The Old School Otaku Lounge

The fantasy died upon X
Discussion:

I think Final Fantasy died a long time ago. Although not a terrible RPG, an extremely disappointing RPG was Final Fantasy 8. It tried to use the summoning spirit junctioning from FF6, but got it completely wrong. Characters can't even use items during combat without being junctioned to a Guardian Force. They can't use bombs or healing tonics... they can't even toss a wad of pocket lint at enemies without being junctioned. Watching the playthrough of FF8 on The Spoony Experiment really brought back lots of memories of why I did not like this game. Yet, I grudgingly played through and completed it. The puzzles at the final castle or whatever was interesting, at least.

Final Fantasy 9... forget it. I couldn't get past the ridiculous-looking main character. He just looked like a character I'd like to punch in the face. Then with Final Fantasy X, you get the underwater volleyball games, Meg Ryan and other completely retarded characters, etc. Now the newer FF13 is a complete joke, involving walking in a straight line the whole time, and the game can be won by just continuously hitting the attack button. No more dungeon exploring, strategy in battles, strategy with magic spells, etc. Crap, crap, crap. At least the main character looks cool in it.

Final Fantasy 9 is actually one of my favorites. I have yet to beat it, but the world and character designs are some of my favorites when compared to all the super pretty bishonen heroes they had from 7 and up.

I was never much of a fan, but one world of Final Fantasy I will always love is Ivalice. Tactics and 12 are also ones I like, but I've only observed friends playing these than actually playing them myself. But the diversity of races and the look of the world itself I think is one of the better things about Final Fantasy as a whole.

That said though, I never got into FF seriously. I like certain things about it, but I always thought it was pretty overrated, and the fact that Squeenix keeps making sequels now, FF is a thing of the past, imo. I was always more of a Suikoden series fan anyways.

It makes me so sad, Final Fantasy was such a big part of my Otaku_Ness ^_^

I was really big into the SNES Final Fantasy games back in high school. In fact, they were the games that turned me onto jrpg console games. But I never made the leap into 32 bit and beyond with this franchise. I later played FF9 and enjoyed it, and got near the end of FF7 until my game crashed in the last dungeon (I played the PC version) but I really never had the same fervor for the franchise after FF6.

That reminds me, I still have FFV for the GBA waiting to be finished someday. Should get to it.

I had played other Square games like Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger on the SNES before playing Final Fantasy games. I hate to admit it, but FF7 was my introduction to the series. The problem with the Materia system is that it reduces the uniqueness of the characters by making them all spell casters, thus making weaker characters like Aerith useless. So, after FF8, I went backwards and played FF5. The characters aren't very memorable, but the job system was great fun. Then I played 4 and eventually 6. Vintage Final Fantasy is the best way to go, I think.

I do want to play Tactics sometime, though. I really like SRPGs. I think I'll play Tactics Advance and its DS sequel first, since it seems that those who played the original first were disappointed with the Advance series.

8 was pretty awful, I do agree. I enjoyed almost every side character more than the main couple, which is generally a bad sign. 9 was pretty good actually, though 6 continues to be my favorite. 10 I never finished all the way because some of the characters were annoying, and the battle system was frustrating at times. I haven't taken much interest in FF games since then except for Tactics Advance and Crystal Chronicles (which basically doesn't count, since they were supposed to be Mana games.)

greg wrote:I do want to play Tactics sometime, though. I really like SRPGs. I think I'll play Tactics Advance and its DS sequel first, since it seems that those who played the original first were disappointed with the Advance series.

Really? Several of my friends who LOVED the original Tactics did like the Advance ones (so much so that it was practically their life when those games came out, lol). I think it's the use of the Judgement system that some probably didn't like about the Adv series. But it might be a good idea to play the newer before the older? XD;

Although I haven't played any of the games yet, thus I do not remember all of the details, I do remember that the judgment system is one of the most common gripes. But probably the biggest complaint is that the game focuses around children, whereas the original Tactics game was more of an adult setting. I think the themes were more simplistic in the Advance games too, IIRC.