Final Fantasy

ancapailldorcha

I liked Snow though. It would have been so easy to make him yet another brooding, dull character. Anyone saying he's one dimensional and cheesy is more or less right.
I was on youtube a few days ago and I forgot some of the Judge's cutscenes even existed. What point in the story are you talking about? It's been about 4 or 5 years since I played it. I'm guessing Square Enix weren't happy with the interesting political storyline it was meant to be thinking people wouldn't be able to follow it and tinkered with it as well as chucking in Vaan and Penelo.

Retr0gamer

The point were it turned from an interesting political plot into a fetch quest while all the interesting stuff happened outside of what happened in the game.

ancapailldorcha

As I said, it's been quite a while. I've been meaning to start FFT soon on the subject of Matsuno's stories.

Memnoch

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I thought FFXIII's characters were human, flawed and developed quite nicely (except Snow of course). In contrast, there's almost none of that in FFVII (except for Cloud of course). Maybe it was just the translation but VII had a much worse script that XIII (which was no masterpiece). Come to think of it, FFXII is the only entry I can think of offhand with an excellent script and story.

I don't know what to say, except... I couldn't disagree with you more.

The characters in XIII were so stereotypically bland. Hope... Sazh. God. I cringed each time there was an 'emotional,' scene that was supposed to be deep. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I never really played too much of XII, didn't like the gameplay system, so can't comment on it.

In terms of character depth and story telling, I played two games recently that demonstrate how good this kind of stuff can be when done right. Namely, Skyrim and Mass Effect 2.

XIII was just a combination of every cheese imaginable on top of more fermented cheese on top of cheese cake.

ancapailldorcha

Fair enough. I felt the same way when that racist Mr. T ripoff started swearing and firing his gun in nearly every scene at the start...

Anyway, I'm fed up of every FF thread going this way. I'll take your word on ME2 but I've heard bad things about Skyrim and I'm not forking out £40 to find out.

Retr0gamer

Memnoch wrote: »

In terms of character depth and story telling, I played two games recently that demonstrate how good this kind of stuff can be when done right. Namely, Skyrim and Mass Effect 2.

I'd be far pushed to call them the height of videogame storytelling.

noodler

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

For me, any souls in FFVII died after Midgar. It set up the world quite well in an interesting sci-fi manner and then blew it by going down the standard stop the baddie road. The only times I was emotionally invested in the story were Cloud's scenes and worrying I wouldn't get my materia back when

Aerith

died.
I thought FFXIII had a much better story (not perfect, mind) and a better world. It was just a shame there was close to zero exploration.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

FFXIII definitely had some great character writing and progression. Pity the main storyline was so poor but I really liked how the characters grew in that game, other than Snow again.

FFXII started great storywise but you can tell almost the exact point where Matsuno left because it just gets terrible and rushed after that point with only a few glimpses of what it could have been. All that's left that is actually well written is the judges stories and even they aren't as fleshed out as they could have been.

Guys, I gave up on FF13 when I got to Pulse. Up until that point the story had been awful, the characters had been awful, the plot was all over the place, the names were way to confusing (C'ei and Fal'Cei??) and the non-battle music was crap.

Now that I hear you both talk about character progression....would I have changed my mind from Pulse onwards? I have pumped overe 100 hours into FF6,7,8,9,10,10-2 and 12 but have absolutely no desire to go back to 13.

Memnoch wrote: »

I don't know what to say, except... I couldn't disagree with you more.

The characters in XIII were so stereotypically bland. Hope... Sazh. God. I cringed each time there was an 'emotional,' scene that was supposed to be deep. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I never really played too much of XII, didn't like the gameplay system, so can't comment on it.

In terms of character depth and story telling, I played two games recently that demonstrate how good this kind of stuff can be when done right. Namely, Skyrim and Mass Effect 2.

XIII was just a combination of every cheese imaginable on top of more fermented cheese on top of cheese cake.

I have to agree, it was the angsty characters without any interesting plot or gameplay (outside of the battles system).

Retr0, you once said you'd feel embaressed if someone walked in on that Johnny/Meryl scene in MGS4 - I would literally mute any cutscene in 13 for fear someone else would hear it.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd be far pushed to call them the height of videogame storytelling.

