what FF do you think has the best story and why

i would say my favorite would be ffVII becuase it has a cool good guy against a really bad guy, and a bunch of plot twists. i also liked ff10 story and ff6

My favourite story would be the one in Final Fantasy V. Two words: giant tree.

Although I really like the story in Final Fantasy 2 for the nintendo/gameboy. It’s pretty cool with the rebels and the satan and the stuff.

FFVII had no story. As me and several friends always said, “It had all the story and artistic integrity of a summer action flick.” It had a few interesting ideas, I admit, but overall, far from special.

FFIV is my favorite. Sure, the plot and characters seem generic now, but keep in mind, this was probably THE first RPG to have clearly established characters and a plot you could really get into. Hell, it’s the template nearly every RPG afterwards stems from.

Calling FF7’s story the same as a summer action flick isn’t doing it justice. There were some very memorable characters, some very interesting ideas, and a quite complex web of relationships. Perhaps the actual plot wasn’t as amazingly exciting as it could be, but you can’t claim that FF7 had “no story”.

Dude. come on. why do u think FFVII is the most famous FF. are they making a FFIV advent children. oh i remember, no. it reminded me that not only games are fun to play but are fun to watch. if someone asked you if you liked FFIV they would be like. oh witch one was that. but if ya said did you like FFVII they would be like. is that the one with cloud and sepheroth.

bangs head on keyboard

Aaaaanyway… I think X would be my favorite. The game was much darker from the get-go and throughout than any of the others had been, and that put a new vibe into the “saving the world” thing we all end up doing when we play FF.

I really can’t say that popularity is a measure of worth. Surely you can think of some popular music artist of the modern day that is far more well-known and given far more attention by the general populace than, say, George Gershwin does.

And why is it the most popular? It was probably the first one to really be well marketed in America. And, if you ask me, it tends to appeal to the public with entirely too much “cool”. I mean, just shameless, needless “cool”.

And does familiarity really represent worth? I bet you that if I walked down the street and asked folks that I would find far more of them have seen American Pie or some such thing than Citizen Kane.

So I’d say popularity is pretty irrelevant when it comes to discussing any artist or artistic piece, whether the medium is music, literature, the visual arts, or video games.

As to the summer action flick comparison…no, I wouldn’t say it had the story of one, but I definitely stand by the “all the artistic integrity” aspect. Don’t get me wrong, the game is fun to play…and I find even awful games have some good ideas and characters running around, at least a few. I’m trying to think of what from Final Fantasy 7 I would describe as being interesting, novel, notable, something I would distinctly appreciate about it, but I’m not having much luck. That said, it’s been a while since I’ve played it, so it’s just be that I don’t remember it. Like I said, I always find something to take away from a game.

I too have to give Final Fantasy 4 recognition; as my brother said, it really was a huge advance in story depth, complexity, and character development/depth compared to the games that preceded it. Final Fantasy 6, though…that has to be my pick. It had a strong, fairly large cast to work with, and so the story took a number of different angles as it progressed. And, well, the shift between the first and second acts…the events that marked that division, all that transpired, that was something pretty much unheard of at the time.

This is exactly what I think of FFVII. It’s a nice game, good for it’s times, but WAY overrated.

I’m tilting between FFVI and FFIX. The story is slightly more interesting in VI because there is an actual focus on the events, while IX puts a heavier emphasis on the characters. This distinction is important because the stories are quite alike in several spots.

Based on the characters, I’ve already said that I consider IX’s to be edited and sometimes improved versions of what’s seen on VI. Therefore, I’ll go with IX.

Tactics FTW.

Most mature complex plot in any videogame

Complex doesn’t always mean good. FFT’s complexity distorted the game’s message and made it a chore to play.

FFT covered a lot of ground plot-wise, but it didn’t do a very thorough job of developing any of it. The end result was a game with useless, fragmented bits and pieces of information that should’ve been omitted in favour of thorough plot development. And I don’t mean the ridiculous plot twists that occurred after every single sequence just because they could.

I don’t know why when people think of FFT’s story, they think “It confused me, so it must be complex and mature.” FFT’s story was just poorly written by someone who has a hard time communicating information. Real complex writing uses advanced vocab and structure and connotative language, and is aimed at people who are supposed to be able to understand advanced ideas. FFT’s ideas were very simple and the game should’ve used simple denotative sentences in logical progression. Instead it threw irrelevant facts at you from all over the place at the most inappropriate times in broken english and left you to sort it all out. There’s nothing mature about that. I’d even say it’s the mark of an amateur, someone trying to convince you that their mind is a labyrinth of enigmatic ideas when really they’re just completely missing the point.

