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[Storm Rider]

Man, the Hunts were probably my least favorite part of FFXII, just because they required so much fucking backtracking and took an annoyingly long time to track down. Rogue Galaxy's version of the same concept was executed much better, because since you can teleport to any savepoint in the entire game once you've visited it once, getting to the hunts (or as they're called in that game, 'quarries') is easy, you just need a special item to lure them out and then they work like a normal boss fight.

Besides guys, I already said 6 was the best game in the series in like, the third post of the thread. It's surprising how wrong so many of you are.

[Jackie Blue]

Triple Triad was possibly the only really fun part of FF8.

Though the card game in Xenosaga kicked its ass.

[KID]

 I did not enjoy Blitzball. It was a silly game that did not give you much incentive for playing the needlessly complicated and boring game. I enjoyed the card games from 8 and 9, though! As far as the subplots go.. only 9 and 10 had ones that really mattered.

I actually enjoyed blitzball. Not at first, but after I played it a few times I got into it. Datto was a lot of work to keeppace with the rest of the team, but it was really quite fun. The card games were always a bit of a fun disraction, but X-2, mingames sucked ass. Blitzball wan't a friggin playable game. and the math thing? grr...

[XxSTUPIDNAMExX]

 I did not enjoy Blitzball. It was a silly game that did not give you much incentive for playing the needlessly complicated and boring game. I enjoyed the card games from 8 and 9, though! As far as the subplots go.. only 9 and 10 had ones that really mattered.

I actually enjoyed blitzball. Not at first, but after I played it a few times I got into it. Datto was a lot of work to keeppace with the rest of the team, but it was really quite fun. The card games were always a bit of a fun disraction, but X-2, mingames sucked ass. Blitzball wan't a friggin playable game. and the math thing? grr...

Normally I get really addicted to the main plot of a FF game and not play anything else until finishing it, but in FFX I got bored of Tidus pretty early on, and only played blitzball on my sister's save to win prizes 'n' have more fun than was possible with the main plotline for me.

[Uncle Fisty]

I'd have to say that while FF7 was the first RPG I played, and i thought it was god's gift to gamers at the time, after I played more in the series it was kind of eh.  Although it did bring RPGs more into the mainstream gaming community.  I played some of 8, but didn't like it very much.  I thuroughly enjoyed 9, love the way they brought the graphics back to the cartoony, fun type.  The card game was fun too.  10 was ok, as far as the series goes.  The Grid system pissed me off, as some said before, screw the level three locks!  And Wakka, man, he made me want to drive a corkscrew into my brain and dig out all memories of him.  Tidus was retarded too.  X-2 was fun, if you didn't take it very seriously.  I haven't beat it yet, I play occasionally when i want a break from the seriousness of other games.  Didn't play XI.  I'm currently playing 12, and think its great.  The new battle system is amazing.  Granted, there are many things that coulod be improved upon (hunts are way too prevalent), but that is the case with every game in existance.

Now I haven't mentioned the older FF's.  I haven't played them very much, so really don't have an opinion.  I do have the rom's though, so plan on playing them soon.

[mentospleen]

Final Fantasy 7 is one of the greatest RPG's of all time.  That guy who was critizing it wasn't logical at all.  Sephiroth was an imposing figure, and the music that went with him was easily able to insite fear in people.  The easiest way to point out how wrong the critic is, is that fact that he said the music wasn't very good.  FF7 had the greatest music of any videogame.  That one can't be argued because it has been remade dozens of times, and all the music creators became hugely famous and succesful musicians in japan.  The music was purely fantastic.  That doesn't mean that other games don't have some better music, it just means that FF7 had the best music grouped together.  The cut scenes were very good at getting across the story, much better than the fourty minute talk at the basketball court in FF8 (which was also good, but not great).  FF7 also let you chose whether or not you wanted to have a story thrust upon you, it was good that you could chose whether or not to watch all those cutscenes at reddogs home.  One of the best cutscenes was a very short one when you see a huge serpent that sephiroth impaled on a tree.  Materia was great because it let your magic become stronger in much better ways than many of the other games allowed.  Chocobo breeding... the golden chocobo was cool, that is all I have to say... also try to get across the serpent pond on foot without getting killed at the beginning of the game... it is possible.  FF7 was cut short and was still much better than FF9.  FF9 had one of the worst endings ever because the final boss was never talked about at all.  I will admit that every hero character from FF7 onward including cloud was a massive douchebag.  I need to get into the main story line of FF6 because I liked it alot.  FF10 had a very bad story line and that "checkerboard" system for making your character better was total junk.  The ending of FF10 was bad and the game's best attribute was blitzball if you got into it.  I got the characters up to extremely high levels and it was pretty cool.  I recently lost FF1 and 2 as I was playing them... it sucked!  FF10-2 was actually a fun game.  The story was absolute crap but it was still fun to play.  The dresspheres were actually a pretty good system of abilities and the battle system was rather good.  It is definately not an FF classic in any way, but it was fun.  Oh well I know it is still cool to "be different" and hate on FF7 but it was a well made game.

