Length isn’t important on its own, but if you have a WHOLE LOT of REALLY GOOD titles, it matters. Like I said, FF is long enough not to have its quality level wasted, but only just long enough not to be spread too thin in the context of how long the series has existed. I think it’s a valid point. DBZ was a good show, but it was spread way too thin for what it was.
I also never said FF was the single best game at anything in the list. I said it had
those things.
Effect on society is a little different from the rest of my criteria. It doesn’t describe WHY a series is good, it’s just something you can look at as a pretty reliable indicator that it is. Effect on society is something that arises from having a deep impact on a large number of people in that society, deep enough to make a videogame series a social event that spawns hundreds of entire forums and websites devoted solely to it, and contributes to peoples’ friendships in a very direct way.
I don’t think I’m making it too complicated. It’s not like I’m looking exhaustively at certain series with the criteria I listed in some mathematical way. Those were just a vague guide to what would take a series above and beyond any others out there. And really, other than FF, I think the best RPG franchise is too close to call. FF is the only series that I think is so overwhelmingly dominant in every way that it transcends the ability to fail this question no matter how much value you afford to personal taste. You look at the amount of enjoyment such a staggering number of people have gleaned from it, and even if you don’t personally like the series, there’s always a part of everyone that has to admit the juggernaughttiness of FF. It’s like what Street Fighter is to fighting games. A lot of people probably like other series like Soul Calibur more, but I doubt there are many people out there who don’t know deep down that SF is king. People recognize Cloud like they recognize Ryu.
Okay first of all it’s always good to be a Maverick (it doesn’t work for everyone but I still agree with the concept…)
I would also say this question ,at least to me, is about personal opinion. Instead of looking at what the world says is the best just say what YOU think is the best.
I think this is a good way to judge but we all have our own ways.
Which in turn were predated by Ultima and Wizardry, the games DQ and FF were [STRIKE]ripped off from[/STRIKE] based upon. Speaking of “influence”, I blame DQ and FF for Japan’s longstanding inability to break free from that rigid carbon-copy style of gameplay that only somewhat recently has seen some real innovation, even if just slightly.
I wanted to say Lunar, but I realized if the most recent remakes or whatever were included I couldn’t possibly think that.
Does anyone know what’s going on with the PSP SSS remake?
Edit: And yeah I think I agree with SE. FF/DQ are to the RPG genre as WoW is to the MMO genre. And people defending FF/DQ as if they are the most influential blah blah blah are no different than WoW fanfucks talking like it is the best MMO to ever exist (cause that is obviously FFXI right). I think you guys are mistaking influence with this analogy: FF/DQ may have created the very first building blocks. Instead of creating new shaped and colorful blocks, they use more of the same blocks only bigger. Obviously everyone is going to use the same foundation blocks, though every once in a while someone will find a new block that works as a foundation.
I hope that made sense.
Edit2: I decided my nominees for best game series’ are Earthbound and family, Radical Dreamers, Lunar.
And who cares about “juggernautiness?” Swarms of relative shit would still be crushed by a relative God
The playing field isn’t really level though. I bet the same discussion in a WRPG-centric forum would have a lot more Ultima -which broke new ground with many of its releases and always sold well- tread or Might & Magic or TES (Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion etc.) or Fallout (with gratuitous inclusion of Wasteland) or D&D games (say Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and NWN) or what have you.
Btw, Hades, DQIV makes grinding feel good. And I never was one for DQ before that game.