No definitely not but at least ME keeps you constantly engaged - I spent 90 minutes playing ME3 on Tuesday evening and never left the Citadel - just did little quests and learned about what the current developments in the Universe were. It was genuinely interesting though.

Retr0gamer

noodler wrote: »

Now that I hear you both talk about character progression....would I have changed my mind from Pulse onwards?

Probably not. A few character arcs aren't finished but if you didn't like the game up to that point I doubt you'd change your mind. However the game gets a lot better once you get to Gran Pulse.

noodler wrote: »

Retr0, you once said you'd feel embaressed if someone walked in on that Johnny/Meryl scene in MGS4 - I would literally mute any cutscene in 13 for fear someone else would hear it.

Nothing will ever beat how awful that scene from MGS4 was. Nothing!

noodler wrote: »

No definitely not but at least ME keeps you constantly engaged - I spent 90 minutes playing ME3 on Tuesday evening and never left the Citadel - just did little quests and learned about what the current developments in the Universe were. It was genuinely interesting though.

I don't like Biowares writing and the fact that characters make massive leaps in progression instead of being slowly being built up... and then there's Jack (although a friend tells me she is way better in 3). But definitely find their games compelling.

Memnoch

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Fair enough. I felt the same way when that racist Mr. T ripoff started swearing and firing his gun in nearly every scene at the start...

Anyway, I'm fed up of every FF thread going this way. I'll take your word on ME2 but I've heard bad things about Skyrim and I'm not forking out £40 to find out.

I put in somewhere in the region of 150-180 hours into Skyrim. Probably more than I've ever done on a single FF game. Though I did have a FFX save that was 120 hours (I think.) But a lot of that was just grinding in the monster arena etc.

Anyway... there was this one quest in skyrim. I was walking along this deserted road, ascending a cliff. Snow was falling in soft drifts and blanketing the trees. In the distance I saw a building rising up. When I got closer, I realised it was a light house. I don't know what attracted me to that place, there was just something about it. I think there might have been a dead horse outside or something.

The door was unlocked so I went in to investigate. Inside, the entire place had been torn apart. Blood stains splattered the walls, the floor and various surfaces. There was also the corpse of a large insect type creature. (A chaurus).

I eventually found a journal that told a very affecting tale of two people who had brought this lighthouse. The journal was written by the husband who's wife had already dreamed of owning a place like this and they had finally saved enough to buy the place together and had moved in with their two children. There was some interesting stuff about the children.

There was a building of tension because the wife was complaining about noises coming from the basement. The husband said it was just the kids playing pranks.

Anyway the final couple of entries were about how the husband had gone on some errand to town. When he returned he found the dead body of his wife and his children missing. He was attacked by the insect creature which he managed to kill off. He was going to go into the basement to investigate and lock the door behind him in case he didn't make it back.

I found the basement door and it was indeed locked. I managed to pick it and went down into the basement. In the back, I found a fresh trail of blood. There was a hole in the wall. The entire place was dark and creepy and I got this sense of foreboding that something bad was around the corner.

I stole through and was attacked by a large Chaurus. I killed it and forged ahead, entering a system of underground tunnels. I happened upon a Falmer settlement. Blind humanoid creatures that lived underground and that seemed to somehow subsist with the Chaurus, using the insect's bones and chitin to build their houses, fashion weapons from etc.

They were hostile and I worked through their encampment killing the few that were there. As I ventured deeper, there was another, much more extensive system of tunnels. They were illuminated by an eerie blue glow. The light came from clusters of Chaurus eggs, which i was able to gather for use in Alchemy later on.

I eventually reached a Chaurus lair where I found the body of the daughter inside a makeshift prison cell. There was a note there too about how they had been captured. Their father had come looking for them but he too had been taken prisoner. He had tried to escape but had been bitten.

I kept going, the tunnels progressing deeper and deeper. Finally I reached the main chamber and battled a monstrous insect creature. After slaying it, I was shocked to find the father's remains, inside. Only his skull was in any way intact. I don't know why but I decided to pick up these remains, maybe give the man a decent burial.