[zacha]

I've stated before, 6 is the best Final Fantasy in the series. Easily in terms of storytelling and perhaps gameplay as well. I've never found a game with a story so emotionally affecting or characters so well fleshed-out. I'm playing through the GBA port right now, in fact. I'm on the Floating Continent.

I dunno if I'd bother ranking the Final Fantasies, but I can classify them.

Great Final Fantasies: 4, 6, 12

Good Final Fantasies: 1, 5, 7, 10

Bad Final Fantasies: 2, 8

N/A: 3 (barely played it), 9 (never played it), 10-2 (never played it), 11 (who the fuck cares, seriously?)

Also, anybody else not really like Tactics very much?

To use your post as a template =)

Great Final Fantasies: 4, 6, 7, 8

Good Final Fantasies: 1, 2, 10

"Bad" Final Fantasies: 5

N/A: 3, 9, 10-2, 11, 12

To make it a little more elaborate:

1: Played it on the GBA and it was pretty good. I never had the time or will to finish it though.
2: Same as no. 1. Although I liked it a little more because of the story and characters.
3: Never played. Although Onion Kid must be the best name of a class ever in a FF
4: I love it. It has a solid story and even though it decides the team for you, almost every time you are given a solid team. The fixed teams makes it easer to tell the story IMO, (as they can and have to add/remove characters because of a reason).
5: Was pretty good. I was bored of the job system though... it took to long time to get good because of the job system.
6: A gem in the world of games. A good story with convincing characters. The best in this game is the esper system and the "lack" of a main character which made the game able to explore all the characters alone.
7: The one who introduced me to the FF series. Therefore a classic in my eyes. A good combat system and great characters, although the materia system made the characters not having a clear role in the battles, this made me a little dissapointed. (I mean, you could make Barret a mage and Aeris a fighter without loosing anything). The story still moves me and it's a great story and the interaction between the characters is what caught me.
8: Some odd systems (like junction and draw) made me a little disappointed with this game, especially as I loved the story, especially the twists. The weapon building and Triple Triad was a nice touch though. (To you who never finished it, the ending are worth it, even the stupid drawing system).
9: Never played it.
10: Played a short time at my friends but I liked the little I played there. Will probably buy it to the summer when I'm going to live at home again (with my brothers PS2 available)
10-2: A sequel to a FF? BLASHEMY! (Will probably never play it...)
11: Are against paytoplay games...
12: Never played, but my friend (who just bought it) said it was a great disappointment.
Tactics: Well. I don't like tactical RPG's...

[ScrambledGregs]

Final Fantasy 7 is one of the greatest RPG's of all time.  That guy who was critizing it wasn't logical at all.  Sephiroth was an imposing figure, and the music that went with him was easily able to insite fear in people.  The easiest way to point out how wrong the critic is, is that fact that he said the music wasn't very good.  FF7 had the greatest music of any videogame.  That one can't be argued because it has been remade dozens of times, and all the music creators became hugely famous and succesful musicians in japan.  The music was purely fantastic. 

You're pretty much stating your opinion as absolute fact. I think that FF6 had the best music of any game ever, and FF7 is overrated because a bunch of people played it and it was their first RPG and they have fond memories. To say that the issue can't be argued is borderline arrogant.

[mentospleen]

Final Fantasy 7 is one of the greatest RPG's of all time.  That guy who was critizing it wasn't logical at all.  Sephiroth was an imposing figure, and the music that went with him was easily able to insite fear in people.  The easiest way to point out how wrong the critic is, is that fact that he said the music wasn't very good.  FF7 had the greatest music of any videogame.  That one can't be argued because it has been remade dozens of times, and all the music creators became hugely famous and succesful musicians in japan.  The music was purely fantastic. 

You're pretty much stating your opinion as absolute fact. I think that FF6 had the best music of any game ever, and FF7 is overrated because a bunch of people played it and it was their first RPG and they have fond memories. To say that the issue can't be argued is borderline arrogant.

I in no way meant to seem arrogant.  I merely meant that the guy who was arguing that FF7 had horrible music was not being logical and must at least respect the opinion of a large musical community that believe FF7 had some of the greatest music for a videogame.  I actually meant to right one of the greatest soundtracks of any videogame.  I merely meant that the music has revieved quite a bit more attention than most other games.  I think it has to be agreed upon also that FF7 at least rank up at the top because the opinion of mass amounts of people do matter.  I also believe that FF6 is very good and I would like to finish it and see how it ranks. 

[Dimmukane]

Man, the Hunts were probably my least favorite part of FFXII, just because they required so much fucking backtracking and took an annoyingly long time to track down. Rogue Galaxy's version of the same concept was executed much better, because since you can teleport to any savepoint in the entire game once you've visited it once, getting to the hunts (or as they're called in that game, 'quarries') is easy, you just need a special item to lure them out and then they work like a normal boss fight.

