Game: The Final Fantasy Retrospective

[el_boss]

ff7 was my first. ffx is the best, I have unlocked everything and even defeated penance. ffx-2 sucked cock, I didn't even finish it. ffxii was ok, but the combat system was tedious and to easy to break and it had the worst last boss ever. The whole game was way too easy

I never got ff6. I've always hated rpgs with too many characters. What's the idea when they're all the same anyway. ff5 was much better. I don't even remember what happened in ff4. I haven't even bothered to play the nes ones.

[kooshi]

FF - Pretty fun at first, but it gets boring quite easily as you're stuck with only 4 characters and the storyline is not that great (for this time, anyways, I can see why about 20 years ago).
Rating = (7/10)

FF3 - I've played the DS remake and it wasn't great. Although I loved the idea of class changing, the fact that you need job levels to make a job effective really brought it down for me. Plus, the story sucked.
Rating = (6.5/10)

FF4 (unfinished) - Story is good, characters are good, battle system is alright. My only complain is that... well, I don't think I should put any spoilers on...
Rating so far = (7.5/10)

FF5 (unfinished) - Story is alright, characters are alright, battle and job system is awesome, and I have yet to finish this game, hahaha.
Rating so far = (8.5/10)

FF6 - Awesome story, awesome characters, good battle system, great esper customization. My definite favorite out of the FFs that I have played.
Rating = (9.5/10)

FF7 - Great story, great characters, loved the materia system, but I hated the difficulty. Way too bloody easy. Plus, I don't think Sephiroth is THAT great; I give him my most overrated character trophy.
Rating = (8.5/10)

FF8 (discontinued) - Blah story, blah characters, battle + magic + GF system were so easy to abuse. I could've just had Zell all by himself and just spam his Limit Break while dishing out 9999 on every hit.
Rating = (3/10)

FF10 (unfinished) - Alright story, annoying characters, but the battle system + leveling grid just blew me away. Those two alone keeps motivating me to tolerate the story.
Rating = (9/10)

FF10-2 - Crappy story, crappy + annoying characters, battle system + class changing was fun.
Rating = (6/10)

FFT - Awesome story, awesome characters, fun battles, fun classes, but the game can be a little redundant at times.
Rating = (9.5/10)

[Zinobi]

Part V is out
Awesome Retrospective, as are all of the retrospectives on GT.

[RyougaZell]

Excellent Part 5.
Sadly they didn't cover Advent Children and Last Order for not being videogames. They could at least have mentioned them for being part of the compilation.

Weird they decided to mention Ergheiz though.

[Ryllharu]

Ergheiz got insane amount of press from those characters inclusion in the game. Unfortunately, the game really wasn't great. I think it bombed everywhere.

I really liked how they never overtly mentioned Aerith's fate, but everyone knew precisely what reference they were making. They covered a lot of thing I forgot about, like the seemless transitions from FMV to pre-rendered background. We kind of take those for granted now, but they still look as amazing today as they did then.

You can appreciate a lot more about the directions the final fantasy series went when you see them all together like this. Strangely, I never realized how vast a departure 7 and 8 were in design over the series up through 9. I always loved the futuristic feel of them.

[RyougaZell]

Yeah. Personally, even though I love medieval themes, I believe this futuristic feeling on FFVII was what hooked me on the RPG genre. Before that I had only played Zelda and was totally dissapointed (yes.. I hate Zelda).

I wish they selled Before Crisis on the playstation network to play on psp or ps3... I don't care about cellphone graphics... I want to know the story behind the Turks...

[RyougaZell]

Part VI released.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/23726.html
This time it is focused on FFVIII and FFIX (wish they had done one retrospective for each game)

[LaZie]

Thanks for the link RyogaZell. After watching it, it makes me want to play FFIX again.

[Ryllharu]

Well, it reminded me of why I never want to play 9 ever again as long as I live. My rather obvious FF8 fanboyism aside (to which I can list a host of negatives as well), I can look at 9 separately.

My biggest issues were the story, the skills system, and (I'm so glad they mentioned it) PlayOnline.

PlayOnline was the biggest waste of time ever. In fact, it completely killed any business I would ever do with BradyGames, Prima Games, and any other strategy guide publisher. I wasted good money on a utterly worthless guide. I have not even considered purchasing another since. I'm ruder to EBgames employees when they ask if I want one now. The EBgames employees don't deserve my wrath for that farce of a strategy guide. I imagine there are many who like me, would never touch a guide from those companies again.
thanks gamefaqs

My issue with the story in 9 was that it simply didn't feel like there was one. It was an homage to all the 8 and 16 bit Final Fantasies, I get it. However, there was something 9 lacked. There was character development, a lot of it, but there never seemed to be any cohesive story pulling them all together. I never cared for any of the characters. It felt like they were all tossed together and a reason the world was going to be destroyed was just tacked on.

