Playing the Final Fantasy games

S

Squall

First time out of the vault
Thread Music:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1orKD1ZG5KU[/youtube]

Most of us seniors have either graduated already or are graduating within the next couple of weeks. Well, that's it, that's the end of high school for us seniors. So I am making this thread for those of us who just graduated or are about to, and we can discuss what it's like, what you miss about high school, share memories, and just about anything else here.

Personally I have mixed feelings about this. One part of me is glad to finally be going out into the world as an independent adult, but another part of me is sad from never again being able to walk down these halls again, seeing all my friends at the same time, or experience all of the things I experienced before. At this point I even miss 7th & 8th grade to quite an extent.

So what are you doing after high school everyone? I'm going to college in early 2012 and going to get a job. I'm also going to finish Final Fantasy VIII and once I'm done with that, I'm going to beat every single Final Fantasy game in chronological order from I to XIII, excluding XII and XIV which are MMOs. What about you?
 
I have to suggest just ending it at 12. I haven't touched 13 since the day I bought it.
 
VIII was pretty trashy. The story was way to emo, Squall was about the biggest manchild to ever grace a game, you could drive a semi through the plot holes (lol, hay I fogot you cause like I use gfs and stuff lol mah bad), and the draw system was completely asinine.
Idea for a new combat/utility system in a video game? Oh I know, lets make it so they have to run around the world map in random encounters for dozens and dozens and dozens of hours and press two buttons to stock up spells to stat pad.


There is a reason that VII is universally praised and VIII scorned. The only people I have seen in RL who actually like VIII are all effeminate weeaboos, go figure.

Triple Triad, admittedly is pretty cool.
 
WelcomeToNewReno said:
I have to suggest just ending it at 12. I haven't touched 13 since the day I bought it.
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XIII can't be that bad, can it? I've heard mixed things about it.
 
Minus those rose colored glasses of nostalgia, the only FF game worth a damn are the tactics offshot. And then really only FFT/WTOL. Original is better, remake slightly more polished, and improved with somethings but lacking some of the charm of the original.

By the way, don't get all excited. if you've got half of any brains, you'll go to your local community college because it'll be anywhere from a third to a tenth of the cost of a proper college, and that'll really only reinforce that it's a highschool you don't have to go, less caring teachers, and where you generally don't have to hide your cigarettes. The cafeteria food will suck, but if you're lucky you'll have a good place within walking distance. Make friends with people who share you schedule because otherwise it can be boring as shit during the day if you like to save gas.

Oh, and make sure you plan shit out so you don't end up finding out that you have to take an additional semester of courses because your advisor that day was just a bit tired and didn't pay enough attention to when they scheduled your classes.
 
XI is the MMO, XII is just plain crap. VIII's characters/plot seems to generally be one that you either really enjoy or hate but the game is decent aside from a few giant flaws. If you can get past the obnoxious junction system and aren't a super completionist, it's enjoyable. Just remember that you cannot leave the final dungeon so keep those extra saves on hand...

VII also has a really enjoyable plot and world but the system isn't as interesting as it could be. IX is the best in the main series with X having one of the best character growth systems, though the world/plot fails to live up to the first hour or so of the game. Can't say anything about XIII other than I've heard that the first 50 hours or so is a tutorial of sorts (limited command interface options).

As Wintermind said, there are better games, specifically JRPGs, to play through.

Wintermind is also right that taking as many classes at a community college as possible is the way to go, you'll save assloads of money that way and the classes are almost universally better. That said, a dual enrollment program would be ideal so that you can get the social experience of a real college with the class prices of a community college. I highly recommend living in the dorms your first year in order to make a wider variety of social connections, despite the inflated price-tag. Also don't let your advisor talk you into taking classes that you don't want or need to take and make sure to double check any classes that they tell you that you need to take with your degree's requirements, they fuck up far too frequently.
 
I graduated from high school in 1998... trust me, you are far from an "independent adult".

As for Final Fantasy, here is my take:

FFI - A timeless classic that helped define the JRPG.

(most people haven't played FF II or III so I'll skip those)

IV - One of the greatest RPG's.
V - Originator of the "job system" and excellent.
VI - Probably my second favourite FF.
VII - My 3rd favourite FF.
VIII - Total ass.
IX - Great game, harkens back to FFI.
X - My favourite of the series.
XII - Didn't mind it, but the Sky Pirate (Balthier?) should have been the main character.
XIII - After about 15 hours or so, I really began to enjoy this one... although the ending was confusing.
 
V - Originator of the "job system" and excellent.
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False. III was the first one to introduce jobs, and IMO balanced them better than V.

IX - Great game, harkens back to FFI.
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Once again false, IX is a specific reference to III, not I.

P.S. In case it's unclear, I think III is one of the if not the best FF title and I strongly recommend to pick it up - be it for NES or DS (I played the former).

Overall, I think all of the FF titles up through (including) IX are playable, with the exception of II, but some are better than others. I will not elaborate beyond that, since it'll devolve into the same tired argument we have whenever someone mentions FF. I'll just say that a lot of people here bash certain titles unnecessarily harshly (especially VIII) while giving the over-hyped ones too much credit. It seems like the people's resistance to mainstream hype here only applies to Western games.