Besides guys, I already said 6 was the best game in the series in like, the third post of the thread. It's surprising how wrong so many of you are.

Having beaten the game (Rogue Galaxy, I'm only halfway through FFXII, finally got past that stuck bit) and all the hunts, I can safely say that at higher levels, some of those fights can get incredibly easy.  I've finished a few in less than 10 seconds.  The hard part is finding the item to unlock it...and I wish you could go back and do them again (for lowered xp that's still more than most of the other enemies in the game).  The Raft To The Underworld one was fucking cool.

[Storm Rider]

They were easier, true, but I hated all the stupid backtracking you had to do to make any progress with the hunts in FFXII. I more or less entirely ignored them.

[ScrambledGregs]

The Hunts in FFXII are intended only for hardcore completionists or people who have completed the game once and want more pounds to the dollar their next playthrough. I literally only did the required hunts during my first time through the game and had no trouble beating the game. One of these days I'm going to go through the game and try to get/do everything in it, but I will say that the few Hunts I screwed around with on my aborted second playthrough were fun and give the game a different dimension. It's almost like the game turns into a MMORPG rather than a typical linear Square RPG.

Note that I think the game with the most tedious, time consuming, and backtrack ridden Hunt/Quest/Mercenary/Whatever sub-game is Paper Mario for Gamecube. I'm currently playing this game for the first time and I can't believe how fucking irritating the Trouble Center stuff is. There's this flower guy who makes you backtrack three seperate times for three different items. Sure, you could read a FAQ and know what three things to bring along ahead of time, but games shouldn't be this openly "we're just trying to stretch the playtime out" about it.

[tacroy]

For the life of me I can't understand the massive amount of criticism that FF8 constantly receives.  The only explanation I can come up with is the fact it followed hot on the heels of FF7, which is arguably the most popular RPG ever.

Just sifting through some of the comments on it, I take immediate exception to:

2) The battles require little to no planning or strategy(Lionheart! Lionheart! Lionheart!)

3) All of the characters by Squall and Rinoa are irrelevant to the plot by the end.

4) All of the characters but Squall are irrelevant in battle.

In response to 2, Lionheart is relatively weak compared to the downright absurd tactics available in FF7.  In 8, Limit Breaks are only usable when near-death (unless you cast Aura, and by doing so lower your stats--a nice tradeoff I felt was an interesting part of the junction system).  Anyone want to compare the damage of Lionheart to, say, W-Summoned Knights of the Round?  An even easier tactic usable in 7 was reflectic Quadra Magic off of your own party.  Nothing like casting your top level Fire spell 12 times in a single round.

Your third concern, while valid, is true of quite a few games in the series.  And just briefly looking at 4, careful use of Zell's limit break will do dramatically more damage than Lionheart, Selfie's limit break is capable of essentially infinite damage (The End affects bosses), and having Rinoa in the party had its share of advantages, such as having Angelo periodically revive people.

I only have three complaints about FF8.  First, using magic (which was expendable, unlike the MP system in most FF's) would directly hurt your stats.  This, combined with the fact that spells were generally very weak past Discs one or two, meant that it was used rarely.  Second, I wish there was a bit more differentiation in character's party roles than simply through limit breaks.  Finally, it was a bit easier than it should have been.

That being said, the storyline was very engaging, the settings were cool (Fishermans Horizon is fantastic), and the musical score is great.  Plus, it was one of the first games ever to rely heavily on FMVs for storytelling.  The regular graphics weren't phenomenal (though I don't find the characters are strung out as some other posters mentioned), but the movie scenes were beautifully rendered.

Edited for stupid grammatical mistakes and added more thoughts.

[ScrambledGregs]

I didn't like a single thing about FFVIII. Honestly. The setting, the universe, the characters, the battle system/Junction/Guardian Force systems, the leveling system, the over reliance on FMV to tell the story, etc etc. FFVIII is an interesting experiment, and like most experiments it's usually a love/hate divide in the audience. I'm glad they tried it, and I don't deny that certain people will and do love the game, but to me it will always be a complete mess.

[WhatImFightingFor]

3- The three i played was....interesting. The first video took a half an hour to watch and could not be skipped. Game was very difficult. Leveling up was hard to do. Why would eating stuff and putting metal on you turn you into other stuff? I was confused.
5- Liked Job choices. But seriously, who names a villain X-Death? come on....
6- Was alright. Without a walkthrough however Blitz is impossible.
7- Great game, loved story, loved materia system. Loved Red XIII...who didnt?
8- Those who didnt like it...you suck. Great game, like the Magic Junction System. Cards=the bomb. Story=More da bomb.
9- Again those of you who are dumb...you suck. Probably my favorite...due to the music haha. Loved the story, it made my day. This game probably had the most, character to character developement. Loved it, absolutely loved it.
10- meh. tidas ruined the game for me. he was annoying. last boss was not hard. only great thing about it was probably blitzball, which i spent most of my time doing.
12- Liked the battle system alot. Balthier was the coolest person ever. Vaan, like tidas, sorta ruined it though. He also was annoying. and had really bad muscles/tatoos/whatever those were on his stomach.
Tactics- Fun. But needed a more, in depth story. Less always fighting more..you know, story. haha

[ScrambledGregs]

3- The three i played was....interesting. The first video took a half an hour to watch and could not be skipped. Game was very difficult. Leveling up was hard to do. Why would eating stuff and putting metal on you turn you into other stuff? I was confused.

