Final Fantasy XIV

[1mpuls3]

It's a classic

[Bojack2424]

i honestly thought this topic would be nice and peaceful...but uh, i guess not >_>

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by ShAiOnEi

Who said we were ignoring other RPG's?

Sales figures.

[ShAiOnEi]

Originally Posted by Squeek

Sales figures.

Oh I see that automatically gives you the rights to point fingers at anyone you see who has bought those games. I'm not even going to argue anymore you're obviously just trolling this thread because you dislike the series. Keep playing your rehashed tales games and leave the final fantasy series alone.

[xObserveRx]

Quick question, Squeek. I haven't 100% read everything that you typed but having gone through the three pages of this thread I have yet to (as far as I've seen) see you explain to me what it is that you don't like about Final Fantasy, either specifically, game-by-game, or in general.

I've always loved Final Fantasy. I played the first game when I was six and played pretty much played the rest of the series as they came out. I didn't enjoy every one of them but I can say that I enjoyed the first ten of them (that's excluding some Game boy ones).

However, the reason I enjoyed those games so much was story and character development first and foremost (I know you'll disagree with me and argue that the Tales series has much better in both ways) but I also enjoyed the fact that the gameplay stayed relatively the same throughout the first half dozen games.

I play RPGs to watch a wonderful story unfold, not to be dazzled by innovative gameplay. Sure, it wouldn't hurt to have something new in terms of combat or structure, but when I think of Final Fantasy, I think of turn-based combat with fairly straight forward magic and skill systems.

The last few games have (IMO) strayed far from this formula and I have pretty much shunned and ignored them. That's not to say that they probably don't have great stories and characters (I'm sure they do), I'm just saying that at some point, if I'm finding myself having to work hard to develop the strategy of how to set up my group before every battle, I'm working to hard. I don't enjoy incredibly difficult games, but on the other hand, a terribly easy game is no fun either.

So after that long-winded rant, I'm left with the question: What is it that you think is "broken" with each game (If you feel like answering for each of the games you've played) or just in general. Also, I don't see how you could judge Final Fantasy 6 after 10 minutes, that's not even through the introduction.

[Emeraldas]

Originally Posted by Flaming_Dingleberry

Final Fantasy Last Battle Festival AAA

brought to you by Flaming_Dingleberry

(slightly on topic)

Nice, man. Nice. =3 I still need to work on that song. I tend to goodrush that last stream attack. =x

FFIV is looking nice tho. n.n I'm interested into seeing how it will turn out. =D

In terms of general rpg's, the Shin Megami franchise is definitely jumping up in terms of quality of gameplay and storyline. I've only managed to play Persona 2 and was able to get my hands on a copy of Shin Megami for the NES, which was badass. =D

I think one aspect that might be missing, Squeek, is the funny moments that seems to occur a LOT in the Persona and Tales series that is SEVERELY lacking in the FF series. There have only been MAYBE one game where I've laughed harder at the comments of what the characters said than in Tales of Legendia. (Yes, sadly, that's really the only game I've truly played thru, tho I have Tales of Fantasia and Destiny I and II) ATLUS knows how to crack a joke and go with the flow. And Bandai Namco (I think it's Bandai Namco that licenses the Tales of games) is getting there, too, but the Square aspect of Square Enix...not so much. I mean, I love a serious game and all, and playing all other FF games, you come to love some characters because of what they do. But I think they are getting a little bit too stone cold for comfort to me.

Another annoying thing is that people are starting to lump the Enix games alone with the Square games. Yes, they merged into one, but that doesn't mean that you can't SEE the difference between the franchise of Final Fantasy to the likes of Star Ocean or Valkyrie Profile.

What Square Enix of America needs to do is port over more stuff from their lineup that they don't bring over here. But first they need to re-emphasis the true meaning of a great rpg, and that is the storyline. They had the right idea with FFXII (edit: zomg I put XI. xDD) but it could've gone a LOT further. Part of the reason FFVI and VII were so popular were because of the intriguing storyline and interesting character developments that happened between some of them. Granted, some of my favorite characters weren't even given that much to work with, but I was content for being 12~13 and first playing the game. =)

I do wish Square luck with the FFXIV project, though. It would be nice to see what will happen with it. =D

Oh, and for the ppl that think this series is long and needs to stop, anyone thought of the Rockman series? But that's off-topic. xDD

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by ShAiOnEi

Oh I see that automatically gives you the rights to point fingers at anyone you see who has bought those games. I'm not even going to argue anymore you're obviously just trolling this thread because you dislike the series. Keep playing your rehashed tales games and leave the final fantasy series alone.

