Welcome to Gaia! ::

All things about final Fantasy games will go here now current topics we're discussing are:

Which is you personal favorite Final Fantasy. Please give as much reasoning to why it is your favorite as possible.

Also, Chrono Trigger will count because it's on the Final Fanatsy Chronicals compilation for the PS One. (If you say Chrono though, you will have to add another actual FF)

So here's my next question, to those that have played both the old (SNES and NES) Final fantasy's and the newer versions on the playstation, how do you feel about the differences between the two?

Feel Free to add your own topics of course I just wanted to let people know what's already going on.

playing through the majority of all final fantasy games thus released (excluding 3, 9, 11, adventure, legends, tactics, and crystal chronicals) i would have to say that the best one of the series would have to be 6. it's graphics may be somewhat outdated these days and the stoyline somewhat simplistic, but it is indeed the most inovative game from the entire series. 6 was the very first final fantasy to introduce creatures as playable characters (both the mog and yeti), introduce the idea of secret characters as well as major side quests, to allow you to create your own party from a wide selection of characters, allow you to split your party into up to three different partys in order to clear a dungeon, the first to introduce the elemental weapons, the only final fantasy that incorperated two full size world maps, use a main character who was half summond beast, and the first to introduce the opera to final fantasy fans. in my opinion if you can add an opera scene into a video game and still have a major cult following, then it has to be the greatest game of the series.

eek Yes, yes you did.

Final Fantasy 7 is the best in my opinion.It has a good plot, good music, good gameplay, cool characters and...hot bishies 3nodding xd xd

and i heard they might remakeit to which makes me happy biggrin

Which others have you played?

(In my opinion) Final Fanatsy I and II are a good place to start as they are remakes of the orginal first two on the NES. II is not to be confused with the II on the SNES as that is actually IV as III is actually VI. VIII (again in my opinion) is the worst one on the Playstation and one of the worst ones I've played. The graphics are nice, but the story was a giant flop for me. That also happened in X for me. Nice graphics, interesting gameplay, but horribly cliched story. XII looks nice, but I'm afraid. Everything that has come out of the Square-Enix merger has been, well, less than crappy. (Except maybe Star Ocean) FF XI is a joke. The series is not supposed to be an MMORPG. But I guess, if they can make their money, who cares about quality any more. They can make a FF MMORPG, that's fine, but don't put it within the numbered series.

Don't get me wrong btw, I love Square. I have almost all of the games they made starting with Rad Racer and Kings Knight on the NES, I'm just unhappy with the turns they've made recently.

I've noticed final Fantasy fans tend to sit in two camps people who started early on in the series (either with the NES or SNES titles) Hate VIII and Usually don't like X much either. Whereas people new to the Final Fantasy series are in love with those two titles. I think it has a lot to do with those being the "mainstream titles" Those two were the most well recieved by the general public, people who didn't play final fantasy normally played those games. Which is good in that they've got universality and bad becasue they take out some of the more complicated aspects to make them more accessible.

In both cases they opted for a primary love story,though I appreciate in 10 that instead of the cliched love story it's more of a tragic love story. (It's also worth noting most of the other FF's also have love stories they just aren't quite as key to the plot, they're slowly developing love stories rather than being shoved in your face every 10 seconds).

They both have marvelous graphics and attractive characters. (if you're all about graphics those are the final fantasy games for you!)

They both have stories easy to conenct with and easy to understand because they're very similar to stories in most drama.

They also both offer some of the most open characters in terms of classes. If you're an old Final Fantasy fan you expect some ridigidy in your character classes and those just don't offer that (conicedentilly neither does VII) The Junctioning system in 8 makes the game far too easy IMO, you can make yourself darn near invincible by level 15 possibly earlier and also kind of obliterate any class system save for their special attacks. Same thing with X your charcter starts in a specfic class but can move all over the grid, I have a friend who sent LuLu down the white magic path so she didn't learn high black magic until she was in her 30's level wise. And in both cases I think being able to do that with your characters kind of ruins the strategic aspect of the game. You can basically make anyone whatever you want. No, alright I can't live without a white mage and have my main charcter who's oh say a knight, so now do I bring in a black mage, a red amge, or a fighter, and hey maybe this guys got something good maybe I should grab my theif. I think while not having that aspect there is good for new fans fo the series it's disappointing to the older fans.

I'm with Raven in that I disliked both VIII and X.

I eventually stopped hating VIII and made peace with it but I still think the storyline is well...lacking.
I think the whole we forgot our Memories becasue we have GF's thing is just too unbelievable especially when you consider you just got control of GF's when you start the game!
I also got real tired of Rinoa's oh squall come save me... crap pretty quickly. So she lead a team of rebels before she met squall but, now that he's there she's become a helpless maiden?
Let's also not forget that Rinoa spent the entire begining of the game talking about the greatness of Seifer leaving poor squall to feel more than a little rejected I'd think!
On to it's good points, I give the developers credit for having an entirely new system with the junctioning and drawing of magic, the graphics are lovely for PS1 and a huge upgrade from VII( Personally I think Irvine is quite nice to look at heart ) And the music, as it is in all final fantasy games, it beautiful and appropriate.

My first issue with X actually has little to do with the game itself it's a personal thing and it's that I wish they'd have given me a Japanese with subtitles option, the voice acting is pretty good considering the normal quality of english voice actors but, I'd still perfer to hear it's orignal dubbing.
Storylinewise I thought the story was cliched and prediticable the only thing I really didn't see coming was Auron but even then it wasn't a matter of wow I'd have never guessed it was much more Wow that makes perfect sense how did I miss that?
I really thought the charcters all had the potential to be very interesting but, the charcter development was secerly lacking on everyone except Tidus and Yuna. You'd get a nibble of a backstory about them but, then it would shift right back to Tidus.
Rikku's sudden oh Yuna and I are best Buds cause we're related even though I've never really talked to her before left me with an overwhelming sense of wtf?.
Gameplay wise even though it makes perfect snese and I've always thought you should be able to do it in the other FF games Charcter swaping in mid battle also kind of sucks the strategy out of important battles.
I'm also not a fan of the spheregrid idea as you could in theory make super characters eventually and really whats' the point of it being so easy?

For it's good points I really do like the charcter designs Yuna and LuLu are some of the prettiest FF girls ever, the enviroments are beautiful and the music is lovely and appropriate. The storyline while I think it's cliched is easy to understand and still enjoyable enough just not anything spectacular.

To sum it up the best thing I see about (VII & X) are their graphics and personally no ammount of pretty graphics are going to dissuade me from the game itself, after all I'm old enough and nerdy enough to have play those all text rpgs no graphics whatsoever. yes really terrible graphics will bring down the overall quality of a game but, really great graphics can't hide an awful game. Which isn't to say that those games are awful becasue, they aren't awful, they're good games they just aren't as great as some of the series counterparts (In my opinion).

I'll just leave every one with that novel I wrote now... sweatdrop

Well, I guess everyone has their own reasons and opinions for liking certain FF's. Me, I like the stories more than I do the graphics. My standards are not extremely high like some people, because in that case, there would not be any good games out there. Games are not perfect, and whether it's FF or any other type of game, none of them are perfect. If a person judges a game on only one thing, then all games are f****ed. But, I guess everyone gets picky especially when it comes to buying games.