Final Fantasy SNES and PSX

[GamePunk429]

I recently tried for a second time to make my way through Final Fantasy XIII and again I have found myself bored around 10 hours in. The battle system is fun but that is all you do, run down a hall, battle, repeat, cut scene, new hall. And seriously it is boring as hell, and the story is not entertaining at all.

So recently I decided to go back to replay the PS1 FF games starting with VII. Now I realize how terrible new RPGs are and what made the the older games so endearing. For one I love the exploration, and giant world map and ability to truly adventure. Next the characters while are not realistic have more emotion through their text than I get with the fancy cut scenes and voice acting of the new game. Also they have so many different fun things you do each section. The bike chase, the impersonating a soldier, and it is very comedic as well.

I also have been playing FF VI on my phone during my deuce breaks (yeah so only in about 10 minute intervals), and I have the same type of enjoyment. I'm just saying that the new FF games are really disappointing and wold love to see them return to their roots because I enjoy playing these games that are nearing two decades old more than anything that has been release lately.

[hupla]

Six is the best final fantasy. Prove me wrong.

[GamePunk429]

Six is the best final fantasy. Prove me wrong.

IX is the best Final Fantasy, just proved you wrong.

[hupla]

9 is my second favourite, so I can respect that. I think it was the last main Final Fantasy game I really loved, (Tactics is pretty baller though) it had a great sense of style and was a nice return to form after 8. I didnt like 8 :/

[Adam]

I didnt like 8 :/

That's because you're a heathen.

But no, I really liked 8.  I'd say it's probably my favorite, but I think 7 and 8 are the only Final Fantasy games I've played all the way through.  However, this thread has made me want to try FF9.  I'ma see if I still have that, or it my brother took it to Cleveland with him.

[GamePunk429]

I didnt like 8 :/

That's because you're a heathen.

But no, I really liked 8.  I'd say it's probably my favorite, but I think 7 and 8 are the only Final Fantasy games I've played all the way through.  However, this thread has made me want to try FF9.  I'ma see if I still have that, or it my brother took it to Cleveland with him.

I was never able to get through 8 all the way, I just found it to be somewhat boring. I am on a mission though to blow through all of my old RPGs, either for replay or to finally beat them. After I finish 7 I will move on to 8, then Legend of Dragoon, and capping it off with 9. I am thinking about picking up Vagrant Story and Xenogears now that they are on the PSN. Following that I will move on to the PS2, starting with FF XII since I never beat that either.

[JordAnime]

I have a fairly different perspective on the subject; older Final Fantasy's never really sucked me in, I didn't really get the chance to sit down and play the old Final Fantasy's until about 2002/3 so they sort of had lost their luster as "great games" and just fell into that "man these are really ugly but not charming" category as far as I was concerned.  I got out of Midgar in Final Fantasy VII, got bored.  Never made it that far in VIII and got bored, I couldn't even save in IX so that one was out, I never played X as I didn't have a PS2.  XII I kind of enjoyed but lost interest after about 15 hours.  I tried playing I&II for the GBA, got bored pretty early on.  I played Final Fantasy II(IV) and VI(III) on SNES for a bit and couldn't really force my way though even though I was enjoying VI. 

Why?  I dunno, I think it was just the amount of filler.  The battle systems were also pretty bland in Final Fantasy, and random battles are generally the biggest pain in the ass.  Between each aspect of the plot development, there's about 2 hours of putzing around the overworld, dungeon, or wherever fighting the same mob type about a billion and a half times.  Then, I guess I'm also looking through these titles from modern eyes; and while I appreciate a lot of the neat components and enhancements each game introduces, I find myself just getting too disinterested in what's going to happen.

Final Fantasy XIII was the first  in the series I actually beat and played through again.  I probably spent 130 hours on that game and really loved it.  I loved the story, the visuals, the battle system, the music and the characters.  It has its flaws, and I can see people not liking it because it's too linear and is a pretty big departure form the classic titles.

After I got sick of XIII I decided to give what is generally considered "the best Final Fantasy", FFVII another go.  I played through it, enjoyed it, I knew Aries died, but I really didn't know that much else about it.  I really enjoyed certain aspects of it, but I feel the production sort of ran away with itself by the third act.  The more interesting parts of the story, the Rebels versus Shinra; the aliens and lifestream, all seemed overshadowed by Cloud's seemingly tacked on back-story.  There was a lot in the story the player just had to take for granted, plot points briefly explained but when you go back to think about them, you just scratched your head. 

I dunno, it was good, and probably would have been mind-blowing at the time, but greatest RPG ever?  Eh.

That said, I pretty much ignored the modern western RPGs of this generation, I stopped caring about Oblivion after Patrick Stewart's character died.  Fallout, to me, seemed pretty much the same as Oblivion but with machine guns and post apocalyptic setting,  Mass Effect, meanwhile appealed to me, but I never bothered playing it, until recently.

I really liked the game, the narrative was great and the ability to have a pretty significant effect on the plot outcome is cool, but there are limitations to this setup.  Mass Effect, while expansive and very "Hollywood" in its production values, isn't nearly as polished as Final Fantasy XIII was.  Mass Effect suffered lots of technical glitches and was largely limited by the restrictions of the Unreal 3 engine, XIII was built on the proprietary Crystal Tools, and just feels to supremely polished, it only starts acting up a bit when the player gets to Pulse, and I feel Pulse was thrown in to appease people who wanted a little more open-world content. 