Now I'm confused. What version of 3 did you play exactly?? You make it sound like a completely different game than what I've played.

6- Was alright. Without a walkthrough however Blitz is impossible.

Or you could just look in the menu under Sabin's Blitz command, where it lists each one you've acquired and how to do it.

8- Those who didnt like it...you suck. Great game, like the Magic Junction System. Cards=the bomb. Story=More da bomb.

This is why I love the FF series: everybody has their own favorite they defend like a worried mother. I can't think of any other game series that produces such wildly differing views on its games.

Tactics- Fun. But needed a more, in depth story. Less always fighting more..you know, story. haha

See, I think FFT needed a less in-depth story, or at least a better translation. Toward the middle of the game I always give up on following the plot because it gets so needlessly complicated.

[alongwaltz]

I just started playing 9 again last week and I can't believe how hooked I am.  I blew through the first two discs in a few days and I'm getting withdrawal from not having played in a while.  I just love this one.

Unfortunately, IX was the first one I ever played so, going back and trying to play VII (supposedly the best one), I just couldn't get past the graphics block.  The game looked so bad that I found it difficult to engage myself in the playing.

I remember playing X once at someone's house but the volleyball turned me off.


Kingdom Hearts, if it had Final Fantasy-type battles, would have been a huge favorite of mine as I'm a big Disney fan.  But I dislike games where I actually have to press square or x and be facing a certain direction, out of a 360 radius, to fight someone.  My Super Nintendo-constructed mind finds three dimesnsions too difficult.

[0bsessions]

FF7 had the greatest music of any videogame.  That one can't be argued because it has been remade dozens of times, and all the music creators became hugely famous and succesful musicians in japan.  The music was purely fantastic.  That doesn't mean that other games don't have some better music, it just means that FF7 had the best music grouped together

While most is opinion, some is based on facts that are plain wrong. As far as the "remade" dozens of times, a lot of the soundtrack was actually remade from prior games. The obvious standout is Prelude, which has been in every Final Fantasy ever. Less obvious is that Aeris' theme is actually a good bit of homage to Celes' theme from Final Fantasy VI.

Overall, I'd say that VI had the absolute best music of the series, far and away. The Ending Theme is my single favorite Final Fantasy track (Though it's kinda cheating as it's a medly of all the character themes) and I feel it has the strongest overall soundtrack with standouts like the Figaro theme, the Opera, Dancing Mad (Check out the Black Mages version for a treat), the boss music, Shadow's theme, etc...There really isn't a single piece of bland music in that game.

[WhatImFightingFor]

alright i'll give you that six did have a pretty badass soundtrack. idk i still like 9 more. but you know what i dont care like senselessly arguing on this haha

[miss mephisto]

mystic quest = pure awesome, I love that game

FF3 (US version for SNES, I think it's 6 in Japan) = more than awesome. This is by far the best final fantasy game ever made. Both the game play and story will never be better.

FF9 = I could play this game forever and half. I love that it's simple. You have time to fool around and play mini-games to your hearts content while leveling each character easily to 99.

FF12 = worst game ever! I hate the pseudo turn-based battle system and there isn't even a good love story. Come on! The love story is what makes a Final Fantasy game legit. I'm going to pretend this game never existed.

[ScrambledGregs]

Other than FFVI, the love story in each FF is shitty and hackneyed. I am so glad they didn't have one in FFXII, and the fact that you weren't forced to use the spunky, hyper hero for the entire game. As soon as I got enough characters I kicked Vaan out of my party for good. Sure you still saw him in story scenes and in towns, but the game was clearly focused on Ashe and Balthier, who are two well developed and believable characters (at least for me).

Plus basically every thing Balthier says or does in this game is cooler than throwing ice cubes at Satan. When you get to hear his backstory later in the game and find out a secret about his past, you love him all the more.

[Storm Rider]

Man, I never actually finished the game, but I need to know...

MASSIVE SPOILERZ BELOW LOL




Do you ever get to see Balthier in Judge armor? Because I bet that is badass as hell.





SPOILERZ OVER LOL

[0bsessions]

The game's been out for months now, spoilers can kiss my ass.

Nah, you never see him in Judge armor. You do get to see Basche, though. Maybe it'll spring up in Revenant Wings. I'm counting the days for that one.

Also, I agree about the hackneyed love stories. I've heard people bitch relentlessly about the lack of a love story in XII and I'm glad for it. VI barely had anything romantic and what little it had worked. The closest thing they've ever had success to a real love story was the love-triangle in IV between Cecil, Rosa and Kain. It seems like the Squaresoft folks always tried to shoehorn a love story into a save the world quest and it rarely works.

