Seven, Eight, NEIN !!!

hoppo254

I have just finished FFVII, played crisis core , watched Advent Children and played DOG. I really enjoy the cannon relating to 7.

Sadly my copy of FFVIII is wrecked and i am waiting on a new copy to arrive in the post .

FFVII is excellent no doubt and although i havent played FFVIII all i can read and hear is acclaim for how good it is. I have skipped onto FFIX now while i wait for 8 to arrive.

My question is , why no fanfare for FFIX ? Is it a weaker game compared to the previous two ?

Otacon

IMO FFIX is better than VIII. I found the story better, the world was a more conventional fantasy world, the gameplay was the better of the two with a better levelling system and the card game was addictive.

Retr0gamer

Well FFIX came out when the world was going ga-ga over the new fangled PS2 and Dreamcast so got kind of ignored on release. It also gets some stick because it went back to Final Fantasy's old school fantasy roots with an unoriginal storyline and didn't continue the sci-fi angle we saw in FFVII and FFVIII. I think it gets very unfairly criticised by the more juvenile elements of the FF fanbase since it's a very playable game with one of the better battle systems of the Final Fantasy games, has great characters, superb soundtrack and was just a heap of fun from beginning to almost the end (the last boss is as cheap as ****!) despite a dire storyline.

In my opinion FFVIII is one of the weakest games in the series. The storyline is complete cock, the characters are an annoying bunch of toerags and the battle system is a broken mess that is overly complicated and easily exploited when you do figure it out. It somehow remains fun and is a visual feast so it's still worth a playthrough.

If you enjoyed the atrocious Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus and the slightly less atrocious Crisis Core you'll probably enjoy anything. I wouldn't consider any of them canon, more akin to a mouldy genital infection of the FFVII universe.

hoppo254

Didnt say i enjoyed the movies etc i just said i enjoyed the cannon in general. The movie and DOG wherent great but filling in the story kept me playing and watching. I will give IX a bash later this evening.

Im not huge in FF as of yet , ive played 1,2 (Hated both due to the random battles every second and 2's broken battle system) 7,10 and the most recent.

Am i right in saying XI was online and not single player ?

Retr0gamer

XI is an MMO with no singleplayer.

I wouldn't let your experiences with FF 1 and 2 stop you enjoying the older FF games. FF1 is very archaic these days and FF2 is a complete mess of a game. FF3 and it's remake on the DS is quite good but I don't think the series really became good until FFIV. If you play only 1 of the older games make in FFVI, my personal favourite in the series.

hoppo254

A lot of people have raved about VI to me alright. I will give it a try !

Fringe

IX is actually quite good. I'm also not sure why it's underrated but when I played it, I had a lot of fun. You should definitely give it a go. Oh and don't bother with VIII.

elekid

I loved IX, it's far better than VIII in my opinion. The battles, skill system, music and characters are all excellent and it's got a lot more humour than some of the other Final Fantasys which makes it a personal favourite of mine.

As mentioned it was unfairly critisised for a return to the roots of the series and for having a less realistic graphical style but that's a huge part of it's charm as far as I'm concerned. Thinking about it, I'd say it's my favourite of the Playstation 1 and 2 FF games!

Defenestrate

FFIX is a little gem of a game in my opinion, it's not as epic as the compelling yet flawed FFVIII but it's just so playable, the whole game feels polished and well made.

I preferred both games to FFVII myself though, but I imagine I'd be in the minority there. If there'd been one more emo flashback cutscene in that game, I might have frisbee'd the disc out the window!

seraphimvc

FFIX is a tribute to the 'original' FF series imo.anyone who love old 2D FF(especially 6) will find 9 is very good.i simply like 4~9 very much.8?god the music itself wins the 'best FF music cup',the effort nobuo spent is obvious on 8.give a go for 4,5,6,although they are 2D(consider players nowadays cant stand that),you will get to know more of FF world deeply

EvilLlamaThingy

IX is definatly not a weaker game than 8, I'd actually say it's in my top three of FF games (with 7 and 6)

I think the main reason of less fanfare is because it had less of an impact then 7 and 8. It's more like 4 or 6 actually.