I think what I hated the most was the skills system. Even if you leveled for a few hours outside the next town, you were often a generation or two behind in equipment. The skills just took too much leveling to learn permanently, and you typically had to buy every weapon, no matter how inferior, to learn the skills. I probably could have skipped some less useful skills. But you couldn't do that with magic, couldn't do it with summons. The extended time it took to earn every skill took even more from the story, as it would take more and more time between any development. This system even wormed it's way into Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, leading to one of the most disappointing sequels in the franchise.

I've had my fun venting. Someone feel free to criticize the failings of 8.

There hopefully will be one of these retrospectives for Tactics. There is still a massive following for that game.

[Kitsune]

Never really got into Final Fantasy that much. The only ones I played were the rom for FFVI & FFX. Must admit that both of them were pretty good though. Loved Shadow from FFVI and Auron from FFX

[Honoko]

Yeah, these vids made me want to find an emulator for a Mac so that I can replay FFVII again. Or FFIII. (Un)Fortunately, I didn't look too hard.

[animus]

I liked 9, a lot. Can't say the same for 8. Aside from the main character being another angst trip, I thought 8's battle system was awful. Junction magic cards you took from enemies, no MP bar, odd use of a shoulder button to time crits (hitting R1 just as the attack comes down), and GF's being so damn important that you spam them, only to have it turn to a borefest of having to watch the same damn 20-30 second animations play over and over with no way to avoid them.

The Gunblade also has to be the dumbest weapon conceivable. When I was a kid I used to think, wtf is this? Is this a gun that shoots blades or something? Only to find it being a sword with a gun hilt, and I felt the urge to /palmface. I don't remember much about 8's story, but it wasn't anything to write home about. It was definite a fanboy/fangirl catering with all the arguable romance that occurs between Squall and Rinoa. It felt quite inconherent and foolish. Remember the orphanage scenario with Irvine? You can't possibly tell me that was masterful storytelling.

The only good things about 8 had to be Zell and Triple Triad. Anyways, the Final Fantasy's never had a been a series of deep, intriguing, complex plot lines. Tactics would take the cake at the top of the Final Fantasy list. But when it comes to best RPG story, it just has to be Xenogears. If you've played it and have a decent sense of depth, then you'd understand.

[Super5]

Ah final fantasy, those were the good ole' days. I first got hooked on RPGs with Final Fantasy 6 (3 in USA). It was unlike anything I ever played. I still think it's probably the best RPG ever. The only ones that could come close are FF VII and Tactics.

[LaZie]

Part VII is out
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/24248.html
This time focusing on FFX and FFX-2.

[RyougaZell]

I still can't believe many decided to not play FFX-2 because of the Songstress dressphere... even though we've have the class before with a different name... Dancer.

Class change and fast battle system was awesome in FFX-2. Yes, the story is a little bit cheesy... but it has its good moments. Plus... the Al Bhed rocks... Gippal is awesome, too bad you can't use him as party member.

FFX is a FF that once again risked changes, and did very good in my book.

Now that I think about it... the PS2 FF's were the most different from the saga, one from another.
FFX - No worldmap for first time. Turn based. Character swap. Management of Summons.
FFXII - No random battles. An even more massive world than FFX.
FFX-2 - First real sequel. ATB back. Classes back.
FFXI - Online boringness.

[Ryllharu]

My biggest issue with X-2 was that in the end, the story feels like a complete and total waste of time. Unless you 100% the game, AND perform the correct button press at the appropriate time, you get the mediocre ending that you get at something around 45% completion.

The only other problem I had was you needed to do very specific things at very specific times (and I'm still not sure how I missed out on the Trainer dressphere) or you wouldn't be able to get certain things.

I loved the, characters, the dress grids, the on the fly changes, the dynamic position on the battlefield (not permanently lined up), the actual presence of racial tensions due to what Seymour and the other Maesters did, and a lot of the rest of it, but there really wasn't any story to back it up. I put in all the effort for nothing. It had a lot of potential as the first sequel, but it really wasn't able to live up to the expectations.

[RyougaZell]

Finally someone writes real reasons of why FFX-2 wasn't THAT good. 99% of the people only says they look like pop-stars and thus they didn't play it.

My issues with FFX-2 are actually with the International version... I wanted the new dungeon, enemies, mode and dresspheres... but bleh... can't read japanese. Why could Square do the same as with FFX International? That is... include an English mode... for FFX-2 and FFXII...

[darkshadow]

well im gonna leave this thread now and not watch the next one, since i didn't finish 12 yet.....

[RyougaZell]

Seems everybody ignored the part on FFXI... hehehe... I didn't know THAT game had a story...

darkshadow: you sure about skipping it? Seems it will talk about not only FFXII, but all the games in the Ivalice Alliance.

[Ryllharu]

One episode is too short to spend on FFT and its truly craptactular GBA versions, much less FFXII. It will either have to be a super long episode, or glance over Tactics. That'll cause issues with fanboys.