Look at series like Suikoden or the Chrono games. No real love stories whatsoever and they're some of the greatest RPGs of all time.

XII was, IMO, the best Final Fantasy since VI, which shows me I can pretty much ignore the FF series until XVIII.

[ScrambledGregs]

Technically, Chrono and Marle had something going on, but it was more of an innocent teenage romance than a full fledged melodrama.

[0bsessions]

Chrono and Marle had a single quasi-date at the fair in the game's opening and that was it, really. Chrono was completely and intentionally lacking in a personality to the most literal degree. Chrono and Marle were almost entirely platonic.

One of the problems with the Final Fantasy series is they seem almost entirely incapable, for the most part, of having a female character who doesn't have some form of romantic entanglement (Rosa/Cecil, Rydia/Edge, Celes/Locke, Terra/Leo/Edgar, Cloud/Aeries/Tifa, Squall/Rinoa/Quistis, Irvine/Selphie, Dagger/Zidane, Eiko/Zidane (I know she was in love with SOMEONE, I think it was Zidane), Beatriz/Steiner, Yuna/Tidus, Wakka/The black mage chick). Off the top of my head, Relm, Yuffie, Rikku and Penelo are the only female FF protagonists who weren't emotional cripples who couldn't survive without clinging to the notion of their love for one of the male leads (With some vague exception to Ashe, she was pining for her dead husband). And those were the four most ridiculously annoying girls/women in the entire series. It's like they can't write a believable woman who isn't fawning for someone or retarded.

[notselfcreated]

Great Final Fantasies: 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, Tactics

Good Final Fantasies: 1, 3

"Bad" Final Fantasies: 2, 8, 9

N/A: 11, 10-2

Also: Chrono Trigger = Great; Chrono Cross = Good; Vagrant Story = Great

1: Also the first Final Fantasy I played, this game grabbed my imagination by the underwear when I was 11 and wouldn't let go. I was actually scared of encountering monsters, especially the elementals. The new versions are awesome, and I like the free money from the minigame.

2: Could barely play it because I hate the leveling system. This is also the same reason why I have so much trouble getting in to the Elder Scrolls games.

3: Only played a little of the NES version, but I like it. F'ing hard, but fun.

4: Awesome, actually, seems even better than 5 from a storytelling standpoint.

5: When I was playing this on an emulator I thought it was a joke. FIVE CHARACTERS? What a let-down after beating 6. But since I got it for the GBA, I got really into it because the gameplay saves it bigtime. 4 for story, 5 for gameplay.

6: And if you want both in the same game, go to 6.

7: I don't think the graphics are as bad as people make them out to be. They serve well as a vehicle for the fun gameplay and engrossing story.

8: Two things killed this for me: Drawing, and the homogeneity of the characters.

9: Two things killed this for me: the lack of human characters, and the kiddie visuals.

10: Felt similar to 7 in many ways, which is a good thing. Best FF ending I've ever seen.

12: Best gameplay I've ever been addicted to, but the story was disappointingly thin, especially the villains.

Why hate on Chrono Cross? This is a brilliant game. The visuals make FF9, which came out at the same time, look like child's play by comparison. The music is phenomenal. The story does suffer from the sheer volume of characters, but apart from that this was a real winner. Admittedly not as good as Chrono Trigger.

[0bsessions]

How can you, in one breath, say that VII's graphics "aren't as bad" and then say that the "kiddie" visuals in IX were a major part of what killed it for you? They look almost identical, except IX is a lot smoother.

Please tell me you're not one of those people who decided Wind Waker was a bad game before even playing it.

[DavidGrohl]

Great Final Fantasies :  6, 9, 12
Good Final Fantasies : 7, 10, 4
OK Final Fantasies : 8, 3 (DS)

N/A : 1, 2, 5, X-2

My personal favorite was Final Fantasy IX (actually seems to be a majority favorite)! 

[0bsessions]

I don't think I've actuall gone through my list yet:

Great Final Fantasies: VI, XII, V

Good Final Fantasies: IX, Tactics, I

Okay Final Fantasies: IV, III (So far), VIII

Bad Final Fantasies: II, VII, X, XI

N/A: Final Fantasy X-2, Mystic Quest, Tactics Advance

Final Fantasy: I didn't start playing Final Fantasy games until around the time VIII and Anthology came out, so I just played this one recently. It was a fun distraction and overall solid. The customization was fun, but the story was, obviously, paper thin. Tenth one played.

Final Fantasy II: Played this one right after I in the GBA remakes. While the levelling wasn't as bad as people said, it was still a pain. The story was meh and the gameplay was entirely too generic. Maybe if I played it when it first came out, I might have enjoyed it, but not in this day and age. Eleventh one played.

Final Fantasy III: I never played the original and I've only clocked five or six hours on the DS remake. So far, it's been underwhelming for me. A lot of people claim it's the best of the NES Final Fantasies, but the job system is just way too simplistic for my liking. Could move up or down when I finish. Thirteenth one played.