A lot of people also seem to have some idea of it being more childish than 7 or 8 (which is ridiculous) so that might have something to do with it.

noodler

VIII is weird. It is the most "real world" FF and I think that appeals to many people. I thought the Garden/SeeDs idea was superb. The cut scenes are probly the best in the series. Great soundtrack etc. The Squall-Seifer rivalry is nice too (more sibling like than Cloud/Seph). But once the Gardens have fought on disc 2(what a set-peice btw) the stroy turns to garbage. (almost forgot about Laguna and gang).

HOWEVER: Gameplay, jesus who the hell thought it would be a good idea to have to draw amgic out of enemies, I mean good god, why not just slit your wrists instead? The GF animations were too long, altho most characters were crap I think Squall is still probly the coolest looking FF hero ever.

It was the most hyped FF in my lifetime so I reckon that accounts for a helluva lot of its problems.

FF9: I loved the war storyline, I loved proper invasions etc (also thought the other continents were **** tbh). Characters weren't great either for me but the game and magic stone system made the game extremely playable.

hoppo254

Playing FFIX at the moment and have to agree , a very enjoyable game that does justice to the 2D roots of some of the older RPG's.

Having enjoyed games such as Crono Trigger etc FFIX is very comfortable in that type of company

Niall - Dahlia

Just in the middle of FFIX myself aswell, disc 3. Missed it first time around but glad I went back to check it out. There's a few little things that bug me like the menu system and some of the characters, but I'm really enjoying it. Would rate it well above FFVIII, that didn't grab me at all.

maki

I have to say I really hated VIII. The junction system was the most broken pile of crap ever and the fact that I had to risk death over and over in order to draw magic really annoyed me. That and Squalls constant moaning.
IX on the other hand I really liked; the characters were interesting, there was plenty of good humour (Steiner you legend), and an overall better story.
VII wins it though (although VI and X are my favourites in the whole series).

Spike440

Ah here. FFVIII is getting far too much stick IMO. It's a great game that tried to drive the series forward.

FFIX is fun but I'd only play it once. The full list of playable character becomes available too late in the game, leveling up was a pain, the whole linkage of abilities to weapons was restrictive, there was no "Encounter None" ability which meant annoying random battles (especially on the Western Continent in Disc 3), the card game was a step backwards from Triple Triad and served no other purpose within the main game, and the villain was lame.

It had some good bits like the CGI sequences, story, battle system and Chocobo mini-game though.


I liked the junction system and triple triad was a really addictive and challenging mini-game. Also, giant Cactuar!

norrie rugger

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well FFIX came out when the world was going ga-ga over the new fangled PS2 and Dreamcast so got kind of ignored on release. It also gets some stick because it went back to Final Fantasy's old school fantasy roots with an unoriginal storyline and didn't continue the sci-fi angle we saw in FFVII and FFVIII. I think it gets very unfairly criticised by the more juvenile elements of the FF fanbase since it's a very playable game with one of the better battle systems of the Final Fantasy games, has great characters, superb soundtrack and was just a heap of fun from beginning to almost the end (the last boss is as cheap as ****!) despite a dire storyline.

In my opinion FFVIII is one of the weakest games in the series. The storyline is complete cock, the characters are an annoying bunch of toerags and the battle system is a broken mess that is overly complicated and easily exploited when you do figure it out. It somehow remains fun and is a visual feast so it's still worth a playthrough.

If you enjoyed the atrocious Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus and the slightly less atrocious Crisis Core you'll probably enjoy anything. I wouldn't consider any of them canon, more akin to a mouldy genital infection of the FFVII universe.

Come on Ret, tell us how you really feel lol

Playing through 9 again here at the moment, could not bring myself to go through 8. Absolutely hated that game.











