Let's talk about Final Fantasy 7.(overrated?)

[crackdude]

To be honest I must be the dumbest person in the world, couldn't even find my way out of the University. But I hated the combat. Story seems ok, but the dialog has too much drama.
A friend of mine really liked it, and showed me the game being properly played.

[Tad]

Ah, okay. As I said before, it is one of those games that's so different in the series, it doesn't sit well with everyone. The combat was very depended on you junctioning really. Say you were going up against a fire type for example, you could junction the element "fire" so you could absorb it and you could put the element "water" onto your weapon for maximum damage.

There's always been strategy in FF games, but this took it a bit further I think. If you used it effectively, you didn't need to waste time grinding to level x before proceeding to the next boss. Leveling up your GF's (which wasn't too difficult) was more important as they would open new junction slots, refine items into spells etc.

The only downside however, was like most systems in games, people learnt how to exploit it.

[CrazyT]

@Tad

8 for me was just a slog from beginning to end. I tried to replay it like 5/6 times so really I gave it a chance. Got to the final boss in my last playthrough and once I got there I didn't really know what I played except for seeing some great cutscenes I guess.

To be more specific. It puts too much emphasis on the (bad) story; a bad combination. Story can sometimes take such a huge segment in the game that you'll be reading lots of nonsense for hours. There's like literally no flow. You're never really playing for a long time; always interrupted. FF games are known for this but ff8 brings it to another level. It was like they understood ff7's succes the wrong way.

 And yeah the battling mechanics never clicked with me either. Hearing from people how the junctioning works I feel like i've always played it wrong. It feels now like there's only 1 right way to play, which is hidden among many options. I dunno man it could just be me but im not even the worst at complex mechanics.

[Tad]

Ah, okay. I can see your points. As I said before, 8 seems to be the one that people either liked or just hated. Personally, I think the story definitely struggled towards the end because of the time constraints the team were under. I don't think it was bad, but I do think it needed a bit more work to help with the flow.

People mistake Squall for an emo, but he really isn't. He's just an introvert person who's very dependable. Teaming him up with Zell was clearly a deliberate move by the team to be the opposite of Squall and for them to bounce of each other as such.

Also, I started playing FF4 for the first time today and it's pretty good so far. There's some odd story moments and it throws you quite quickly into the spells and attacks etc.

[Tad]

Actually, I take it back about the flow of FF8. Mainly because having played FF4 and hitting a 3rd of the way in, I realised something. Apart perhaps FFX, pretty much all FF games have this moment where the story goes a bit weird.
FF 4 - Cecil brother, moon powers blah, blah
FF7 - Once Cloud falls into the life stream
FF8 - Once you learn about Ultimerica
FF9 - Once Zidane meets Garland
FF12 - from the very beginning  (
FF 13 - The slow, plodding beginning.

[CrazyT]

I see what you mean, and you may be on to something, because I think I may enjoy the games with the least interuptions. Leave story moments be the story moments and spread out. Too many (long) interuptions during gameplay has always been something that I felt ruined my enjoyment, tho I could never put my finger on it back then. All I remember is that ff8 was the biggest offender in this.

Having said that, I think ff4 is a bit overrated. Its not that significant except for the fact that it was the first snes Final fantasy game. I still stand by 5 being the perfect game for me.

[crackdude]

In FFX Yuna almost marries the bad guy for no discernible reason.

[Tad]

In FFX Yuna almost marries the bad guy for no discernible reason.

If I recall, they were to wed as a sign to the people of spira that humans and Guado can get along as both were figureheads of two very divided races. Yuna agreed at the start to help relations as Seymour agreed nothing afterwards would change between the two. Yuna would carry on her adventure of self sacrifice.

However, it later transpired Seymour was after more power for himself and when Yuna tried to stop it, Seymour threatened to kill her friends.


Also, I've just took another look at FFXIII and this is not at all what I remember. I wonder if my version was broken or something, because when I played it most of the characters were separate and it was a real slow moving game...

[pcm92]

What game would be a good introduction to Final Fantasy?

[Tad]

Tough one. I don't think going to far back will help. I'd probably suggest FFX as although it has issues, it's one of the few games in the series that doesn't go to crazy with the plot at the end. Plus, a lot of the characters are good.

[crackdude]

FFX I guess.. Or the newer FF IV 3D versions.

[CrazyT]

I think a lot of people would probably say ff xv now since it takes a lot of familiar conventions. But other than that it is actually hard to not say FF X and I am not even that big of a fan

[Shun-Di]

I like I through X-2 and some spin offs of 7, XII when i feel like it, XIII jumped the shark so I wasn't too crazy about that... 4-7 are my favorites, 8 too.  Final Fantasy Tactics is great.