Where am I pointing fingers?

I'm saying statistically speaking, people who play Final Fantasy games don't play any other RPGs, and it saddens me because these people are missing out on potentially amazing games.

I don't want Namco-Bandai / Atlus to look at their low sales numbers as compared to Final Fantasy and say "this isn't worth developing anymore if people aren't going to buy it".

Originally Posted by xObserveRx

Quick question, Squeek. I haven't 100% read everything that you typed but having gone through the three pages of this thread I have yet to (as far as I've seen) see you explain to me what it is that you don't like about Final Fantasy, either specifically, game-by-game, or in general.

I did. Twice.

I've only played three Final Fantasy games, but I've played several Square-Enix games.

When I first played Final Fantasy X, I had not played any Final Fantasy games before and had a positive opinion on the franchise due to the reviews and overall praise of the games.

So I start up the game and right away I assume something is wrong with my friend's PS2 because the video is incredibly choppy. He informs me that this is the way FFX looks. I chuckle. Clearly they made it look this bad on purpose or something. Why else would they cut several frames of animation out every second for no reason?

Then the game starts with no warning and you're a kid in a city on a broken bridge fighting stuff. No explanation. You just are. There's this other guy who is speaking as metaphorically as possible to trick you into thinking there's a story here. I ignore him because he's annoying and clearly designed to appeal to fans of the series who love big swords and weird clothes. The combat system already feels boring to me at this point. I am mashing the same buttons over and over again and winning without even trying.

So then we meet this girl and our main character kid comments on how she looks sad doing whatever it is she's doing, then agrees to go on some quest with her for some reason. They talk metaphorically for a while and such. Then you meet a witch who has like 4000 belt buckles and suddenly I realize I absolutely hate the character designer. Along the way I notice the level-up system which is unique and interesting but also frustrating and cumbersome. I can't decide if I like it or not.

I begin to wonder if the game is going anywhere or not and then we play underwater volleyball and I lose because the controls are abysmal. Then all hell breaks loose or something and we leave. Or something. Really the entire game plays like a dream sequence. Things happen way too fast and without warning or explanation. This frustrates me because I don't like being forced to read between the lines to find out what's going on.

It's at this point I remember the introduction to the game is the conclusion to the game and assume we're going to win in the end so I quit before I endure any more frustration.

A year or two later I decide maybe FFX was just a bad seed in the franchise despite the high review scores and pop in FF7. I'm immediately blown away by how terrible it looks. You can rag on me all you want about how I'm comparing it to modern games, but I'm not. If that's the best you can do with 3D, don't do it in 3D. Those models took away all sense of realism right away. Combat was incredibly boring and I was once again forced to play generic weird-clothes big-sword kid. Turnoff. Stopped playing after the very first fight because it was just so terrible.

About a year after that I hear that the 2D Final Fantasy games were good, especially FF6. So I play FF6. The story right away is terrible. SHE'S GOT A SLAVE CROWN! Wow. You really thought outside the box on that one. So we go into a cave killing stuff and there's a turtle boss and right away you're expected to fight an insanely hard boss without even getting practice on the combat system. I lost repeatedly and had to look up what to do. On the first boss. I've never had to look up the first boss before in a game. I quit shortly after.

During all of this, I played Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. Kingdom Hearts 1 was amazing. I loved it, even though the combat was laughably easy. I hit level 100, got all the Trinities, all the Dalmations, killed Sephiroth, etc. Loved it. I eagerly anticipated KH2 but what we got was just a rushed fanservice game. The unique combat I enjoyed from the first game was gone--replaced with mashing X and Triangle to win every fight. Items? Spells? Who cares? Just mash X and Triangle and you win. The damn developers even removed any sense of mana balance by not letting you level your mana, instead giving you 100 and letting Curaga just be "the rest of your mana". Wow. And the cutscenes. You'd watch one only to be lead into another and another and another. I was actually interested in the story going in, but I lost interest about five minutes in.

And let's not even mention Crystal Chronicles.

It was around this time I realized a pattern with Square franchises. They start amazingly well to pull in customers who will anticipate a sequel. Then the sequels are progressively worse. They don't care, because they know people will buy them anyway.