FFT was like reading a bad fanfic to me, and the gameplay wasn’t addictive enough to pretend I didn’t notice the shitty story. I didn’t finish the game because of it.

Anyway, back to the original topic. Best story? I, II and III are automatically eliminated because of the constraints of the hardware. IV was meh. V was meh. VI to X were SPECTACULAR. X-2 was awful.

If I had to pick a best, it would probably be FFX. FFX’s story wasn’t necessarily great, but it was enhanced by the graphics and music in a way that sent shivers down my spine at certain points, and made my jaw drop at others. It rubbed my intellectual clitoris in a way that no other FF ever really could.

Personally for me the best story would belong to FFX. Since it had loads of interesting aspects that I find hard to forget.

Although, I might not be able to forget them because I played it so often, when I first got it. Oh well. Still the best in my opinion.

You’re right. FFTs story pales compared to the “Bunch of Ragtags take on a madman (who has a mysterious connection to the one or more of the main characters) bent on destroying or conquering the world” stories of every other FF.

FFT’s story was pretty good. Its localization was terrible, though.

More mature and complex than Xenogears? I didn’t get that impression.

Not necesarily. FF2 had a pretty cool story. From what I’ve heard about 3, it had a neat one as well. I’d say 2 was the first one with an actual plot and characters. A lot of people seem to overlook that.

Both Hades and DR have good points. FFT’s story was great, but it got damaged on one side by the localization and on the other side by the shortness of the game itself. At the very least there should have been five chapters to allow for character development and a deeper look at the events.

Hades is exaggerating though. The game threw in the plot twists in a good pace as they were needed to advance the story, and it didn’t contain any elements that weren’t relevant to the plot. There was nothing needlessly complicated in it granted that you can think outside the “Good Guy Vs Bad Guy” mold in which most games are made. In reality, the visible flaws in writing are mostly due to the shitty translation.

FF3 didn’t have much of a story. FF2 had one, but it wasn’t all that amazing.

Ok, Xenogears’ plot was pretty convoluted. Ok COMPLETELY convoluted. And it was an great story. Too bad it fell apart on the second disc.

Your lack of quotation marks reminds me of the writing style of All the Pretty Horses, only shitty, instead of cool.
I’ll argue with you on the subject of storylines on a later date, when you have met two conditions:
Condition One: The apparent literacy level of a fourth-grader.
Condition Two: You start using some logic in your arguments. Popularity equates to sequals, but does not necessarily equate to quality. Saying it does is making an argument to authority, with a logic fallacy on quite a large level.
Now, if you have any defenses that don’t do any more of that popularity nonsense, and at least make a post I don’t have to read three times to understand, I’ll hear you out. You might change my mind.

As for the Final Fantasy tactics thing, I actually think Hades is being the more fair one in this argument. DR’s first argument is a really, really, really, unbased generalization (unless he’s played every videogame. . .), and his second is an overgeneralization. Using his description of the FF storylines, I could describe any storyline in a sentence. Probably without even using a semi-colon or conjunction of any sort. Hades actually backs up his point with some examples or at least more reasoning, and makes it pretty clear that it’s his opinion.
Although, in al lfairness, that might just be because I agree more with his opinion on the subject. I thought FFT could’ve had the best storyline, but brevity ruined it. If all the plot twists and fragments had been spaced out and tied together with developements, it would’ve been amazing. As it was, I agree with Hades, it was basically “fragment, plot twist, fragment”, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Plot twists are only cool when you care enough about the plot for them to hit you.

No.

Why was FF7 the most popular FF? Because it was the first very well marketed FF game in the United States, and it was on the PSX and it was 3D, which were big deals. It also helps that most younger games were introduced to the FF genre via FF7. Basically, 7 benefited mostly from luck and timing. Sure, it’s a GOOD game, but it’s seriously overrated. It’s also undermining your own argument that you seem to have no concept about any game OTHER than FFVII or FFVIII.

As for the question, it’s a toss-up between IV and VI. IV is for pretty much the reasons Val mentioned, but I love VI’s characters. Kefka > Sephiroth, no contest. >.>