again, barely has anything at all, but I'll count Locke trying to revive his dead girlfriend. 7,8,9 and 10 all spend a significant portion of screentime and dialogue on the main character interacting romancitcally with someone.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This is the high fantasy genre. It's about escaping to an idyllic world, a world where men are aren't condemned to live in lethargy as pencil pushers or watching over machine mass producing ugly plastic molded buckets, but are heroes who live meaningful lives and are fighting for worthy civilizations and kings, banish evil, rebuild a ruined world and make it beautiful. They have brotherhood with each other and find true love.

 

[Ash]

Pretty much.

Fantasy is an incomprehensible concept to furries unless it involves animal sex I guess.