Yes, looking forward to it.
Plus, I really liked Cloud. He’s not my favorite, my absolute favorite character, if not Tidus, would have to be **Squall ** but **Cloud ** only beats him out because WTF was going on in FF 8? That was one of the most confusing plot lines I have ever had the misfortune to try to follow.
Plus it’s no good when you want to bitch-slap the heroine through the first half of the game.
Never played FF5, did you?
The class system in there was a lot better done, IMO.
Isn’t the CG movie sequel only coming out on UMD, effectively making it so you can only watch it on a PSP? I was planning on getting one anyway so it doesn’t really matter to me, but it’s just one more reason to get it. I should probably play the first one though before watching it.
Funny, my sister and I have been playing FF7 recently as well. We are obsessed with this game, so we always give at least a year in between each play. Kind of a tradition. 'Tis the best game ever, IOHO.
It makes us want Advent Children even more.
Where did you get that idea?
Took me a LONG time to even confirm they’re releasing it on UMD at all, but every single site mentioning that also stated pretty clearly that that was in addition to the DVD release, not instead of it.
I don’t think that’s fair. Materia were a pretty radical change in game-play (I’m not sure I want to call it an advancement), and are the most versatile adding-special-powers-to-characters mechanism in the series.
Agree 100% about the virtues of 1-6. What did you like about Legend of Dragoon? I own a copy, but quit playing it in annoyance with the battle system about two hours in.
[sub]On preview: it’s not good to wait six hours between writing and submitting a reply, is it?[/sub]
With the exception of some of the more advanced materia, there’s nothing you could do in FF7 that you couldn’t do with jobs in FF5. And the difference between the two systems highlights another problem with FF7 and FF8–for the most part, there’s no reason to prefer one character over another in a combat scenario. You’re developing the powers of materia/GFs, not characters. Party formation was one of the best strategic parts of the earlier games that allowed it. FF9 did kinda improve on that, but they sacrificed flexibility too much, IMO. FFX was better in that department (although not great), but the ability to switch party members/equipment on the fly really made up for it.
The battle system takes some getting used to, but once you’ve got it down, it’s easy to deal with. The big thing I liked about Dragoon was that it was not a Squaresoft game. It’s hard to say exactly what, but there is a certain sameness to all the Final Fantasies that’s not present here.
The relative lack of magic also made for a refreshing difference in battle strategies.
Y’all might find these interesting:
The History of Square and The History of Final Fantasy at GameSpot.
Final Fantasy VII is my favorite FF game (barely beating out VI/III, which is a very close second). It just got everything right - incredible and nuanced environments (from the grimy steampunk of Midgar to the gothic Shinra Mansion, up through the totally cyberpunk corporate espionage on Shinra HQ, the idyllic trad-fantasy small towns, and so on…), neat characters w/ trademark bad dialogue, the tearjerking death of Aeris/Aerith, Tifa’s comically-oversized tits, the amazingly done Golden Saucer, etc. etc. I just feel that the game has “it all.” There’s a reason why they’re still trying to do sequels to it eight years later - people just fell in love with that world and those characters.
I loved the materia system - I think that it’s the best stat/ability sytem out of all of the FF games, period (and yes, I’ve played them all). It really offered a level of customization unseen in any FF game before or since, especially when you ended up with those weapons that had a ridiculous amount of slots. There were so many cool things you could set up that way- so that your character would automatically attack first, then counterattack when hit, but also absorb most elements, etc. One friend of mine who played the game for 100+ hours and maxed out everything ended up to the point where he couldn’t even PLAY the battles - his materia were set up so that it basically auto-ran and slaughtered anything that he encountered.
FF VII had Yuffie. Since none of the other FF series did, VII is best by default. Kingdom Hearts gets honorable mention for her appearance as a non-player character.
::stutters:: You ***liked ** * Yuffie?
::blank look:: You don’t like Yuffie?
I played it. I thought the class system was cool and was enjoying the game until about halfway through when they revealed that the main bad guy’s name was X-Death. For some reason, that ruined the game for me and I could never play it again.
Yeah, that could’ve been done better…
I’m right in the middle of FFV right now, just after the “escape from X-Death’s Castle” section. Frankly, I am having trouble maintaining interest in the game and it has nothing to do with graphics. The story just plain sucks. Two somewhat contemporary games in the same genre that were far better done were Shining Force and Shining Force II. The stories and characters in both of those were far more engaging. FFV just doesn’t draw me in.
While we’re at it, anyone here play the Phantasy Star games for Sega and the Genesis?
I played Phantasy Star II ‘back in the day’ and enjoyed it quite a bit.
I played one of the Phantasy Star games on Sega Genesis, I disremember which one. It was entertaining (far more so than FFV is proving to be) and had one of those WTF??!! endings.
I picked up the Phantasy Star anthology for GBA, and I couldn’t get into any of the games. Though the breaking point was by far the gameplay and starting difficulty. Maybe I’m just spoiled with newer games. I couldn’t care less about graphics–I enjoy good ones but plot and gameplay are what hook me into a game. So far, the first one is the only one I’ve managed to play for more than a half an hour, and I can’t see myself trying it again anytime soon.
I want Dawn of Souls.
I think you’re underrating the influence of the support materia (I think…the ones like Final Attack, that let you attach materia to other materia to change how they function). Even simple stuff like Elemental gives you options that jobs in FF5 can’t match. I’m reluctant to call this an advantage, though, thanks to how stupid some of the late materia combinations can make the endgame (Final Attack-Phoenix is the one I always had to avoid, people who’ve played the game more recently can doubtless think of others).
I suspect that this was intentional on Square’s part; they wanted everyone to be able to play with their favorite characters without suffering any kind of mechanical penalty for doing so. I agree that it made the characters feel more generic in battle; probably we were meant to channel those impulses into creating and allocating materia setups. FF8 I have no excuse for; I see why they thought the draw system would be fun, but since there’s always an ideal assignment of magic to stats the only strategic choice was “how do I divide my GFs?”. Well, that and “how do I kill Rinoa painfully?” but that one turns out to have no solution*.
FFX had a nice scheme for differentiating characters, but IMO they pushed it too hard early on. “Look at this flying monster! Better bring in Wakka, 'cause no one else has a hope in hell of hitting it! Wow, this guy sure is tough! Get Auron or Kimahri in here! Those gelatinous things are immune to weapons of all kinds! Have you hugged your Lulu today?” Thankfully that died down before too long.
::nod:: Thanks for your thoughts. I never did master the battle system (I was hitting ‘Harpoon’ about half the time after two hours’ effort, with effects on my damage output that I’m sure you can imagine).
[sub]* Short of editing the PC version’s dialogue files, I suppose, but not only have I never attempted that, when I did I couldn’t find them. ;)[/sub]
Most of the really unusual support materia don’t come into play until very late in the game, though, so it’s a little tough to count them towards the majority of gameplay. Besides, those are really geared towards munchkining.
In both games, though, you’re required to use all your characters in the final dungeon (IIRC), so there’s a definite penalty for only using your favorites. Plus, it’s more fun, IMO, to have to think about how to put a party together.
That’s one of the things I really liked about Dragoon, by the way. The only real diferences between characters in combat are their stats, and some minor variations in spells (although there are some pretty good disincentives against using magic at all), but there’s still a definite strategy in arranging your party for boss battles.