PS Vivi rocks

pablomakaveli

I started playing FFVIII again a few months ago. I played through the first disk to find out that the PS3 cant read the other 3 discs.:mad:

the final fantasy games on the PS1 were of very good quality i think.

IMO FF7 was obviously the best followed by FF9 than FF8.

Heffo

I LOVE FFIX.

So very polished, great characters, accessible and satisfying gameplay, excellent music (best battle theme in the series IMO), excellent localisation of script (some parts are very hilarious).

kisaragi

In my opinion FFVIII is infinitely superior to FFIX. I didn't like FFIX's style at all, and I hate the way you learned abilities from your equipment. Also, after the amazing triple triad, the card game in FFIX just seemed terrible. In FFVIII I was really compelled to complete everything and do all the side quests etc etc, there's plenty of things I didn't do in IX however.

And I like the older games, I played the hell out of VI and III, a good bit of IV and V too but got stuck :P So replaying IV on the DS now. But I just didn't like The story or style of IX. I enjoyed it, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't as much to my taste as the others.

In fact I just started replaying FFVIII the other day, I was halfway through replaying VII at the time though so I think I'm gonna finish that first though :P I can't really see myself replaying IX anytime soon though... It's possible in the future though.

Shinji Ikari

hoppo254 wrote: »

I have just finished FFVII, played crisis core , watched Advent Children and played DOG. I really enjoy the cannon relating to 7.

Sadly my copy of FFVIII is wrecked and i am waiting on a new copy to arrive in the post .

FFVII is excellent no doubt and although i havent played FFVIII all i can read and hear is acclaim for how good it is. I have skipped onto FFIX now while i wait for 8 to arrive.

My question is , why no fanfare for FFIX ? Is it a weaker game compared to the previous two ?

FF VII,VIII and IX are by far my favourite F.F. games however I would consider IX the weaker of the three mainly because Zidane was slightly one-dimensional compared to Squall and Cloud. Part of the story of FFVII and FFVIII was how the character of both protagonists changed as the story progressed. Neither were likable at the outset. Cloud was self centred cynic and Squall was not sociable and withdrawn. Zidane seems to have no issues in that respect so the character developement is not as rich. Also FFVII and FFVIII have quite mature themes and are set in similiar time periods to our own world in terms of technology, which made a change from the usual medieval theme which FFIX adhered to.

That said I still enjoyed FFIX alot. Personally I consider it to be the last truly great F.F. game. I did'nt enjoy FFXII much, it did'nt feel like a real F.F. game. Although I hav'nt played Crisis Core yet.

The UberFrog

FFVII Will always be top of the table, IMO. Character development was unrivalled (Cloud, Aeris, Sephiroth - if you're a gamer, you'll generally have heard the names even if you've never played it), and the materia system hasn't been beaten since. I think the next best was the sphere grid in FFX, but that still pales compared to materia.

FFVIII is taking way too much flak!! It's a great game! Maybe they could have done without the tedium of the D-District prison, but other wise it was superb. Triple Triad was much better than Tetra Master. Not to say the IX was a bad game, it was also great. FFVI-FFIX were the best of the series, FFX hovering outside. All IMO..

noodler

*Waits for Retro to come in declaring FF7 as the coming of the anti-christ*

8 was brilliant up until disc 3 for me. Then the story got silly. I loved the SeeD, Garden VS an actually army thing. Also, arguably the best cut scenes ever in a FF.


The card game was great to a point-but I never managed to complete it fully cos the rules got stupid as the game went on. You would have to save before and after every card game due to random and other weird rules.

Love Blitzball...

Retr0gamer

Shinji Ikari wrote: »

FF VII,VIII and IX are by far my favourite F.F. games however I would consider IX the weaker of the three mainly because Zidane was slightly one-dimensional compared to Squall and Cloud. Part of the story of FFVII and FFVIII was how the character of both protagonists changed as the story progressed. Neither were likable at the outset. Cloud was self centred cynic and Squall was not sociable and withdrawn. Zidane seems to have no issues in that respect so the character developement is not as rich. Also FFVII and FFVIII have quite mature themes and are set in similiar time periods to our own world in terms of technology, which made a change from the usual medieval theme which FFIX adhered to.

