Final fantasy series

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

So I was wondering what everyone's favorite Final Fantasy is and their most hated. And why?

 

Favorite: Tie Final Fantasy VI and VII. They were both just so dramatic. The music and the story came together to create a truly unique experience. Aside from Xenogears I have yet to play an RPG that takes me on an emotional roller coaster like these. They were both just dynamic and epic.

 

Most Hated: Tie Final Fantasy VIII and IX. Wow go from those two to these two. I have a myriad of reasons to hate VIII and really just one to hate IX.

VIII: The story was awful, the charactes annoyed me, the backgrounds seemed like something they slopped together at the last minute(I'm to lazy to think up an individual background so....they're all from the same place!), the music was bad, the graphics annoyed me, it just didn't feel like Final Fantasy.

IX: It just bored me. Badly. I just couldn't get into it. I haven't even finished it.

 

I like every other Final Fantasy. VIII and IX are the only one's I dislike. Final Fantasy Tactics if really fun and for a D&D nerd like me it's really fun. I'm still in the middle of X but I'm enjoying it.

 

Oh and please no spoilers in this thread. If you must just put *SPOILER* so those that haven't played the game and want to don't get it ruined.

[Guest Sakura]

Favorite: VII. I agree with what you said.

 

Worst: I don't hate any, but I enjoy V the least. The job system is unique but too much leveling up is needed. It would be fine if there was a story good enough to keep it interesting but there isn't, the story is almost non-existent.

[Guest redbaron51]

Favourite:

 

VIII

 

Least Favourite: IX

 

 

these are the only two Finaly Fantasy that I have ever played. sadly

[Guest KoR Fungus]

There aren't that many, so I'll just rank all the ones I've played.

 

1. Final Fantasy VI - Best plot, best characters, best music, great graphics, great battle mode.  Great everything.  Infinate amounts of stuff to do.  Non-linear.  Perfect.  Best videogame ever.

 

2. Final Fantasy VII - It gets a lot of flak, probably because it started a bad trend toward graphics over substance.  It, however, is full of substance, and shouldn't be blamed for the failures of its successors.  Excellent story, great characters (especially Sephiroth), a solid battle system and some totally amazing mini-games.  Nothing in any other RPG comes close to the whole chocobo racing/breeding system here, and it actually has a great payoff (KoR, woo!).

 

3. Final Fantasy - Simplistic but great.  Deep, well balanced, with a solid if simplistic plot.  Good, simple fun, without lots of unnecessary bells and whistles.  The ability to choose your party is also great, and sorely missed in some of the sequels.

 

4. Final Fantasy IX - Not bad.  I was into it until disk four, but disk four is such a disaster that it left a really bad taste in my mouth.  The worst final boss and ending in the history of videogames had me and my brother laughing out loud at the stupidity of it all, and I haven't played it since.

 

5. Final Fantasy VIII - Total letdown after VII.  Triple Triad was great, the first two disks were solid, but then the plot degenerates into incoherent tripe, as you're going from place to place and travelling through time for no apparent reason.  Really stupid battle mode.  Having monsters level with you (and having their strength increase exponentially while yours increases linearly) was a horrible idea that makes the weapons almost impossible if you level to level 99.

 

6. Final Fantasy V - A great template for Tactics, but a very mediocre game itself.  The plot is dull and simplistic, the characters aren't defined at all, and the whole thing is just boring.  Slow levelling and a too hard final boss resulted in me just changing everyone to Samurais and GP tossing to see the ending (which, except for the FFA  FMV, was really bad), and I haven't played it again since.

 

7. Final Fantasy IV - Up there with Soul Caliber and Xenogears for most overrated videogame of all time.  It gave you absolutely no freedom the whole way through, forcing you to play with set parties the entire game and even forcing you to configure them in a set way, and thus it felt totally skilless and boring.  It's also the shortest of all the FF games, and the plot isn't anything to write home about either.  Why so many people consider it to be legendary, I have no idea.  The much ballyhooed Cecil dark knight -> paladin transformation is dramatically lessened by bad dialogue and the fact that Cecil's paladin abilities are all totally useless, and is as overrated as the rest of the game.

[Guest The Man in Blak]

Best FF: Final Fantasy VI - Still one of the best storylines, gameplay systems, and character designs produced in ANY video game.  The audio and visual content was just further icing on one of the sweetest cakes ever to come out of any bakery.

 

Worst FF: Final Fantasy V - This turd's only accomplishment is the Job System, past that, take a HUGE pass.

 

Most Unfairly Maligned FF: Final Fantasy VIII - This one's like the "Revolution 9" of the series, as I think a lot of people only played about three hours into it and then gave up and subsequently made their judgements.  The plot holds up fairly well, the system works out nicely, and some of the characters are still some of the most interesting and unique ever produced in the FF line.  It's just the total counter-intuitiveness of the Junction system that scared some people off and gave this such a bad mark.