Final Fantasy IV: This is the first "overrated Final Fantasy" to me. The storyline was incredibly underwhelming and I disliked pretty much every character. It wasn't a bad game, merely okay. Fifth one played.

Final Fantasy V: This one gets "great" for the nearly perfected job system. This is the first Final Fantasy I played all the way through. The abilities and jobs really made this one. The story was decent, but I could never get enough of the gameplay. Also, Battle on the Big Bridge has to be one of my all time favorite video game tracks. First one played.

Final Fantasy VI: I think I've already clearly established this as my favorite. I just replayed it again on the GBA and it just never gets old. The battle system is a tad generic, but the job system wouldn't have worked with the heavy amount of characters. The story and music were all but perfect and those are what I really play an RPG for, as most of the time, the gameplay is interchangable. Second one played.

Final Fantasy VII: So overrated I can't even describe it. Everything about it reeks of manufactured and artificial sub-culture "cool." Everyone's an anime/manga stereotype and a boring and two-dimensional one at that. None of the characters compelled me, the story was convoluted and rushed. It was like playing a novel that was half done and then thrown at me out of nowhere. An ending might've been nice, too. The storyline from VI saved it from its generic gameplay, but not VII. It was all the same crap all over again. Fourth one played.

Final Fantasy VIII: I'll applaud them for trying a new route with the system after so many games of the same thing, but the Junction system fell pretty flat. The story was rather cool, but it started to feel like a bit of a rush job the further towards the climax it got. Third one played.

Final Fantasy IX: I really liked this one. Usually, overly simplistic games bore me, but it was a nice departure after the last two. It kept it easy enough to follow and was just rather fun. Plus, who can really hate Vivi? Seventh one played.

Final Fantasy X: The only upside to this game was John Dimaggio voice acting in it. Beyond that, I've never hated more characters in one game. Auron bored me in his generic "badass" archetype and every other character just pissed me off in one way or another. The ability to switch out in battle was a novel idea, but overall, the same boring battle system. Meh, no thanks. Eighth one played.

Final Fantasy XI: Ugh! I've played I think six different MMOs (Star Wars Galaxies, this, City of Heroes, Everquest II, WoW and LotR Online) and this was by far the worst (Though LotR Beta was close). I had high hopes for it, but it just bored me and never gripped me. The character creation was ugly and limited, the levelling was boring and straight-forward, the setting was generic. I might've been spoiled by pre-revamp Star Wars Galaxies (I LOVED the old system and still miss it), but it was just a bad game. Ninth one played.

Final Fantasy XII: Best one since VI, easily. I'm so glad they FINALLY shook up the battle system and hope they stick with it. It's the first one I've played where power-levelling didn't feel like a chore and I actually enjoyed going out and grinding (I filled up about 3/4 of everyone's License boards before I decided I should get around to beating it). I still need to go back and do all the sidequests (I only got about half of the Espers) when I get a new PS2, but overall, I loved it. The story was underrated. I think too many people were just upset by the fact it wasn't an epic save the universe type thing, so much as a political epic. Most of the characters were actually three dimensional and likeable and I loved most of the voice acting. Plus, Balthier. Just....Balthier. Twelfth one played.

Final Fantasy Tactics; The story was great, but the combat was just way too slowly paced for me. I can't get into Turn based strategy. Sixth one played.

I haven't played MQ or T-A and I only played like half an hour of X-2 before I wanted to vomit in my mouth and gave it back to my friend.

[ScrambledGregs]

My biggest complaint about FFXI isn't that they made a main series numbered FF, rather than a spin-off, into a MMORPG and didn't make it look or feel remotely like a FF. It seriously just looks like shit; I can't stand the character design and I wish they had just used designs from one of the games in the series. If they had made it so you could play as Moogles, Humans, Bangaas, half human/half esper hybrids, etc. I think the game would be much more appealing. It's like they took the ass looking character design from Crystal Chronicles and made an Everquest mod.

[0bsessions]

Actually, I get the feeling throwing Bangaas in would've confused the Hell out of people. They didn't pop up until Tactics Advance and XII, both post-dating XI.

[mberan42]

Is it bad that I don't remember the ending to FFX, despite beating it twice? I was drunk both times. All I remember was the last boss being ridiculously easy with Auron & the main dude's final weapons. Seriously, like 400,000hps on a final boss? What the hell? Make him *hard* to beat!

I'm playing FFXII for the first time right now. It's pretty cool - the battle system reminds me a *lot* of Everquest, in an oddly nostalgic way. (I keep wishing there was a jump button.) I'm still not sold on the whole license thing yet, though. Reminds me of VII and materia - you can make every character exactly alike. I have only now found an area that has tough creatures that give good exp for leveling, and I'm 14 hours into the game. I should've found that place 7 hours ago. Plus, it's terribly difficult to get gil for spells and the like - I don't think I've ever had a problem in any FF game obtaining gil.

