While FF7 was good at the time, it was frankly melodramatic, schizophrenic, and overrated. It definitely does not hold up well, though it certainly has some very good points.
Ultimately, the characters are mostly too bland. Cid and Yuffie were the only ones who, IMHO, had a peronality worth noting. The rest mostly wound up as caricatures. FF8 shared this flaw, which thankfully FF9 fixed.
Like Kiros, I never felt much inclination to replay FF7 or FF8. OTOH, I’ve played FF4 and FF6 many, many times.
You misunderstand. His objection is that all the characters were fundamentally identical, push come to shove.
I disagree somewhat with the poster who compared FF6 with FF7 in this regard. Most FF’s are customizable enough to make the characters rather alike by the end. However, this usually takes a lot of time and is not generally a big worry.
Seems like spoiler boxes still aren’t working, hence the warning. I’ll leave the tags in, though.
8 is one of my least-liked ones, which is a pity, because Squall is one of my favorite characters. But I hated, positively hated Rinoa through the first half of the game. Yes, she got better. I also hated the incessant plot twists, and to be honest, I never really got it. There’s a sorceress? Possessing Rionoa? And so you can’t have her in the final fight? Why a sorceress?
Gotta admit the Ragnorak was the coolest airship ever. All these fancy pretty little airships, and then this one rocks. And the romance, once she got over her annoyingness, was very sweet and tender. And I liked the very ending, where Squall is left all alone, his worst fear, and Rinoa shows up. And the choral music is really good in the beginning.
All in all, I think it was substantially weaker than some of the previous ones. The one where Kefka is the villain (#6 is what it says on my disc) is my absolute favorite, so I tend to judge everything from there.
FFVII has never appealed to me much on it’s own merits. The mini-games bug me, and the plot progression revolves around you getting lost (At least twice as far as I’ve played, I had to look up a walkthrough to figure out where to go next–only to find that where I was supposed to go had nothing to do with where I was told to go).
I prefer FFVIII for a lot of reasons. I like the Junction system better–it’s not really any better than the materia system in FFVII for differentiating characters (I think IX and X did that well) but it’s more fun to use. And you can never run out of spells to cast–if you need more, there’s plenty on the enemy! Materia on the other hand was a giant PITA to deal with. I like the characters–I also like that Squall is a complete whiner at the beginning, it’s a nice change from what you normally get (I haven’t finished the game yet though, I’m still on the second disk). I love the art style (Although, as dated as the graphics are now, I still enjoy watching the FMVs in VII). Not to mention less of a focus on mini-games, which are my bane in VII.
Of course, that depends on how much you liked FFVI. I thought it was pretty good until Kefka destoryed thr world, and then the plot pretty much comes to a halt and we get treated to a “World of Ruin” that pales in comparison to 2300 AD in Chrono Trigger.
It’s sort of odd. In a way, the game is over the second you arrive in the World of Ruin, and everything from there on out is a sidequest. It’s weird, but it does fit inside of the plot itself.
I haven’t played FFVIII, but I recently played VII for the first time. I would have liked it a lot more if I played when it came out, I think. I don’t know if it aged too well. I don’t like the materia system. The backgrounds still look great.
The story worked for me in some places but didn’t work in others. I really liked Aeris, but her death didn’t really have an effect on me. But Cloud’s reaction worked, when he gave the speech about how she’ll never again laugh, breathe, etc.
When I first saw Cloud after he went into the coma, I was disturbed seeing him rocking in the chair and making those noises. And the part where Tifa went in and dragged him out worked for me.
I was kind of sad to see the AVALANCE members die in the beginning. And I liked how it went into a little bit about how their actions were also harmful, but it would have been cool if they had gone into that more. There are a lot of other things that they could have gone into more.