 

Best Villain - Tie between Kefka (FFVI) and Sephiroth (FFVII).  Kefka was the ultimate comedic/cowardly heel, while Sephiroth's reign of terror left one of the most dramatic character deaths in its wake.

 

 

I think the main thing that everybody has with Final Fantasy IV is that, for most people, it was their first true experience of a "saga-style" RPG.  The only thing comparable at the time was the Phantasy Star series, and I don't think it carried nearly the same weight as Final Fantasy, which had been pretty highly pimped by Nintendo.  That's probably why it carries the extra sentimental value (I played the first FF, but honestly, I consider IV to be my "first").

[Guest Kingpk]

Best FF:  Tie between VI and IX.  Both had really good plots and the character development was topnotch (if you didn't feel for Vivi, you have no soul).  I guess the ending of IX was a little flat, but the Chocobo Hot & Cold minigame is the best one of any FF.

 

Worst FF: VIII.  I'm sorry, but this game is the black sheep in the FF family.  The junction system forced you to spend way too much time, especially early in the game, drawing spell after spell after spell from the same monsters if you wanted to effectively use it.  The plot is just really boring, the "love story" angle falls really flat.  I didn't give one shit about Laguna and Squall was too much of a dick.

 

Best Villain:  Sephiroth, definitely.

[Guest KoR Fungus]

but the Chocobo Hot & Cold minigame is the best one of any FF.

Maybe if you had *infinate* time.  It's just luck, you have to get lucky and get the right chocographs, or you can't get anywhere.  I played it for four or five hours, and only got one chocograph that I actually could use, and that just doesn't work for me.  Maybe I'm just unlucky.

 

Also, hiding the hardest weapon at the end of a minigame that looked like it was going to take the rest of my life to complete just sucks.  Half the fun of levelling is having something at your level to fight against, and I was really disappointed that I never got to test myself against the hardest weapon.  Bleh.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

I won't consider the first three since it was really time and technology that did them in.  The series really started with IV as far as I am concerned anyways.

 

1)  Final Fantasy VI - The best game ever made.  The best story, the best characters, the best music and the second best gameplay.  Plus it is the least linear of all the Final Fantasies.

 

2)  Final Fantasy V - The best playing Final Fantasy, and also the hardest.  X-Death still remains possibly the best villain in the series (along with Kefka).  I LOVE his theme music, and he general just kicks ass.  The biggest surprise of the series is also in this game.

 

3)  Final Fantasy IX - The return to the more old-school play, it is the best one on the PSX.

 

4)  Final Fantasy VII - It took the series to a whole new level.  My big gripe with it is that most of the characters are interchangeable due to the Materia system.

 

5)  Final Fantasy IV - I really like this game, but the others just happen to be better.  Of all the Final Fantasies, this is the one that strikes me as being too short.  And the story falls to pieces towards the end, but it is still fun.

 

6)  Final Fantasy VIII - The worst of the series.  The GF & Draw systems are horrible.  It makes for very boring battles.  The story isn't very good either, and the characters play virtually the same.

 

I haven't finished FFX yet so I haven't put in on the list yet.  Thus far I feel that it is even better playing than FFV, but the story is somewhat lacking.  Seymour is also one of the lamer villains.

[Guest]

What is the basic storyline of the FF games? It's weird to have 10 games with the word final in them I thought. Can someone fill me in here?

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Each one has a different story dude. They all go under the same series title but they are all pretty much totally unrelated. I know it's weird and I don't know why. Anybody know?

[Guest teke184]

I don't know why the stories never connect from one game to the next, as this is the exception rather than the rule in a series of games, ESPECIALLY in RPGs.  The only other series I can think of with no continuity from game to game is the Final Fantasy Legend series for Gameboy, which is acually from the SaGa series of games instead of Final Fantasy.

 

 

As for my thoughts on the series, I'll go with this:

 

1. FF 2 (IV in Japan)- GREAT story, lots of fun to play, and some funny Japanglish mistakes ("YOU SPOONY BARD!").

 

2. FF 7-  Decent story, fun to play, but entirely too much eyecandy just for the sake of showing off what Square could do on a PSX and not a cartridge-based system.

 

3. FF 1- It's a decent start to the series, but the mechanics of the game don't hold up well over time compared to other NES-based RPGs like Dragon Warrior.

 

That's all I've played, although I'd rank the imitation Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy Legend for Gameboy, above FF1 and possibly FF7 because they are STILL a lot of fun to play 10 years after their release.

 

NOTE- I've also never FINISHED FF VII, so take my comments about the game with that in mind (I'm pretty sure I stopped playing for some reason near the end of disc 1).

