I love stories involving political conflicts. A splash of conflict in religious ideologies, too. – That’s why I really loved Final Fantasy Tactics.
Final Fantasy XII has the element of politics, but the reason why I did not appreciate the story that much (as other claim it to be) is the fact that, like Final Fantasy X-2, the story is overrun by too much emphasis on the side-quests, which is quite hard to let go off altogether.
Maybe, if I play FFXII for the third time (I’ve gone to it once in the JP version and once in the US version) playing only the story quests, I might be able to appreciate it better.
Of course, I also enjoy a good story book style of story-elling that’s why I loved FF7, 8, 9 and 10.
So, what are you looking for a game for you to really appreciate the game more and call the story, at least, as “good”?
Fantasy. I’m not a sci-fi person and call me biased, but one of the reasons FFVIII never got close to my heart was that there was so little of the fantasy element. Sure there’s magic and monsters prawling every nook and cranny, but I’m talking about the characters.
I know how humans look and what their civilizations are likely to be like. I want to see some non-humans have a big part in the story, preferably also hero-roles. Fran isn’t a “hume”, but apart from the bunny ears and the nails (how can she realistically use a bow, anyway? I said I like fantasy, not illogic), there FFXII team are all “humans”, like they were totally in eight and save Khimari, also in ten. Still, twelve does it better than those two.
Nine is one of my favorites partly because of how many various kinds of creatures they had in that one.
6 was also great for that non-human character thingy.
I love the fantasy element. A splash of sci-fi is okay, but the first 2 playstation games were more like “Final Fiction” with the science part taking precedence. The main reason is that in those two games, there are always armies with copious amounts of guns that somehow seem less effective (and probably more expensive to produce) than your basic sword. usually in other games guns were reserved only for harder enemies and bosses as they would either be a new-ish development or something recovered from a distant past.
I liked VI’s until I beat it. (and found that the ones I had come up with in the 5 years it took to beat it to be better). V’s made for a good subtext and I liked X-Death. VII’s was ok until everyone else beat it (into the ground like a dead horse). IX’s is probably better than I’ve given it credit for. X’s not only avoided the usual lol amnesia plot device (first time since II not counting T) in favor of a stranger in a strange land one, but they used it fairly effectively too.
T’s is my favorite though. First, for making a world that was structured not as a series of towns and dungeons occupied by a bunch of people who were too damn lazy to save it themselves (even though they had access to the same magic and weapons that the heroes had). And second, for the fact that the fate of the world didn’t depend on an overpowered generic spiky haired hero holding an over sized sword in an effort to compensate for some other deficiency that they might have, but people who are just as comparable in strength and abilities as their opponents are.