FFVIII had mature themes and charatcer development? Squall started the game as an unlikeable ignorant dickhead and finished it an unlikeable ignorant plank. The rest all remainded peppy annoying jock bellends. The bit where they realised they all knew each other for years was wonderfully mature story telling. And by wonderfully mature I mean ebola inducing.

FFVII isn't the coming of the anti-christ, it's just massively overrated and outclassed and doesn't deserve the praise.

Shinji Ikari

Retr0gamer wrote: »

FFVIII had mature themes and charatcer development? Squall started the game as an unlikeable ignorant dickhead and finished it an unlikeable ignorant plank. The rest all remainded peppy annoying jock bellends. The bit where they realised they all knew each other for years was wonderfully mature story telling. And by wonderfully mature I mean ebola inducing.

FFVII isn't the coming of the anti-christ, it's just massively overrated and outclassed and doesn't deserve the praise.

Compared to many R.P.G.'s of the genre yes. I mean Dragon Quest VIII, though a good game, had zero character developement. I mean the protagonist barely had a personality. The same goes for Blue Dragon. I agree that Selphie and Zell were very one dimensional and yes, the whole amnesia scene was cliched but I felt that the character developement of Squall was very interesting. That fact that his distant, introverted and cold personality improved but did not completely change made it more realistic. He was certainly more interesting than Zidane and Tidus; extroverted, issue free, boys from the village....yawn.

As for Final Fantasy VII being over-rated and outclassed all I can say is how is it overrated and what game has outclassed it? The only game I can think of which comes close in terms of story is Suikoden II and V.

Retr0gamer

I'd say there was far more character development in Dragon Quest VIII. Just lok at how the relationship between Yangus and Trode developed and it was also extremely well written. FFVIII by comparison had a squall turn from ignorant emo to ignorant emo who finally realised Rinoa liked him. Storyline was really badly written with no mature themes at all and dreadfully translated. It was appealing to the lowest common denominator thrash designed to make FF more popular by appealing to more people. There's no point in comparing it to Dragon Quest VIII and Blue Dragon since these games are purposely old school. However in terms of gameplay and battle system both those games are streets ahead of FFVIII. Actually Dragon Quest VIII is streets ahead of FFVIII is story as well. It may be a simple cartoony adventure but it's a damn good one that is excellently written with brilliant characters and some genuine humour. FFVIII on the other hand is poorly written mess with a disgraceful attempt at a love story, punch in the face characters and well it's just a complete mess.

As for FFVII, it's battle system is very simplistic, just compare it to the likes of Grandia, FFX, Panzer Dragoon Saga or even it's predecessors FFVI and FFV.

Storywise it gets a kick in the teeth from Vagrant Story, Suikoden 2, Xenogears, Final Fantasy X, FFVI (yes it does!), FF Tactics and plenty of others I can't think of off the top of my head. FFVII's story isn't that , it goes down the swanny somewhat after disc 1, has a rushed ending, a poor antagonist saved by some excellent character art, it's made even more vague by one of the worst translation jobs ever and it's big twist was done years before hand and handled much better in the Phantasy Star series.

FFVII is a great game but horribly flawed. It gets a lot of credit it doesn;t deserve because for a lot of people it was the first game of it'stype with an involving story that people would have experienced and it was undeniably mind blowing when it was released.

FFVIII on the other hand is fun but a totally forgettable and vapid experience.

Aerb

9 was my favourite just because of Quina. Quina beats all other aspects of aaaaall other ff's.

Sephiroth_dude

final fantasy 9 is a great game,I loved the villian in it,cant member his name now

RedXIV

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

final fantasy 9 is a great game,I loved the villian in it,cant member his name now

Kuja?

Sephiroth_dude

kuja thats it!!!!!!!!! thank you.

Sephiroth_dude

the little mage fellow was annoying I thought,he was"oh poor me"all the time.