[Guest The Man in Blak]

What is the basic storyline of the FF games? It's weird to have 10 games with the word final in them I thought. Can someone fill me in here?

The main reason that it was called Final Fantasy was that Square pretty much had one foot in their financial grave when they made the first one and since they weren't sure if they'd ever get another development deal, they called it "Final" fantasy.  I'd guess they just kept it out of spite or as a fond reminder of how far they've come.

 

Interesting - there haven't seen many comments about FFX...*ponders*

[Guest Cataclysm911]

Favorite: 3 (6)

Least Favorite: 7

 

Final Fantasy + Polygons = fuck off.

[Guest]

I thought Final Fantasy Seven provided the most intense and emotional game experience I've gone through,

 

*SPOILER*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Sephiroth killed Aeris I almost crapped my pants...Literally.  And that battle at the end.  Oh shit, (sniff) it was just so great. Oh, anyway FF8 was probably one of the greatest cast of characters ever.  FF9 I could have gone without.

[Guest jimmy no nose]

I don't really like those Final Fantasy games.  I remember I liked FF3 years back, but I haven't played it in ages.  I've purchased and still own 6, 7, 9, and 10, but I haven't really gotten into them and I don't believe I've completed any of them.

[Guest J*ingus]

Chronological reviews of all the FFs that I've played:

 

I: an awesome RPG by early Nintendo standards, it was comparable to the Dragon Warriors and easily beat the Ultimas.  However, time hasn't been too kind to it, and has exposed just how awkward some of the menus and battle system were.  But it was still #### good back in the day.  

 

IV: some people call this one "overrated", but I haven't seen anyone here yet who really liked it.  Personally I loved this one, I thought it had one of the better plots and cooler characters of the series.  Very linnear, sure, but some people (like me) don't mind that.  The addition of the underground and the moon were neat in how they expanded the whole world.  

 

VI: now in my opinion, this one is overrated.  Great game, I didn't think it was the Grand High RPG Classic Of All Time.  A lot of the plot and emotions involved were strange, even by Japanglish standerds.    Having one of the weakest, lamest, whiniest "heroes" of all time in Terra didn't help either.  Kefka was a huge jerk and a fun villain when he was around, but he disappeared for the entire second half of the game.  

 

VII: everyone's mentioned the style-over-substance problems that this one had, and I agree.  The rather sudden introduction of profanity into the FF series was more of a distraction than anything else.  Also, they went WAY overboard with Cloud's various mental problems and inner demons.  But they did create one of the most awe-inspiring villains of all time in Sephiroth, especially in the scene where you-know-who "put him over".  Chocobo racing and breeding rules the entire world as well.  

 

IX: a very solid game for most of the way through.  The gameplay was well done, the battle system has been perfected, and for the first half it was also one of the better plotted games of the series.  However, all that was derailed in the last two discs, where the storyline suddenly jumped the tracks and went off on really bizarre, unbelievable tangents.  

 

X: I'm about halfway through this one, and I'm loving it so far.  The storyline is great beyond words, I'm glad they finally introduced a real religion in what has so far been a strongly New Age Unitarian type lifeview.  I almost cried the first time the Summoner performed the Sending, it was so tragic and beautiful at the same time.  Also, the characters in a FF game FINALLY responded to my screaming at them in the familiar "good guys just sit and stare while bad guy gloats and performs heinous actions" scenario that FFs love so much, when they actually went and KILLED the guy doing it.  #### right!  The idea of lead villain Sin is interesting, but does Sin remind anyone else of Godzilla and other similar giant monsters?  The new Sphere Grid system is a pain, I'd prefer old-fashioned experience levels.  Blitzball is awesome as well, though it does get real easy real fast once you've scouted the right players.

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Well......I think we're all forgetting about Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. That brought suck to a whole new level.

[Guest The Man in Blak]

I liked Final Fantasy X, but they REALLY pussed out on the last hour and a half of gameplay.  Even without breaking the damage limit, it's almost ridiculously easy in comparison with some of the other Final Fantasies...which is sad because the rest of the game's battle difficulty wasn't too bad.

[Guest Smues]

YEah I thought FFX was great till the end. The last bosses were total pussies, and the ending just totally killed my interest in playing that game again for a LONG time.

[Guest thebear]

Best Final Fantasy was II(IV)... Much like pro wrestling, the further videogames have evolved, the more complicated plots have become... II was good, and I also enjoyed V... VI was okay, but it got too easy after the first half of the game...

 

I liked Mystic Quest, but by marketing it as An FF game, it was setting itself up for failure, square soft SHOULD have started a second series with that game...

[Guest chirs3]

Best Final Fantasy

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Final Fantasy VI (III in the States)

 

Best. Music. Evar.