I also played FFX and am right now playing X-2. I really like X-2. I haven’t decided if I like the way they do classes or not. I also really liked FFX. Tidus isn’t the kind of person that I hang out with or identify with a lot, but that was part of the reason I liked going through his story. I liked a lot of the characters in that. I’ve said before that I didn’t like the level up system, but I think now that it’s great up until you reach the end of each characters’ path, I didn’t really want to start sending them around the board after other stuff.
I didn’t like the ATB thing in VII. X has one of the best turn based systems I think. For some reason I do like the ATB in X-2.
Tell me if you still like it when you beat it. I have a rant/description around here of X-2. I am pleased to say I turned off about 6 people from the game. I won’t spoil it for you, but I was really, really dissapointed with many aspects of the game.
The girls were sweet, and the dress spheres were pretty cool. And if I was a guy, I would so hit Rikku. But other than that, not very fun.
Maybe I’m biased because of the memories connected to the games - but I liked the older games a lot more.
I watched my brother and his friends play FF4? (the one with Cecil) and FF6 (with Terra) and I was really hooked by the storyline. It jumped into the action right away, and to me, it seemed to have some pretty good plot twists and ties up loose ends very well.
FF7 took a bit for me to get used to. The SO was emphatic about us playing the game together, so I was pointed to all the details that “I had to know about”. It was very schizophrenic for me and it was a downer without much reprieve. Good storyline, but not my thing really. However, I thoroughly enjoyed fighting the weapons. I made it my mission in life to defeat all the weapons and good lord it took forever to defeat the Emerald Weapon. But I did it and was very much satisfied.
FF8 took FOUR HOURS for the SO and to get into it. A game should not take that long to peak a player’s interest and should not confuse the player so early on in the game. We were shouting at the TV “Where are we? What are we supposed to do? What’s going on???” for about the first two hours. Much time was spent going “AUUUUGGGHHHH!” a la Garfield - it was sad. Squall was a wuss when it came to Rinoa. If you like her, SAY IT! Geez…quit talking to yourself and do something instead of whining! But the thing that saved the game for me was the junctioning system. I really liked it even though it took so long to get accustomed to, but it made a lot of sense once I got the hang of it. It involved strategy that I for once, was actually good at, so that kept me interested.
FF9 was a kiddie game and was easy to beat. It was more eye candy than anything.
The SO and I played FFX for an hour and a half. A year ago. And we have no desire to continue any time in the near future, graphics be damned. We just weren’t hooked.
Overall, I tend to like the older games more as I think they had more solid storylines, and they’re very sentimental to me. FF7 and especially FF8 seemed to have dull and lackluster characters. Many characters did not have developed personalities and honestly, I didn’t care if any of them died/disappeared during the game.
It seems as though graphics these days makes up for lack of proper and complete storylines and characters. More thought needs to be put into the techniques, whether it be materia, junctioning or acquiring spells. Pick one and make it user-friendly! Huff.
I admit, I’ve never been able to make myself buy that game and play it. I like final fantasy, I like Square, I even like pretty virtual girls in revealing outfits, but I hate feeling pandered too.
Back to the point of the thread, the Junction system was a nice idea, but it’s broken in two different ways. If you do like you’re supposed to, and Draw from all the enemies to get magic to cast and junction with, you spend a lot of time holding “X” and reading with the controller set on “memory” mode. It’s boring and annoying.
Then there’s option two. Playing through this time around, I told myself I’d avoid the draw system. Just never use draw to stock magic, ever. Thus, the only way to get magic wass to refine it from cards and items, and that part is radically out of balance. 10 Tents refine into 100 Curagas within the first hour, and junctioning those to HP gives you ~4k hit points at a time when your enemies are doing 50 or 60 damage per strike. It’s not like you need to play a bunch of Triple Triad, or go far out of your way, you just plonk down 10000 of your worthless gil and bam! Instant immortality. If you like the card game (and I do, or did before I got all the super cards), then you can pick up T-Rexaur cards, turn them into Dino Bones, and turn those into Quakes, and junction those to strength, and everything dies in one hit.
