What's wrong with the PS Final Fantasy's? (1 Viewer)

[Morgan Jolley]

I'll just put my opinions in a simple, easy to follow format:

Final Fantasy 7- good games, lots of depth, but for some reason I didn't think its the best PSX FF. The story was nice, but why the hell was everything happening? The story felt like I was walking around the world and then someone would stop me, tell me something (which was part of the storyline) that they just made up, then I would do something else and then continue. It didn't feel epic and it felt too spread out. Still love materia, though.

Final Fantasy 8- I'm probably the only person I know who liked FF8. Graphically, amazing. Sound, amazing. Story, DEEP (but confusing). Characters, not so great, but they handled it all quite well. Battle system, darn near perfect. Why did I like the Junction system? Because if you did everything right, you could become a god in the beginning of the game. Yes, it took time to get into, but once you did, you had the ultimate power in your hands. I also love the story of the game and the whole time element (though the bad guy switching was annoying, but every FF game pretty much does that at some point to show the "manipulating people" theme). The CG cutscenes also brought the game to life and made it more real for me, especially the ending. The shot of Rinoa holding Squall in her arms with the music playing and the clouds parting and the petals flying in the air...plus the funny home video at the end.

Final Fantasy 9- I like the characters a lot, especially how they all (besides the fat thing) were connected to the story in their own way. The theme (the meaning of life) was very well executed and displayed, and the characters were able to show more emotion than in 7 or 8. Also, the love story between Zidane and Dagger was very well done. The battle system was a great throwback to FF6's, and overall the game was well done. A little bit of a ripoff of the older games, but individually I loved it.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Final Fantasy VII - Awesome story, stupid ending. Unlike movies, I like for my games to have 99.99% of the threads all tied up by the end.

Final Fantasy VIII - Awesome story, great ending. Junction system is a pain in the ass, but like Morgan said, once you get the hang of it, you can be a god.

Final Fantasy IX - Great story, although I do question where in the hell the last guy came from. It's cool and all that he's soley there to end all of existence, but the fact that he comes out of nowhere kind of bothers me.

Final Fantasy X - Awesome story, and probably the most Eastern in philosophy of all of them. I still can't get used to the way the equipment is handled. The gameplay mechanics are awesome as they allow everybody to fight in the battles. That and for the first time, all the characters are useful at all times (eg. Quistis from FF8, Red and Cait Sith from FF7 were pretty useless).

 

[John Chow]

I might as well weigh in...
Personally I really enjoyed FF7. At the time, it was kinda new/innovative. There were probably other games that did similar things earlier, but not with quite the same splash. The in game summons were annoying, but were pretty damn cool the first time you used them. I think this was just them showing off what they could do My main gripe with FF7 is that there is absolutely NO character uniqueness. That was my problem with the Materia system. The only thing that made the characters different (in combat, not story) was their limit breaks, and most of those had the same effects, but different animations.
Haven't played 8 or 9, so no comments. Will eventually pick up 10 when I get through playing a REAL rpg(wiz 8) :p)
I'm still in the middle of Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross, but for some reason just don't have any particular desire to finish them.
Oh, and Xenogears is better than pretty much every other PS1 rpg out there. Plus, the music in xenogears beats out any/all FF music :p)

 

[JasonK]

I've been a Final Fantasy fan since part 3 (6) for the SNES. I stayed home 'sick' from school for 2 days just so I could play it. Then I went back and played part 1 on NES, part 2 on SNES...so on. I've now played thru every one that was released over here (including Anthology/Chronicles) except part 7 (stuck at the last boss w/out Knights of the Round) and part 10 (work in progress.)

I liked the ones on PSX, and I am really in the minority because Part 8 is my fave for that system. I liked the Junction system, and I loved roaming around finding all the GF's. It was challanging, but not to the point of frustration. But I never beat the Weapons, dammit.

Part 9, while a great time, still didn't have the same feel as the similarily-themed SNES games.

It's been so long since I played part 7 that I can't comment too much on it, but I remember being involved in it for a solid weekend of non-stop playing.

Part 6 is my favorite though. I loved Kefka as a villain, and I liked all the characters. I liked how some limit breaks required Street Fighter-esque button inputs.

Part 5 was great too. The customization of each character was the best in the series. And hey - Gilgamesh. Yeah! That guy was awesome.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think 6 had the best setting and atmosphere, 9 had the best characters, 8 had the best storyline, and 7 had the best battle system. That is, those all don't include X, which so far IMO, would take all of them.