 

Seriously, no video game's music has ever come close to touching this gem. I still get goosebumps at the opening credits, and I've beaten the game seven times.

 

A compelling story, characters that showed more emotion than those in VII and VIII, and lots of backstory for the characters make this game super duper.

 

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Runners Up

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Final Fantasy VII: Not fit to shine VI's shoes in the music department, but otherwise this game is phenomenal. Beautiful (then and now) cut scenes, tons of mini games, and the best magic system of any Final Fantasy game make this a must have.

 

Final Fantasy IX: Restored my faith after the travesty that was Final Fantasy VIII. Music is average except for anything remotely creepy or spooky. Tracks like Burmecia, Gizamaluke's Grotto, Rebirth of the Mist, etc. are all really really good. Add the return of character's SHOWING emotions (mostly absent in VII and VIII), a decent card game, and quite a few surprising plot twists, and you get a good freaking game.

 

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Worst Final Fantasy

----------------------

 

Final Fantasy VIII.

 

What a god-awful piece of crap.

 

1) The Magic System is so easy to abuse, and at the same time you can ignore it and do fine. I got all the way to Ultemecia's castle with NO SPELLS JUNCTIONED. EVER.

 

2) Enemies level up as you do? Sounds good on paper, but in practice, it makes the game REALLY EASY. Not good.

 

3) Behold! Squall chops the air when he is upset! And he... well... er... that's about it, really.

 

4) The music. It's not bad, it's forgettable, and that's worse. Played through the game twice, and I can't remember a single piece of music except the Card Game theme.

 

5) Translation and writing were randomly hysterical.

 

Selphie: What a cool lift!

Zell: Be careful, or you might fall off!

Selphie: Like I'm really going to!

 

6) A main character that I never really grew to like. Ever.

 

A painful experience.

[Guest]

1.  Final Fantasy II/IV - 2 US, and 4 in Japan.  This was the first "groundbreaking" one of the series where the characters first really took a life of their own.  

 

You cared if they lived of died, etc.   Back then it was real involving, the graphics where top of the line at the time as it seems Square takes alot of pride in their visual presentation.

 

The storyline was generic or at least it is now as it kinda set the standard for most RPG's after.

 

 

 

2. Final Fantasy X - After medoicre efforts like VIII, and IX I was expecting another so-so game I should have rented instead of bought, glad to say I was wrong, very wrong.

 

The graphics blew me away, but graphics are secondary when it comes to RPG's.   Storylines and character development come first, and this game had a lot of that.

 

It also had the most original ending I've seen from an FF, which was a fresh change from the generic end approach, though rumor has it they'll botch that with the FFX Internation version with the mini-sequal.

 

 

3. Final Fantasy VII - This is the game that got alot of people to buy the PSX in the first place, and one of the major players in helping the PSX smoke the N64, and Saturn in the third generation systems war.

 

The graphics where as usual good for the time.   The storyline was involving, but the main villain was way too generic.  Overall still a great game though.

 

 

 

Worst Final Fanasy =

Final Fantasy VIII

 

Horrible storyline, horrible characters, good music, good graphics.   That's about it.

 

Like I said, storyline and characters come first in RPG's if I wanted graphics and little story I'd be playing Tekken 4 or something, which is a good game as far as the fighting genre goes, but you get my point.

[Guest Shaved Bear]

ive only played VII, VIII, and IX, bbut i will say FFVII was the best game, it kept me entertained for months, and i was like stunned when Aeris got killed, cause know it all me thought she would end up with cloud

 

VIII was stupid, the draw system was horrible, and i never got the rules of the card game, i did like the trigger you can press while attacking for more attacks

[Guest]

For sentimental reasons, my favorite is FF3. It was the first RPG that I'd ever actually spent any time with, and still amazes me to this day. FFVII is also up there, as it was the first RPG that I purchased and remains to this day the only I've ever beaten. Both remain huge milestones in my life as a gamer. Haven't hated an FF game yet, but I've never invested much in them. I just don't have the attention span to level up the way a real RPGer has to, so unless a story really grips me, I usually return to fighters and sports games.

[Guest]

The best Final Fantasy games are the ones for NES, SNES, GB, and all the other classic systems. The ones for the new systems like Platstation and the rest are stupid with those lame 3-D graphics.

[Guest chirs3]

The best Final Fantasy games are the ones for NES, SNES, GB, and all the other classic systems. The ones for the new systems like Platstation and the rest are stupid with those lame 3-D graphics.

 

Finally, someone backs their claims with real evidence. [/sarcasm]

[Guest]

 

Finally, someone backs their claims with real evidence. [/sarcasm]

Are you insulting me or do you hate classic games?

[Guest chirs3]

Now that's comedy.

[Guest]

What's so funny?

[Guest AzkulKazul]

Favorite: IV and IX

Hate: VI and VIII