Do you think the fFinal Fantasy series is as exciting as the past installments several years ago?
I remember way back in the PS One, everytime a new FF game is announced, I am filled with much delight and anticipation.
However, with the release of too many spin-offs and the too drastic changes they made to the series made me feel that the series I love is no longer as sweet as it was before.
Anyone who has the same sentiment?
I mean, what do you think of the series? Is it past its prime or you think the guys at Square still have a lot of cards under their sleeves that can lay a smackdown on the series greats (like FF4, FF6, FF7, FFX and FF12)?
I’m pretty sure they still have lots of ideas to implement. I must say, however, that no FF I have played since FFX has involved me as deeply (storywise) as they used to. FFX2 was a soapy sequel, FF11 was a MMORPG, and FF12 is more game than story. (The rest played in systems I don’t have like the Gamecube or PSP.) We need to go back to FFs starring colorful, complex characters with epic-level stories. (Favorites of mine: IV, V, VI, VII, IX, X.)
This sounds a lot like your previous thread “Is Final Fantasy as exciting as before?”. Maybe you should cut down on the rhetorical questions or at least try asking both questions in the same thread.
As for your questions, I’m older now and I have seen these stories played out over dozens of times before so the thrill of playing through these games has diminished over the years. But I still follow the primary games namely for the effort behind them (although I wonder if FFXIII actually has a chance to pull off the compilation that FF’s 7 and T plus that World of Mana have so far failed to do).
As for me I liked FFT the most for the best combination of system and storyline, but that’s my opinion.
If you want complex characters and epic stories, four of those games don’t belong on that list, and one you didn’t mention at all does. I think you just want characters that make you giggle, a nice battle system, and some atmosphere. That’s what your list suggests.
I really don’t think XII is more game than story. It’s hard to have less than zero of something.
(And the “one that does” is absolutely, definitely not T.)
FF12 has an excellent story if you spend the time to understand it. There were just way too many giant uninteresting areas to explore between the story scenes. FF Tactics also has an unbelievable story, especially with the new translation.
And yes, we all know you wuv FF8, and we also all know that there are many many people who disagree with you, so we can stop trotting out this argument every time someone brings out a “best FF EVAR!” thread.
EDIT: Merged other thread with this one.
I liked 12’s story, but it does seem to be a bit boring compared to some of the others. It’s not nearly as epic as the earlier ones, and it does seem to leave some stuff unresolved.
If by “epic” you mean you’re not fighting against someone who wants to destroy the world, you’re right. The villains are far more subtle and, because of that, far more frightening (to me at least). The scariest villains are those who really do feel that they’re doing what’s right - and not just the sort that think destroying the world is a good thing, but who have genuine reasons for doing what they’re doing.
What sort of things did you find were unresolved?
That’s exactly what I meant. An RPG just isn’t an RPG to me if the villain lacks that “I wanna be a God”, or “If I can’t live, niether can the rest of the world” mentality.
As for the unresolved part, What do the Occuria think about the suncryst getting destroyed? They are pretty much the Gods of this game, so I can’t see them just letting it go unpunished.
Been there, done that. All these almost-deicides get a bit tiring after the n-th time.
You know, I used to think that “Final Fantasy” referred to the game’s story as being the last, big epic adventure set on its fictional world, and therefore had to be a Save-The-World kinda thing. That has watered down with the sequels. However, I’m not saying a story HAS to be a worldwide affair to be good. I’ve certainly seen plenty of great smaller-scale epics. And I’m sure there was an impacting story in Tactics… but it was too confusing, and ultimately too annoying, for my personal tastes.
(Also, to be fair, I haven’t finished FF12 yet- I have stopped playing for now since I have to work off town for a few days- so I’m not going to pass final judgment on it yet. But from what I’ve seen (and heard from others) so far, I’m not terribly impressed.)
Cid is considerably more lenient in regards to XII’s story than me or Sin. If you ask me, there is in fact something there at the start that progressively evaporates into the void as you progress and suddenly pops back up at the finish just as you don’t give a crap anymore. The endless trek through Giruvegan and the Pharos is good at making you forget that they essentially introduced the main plot elements right at the end, only they stuck a couple of several-hour plotless silent dungeons in between to make it seem like it was more towards the middle of the story.
I guess I was more enthralled at FF12’s complex characters and situations they find themselves in, and the choices they have to make. Most RPGs are cut-and-dry; bad guys, good guys, duke it out. FF12 has much more nuance, which many people might miss or not appreciate (e.g. in the characters of Gabranth, Ashe, Balthier, even Cid and Vayne. I similarly find that a lot of people get fed up at Megatokyo’s story, whereas I find it brilliant in its characterization and situations.
