Final Fantasy

As we have a topic about another big series in resident evil, So thought we should have one for another big series in Final Fantasy.

My Fav is FFIX, my fav character though is lLghtning

I have played III through VI on DS and GBA. I have a lot of love for all of them but V: III's battling just worked for me, IV had the best characters and story, and VI had flipping Kefka, although I hated the second half of the game like I do all open-ended passages. I don't dislike V: I just don't remember much about it, apart from the boss being an evil tree that turned into a mishmash of animals.

Silver: I think calling XIII a movie is a little harsh. Compare it to MGS4 with its hour long cutscenes.

As for what I've played from the main series:

• Final Fantasy I - Played it a little, but not enough to leave a lasting impression. It seems a little difficult and hasn't aged too well either.
  
• Final Fantasy II - Not played it, I've heard it's very similar to I.
  
• Final Fantasy III - Great game. Probably my favourite Final Fantasy. The DS version has beautiful beautiful music.
  
• Final Fantasy IV - Not played it, although I really want to as it's supposedly one of the best.
  
• Final Fantasy V - I know next to nothing about this one.
  
• Final Fantasy VI - Played only the first hour or so of this. I need to go back to it, as plotwise it's meant to be one of the greatest.
  
• Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX - Never played any of them. I'm going on a PS1 collecting/playing spree soon, so I expect that shall change.
  
• Final Fantasy X - Superb game, naff plot. Probably my favourite FF on gameplay alone.
  
• Final Fantasy XI - Bleurgh, MMOs.
  
• Final Fantasy XII - Never played it either. Supposedly quite good.
  
• Final Fantasy XIII - I really like it. Great combat system, looks beautiful. It opens up way too late into the game, but when it does it feels like such a grand adventure. It's too linear and cutscene heavy before that, so it suffers from pacing issues. The story's a bit naff, but don't look too much into it. It's an investment, because once you reach Gran Pulse, it's great.
  
• Final Fantasy XIV - Ugh, MMOs.

The Final Fantasies I've played are, like Balla, towards the lower end of the scale. I've put time in with I (through the Virtual Console, so it was hard to get into!), II (through the iPhone), III (beaten on DS), IV (beaten on DS) and VI (Virtual Console again). I like them all for different reasons, though my favourite so far is IV. Our sporky said that might change when I finish VI - we'll see!

The reason I said lightning because she’s the character I’ve used the most, ive barely played or no anything about FF pre FFVII. As I had a mega drive not a SNES or NES and at the age I doubt I would of liked these sought of games, the first FF, I enjoyed was IX which came out in 2001 when I was eleven. I could of then went to X etc but I was a xbox & gamecube gamer not a ps2 owner, so never got the chance to play them. So when FF XIII came out on PS3 & 360 I bought it and kinda enjoyed it on my PS3. I’m still yet to play XIII-2. Off from the main series I have played crystal chronicles on the cube which was okay, dissida & 012 on psp which both great, crisis core which actually I liked more then IX, theatrhythm etc.

ZeroJones wrote:

...IV (beaten on DS)...

Personal opinion, but I preferred the GBA version. Partially because the voice acting was a miss rather than a hit, partially because I liked the sprites, but also because it had a pretty excellent added dungeon. I don't think FFIVDS added anything new gameplay-wise...

Ah Final Fantasy, the extremely diverse premiere rpg series. My experiences with it are rather slim. I've played III (DS version) which honestly had my favourite gameplay of the ones I've played. I just prefer the raw turn based nature of it honestly, never beaten it though because Cloud of Darkness kicked my backside and I rage quit, then years later played through the game and did far better but still lost.

Then there is IV DS, which I honestly just couldn't get interested in. I can see the appeal, but alas it just doesn't do anything for me so I found myself eventually stopping. And I hated the constant rotation of party members, I very much dislike when I can't get in to a proper flow in a game.

Then there was VII, alas this too I ended up dropping because like IV I just can't get in to it for some reason. It doesn't hurt I know pretty much all the plot twists though, which honestly did kill my enthusiasm to continue on somewhat.

Then we come to IX, and I'm sure you can guess the pattern. Yes, another one I didn't finish. I actually loved this game though, my problem was the battle system and its long loading times. The random encounters just eventually wore my patience down and then another game came in the mail, so i just kind of left it and never went back. If the battle system wasn't so slow and had those horrible loading times I'd go back in a heartbeat though as I loved everything else about the game.

Then there was X. At this point this is getting ridiculous This time however is different. I played it years ago, and like Cloud of Darkness I basically rage quit against a boss, Seymour on one of his billion returns if I recall correctly. I fully plan on picking up the HD re release however as I no longer quit games over such a puny thing and I loved everything else about the game.

Then there is XII. This was the first Final Fantasy I finished. It was a very slow game, which has its appeal. Honestly though I don't have much to say about it lol, I liked it and finished it and that's about it. I will however say that last dungeon, that tower, that place seemed like it was never going to end when I first got there.

And then there are the Final Fantasy XIII duo, controversial these two. The first one has aspects I love and aspects I hate. The lack of any choices of the player in basically anything is the big one. You can't choose what to do, you can't choose where to go, hell you can't even choose how to level your characters until near the end. This made the battle system stay very simple until near the end (however it did become my favourite in the series once it finally oppened up). Then there is the story, I actually thought it was very good until about the time the game decides to open up, where it then just falls apart because they explain basically nothing in the story and either leave it to the datalogs, extra info you get after the game, or to an outside Japan exclusive book.