I was beginning to think maybe I just didn't like RPGs, but then I played Tales of Symphonia and realized that I was just playing the wrong RPGs. Logged over 500 hours on that game. Loved every minute of it.

But let's get back to quote wars.

However, the reason I enjoyed those games so much was story and character development first and foremost (I know you'll disagree with me and argue that the Tales series has much better in both ways) but I also enjoyed the fact that the gameplay stayed relatively the same throughout the first half dozen games.

Hell yes I'm going to agree with you. Tidus didn't develop at all. He did nothing the entire game except let everyone else handle everything. I had a vested interest in following the story and I just couldn't. There was nothing there. To this day I couldn't tell you what was going on in FFX, but I can tell you what was going on in other RPGs I didn't enjoy without a problem.

I play RPGs to watch a wonderful story unfold, not to be dazzled by innovative gameplay. Sure, it wouldn't hurt to have something new in terms of combat or structure, but when I think of Final Fantasy, I think of turn-based combat with fairly straight forward magic and skill systems.

I think the only thing an RPG developer should focus on is story and leave everything else to the end. Story is everything to RPGs. That's one of the reasons I'm put off by Square-Enix games. The story is either convoluted or non-existent. As for ATB, I think that's the least sensical combat system ever. Even Baten Kaitos's messed-up Card system made more sense. Why is it that I can only punch once every 30 seconds? That doesn't make sense to me. Well, turn-based combat in general doesn't make sense to me, but you don't see me ragging on Golden Sun or Persona 3 or Mario RPG.

So after that long-winded rant, I'm left with the question: What is it that you think is "broken" with each game (If you feel like answering for each of the games you've played) or just in general. Also, I don't see how you could judge Final Fantasy 6 after 10 minutes, that's not even through the introduction.

As the third Final Fantasy game I played, I was already pretty put off by the franchise. The game pretty much had to "wow" me right away and it failed miserably.

Originally Posted by Emeraldas

I think one aspect that might be missing, Squeek, is the funny moments that seems to occur a LOT in the Persona and Tales series that is SEVERELY lacking in the FF series. There have only been MAYBE one game where I've laughed harder at the comments of what the characters said than in Tales of Legendia. (Yes, sadly, that's really the only game I've truly played thru, tho I have Tales of Fantasia and Destiny I and II) ATLUS knows how to crack a joke and go with the flow. And Bandai Namco (I think it's Bandai Namco that licenses the Tales of games) is getting there, too, but the Square aspect of Square Enix...not so much. I mean, I love a serious game and all, and playing all other FF games, you come to love some characters because of what they do. But I think they are getting a little bit too stone cold for comfort to me.

I'll agree with this. The entire time I was playing Final Fantasy X until I realized it was terrible, I never really had fun. There was no comedy, there was no action, nothing. It just felt generic.

I mean, you would think this group of people would talk about things other than "let's save the world!" all the time.

It lacks the realistic feel. Yes, it's an RPG and yes it's not supposed to be real, but I just can't relate to these characters. They don't feel human to me.

To tie this in with the previous quote train, story is the most important aspect, but the second-most important aspect is how the characters react to the story. In all of my time in FFX, they seemed to just not care about what was going on. Like I said, it felt like a dream sequence. Like a "remember that time when ____?" for the entire game.

Haha wow nobody is going to read this.

[MalReynolds]

Odd that you should mention that FFX feels like a dream sequence when that has a huge bearing on the plot. I mean, no joke, the first time you said it I thought you were kidding.

spoils



There's a race of dream-people creating the original reality that you were playing through. For all intents and purposes, it is a dream.




/spoiler




And I can tell you pretty well what happened in Tales of Abyss, up until near the end, when everything started going crazy. I still liked the game, but there was a serious misstep in the plot. Also, I liked the characters in that game very much. And I was befuddled to find that the plot went on for a few months in gametime.

As sad as it is to say about FFVI, I didn't think the plot was great. The best plot, for me, was FFV, and it ran very basic until near the end, when they brought in parallel dimensions.

And I don't think I've brought any new arguments to the table, so yeah.

[Shaydow]

Im surprised no one has brought up Chrono Trigger yet :P

And alittle back on topic : Squeek, you seem to be assuming that anyone who plays FF games plays ONLY FF games. I cant honestlly tell you how you came to this conclusion, but it's false. All the people I know that have played the FF series of games, play GAMES, all games. My collection has games like Music, RPG's, FPS, Arcade style fighters, action / adventure, etc. I'm sure if you ask any one of us that say we like FF games, you would be surprised how many other games we own.

