The Final Fantasy Retrospective

Kiith · 05-09-2007 12:20pm #1

Something i'd recommend everyone who has liked Final Fantasy to watch. Its a video overview on gametrailers of all the Final Fantasy games, with FF1 to FF11 so far. New ones are brought out every Sunday. Some great memories in there.

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/4831.html

scooochie4 · 05-09-2007 3:20pm

Yeah i've been watching. They're amazing. (Nice HD version this week also!)

But i dont see how they're gonna make it a thirteen part series?! They say "check out our thirteen part overview of the series" but they're on part eight with just FF12 left to look at!

Oh, and check out the Metroid retrospective also. Another amazing franchise

Retr0gamer · 05-09-2007 4:16pm

There are plenty of good and not so good spin-offs of the main series that could be featured. The wonderful Final Fantasy Tactics at least deserves half a show dedicated to it and there are the awful spin-offs like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, FFX-2, Mystic Quest and those Gameboy games that were really mana and saga frontier games given the FF name in the west. There's also the future of the series. Still I'm not sure how they will stretch it out to 13 episodes. Will give these a watch tonight, the metroid one was excellent.

Retr0gamer · 06-09-2007 11:39am

I watched as far as FFVII. Last night. Very good so far. It did forget to mention a few things like how the series gets a lot of praise for innovation despite deliberately stealing ideas from it's competition. FF1 was a total rip-off of Dragon Quest 1. Also of note was that FF1 came out almost simultaneously with Phantasy Star in japan and a whole year after phantasy star in America which was a vastly superior game other than in the music department but yet still FF became more popular.

They did mention the awkwardness of the levelling up system in FF2 but didn't give it nearly enough stick. The fact was that the levelling up in FF2 was so flawed and awful that if you didn't exploit the levelling up glitch you would have to spend hours levelling up your characters and this made the game virtually unplayable.

Although FFIV is a game I adore it's held in high regard by the american audience since they never played FFIII. FFIV was seen as a huge step backwards in terms of storyline and battle system form FIII.

The deaths of

Galuf and Aeris

are seen as huge jumps in how a game handles mature situations in games. However it was Phantasy Star 2 that did this for the first time years before the FF games had deaths of characters and handled it far better than even FFVII.

Otherwise, nitpicking aside, it was very entertaining and informative. I didn't know about Sakaguchi's mother dying before the wrote FFVII. It brought back a lot of memories and the excellent soundtracks and the recently released Blue Dragon make you remember just how brilliant a composer Nobuo Uematsu is.

A few little niggles again. The superioity of FFVI over FFVII wasn't drilled in at all. Also how the FFVII spin-offs in the 'compilation of FFVII' are utter scutter was never, mentioned.

Varkov · 06-09-2007 12:17pm

@ Retr0gamer

We'll most of these points are opinions you see.

Crucifix · 06-09-2007 12:19pm

Retr0gamer wrote:

Although FFIV is a game I adore it's held in high regard by the american audience since they never played FFIII. FFIV was seen as a huge step backwards in terms of storyline and battle system form FIII.

I never finished FFIII, but better storyline? Really? I though FFIV focused much more on the story than III did.

I also disagree that VI is objectively superior to VII, but I don't want to start swimming in those dark waters

Retr0gamer · 06-09-2007 2:51pm

Well FFVI being better than FFVII is definitely arguable. I was in the FFVII camp until I matured a little and changed my mind. I prefer a story with an ending that doesn't feel rushed and thought the characterisation in FFVI was an awful lot better especially Kefka. FFVII lost the run of itself near the end despite how it excellently dealt with it's themes but that was due to the game being unfortunately rushed. Also Sephiroth gets far too much undeserved praise as a bad guy. And who can forget the plot twist in FFVI, wonderful stuff. Still the FFVI or FFVII (or even FFX which I can also understand that people think it's the best in the series) debate really comes down to a matter of opinion.

What can't be argued by any sane or mature person is the awfulness of the FFVII spin-offs and FF2.

I never thought all that highly of the story in FFIV. It's aright but the story in FFIII gets a lot better later on. It also has a main bad guy that appears without any previous reference to him right near the end which I hate in RPGs (looking at you FFVIII and FFIX).

Rhyme · 06-09-2007 3:11pm

Crucifix wrote:

I also disagree that VI is objectively superior to VII, but I don't want to start swimming in those dark waters

Dangerous territory.

Been watching these retrospectives as they were released and they're quite well done, the Zelda and Metroid ones are good watching. They've done their homework on this one but at the end of the day there are a lot of opinions being thrown around and the travesty that is the FF7 spin-offs aren't taking enough flak for my liking.

Also, yes, Tactics deserves some mention.

Going to watch the latest now.

Retr0gamer · 06-09-2007 3:33pm

I haven't watched it yet but I hope Final Fantasy VIII gets some stick as well. The story was rubbish, the characters were annoying and the magic system sucked. FFVIII is a weird game for me, despite all that is wrong with it I did enjoy playing it a lot. I also hope that FFIX doesn't get too much criticism. I gets a lot of unfair harsh opinions from a lot of people. The story was crap but the characters were excellent and the whole thing was an absolute joy to play from start to finish (other than the nasty last boss).

Final Fantasy Tactics gets neglected by a lot of people but is one of the best games ever made. I hope it gets a proper long retrospective. As long as the mention the insane difficultly. It's still the only strategy RPG that actually requires strategy to beat.

Retr0gamer · 06-09-2007 4:09pm

Actually was thinking recently what a brave game FFVII is. At the start you are basically a terrorist and are even referred to as a terrorist. It's a game that would never be made in this day and age. This only really struck a cord with me because the last time I played the game was after the 9/11 attacks.