The whole gambit system is strange, too. I still haven't figured out how to use it effectively yet.

[0bsessions]

All of that stuff tends to flesh out once you figure it out. Levelling up's actually nowhere near as important as the license board. As far as licensing goes, I'd recommend getting the double LP items, throwing one on everyone and hanging out in the Estersand. Most enemies give out small amounts of LP, but these ones go down easily, so it's the quickest way to grind points.

As far as comparing it, i'd class it more along the lines of the Final Fantasy V job system. It's more complicated than the Materia system.

As for gil, start doing hunts. That's the absolute best and just about only effective way of getting gil. Aside from the money you get from the guild, you get a lot of pricey loot which adds up quick.

Gambits are useless for the first portion of the game, but later on, they're almost mandatory. Just fiddle around with it a bit and you'll catch on quickly enough. They're VERY helpful, especially when you assign healing spells.

[The extra letter]

My only introduction to the Final Fantasy series was FFVIII, and I found that really, really annoying. I'm not really a big fan of the whole random battles dealie. I must admit I've steered clear of the whole Japanese RPG scene apart from .hack: Infection on the PS2, which was actually pretty fun.

[Catfish_Man]

My main problem with most JRPGs is the length. FF7, which is definitely among my very favorites, could have had 1/3 of the game removed without losing much at all. The part up until you get out of Midgar is so much better than the end.

That's one of the reasons I like Lufia 2, actually. I can only think of a few areas of the game that felt unnecessary, and only one of those got on my nerves. Also it ditched random battles when in dungeons, which is a huge plus.

Re: the w-summoned knights of the round comment. To get KotR you need a gold chocobo, no? Which pretty much means the people doing ridiculous things like that are going to be the hardcore JRPG players that, were it not available, would just grind levels until they were equally invulnerable. The battle tactics available within the normal semi-casual player scope are a lot more interesting to me, although I can see why others might disagree.

FF6 is my other candidate for favorite FF game seen (I haven't played through many FF games, so my opinions on their relative merits are somewhat uneducated), but somehow it hasn't managed to engage me the same way that FF7 did. It's something about how the atmosphere of the game is built, but I can't really pinpoint what it is. Still a good game though, and pieces of it are quite exceptional (the ghost train comes to mind).

[0bsessions]

If you're set back by the long length and random battles, I'd recommend Chrono Trigger heavily to you. It clocks in at maybe fifteen hours and there are no random battles. It has high replayability with the, I think, fourteen endings.

The first two Suikoden games are very short, as well. Under twenty hours. There are random battles, though.

Me, I've always preferred length in RPGs. If I'm going to drop my money on something, it'd best take me a good while to finish it the first time through, as they're not particularly high for replay value. Two of my favorite RPG's of the PS2 era took me immense amounts of time to finish: Suikoden III (70 hours) and Final Fantasy XII (82 hours).

The problem with the amount of time it takes to beat VII is the horrible pacing of battles. All the most powerful and useful attacks had those immense and unskippable cinematics. I can't be the only person who's cast 4x Knights of the Round and then walked away to make a sandwhich. Thankfully, they've learned their lesson and made the cinematics skippable.

[zacha]

If you're set back by the long length and random battles, I'd recommend Chrono Trigger heavily to you. It clocks in at maybe fifteen hours and there are no random battles. It has high replayability with the, I think, fourteen endings.

The first two Suikoden games are very short, as well. Under twenty hours. There are random battles, though.

Me, I've always preferred length in RPGs. If I'm going to drop my money on something, it'd best take me a good while to finish it the first time through, as they're not particularly high for replay value. Two of my favorite RPG's of the PS2 era took me immense amounts of time to finish: Suikoden III (70 hours) and Final Fantasy XII (82 hours).

The problem with the amount of time it takes to beat VII is the horrible pacing of battles. All the most powerful and useful attacks had those immense and unskippable cinematics. I can't be the only person who's cast 4x Knights of the Round and then walked away to make a sandwhich. Thankfully, they've learned their lesson and made the cinematics skippable.

Why does everyone speak about 4x KotR? I never used that, took to long (I have never finished the game with KotR either, just got to disc 3 =P)
I used 4x bahamut zero once by mistake, and that time I actually made a sandwitch!

I mean nobody FORCES you to use it, right? So why use it then, you sure doesn't need to do it.

(If we should talk about times I say Eden if FFVIII though, that was booooring)

[mberan42]

Yeah, I don't understand why everyone bitches about 4x KotR either. KotR took forever to obtain - the walkthrough for obtaining the golden chocobo is 12 pages long! I'm going to fucking enjoy that cutscene every time it plays, 'cause damnit, it took forever to get: racing chocobos, breeding them, etc.

[0bsessions]

You can get a Golden Chocobo by beating the weapon monster poking out of the desert by Golden Saucer (Ruby, I think?). It's a bitch and a half without the shit you need said Golden Chocobo to get, but it can be done. Basically just power-level the shit out of one character, kill off the other two before battle and rail on him.