The final lynch pin here was that I just played through Chrono Trigger for the first time on my 3DS and HOLY SHIT that game ruled; honestly still holds up today as a great game.  It has a lot of great components of choice, but it's also linear enough to create one of the tightest experiences ever.  Actually, I felt that Mass Effect was highly influenced by the design and story telling of Chrono Trigger. 

Anyway...I guess my point is that I love XIII, I can appreciate old school Final Fantasy but they usually don't hold my attention, and Chrono Trigger is better than any Final Fantasy game, and Square Enix and Bioware should team up to do a Chrono game.

[GamePunk429]

I guess I am more of an old schooler JRPG fan than the new school. But as for terms of FF XIII here are the things I like...

-The Battle System: I love the fast pace and strategy of it, it's very different than anything before it. But what I dislike is the simplicity of it with the lack of MP and you are immediately healed after battle. It pretty much takes away the challenge of being in a long dungeon and having to conserve your items and MP.

-Try again: OK this somewhat contradicts what I said about worrying about items and MP but not so much. I love the try again option as there is nothing more frustrating than making a small mistake in a battle and dying and losing an hour of gameplay. This is a welcome addition if you ask me.

- The Pacing: Though I haven't beat the game yet the pacing of it is extremely well done. The characters are built up at a steady pace while not slowing down the story as well as there being plenty of action.

The crystarium... kind of. I like the Crystarium as once it's open it allows for some extremely customized characters and a unique take on the level up system (even though it's similar to X's sphere grid which I liked better personally).

Over all it's not a bad game but the linearity is honestly what killed it, and the lack of variety of things to do. It's for the most part the same thing over and over again for 60 straight hours. Which I know most RPGs are the same, but that's what I loved about the old school games as during town or storyline parts they have, yes sometimes dumb, but they are fun and different and get you away from the mundane run somewhere and have a 100 battles in between.

As for Chrono Trigger, yes it is without a doubt the greatest game of all time and nothing even compares other than Chrono Cross IMO. I haven't dabbled too much in WRPGs, the only one I played to finish is Fable and I got bored with Fallout 3 after about 3 hours. I am more of a classic JRPG guy, but unfortunately that genre is disapearing. But I will say that it does look like FF versus XIII is going to be a more classic approach to the series with it's battle system and having a world map. So that is currently my most anticipated guy along with the new Zelda.

[hupla]

If you're starving for some good new Jrpg goodness GD you need to jump on the atlus train. The persona series are amazingly fun with fresh combat and some very diffrent pacing and setup. Seriously get yourself a copy of Persona 4, best Jrpg ive played in a loooooong time.

As for WRPG, Mass effect is alright but Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is far and away the best Wrpg ever made. The atmosphere and setting are SOOO GOOD! And its amazingly well written (dont let it being about vampires scare you off, its amazing), get it off steam!

[JordAnime]

Well, I mean the game is basically one long dungeon.  To be honest, I feel that having to conserve items and worry about MP and HP for fear of a game over is pretty much a dated RPG mechanic.  It's frustrating and slows everything down.  In FF XIII the challenge lies in how the battles are fought and what paradigms and character-building routes you've taken.

Having to worry about constantly refilling an MP gauge in a battle system as automated and fast-paced as FFXIII would have been mind-numbingly horrible and you know it, especially since "magic" in FFXIII is basically just another variant on the physical attack.  It's not really a special thing, it's just a different type of attack. 

The Crystarium is...um...haha...I dunno, having to manually level up every aspect of a character's attributes is actually really irritating, especially once you start getting into the higher tiers.  In the end, you'll just end up wanting to be sure that your Crystarium is capped for whatever chapter you're on before you end it and have a lot reserved for starting out the next chapter, otherwise you'll find yourself in a world of hurt later. 

As for linearity, again I gotta say the clamor for open-endedness is really overrated.  I liked how "focused" the game was on the story, and cutting out a lot of the conventional RPG cliches like big overworlds that you get lost in, or running into weird side-quests that totally derail any sense of tension or urgency. 

Actually, I thought FFXIII is weakest when it stops being overtly linear, around the second act of the game; and you can tell the developers didn't really like it either, as the sidequests are really meant to be done after the main quest is completed...take note. 

I'd have liked a little more variety in terms of gameplay, like more mini-games and action sequences like flying around a ship or something, but honestly the lack of filler, it doesn't bother me.

The main thing I don't like about FF XIII is how much power-leveling is necessary for the game to not be ass-numbingly hard.  Finding mobs that respawn quickly, can be ambushed automatically or very easily, and killed quickly is vital, there's like a handful of these in the game and are almost required to be taken advantage of to save time.  The end-game also bugs me, it ultimately just becomes about killing big dinosaurs.

Anyway, it seems like your camp won as Final Fantasy XIII-2 has towns, and player-driven plot points with multiple endings.  And also seems to be largely about Serah and some spiky haired punk that wasn't ever in the first game?  Okay...honestly these -2 Final Fantasy games seem really ill-conceived.

Also, once you've beaten the game, check out this video, it explains the mythology of the game pretty well.

The Mythos of Fabula Nova Cyrstallis

[JordAnime]

On a similar note, Final Fantasy XIII-2 looks horrible.  The first game had a really great plot and didn't need a sequel, this seems like a giant mess.  Oh well, at least it has villages, minigames and multiple endings!  Because every game has to be the same, in fact, every game should be Mass Effect, because nothing is as good as Mass Effect...

I hate today's gamers.