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[Final Fantasy] XI is the only good one
Posts
Speaking of which... controversy!
XIII, VI, VII, X, IV, V, VIII, IX, I, XII, III, II
Haven't played a lot of XI. Don't plan on it.
Regardless of what anyone thought of Tidus as a character, mechanically, he is my favorite Final Fantasy character. I really, really enjoy having 20 or so turns to the enemy's one. The first Zu battle, where you are alone in the desert- that was one of my favorite fights.
I forgot how much I like the combat.
And how much I hate the story and underdeveloped game world.
Awesome - VII, X, T
Great - IV, VII-CC, IX, X-2
Good - I, V, VI, VIII, XIII, Lost Odyssey
Acceptable - II, VII-Doc, XII, TA-1
Terrible - III, TA-2
FFV would probably be higher if I didn't play the PSX version with the hilariously bad translation.
Lost Odyssey and FFXIII would be higher if they didn't both fall apart 75% through.
Awesome - VI, IX VII
Great - IV, V
Good - VIII, I
Acceptable - XII, III
Terrible - XIII, II, X
My terrible tier usually gets people pissed for the last one, but frankly, I fucking hated X. Not as much as I did XIII, but not far off.
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Great - 6, 8
Good - 4, 7, 9
Acceptable - 1, 5, X-2, 12
Terrible - 2, 3
Always the rebel!
LoL: failboattootoot
Great - 7, 6
Okay - 10-2, 13
Mediocre - 8, 9
Bad - 12
Making this list, I realize why I hate tier lists.
Shit From a Butt - VIII, X, XIII
Who Cares - all the others
there, the definitive list
no other lists are necessary
Good: V, IV, X, VII
Okay: VII, I, II, III
Godawful: VIII, Tactics Advance, XI
That reminds me, I still need to get IX on PSN.
Great: VII, IX
Good: My Life as a Darklord, IV, Crisis Core, Dissidia
Mediocre: X, X-2, I, Tactics Advance
Avoid: VIII
N/A, not played: II, III, V, XIII
X: One of the best, no fucking kidding. The story is actually good. If you think the story is not good, play it again. The writing/translation/VA were less-than-ideal, which is unfortunate, but with a sharp eye and two (or more) plays you'll come to truly understand it.
IX: I didn't like this one. In its favor, the OST wasn't bad and the FMVs were stunning given the hardware limitations. Didn't like the battle gameplay, HATED Trance, didn't like the equipment system, didn't much care for the characters, and the story dragged on. Vivi's cool though.
VIII: Liked it better than IX. The Junction/battle system tried to do something unique and strategic. It didn't entirely work out the way they planned, but kudos for trying. The story was nonsense and the characters were kind of flat but I still like them better than IX's. In-game GFX were a definite step up from VII and the OST was good. Triple Triad also owns Tetra Master -- not only is the game better, but the card game in VIII is actually worth playing.
VII: See X above. The translation was bad, the interface sucks, and the graphics don't approach the level of quality that VIII or IX offered. But the story is good once you fit all the pieces together, and the cast of characters is good (by Square standards anyway). Major low points: the mandatory minigames. Especially the sneaking game at Shinra tower, the motorcycle chase, and the "climb up the frozen mountain" sequence. None of them were well-coded or well-integrated into the game.
VI: The best group of characters. The best story. Arguably the best OST (it's certainly in the top part of the list, anyway). There's not as much to talk about for an SNES game as there is for the more modern ones, but VI is, simply put, a very engaging game. It plays well (if maybe a bit slowly) and you have to love the characters, or you're heartless.
V: Didn't play it.
IV: Just about every bit as good as VI, with slightly worse graphics and a slightly worse interface. Probably does more with character-specific abilities than any game to come after it. Another good OST.
I-III: Good, fun games in their own right (okay, I've only played I and III, and I hear II is kind of inferior, but we'll let that slide) but I have a hard time comparing to the games beginning with IV.
T: I'll get to it soon. I have a PSP and a PS3. Should I get the PSOne version or the PSP version?
X-2: I'm not opposed to the concept but the gameplay was not for me. The voice acting was better than the first, though!
PSP version has some annoying slowdown when casting spells, but besides that, it has a godly translation, and the cutscenes are absolutely beautiful. The PSOne version is slightly faster, but has a terrible translation that makes what is one of the best RPG plots out there, very hard to follow.
If you can stomach some slowdown, pick up the PSP version.
Edit: And the PSP version also has Balthier. Couple extra points for that as well.
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In particular, I think it's a 100% defensible assertion that XIII's characters have more substance than any cast of FF characters before them. I'm not sure if I feel attached to them in the same way I do the characters of VI or VII, but they have personalities, and their actions actually make sense for the character. Past games were just as likely to have characters do shit because that's what the plot says has to happen, rather than out of any internal consistency in the character's mind (case in point: Aeris going off to get herself killed). Hope is a whiny doofus but he's a credible whiny doofus -- his angst is pretty appropriate for a kid his age who's been cast out from society and watched his mom die. Lightning reverses a lot of her feelings over the course of the game, but again it's credible, you can see her learn as her decisions hurt her, see her little epiphanies about the world. Sazh... well Sazh just rocks, he doesn't need me to defend him. Vanille is maybe the worst character in the party, but I still don't find her half as annoying as Tidus (and to reiterate, I loved FFX).