 

[Jay_Sharp]

FFX: an incredibly, laughable looking villain. I couldn't stop guffawing the first time I saw...you know who (guess that must the anime influence, then again I despise anime...(grin). Seriously what were they thinking? Their art direction is always so great. Someone really dropped the blitzball on that one. heh.
Overall what I see is wrong with the FF series:
1. Random battles I'm sick of em. It's time to move on. Going up and down Mt. Gagazet sucks, badly.
2. Corny, tired, terribly-written grade D sci-fi stories that try way too hard to be epic. Note to Square" I'm pretty tired of the "Gia...please don't hurt the Earth cause it's alive...Hiroshima metaphor" in every RPG you create not to mention the FF movie. Stop preaching to me with the pseudo-ecological religious crap. I had nothing to do with the A bomb. You're singing to the wrong demographic. Thanks. Also let's mix up up the plucky 13-18 year old male lead.
3. Horrible stereotypes (i.e. Barrett "yo Sh*t!") /slaps his forehead. Stop being racist and hire an English/American person to cowrite your stories. And please for the love of god stop making all the women say "Teehee!"(except the dark/villainess such as Lulu) Women do not going around saying "Teehee!".
4. Terrible, clunky in-engine character cinematics (not the prerender FMV) that no human would ever do while talking.
5. Reduce the overall length. Quality over quantity. As a gamer with a life I don't want to spend 50-70 hours of my life looking for every little thing and playing every mini-quest when I could play 3-4 other games. I'd love to see a 20 hour FF for the non-obsessed, non-anime fan.
6. Lipsyching to Japanese. Make up your mind. Go with English lipsnyching or Japanese voices/lipsynching with subtitles.
7. Voice acting. /strangles Michael J. Fox...errr Tidus. Wakka was good tho.
8. All characters nodding incessantly. yes I know another Japanese thing.
9. Story pacing. The first 3 hours of FFX draaaaaaggggg.
10. Boss battles that kill you instantly.
Small spoiler:
As an example on Mt. Gagazet in FFX, it takes you 30-45 mins to get up the mountain (where the random battle rate is doubled), at the end is a boss... you can fight the boss for upwards of 20 mins and have it down to 2k in hp and still get wiped out with a spell called Total Annihilation. So what happens? you have to trudge all the way down the mountain and find specific gear then trudge all the way up and do it all over again. A guy I know who is a complete FF maniac has played every FF several times and died 12x to total Annihilation (yes he had the party at full overdrive and Aeons too). Man was he ticked. This is inexcusable game design and not fun.
Well my 2 cents. /shrugs

 

[DarrylWHarrisJr]

Jay Sharp
There is a save sphere right before you fight Seymour for the 3rd time of the mountain. What are you talking about truding up and down the mountain...it's not bad game design...just bad players who don't know when to save.
FFX is the greatest game ever made!

 

[Morgan Jolley]

While I do have some gripes about the FF series (most of which are mentioned above) I try to look at it this way:

I'm DEFINITELY getting my money's worth!

Yes, the games are long, and yes, they can be frustrating or difficult at some points, but if by the end I can kill an insanely difficult boss in 2 rounds because of how powerful my characters are, then I feel proud. Beating the game is worth $50 alone, so the whole experience is just extra.

The stories never bother me. Every true FF fan knows that the series is trying to convey the same themes in each game (love, life, death, etc.) and that each game has some main story similarities (a big force trying to destroy the planet that you must stop while everything around you is trying to prevent that). But even with those similarities, each game is well written and developed in itself.

Overall, I have some gripes, but the good parts far outweigh the bad.

 

[Jay_Sharp]

SPOILERS inside
Yes I know about the save point you'd have to be Stevie Wonder to miss it.
What I am talking about is if you don't have anti-zombie armor (to prevent the lance attack) you're party will be wiped out even with full party and Aeon overdrives. Then Total Annihilation is launched (insta-death). Therefore you have trudge all the way back down the mountain and find some anti-zombie armor which is not easy, and frankly is drugery. Additionally there's really no effective way to tell if you are high enough level. That to me is bad game design.
Don't think this is a common complaint? Go to the Gamefaqs message boards were it is riddled with "how the hell do you beat the Mt. Gagazet boss? He's killed me XX times!.
I agree tho', FF gives you your money's worth.
Still you-know-who in FFX is incredibly silly looking. Which immediately disqualifies this is as the greatest game ever for me. ALthough I think the sphere system for character advancement is extremely cool!