Just a thought.

[Squeek]

I. Am. Going. Off. Of. Sales. Figures.

Your anecdotal evidence means nothing when FFX sells 9 million units and Tales of the Abyss / Persona 3 sell 500,000 units.

@Mal: It shouldn't play like one even if it is one.

[MalReynolds]

I mean, if it was deliberate, then it should.

Also, the snail boss in FFVI tells you how to beat it. The soldiers tell you about a minute into the battle:

Don't attack when it's in the shell.

[Scrab]

FF1 - Amazing
FF2 - Amazing
FF3 - Amazing
FF4 - Amazing
FF5 - Amazing
FF6 - Amazing
FF7 - Revolutionary
FF8 - TRASH.
FF9 - Good
FF10 - Amazing
FF10-2 - TRASH.
FF11 - Online = Trash, boring.
FF12 - Eh
FF13 - Eh
FF14 - ??

[tsugomaru]

Those rankings must be comparing games within the series.

I've only played FFI-FFVI, but compared to the rest of the games out there and RPGs made during the same time, they are all just good.

~Tsugomaru

[Shaydow]

Originally Posted by Squeek

I. Am. Going. Off. Of. Sales. Figures.

Your anecdotal evidence means nothing when FFX sells 9 million units and Tales of the Abyss / Persona 3 sell 500,000 units.

@Mal: It shouldn't play like one even if it is one.

I wasn't going to say anything, I was just going to let this lie and say to hell with it, but in a conversation just now with my wife, I relized something that offended me and I'm going to say something.

Squeek, your 22, and I'm 30. The difference is marginal at best in terms of physical maturity, but as far as games go, well, as my wife brought up, the best RPG, IMO, that I had the most fun with, was LUNAR on the Sega CD. I played this when I was 13. That means you where what, 5 right? That means, that I beat Pitfall Harry on my Atari 2600 ( with, I may add, using a ColecoVision Controller on [ woot I loved compatibility even back then :P ] ), and let me phrase it like you so arrogantly decided to before :

YOU. WHERE. NOT. EVEN. BORN. YET.

So please, when I say, you don't like the game, and I get it, but I do,

..... MOVE ON.

As always, this is all, IMO.

[flash dualist]

Seems fun, Hope they don't make it as boring as FFXI

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by Shaydow

I wasn't going to say anything, I was just going to let this lie and say to hell with it, but in a conversation just now with my wife, I relized something that offended me and I'm going to say something.

Squeek, your 22, and I'm 30. The difference is marginal at best in terms of physical maturity, but as far as games go, well, as my wife brought up, the best RPG, IMO, that I had the most fun with, was LUNAR on the Sega CD. I played this when I was 13. That means you where what, 5 right? That means, that I beat Pitfall Harry on my Atari 2600 ( with, I may add, using a ColecoVision Controller on [ woot I loved compatibility even back then :P ] ), and let me phrase it like you so arrogantly decided to before :

YOU. WHERE. NOT. EVEN. BORN. YET.

So please, when I say, you don't like the game, and I get it, but I do,

..... MOVE ON.

As always, this is all, IMO.

what

I don't even know what you're trying to argue here. At all.

I'm only trying to tell you guys this is not a personal attack. In general, 90% of the people who play Final Fantasy games do not play any other RPGs. I have statistics to back this up.

[ShAiOnEi]

Originally Posted by Squeek

Where am I pointing fingers?

I'm saying statistically speaking, people who play Final Fantasy games don't play any other RPGs.

I don't want Namco-Bandai / Atlus to look at their low sales numbers as compared to Final Fantasy and say "I hope squeek our biggest fanboy will continue buying our games".

I've only played three Final Fantasy games, but I've played several Square-Enix games....

I see well that's great thanks I appreciate all of your valuable information. Also you tend to misuse statistics because you also have to accept the fact that many people might not even like the RPG's that aren't doing so well. Have you ever thought that? I mean believe it or not I did not jump for joy when playing tales of the abyss. That game dragged on to an extent that I could not play anymore. Way too much filler for me I would of had to make myself sit through the boring cutscenes.

[NFD]

On Fable, they call me "Chicken Kicker"

[NFD]

Originally Posted by Shaydow

Squeek, your 22, and I'm 30.

If you're going to pull the age card, at least use some grammar.

[Scrab]

Originally Posted by NFD

On Fable, they call me "Chicken ****er"

fix'd