Then there is XIII-2. This was a big improvement over XIII in many ways. Gone are the one way one path tunnels, and level progression is placed firmly in the players hands. The battle system also opens up far earlier and thus the gameplay is actually very solid stuff. The plot however.... It definitely tells that they made it about the gameplay, because the plot outside the core plot of Caius and stopping him is absolutely ridiculous. In fact the entire game feels like one big poorly constructed series of Doctor Who actually! You travel through time popping up in various places and times, solve the problem of the week and get a bit of a peek at the core plot at the end, and the off you go for your next adventure! And as you get closer to the end of the series you have the plot focus more and more on the big threat. There are a few more similarities I could name but that would involve big spoilers so I will not.

But yeah, like I said, a complete mess because they don't have the talent to pull it off well and convincingly. That said I am looking forward to seeing what they do with Lightning Returns. The way the game ended means they can basically do whatever again, and the gameplay and presentation at least are going to be fun so I'm totally up for it.



And that concludes my experience and views with this franchise.

Cloud o' Darkness (and snakes) kicked me the first time too. Cue a rage-induced break, grinding up to level 60 in Eureka, beating all the optional bosses, and beating her face in second time around. How d'you like that, eh? You great green non-character? Yeah!!!

Silver light wrote:

I actually prefer the GBA version of IV to the other versions as well. Small minority that, though.

I appreciate that the DS version was harder (Doctor Lugae was a pain in the backside), but beyond that and the prettiness I don't see how anyone could disagree!

I actually rage-quitted on this one as well, only this time it was the entire game. The first time I played, I didn't do any of the secret world dungeons because I didn't know about Float, and found myself trapped in the Giant of Babel (not Babil, it's a religious reference, might as well admit it). FuSoYa was my strongest fighter when I hit the "all the lords at once" boss, so naturally I got smashed a couple of times; shouldn't have really surprised me, as even the normal enemies were beating me to a pulp. And of course you can't exit.

Then later on I restarted, did the hidden dungeons, and enjoyed beating the wind-siren with the stupid hair very much. Similar thing happened with Infinite Space, actually (except I never restarted), but that's a story for another thread.

So we've recently got the 3rd installment in the XIII Saga, HD ports of FFX & FFX-2 and FFXIV reborn coming to PS4.

Has anyone been enjoying the series recently or plan to, myself tried XIV on PS4 I want to like it but it's so clunky with a controller so it's not for me but FFX/X-2 HD should be here today and be my 1st dip into that.

I've enjoyed XIII, XIII-2 and XIV so yes it's all good to me! I'm looking forwards to playing X when I can afford it.

I've been watching gameplay videos of X HD and I'm really wanting to replay that game. The voice acting is pretty awful at times, but jesus I love the upgrade system in that game.

Now that this thread has been revived, I should say that Bravely Default is a great Final Fantasy game. I see so many people complaining about how FFXIII and its spin-offs turned out, and feel that if they paid less attention to the name and more to the game, they'd find exactly the sort of thing they actually want on the 3DS. Has its problems, natch, and it isn't going to knock FFIV off its perch any time soon, but there's room for another parrot in that cage.

I'm still standing by my opinion of FFXIII - loved that game, so I did.

Did you ever get around to playing the best FF games that being the PS1 ones Jay.

Also I picked my FFX/X-2 HD guide from the post office, it's quite big but not as big as I thought as I've seen FF guides in the past and they've been about the same as this and this has two games to cover.

Also the FFX-2 part is huge in comparison to FFX.

I'm dipping in and out of VII on Steam right now.   

I've played XHD for about a hour, Riku's voice is so annoying,

The cut-scenes and lovely in it, the actual game looks nice but you can tell it's a PS2 game that's had some work to it.

It looks pretty good for what it is though - it was never going to be like Shadow of the Colossus HD as that game was beautiful and had brilliant art direction to start with.

This hasn't been used for a while and I've not played FFXHD since my last post here but I might not be playing it again on VITA.

The reason being is next year seems to be the year of FF especially on PlayStation

We know Type-O HD is coming which I'm excited for as even it's a HD port it's something nearly everyone in the west hasn't played.

Then in the spring FF7 the Trophy Edition as I now like to call it.

Now this is where it gets interesting as this morning Square in France outed the FFXHD/X-2 HD Remaster is coming to PS4 in the Summer, I guess it's just the PS3 version but maybe now in 1080p. If it does come then I'm likely to pick it up and play it on that over my VITA version.

Also we could still get XV, to me it feels unlikely it's 2015 but you never know.

Also if NOW launches that will likely have the same games as what was in the BETA which would mean Final Fantasy XIII &
Final Fantasy XIII-2 and if square is bringing the PC versions with trophies to PS4 that means III, IV, VIII could also come out at any time.

So what you guy's think could there be two much final fantasy or is it good news, I'm keen for most of it myself.

Ohh and why I'm here anyone play XIV as the other day I seen the collectors edition which is nice for £30 on PS4, but wasn't sure I would play it.

Cid is in FFXV, good god

OhfortheloveofGod.

I see square enix felt the need to overcompensate for the sausagefest this game was turning out to be until now.  Honestly I'm not sure whether I preferred the latter given how blatant and badly done this is, could they be any more pandering?

Meanwhile Atlus is showing off pure awesomeness, and Xenoblade X is looking set to be one of the games of the generation. I honestly feel Square has completely lost the plot at this point.

masofdas wrote:

Cid is in FFXV, good god

Hahahahahahaha oh Squeenix.

I almost love this because of how blatant it is... almost.