It gets pretty good after you get Auron back. Before that it is pretty dull. Once you get Auron you can really start playing with the battle system and the game livens up considerably. There’s a fair bit of strategy to the battles.
Chocobo racing and butterfly catching remain two of the most frustrating mini-games ever. I’ve played through X several times and never successfully completed either task. But otherwise, yes things do liven up considerably once Auron rejoins the story. He’s such a cool character that his very coolness makes up for other shortcomings.
It helps that you don’t have to do those things. Frankly, I did both (and the horrendously evil lightning dodge mini-game), but they didnt help me much. I thought about going on and trying to defeat some of the optional bosses and the monster arena. However, I decided that I’d prefer to do something else with those 100 hours of my life.
Since I almost never use Khimari, though, it’s no real skin off my nose.
Unforunately, I DO use Lulu and Tidus, so Lightning Dodging and Chocobo Racing make me curse Square to the skies. Have never finished either.
But, I do the monster arena and can make an effective dupe of Lulu’s weapon (who hits people with Lulu?), and can at least get Tidus past the damage limit.
There’s recently been too much emphasis on minigames and sidequests in RPGs, and not just in Final Fantasy either. I’m playing these games because I don’t want to put my reflexes to the test, you know?
I wonder if Square and the other companies would listen to a petition? I’ve never broken anything in a fit of rage, but chocobo racing and butterfly catching drove me the closest I’ve ever been to it. And if I want to play a sports sim game, I’ll frigging BUY one. I don’t want to have to memorize button sequences to be pushed as quickly as possible. That doesn’t interest me. Give me something to think about.
VII was actually the worst for twitchiness, since it actually had twitchy action as part of the main plot, not just sidequests and minigames.
I still hate the bit with the door in the reactor. I think it’s the reactor…when Cloud, Barret and Tifa all need to hit buttons at the same time to get the door open.
Never been able to do that within 5 tries. Has repeatedly brought me to tears.
I don’t think there’s a problem with minigames, but they need to be integrated into play all the time, not just stuck in once every blue moon. For example, I’ve got no problem with a lockpicking mini-game, such as will appear in Oblivion, because it makes sense, makes a previously-dull aspect more engaging, is worked into many areas of the game, and has various workarounds (including magic and just buyoing lots of lockpicks). It’s a part of the game itself, not a random and completely nonsensical part of the game.
I mean, think about it? What kind of crazed nutter decided that the ultimate weapons (of which there just happens to be one of for each character) are all hanging around… as prizes for completing weird contests? I mean, where did those people get them? In some cases, where do the darn things come from? You just finish the “quest” and it randomly appears out of thin air?
This is one problem I have with too many Japanese games these days. I could *believe * in the characters from FF4 and 6. They were real to me. However, the modern games have nso many oddball, insane things going on that the “world” looks increasingly arbitrary. It just feels fake, through and through.
I have every FF ever made except for III (since it hasn’t been released in the US) and IX (because I just haven’t bought it.) I have actually only finished VI and VII. Haven’t really had time to sit down and play I, II, or IV. With V I hit a wall where I just had to do nothing but spend hours leveling up and gave up. Same, pretty much, with X.
VIII’s the only one I gave up on because I just didn’t like it. Never liked the Junction system, never liked Triple Triad, the plot didn’t interest me, blasted summoning spells took way too long, and then the plot went from bad to worse.
Just an into a mini-game in Star Ocean 3 (TtEoT). To get the game’s best smith on your side to make you goodies, you have to get an item winnable only in the “Bunny Races.”
I am not making this up.
You have, however, no actual way to judge the outcome. It’s pure random, and you can’t even tell which bunny will be in which slot. Frankly, it takes hours and hours to get enough wins, and there’s nothing you can do about the race. Wow. Isn’t this fun. I get to see the irritating and long bunny races five hundred times in a row.