I did it that way as I'm a little bit of a completionist but would rather slit my wrists while listening to Dashboard Confessional covers than put any time into Chocobo racing.

The KotR thing was just an extreme example, though. Almost every useful skill ends up taking fuckin' forever sit through. It's even worse in VIII where you can't get full power out of a summon unless you sit through it mashing the square button.

Could always be worse, though. Xenosaga made me want to vomit. I actually dozed off during a cut scene and woke up before it was over.

[ScrambledGregs]

No way is Chrono Trigger only 15 hours your first time through. It's definitely a brisk RPG, but it's not THAT sure. Fuck, the God of War games are about 10-15 hours long.

Funny Obsessions mention Suikoden III and FFXII being long PS2 RPGs, because those are my two favorite PS2 RPGs and I didn't even notice how long they were. The final dungeon in FFXII did have me thinking "this is taking too long!!" but seeing as how the last area of the game is basically three or four boss fights in a row with no dungeon to slog through, I'd say it was paced extraordinarily well. As for Suikoden III, I put so much time into the game because I followed a walkthrough to get everything in the game. It's well worth the 80 hour investment, especially when you get to play Luc's scenario as a reward for getting all 108 characters.

[0bsessions]

I never had the innordinate amount of trouble some of my friends reported with certain bosses in Chrono Trigger. I managed to finish it in about fifteen hours my first time, through.

As for the length mention with the latter two, that's not meant as a knock in the slightest. I felt pretty much the same as you. Until I played Suikoden V, Suikoden III was far and away my favorite RPG since Final Fantasy VI. Then, once I'd finished Suikoden V, I moved on to Final Fantasy XII, which I actually preferred to the Suikoden V.

Everything about III delighted me and led to a great deal of my disappointment in IV. One of my primary interests in the Suikoden series is all the little connections to previous installments. When IV came around and all it really had was Vicki, Jeanne and Ted, it lost my interest in the awful play mechanics. It had so many missed opportunities on characters they could've thrown in. Neclord and Yuber are both immortal and known to be active with Landy Windy at the time. III had me going for every single minute, especially when Luc was revealed. I always did think he was a total dick. Luc's scenario went a long way to giving me understanding into his character, though. I loved the three story system for the fact it gave an unprecedented amount of characterization to so many characters with the shifting focus. The only thing that would've made it better would be some Flik and Victor (With that in mind, where the fuck is the Star Dragon Sword lately?). V was even better somehow. Had the classic feel of the first two down to a science.

Final Fantasy XII bored the Hell out of me for the first few hours, but the second Balthier shows up, it kicks into gear and doesn't stop. I'm chomping at the bit for Revenant Wings.

[ScrambledGregs]

Suikoden IV isn't just the worst game in the series, it's also a bad game in general. Other series, you can point to certain entries as not your favorite, but they aren't bad games necessarily. Suikoden IV, though, is just a bad game.

[Manix]

9 remains my favorite FF! I just loved the game. It had.

-Great, likable characters.
-A card game I liked.
-Chocobo Hot and cold game
-Steiner and Beatrix (one of my favorite RPG Romances)
-a great world to place the game in, I still love the city of Lindblum
-too much more to mention

As far as 8 is concerned, I didn't think it was bad, but I could never really get myself to really like most of the main characters (Like you guys, I thought Quistis was pretty hot, but there where times, especially around the time she was removed as a teacher, that I thought she was too mopey, and self pitying). But I will say that if they ever make a game of Laguna's adventures, I will be first in line for it. Laguna was my favorite character in it, and I actually liked him and his friends far more than the main cast. I think my problem with the main cast was crystallized by the orphanage background, which came absolutely out of nowhere, and felt extremely forced. Graphins wise it was good to see Square trying new things, but I think they went too far to soon.

As for Squall, I'm reminded of something I heard once. One of 7's maor selling points was the idea that Cloud was a grim loner, with a dark nature. He wasn't. Outside of him being rather rude to Avalanche in the beginning, he was actually a pretty nice guy through most of the game. Someone once said that Squall is what they were originally shooting for with Cloud.

[ScrambledGregs]

Actually they made Cloud and Squall to appeal to the sub-group of men who are loners who don't say much and hate themselves and humanity, and would be cured if they could get some action, only they're too busy being misanthropic, ego-centric to realize some girl actively wants their nuts--sometimes even more than one.

At least that was my impression.

[zacha]

Actually they made Cloud and Squall to appeal to the sub-group of men who are loners who don't say much and hate themselves and humanity, and would be cured if they could get some action, only they're too busy being misanthropic, ego-centric to realize some girl actively wants their nuts--sometimes even more than one.

At least that was my impression.

Oh. Damn... I love those games and Cloud and Squall alike. Cloud because of the guilt he put on himself made him seem so human and Squall just because of he was such a moron =P (I do NOT identify myself with any of them though).
But to cite Squall...
"...whatever"