I also love political intrigue and the complexity of having not only characters interacting with each other, but factions and countries. Both FF12 and FF Tactics have this in spades, and I find it far more interesting than anime-style bombast. FF12’s story is actually partly told not by the protagonists, but by the NPCs you find in cities and the Clan Primer’s description of Ivalice’s history and geography, producing a much broader tale than most RPGs bother to give you.
Btw, regarding FF Tactics, I agree that the original translation certainly didn’t do it justice; but the new one is much clearer (provided you can follow the medieval style). Speaking of which, that style is yet another reason I love the story in these two games; it’s so much richer than the tiresome sixth-grade-level prose that usually inhabits these games.
Finally, there’s a difference between story and plot. I’ll agree that FF12’s plot leaves something to be desired, especially as regards its pacing. But when taken as it comes, the story in total is quite deep and thought-provoking.
And yes, we all know you wuv FF8, and we also all know that there are many many people who disagree with you, so we can stop trotting out this argument every time someone brings out a “best FF EVAR!” thread.
What argument? If you’re going to disagree that VIII belongs on a list of epic-storied FFs that also includes IV and V, you should probably fire yourself from the FFC, whether you like the game or not.
VII, VIII, and X are the only ones with really great stories. VI and IX have enough to drive the gameplay, but only just. The rest probably would’ve made better platformers than RPGs. T should’ve been an RottK clone and abandoned it’s mess-of-shit story completely. Or at least, you know… had a world to walk around in on something other than dotted lines and square grids. Not that they would’ve had any material to fill that world with. Except some loch ness plot that everyone wants to believe is there even though there’s no physical evidence of it.
I hope that clarifies why I find Wil’s list so confusing.
You know what I’m gonna do, Cid? Just for you? My brother has XII sitting in his basement. It took me about an hour to realize that it’s a shitty game. But I’m going to play it for you, and I’ll get back to you on how good its story is. And if its story is really really good, I’ll give you that.
I continue to be marveled by Hades’ ability to grade the plot of games he’s played no more than half of.
12’s the only one I mentioned that actually fits that description. I’ve beaten the rest, except T, but I’ve definitely played enough of it to know that vapid 30s dialogs between 20 minute fight scenes is not the mark of a story-rich game.
Also, FYI, when I said 12 was a shitty game, I wasn’t talking about plot this time.
PPS: I marvel myself sometimes too.
Tactics is a strategy game, of course it’s going to consist of dialogue between fight scenes. You have to take the genre into account when looking at the story. If you don’t like story in strategy games at all, then say so; but it’s not Tactics’ fault if you can’t appreciate the way the story is presented. There’s incredible depth in there - not in a “morality play” sort of depth, but simply in the back-and-forth of political machinations. There’s simply so much to keep track of that doing so is just as much of a pleasurable challenge as the gameplay itself.
I’m not going to get into another debate about FF8. The truth is that FF8 has a pretty decent story; the problem is in the pacing (as it is in FF12). And I agree that FF4 and FF5 are more or less phoning it in; I emphatically disagree that FF6 has no story (it’s not well-developed, but there are excellent pieces in it) and I consider FF9’s characterization some of the best of any RPG I’ve ever played.
I liked FFVIII, but the orphanage scene and the “It was all Ultimecia’s (whose?) doing” bit scream either lazy writing or bad writing.
Tactics is a strategy game, of course it’s going to consist of dialogue between fight scenes. You have to take the genre into account when looking at the story. If you don’t like story in strategy games at all, then say so;
You’ve always been a big fan of loaded statements. 30 second excuses to fight the next battle don’t replace explorable worlds where you can actually talk to people and see things happening as a result of your actions. Story is more than just family trees and excuses to kill hobos or overthrow churches. It’s not the fact that there’s dialog between battles that bothers me. It’s the fact that that the game only gives itself a minute or two between skirmishes to develop the story, and ends up wasting most of it on half-assed scenes of Ramza blowing on grass to produce ear-splitting shrieks for his girlfriend. Or however it went.
but it’s not Tactics’ fault if you can’t appreciate the way the story is presented
Yes it is. It’s not my job to force myself to like a game. It’s the game’s job to be enjoyable. And with a story that was so bad it encouraged me not to keep fighting the battles I already didn’t care to fight, it’s no wonder I put the game down before long.
There’s incredible depth in there - not in a “morality play” sort of depth, but simply in the back-and-forth of political machinations. There’s simply so much to keep track of that doing so is just as much of a pleasurable challenge as the gameplay itself.
I found it neither hard nor worthwhile to keep track of what was going on. That’s the problem. It’s not that the effort wasn’t there.
I emphatically disagree that FF6 has no story
So do I. Which is why I never said that. It’s not some incredible gem of intellectual delights though. It was solid enough to drive the gameplay but it wasn’t a great story in its own right and it didn’t reward you for ever trying to figure it out beyond what you need to know to progress in the game. IX was the same way.
Cid, Hades thinks FFT’s and IX’s setting are simmilar. That should give you a hint of how much attention he was paying while playing.