It is kind of petty, but one of my biggest problems with FFVII was the final fight with the turks where they give you the choice of whether to fight or not. At first I thought it was a great idea, like squaresoft finally learned something about narrative. The first time I got to that part of the story I did not fight them, what with the world ending and bigger fish to fry they were not worth the trouble. The second time I got there I fought them for revenge and was seriously pissed off when after the fight they just ran off to do comedy relief elsewhere totally negating my choice of going for revenge. I had been nursing a grudge against these people for a whole 60 hour game and then the writers went "you can't kill off the comedy relief".
Thanks for the advice. I was afraid the changes wouldn't be well done, like Balthier would hijack the plot or something. Not a problem?
It's because he didn't believe in himself, but everyone else did.
What was more annoying than that was that Elena in battle was just a re-used enemy model. And it was very obvious.
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Fucking awesome tier: XII, VII, FFT
Great, but not perfect: XIII, X-2, FFTA2, VI, IV
Solid stuff: X, IX, VIII, I
Did it once and probably never will again: II, III, V
What was Square thinking: FFTA
I just lost my faith in humanity....
As for that matter. Which were your favourite Final Fantasy douchebags?
what? of who? she had plenty of unique animations
I'm curious as well. I can't recall an enemy who had the same model as Elena.
-Z
I basically tripped over the end of the game, and it didn't even feel like it had even started.
I really did up until the end anyway. The draw system I guess sucked, but I did almost 0 drawing. I played a metric shit ton of the card game and just refined cards into shit. I honestly think I spent more time playing the card game in various places than I did playing through the story. It was incredibly awesome having Tornado assigned to HP right after the 1st dungeon (could probably get it sooner but meh, I didn't grind *that* much). Perma-limit break status up until like disc 3 was awesome. Junction/GF system was pretty fun too but I love me some menus/customization in my RPG's -_-
All the changes are integrated really well besides the aforementioned slowdown. And Nah once he's recruited he's just sort of there, but still It's balthier.
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I had a similar experience with FFTA.
I knew I was getting close to the end, but I was really getting sick of grinding. So I decided, fuck it, I'll just try this mission and if I lose I'll put the game away. Breezed through it and the game was over.
I actually missed most of the ending cinematic because I finished it right before a class and closing the lid didn't pause the game back on the GBASP.
It was a good excuse to have a really sappy love story and to launch people into space
Hmmm, I see.
Then again, how many people actually are killed is never said. We know people survived both on both the underside and upperside of the plate because we actually meet them, but the actual percentage of people lost is never given.
Elena had her own model...it was her in a pantsuit. Reused from what? Now, the animations might have been copied from some of the enemies in the Icicle Inn area.
FF8 is one of the best in the series, so yes. I easily enjoyed it more than FF6 or FF9.
Guess I can't help you much with your crisis of faith.
Except the love story sucked ass, just like the rest of the plot. There was absolutely no chemistry between Squall and Rinoa at all. It seemed like he didn't even care about her until suddenly during the space portion he decides he can't be without her.
That, combined with the orphanage shit, and time compression are all reasons why the plot in that game is terrible and why it has such a bad reputation. I'll admit it starts good, but it just falls apart so completely that it ruins what good there was.
I wondered the same thing and just watched a Youtube video of her fight. She looks to be the same model as the snow chick (that you encounter near Icicle Inn with some wolf-looking sidekicks). I think there is also a non-snow version of the model in the City of the Ancients.
It was never obvious to me though, considering I never noticed until now.
She doesn't technically have the same model--she has one built from it, perhaps. Elena's wearing a pantsuit with a tie and loafers, while those generic "snow women" enemies are just wearing what looks like swimsuits.
The snow women also have long hair, and Elena doesn't. It's not surprising that they'd use the model as a starting point though, given the simplicity of FFVII models.
Eh, I liked the story of FFVIII in that cheesy, don't listen to your logical head, kind of way. There WERE some choices they made in the plot that were completely batshit insane, but I thought the love story worked. HE WAS PLAYING TOUGH YOU SEE, BUT HE NEEDED HER ALL ALONG! 8-)
I'd rank the ones I've played with the top being the best or most enjoyable as:
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XII: Seriously, this game was shit. I kept expecting there to be a plot, and there wasn't.
Well, that^. I'm a very plotdependant (especially in character development) person concerning my games. Surprisingly I actually quite liked the junction system, anything else not so much.
The end was also just weird. I mean Ultimecia itself is even a little interesting, but.... Nothing made sense anymore anyway.
XII had a good plot. Just imagine you are playing Bash from the beginning and that penelope and vaan don't exist. It's actually really subtle and good if you think about it.
no, it's actually really not-there-at-all
FFXII was unfinished
the parts of the game that were designed by matsuno have plenty of genius bits in them, but the rest is dull macguffin-hunts and drip-fed character interaction
i can't blame people for hating it with its bleak development history
From what I can remember there was this politically focused drama that didn't have many twists and turns. Nor did the main characters seem all that affected or bothered by it. "There's these two kingdoms right? And they're FIGHTING, and then there's the nation in the middle...and they're getting invaded, and they don't like that."
And then as always it's shown there's some ancient power pulling the strings. And then the ending:
The characters were boring (but well voiced for the most part), the colors were bland, the environments were bland, the world seemed plain, the combat was terrible. I'll say that again, the combat...was terrible. If I can get up and walk around, eat a sandwich, go to the toilet, come back and find I've beaten all the monsters...that's a crap system.
well, you can't, so there's that
i was okay at gambits and this dumb cliche of having your characters completely on autopilot is not easy unless you're fighting level 1 Vorpal Kittens or something