Also, don't miss out on the Tactics and Tactics Advance games.

So what are you doing after high school everyone?
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That was 4 years ago for me, and I have since then finished college and am now trying to find a paying job (I have an internship but it can't feed me). Trust me when I say, unless you're planning to be a pre-med or engineering student, college will be about the last few years of laid-back time. Try to do fun as well as useful stuff, go on an exchange program abroad, etc.
 
yeah, regardless of where you go, make sure everything you take applies towards you major. other wise you're just wasting money.
 
Hmm... I always thought that FFIX paid homage to FFI (ie: Vivi being a Black Mage, characters having a specific class, etc).
 
since this is no long about college, let me jsut say FFT is best FF, only FF I can ever stand to play again. I just wish I had the original untranslated version
 
Squall said:
WelcomeToNewReno said:
I have to suggest just ending it at 12. I haven't touched 13 since the day I bought it.
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XIII can't be that bad, can it? I've heard mixed things about it.
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Well, it's just that it's so radically different. All NPC interaction is gone. All Shopping is done on floating terminals. The combat is... Screw it look it up on youtube. It's hard to describe.

It basically gave me final fantasy whiplash. I'll eventually start playing it again, but with all the new games and all the old games I'm replaying (mostly Pikmin 2 and the games on the fallout classic collection) it's becoming a lower and lower priority.

Also, has anyone seen The Spoony One's reviews of 8 and 10? They're some of his finest work. They're like let's plays where he describes how much they suck.
 
rcorporon said:
Hmm... I always thought that FFIX paid homage to FFI (ie: Vivi being a Black Mage, characters having a specific class, etc).
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Well, to be perfectly fair, it's a homage to all the older, fantasy-style FF titles. I've always felt that the setting of FFIX was closer to III, though, not to mention that it was really heavy on references to various signature designs pioneered by FFIII - dragoons, moogles, summoners. Then again, maybe it's because it was FFIII that largely defines (IMO) "classical" FF games.

For me, FF began with VII, and ended with X.
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Well, then you missed out on some of the best of them *shrug*.

Also, has anyone seen The Spoony One's reviews of 8 and 10? They're some of his finest work. They're like let's plays where he describes how much they suck.
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I didn't see the X one, but for the VIII one all I can say is, I keep being amused by the people who take such obvious flamebait seriously. I guess the rule of the Internet is, "whoever screams his opinion louder is right" :roll:
 
Ausdoerrt said:
For me, FF began with VII, and ended with X.
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Well, then you missed out on some of the best of them *shrug*.
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I'm definitely gonna play some of the early FF's when i get the chance, since they're supposed to be good. The new ones never got me interested, i bought X-2 though and i absolutely hated it!
 
rcorporon said:
I think I was the only person in North America who liked FFX-2....
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Yup, then again I like XII so I can't say much. Well I like it apart from the main character who was just crowbared in because the real main character wasn't androgynous or whiny enough.
He's like Cloud without the character development or Squall without the posting on a Fallout forum but never discussing Fallout. :V
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Overall, I think all of the FF titles up through (including) IX are playable, with the exception of II, but some are better than others. I will not elaborate beyond that, since it'll devolve into the same tired argument we have whenever someone mentions FF. I'll just say that a lot of people here bash certain titles unnecessarily harshly (especially VIII) while giving the over-hyped ones too much credit. It seems like the people's resistance to mainstream hype here only applies to Western games.
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I haven't played II myself but I've tried to get through both FFI and V and couldn't. V's biggest problem is the plot, but I think I could get through it if I was in the right mood. FFI really has nothing to offer anymore, it's plot is non-existent and the gameplay is pretty poor. JRPGs have improved quite a bit, hell the jump from FFI to FFIII was pretty significant.

rcorporon said:
I think I was the only person in North America who liked FFX-2....
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I heard good things about it's system and what I saw of it looked interesting. That said, even most of the FFX fans thought it had a crappy plot, which suggests that it's even worse, ie complete crap.
 
^Well, early FFs are fun for the gameplay, and for the messing around with the system. The whole idea of a linear JRPG that ignores everything for the story didn't get firmly established until FFVII. Games like FFI, III, V are more like sandbox exploration games with the story as nothing more than the pretext for that.

I do agree that FFI is hopelessly outdated, especially because III and V were a dramatic improvement of its original concepts. Still, it more or less pioneered the (sub-)genre, so credit where it's due (even if the specific sub-genre is for all purposes dead).

As for FFI to FFIII jump... Well, it's more like FFIII is a more polished, improved version of FFI - a return to the original formula after FFII more or less failed. Unfortunately, the game doesn't get all the credit it deserves as pretty much the founding game for most classical FF lore, probably because the release of FFIV on SNES within a year completely overshadowed it, and because it didn't see an official release outside Japan until the remake a few years ago.
 
In my opinion ditch the FF games and play Shin Megami Tensei, but hey, its just my opinion.
 
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