I also haven't really took any notice of an excellent scene near the end of the game were Barret says openly that he regrets his earlier actions were he was responsible for so many innocent deaths.

It's one of the things I loved about FFVII, dispite the extravagant cutscenes the best moments in the game were the quiet moments and conversations between characters, redXIII finding out about his father, the date at the gold saucer, cloud and Tifa waiting through the night at the Highwind etc. If only Square realised this when making FFVIII.

Retr0gamer · 25-09-2007 12:29pm

Retrospective IX is up now. Had a watch of it there. It covers the Ivalice games Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy XII.

The music playing in the background reminds me just how good Hitoshi Sakimotos soundtrack for FFT and Vagrant Story is and just how poor the FFXII soundtrack is. It covers FFXII quite well but forgets gets to criticise it on how poor the story is and the mixed reaction from the fans. The other games were kind of skimmed over. I wouldn't mind with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance since it's a piss poor dull game with little storyline. Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story are phenomenal games are don't get the time they deserved. There's no mention at how tough FFT is (hardest game I've ever played) or how brilliant the story and translation of Vagrant Story is, how poor the complicated combat system is or how it seems to have been shoehorned into the FF canon. No mention either of how FFXII feels more like a vagrant story game than any Final Fantasy.

Anyway it's worth a watch, next time they are covering the spin-off games and movies. I hope Advent Children gets the slating it deserves, what a piece of **** that was. Don't know how they are going to fill 3 more episodes.

seraphimvc · 27-09-2007 8:53pm

currently and future ,all i care about FF series are:

1)When can i play FFTactics on PSP so i can fulfill my dream of using Dark knight as a job,looking forward for that.but this doesnt imply to FFTA,for unknown reason i have no interest at all

2)nobuo 's music,FFXII 's soundtrack is the only soundtrack that i havent bought,no point of buying it for 2 songs:i love the coming back classic theme song(the one appears in every FF game,except FFX/X-2) and Aki's kiss me goodbye).
Just realise how important the music of the series to me .

3)the creator of FF left SquareEnix,plus the storyline of the latest FF gone crazily mad BAD to a limit that i couldnt cope on,i was hoping something good since FFIX(which we knew 8 is sh!t,and 9 comes better but no where near 6,and 10 kinda sucks),the series is seriously gone to a direction that i simply take it anymore,especially when now its father is gone.

4)the freedom of flying airship around is one the most fancinating creation ever!!!and SquareEnix dare to destroy our players beloved dream!!!:cool:

5)love FF series since i was 8,and finally i decided to move on.this may sounds like nerd or freak but trully is what i have in mind.:D time changed,things passed,after recent YEARS' disappointment,it deserved that.

goodbye,FF,i will always remember all those unforgetable moments you have brought to me:)

Retr0gamer · 03-10-2007 1:22am

You should try Blue Dragon on the 360. It's by Hironobu Sakaguchi who is the creator of FF and also has music by Nobuo Uematsu. It's quite light hearted and the story isn't great but it's closer to an FF game (and better) than FFXII is.

He is also making Lost Odyssey which should be out soon which looks more loike a traditional FF game.

Have to agree about the FFXII storyline. Hitoshi Sakimoto usually does some wonderful game soundtracks (Vagran Story and FFT for instance) but for some reason the FFXII soundtrack was mediocre. Even if he did do a good soundtrack he has a very different style to Uematsu and the game soundtrack felt more like Vagrant Story than FF.

The reason you have no interest in FFTA is because it's crap and has no right to bear the FFT name.

seraphimvc · 03-10-2007 7:09pm

Retr0gamer wrote:

You should try Blue Dragon on the 360. It's by Hironobu Sakaguchi who is the creator of FF and also has music by Nobuo Uematsu. It's quite light hearted and the story isn't great but it's closer to an FF game (and better) than FFXII is.

He is also making Lost Odyssey which should be out soon which looks more loike a traditional FF game.

Have to agree about the FFXII storyline. Hitoshi Sakimoto usually does some wonderful game soundtracks (Vagran Story and FFT for instance) but for some reason the FFXII soundtrack was mediocre. Even if he did do a good soundtrack he has a very different style to Uematsu and the game soundtrack felt more like Vagrant Story than FF.

The reason you have no interest in FFTA is because it's crap and has no right to bear the FFT name.

FFXII:the music is kinda weird for me,maybe due to it's a 'Real time'(Active Time dimension?) RPG, they produced some background music which last long(we keep walking on fields all the time) ,since there is no in-battle-theme,and these decided the quality of the game music.no music on earth is 'perfect' enoguh that can keep you listening for hours again and again:cool: i got really bored while listening those same themes through the whole game:(

and i just found out that Hitoshi Sakimoto did the music in XII!:eek: (i didnt even take a look of who's the music producer)well,i like FFT soundtrack so much too:D especially those times while they planning their evil plots,and those creepy music kicks in!:D classy and cool!!obviously Hitoshi failed to impress me this time...:rolleyes:

ah,ye,i have seen the trailer of Lost Odyssey!!:D exactly like a FF!!you can say i am abit nostalgia,but i am trully interested to that!!just like the time i saw FFVII opening CG 10years ago!:p

i haven't got a x360 YET:p i am a big fan of japanese games,not enough blood bumping releases from japan on the platform make me feel like getting one...;) and me just a poor student:o maybe,just maybe,if MGS4 will be on it....:D i doubt that i can still abide...:p

The Final Fantasy Retrospective

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