When I got back to the lighthouse, I decided to explore it a bit more and climbed all the way to the top. A flame was burning in a cauldron, providing the torch to warn ships of nearby rocks and cliffs. The game gave me the option of putting the mans remains into this. I did and his remains were consumed by the fire.

For completing the hidden quest I was given a reward of a permanent 10% boost to my healing magic.

I had another look around outside and found a small wooden cupbord filled with farming implements.

END.

===

This quest to me perfectly highlights what made Skyrim SO great and why I invested so much time in it. The story itself was quite simple but the way it was told, the atmosphere and the mood, I couldn't help but be affected by it. And the attention to detail, it's just insane. Imagine, this gigantic sprawling game world. And you have a light house out in the middle of nowhere, unrelated to any of the main quests, just a small side quest on its own. Yet it was so painstakingly constructed. The game was full of little nuggets like this.

Ironically, I never finished the main quest line. Though I did finish a couple of major quest lines like the Mage's guild and the civil war.

In the end I broke the game by overpowering my character to the point that nothing was really challenging anymore.

Still, a great game that I really got a lot of enjoyment from.

Maybe I haven't played as many games as you Retro, but I've read a lot. And I enjoyed the story telling in Skyrim and I'm currently enjoying it in Mass Effect 2. Much more so than many FF games (including 9 )

cloud493

Looking to start final fantasy... 6 or 7.

ancapailldorcha

noodler wrote: »

Now that I hear you both talk about character progression....would I have changed my mind from Pulse onwards? I have pumped overe 100 hours into FF6,7,8,9,10,10-2 and 12 but have absolutely no desire to go back to 13.

Why on earth would you spend 100 hours on X-2?
And Retr0, it was way worse than anything in MGS4.

Memnoch

cloud493 wrote: »

Looking to start final fantasy... 6 or 7.

Six is a good, but your better of starting with 7, unless you don't mind the graphics in 6. I played 7 through 10 before going back and playing the older final fantasies.

But I know quite a few people that simply can't abide the graphics of the pre-playstaytion era these days.

noodler

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why on earth would you spend 100 hours on X-2?
And Retr0, it was way worse than anything in MGS4.

X-2 and 100 hours may have been an exaggeration but certainly the guts of 100 hours.

I thought it was a great game once you got past the (sorry for being immature but) 'gay' opening scene and music.

I loved the new factions, the dark undertones of the spheres showing Tidus might be alive and the battle system was good too.

There was some huge dungeon near the end (optional I believe) with 100 floors and I think thats where I spend a good chunk of time.

Two playthroughs I gave it, the second to get the 100% ending where Square copped out!

noodler

Memnoch wrote: »

Six is a good, but your better of starting with 7, unless you don't mind the graphics in 6. I played 7 through 10 before going back and playing the older final fantasies.

But I know quite a few people that simply can't abide the graphics of the pre-playstaytion era these days.

I second this.

If you can emulate the SNES version of 6 or play the update (GBA I believe??) then you might find it bearable but the PSX version is a chore due to loading times.

Overall though, even leaving aside the fact I prefer 7, I still think it would be infinitely more accessible in terms of graphics and gameplay for someone who is going back a couple of game generations.

Retr0gamer

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why on earth would you spend 100 hours on X-2?
And Retr0, it was way worse than anything in MGS4.

MGS4 was much much worse. I can safely say that MGS4 has far and away the worst cutscenes in any videogame ever, including Twin Snakes. FFXIII might have one or two dodgy scenes but it's got a lot of great ones particularly the cahracter development towards the end. It's a far way off the absolute ineptitude and terrible writing of the MGS4 cutscenes.

noodler wrote: »

Overall though, even leaving aside the fact I prefer 7, I still think it would be infinitely more accessible in terms of graphics and gameplay for someone who is going back a couple of game generations.

I think FF6 has aged graphically far better than FF7 and it's very primitive polygons and awful framerate. Then again I just love 2D.

cloud493

I think 7 looks really dated these days... tis the beauty of 2D like that, still looks lovely even now.

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

FFXIII might have one or two dodgy scenes but it's got a lot of great ones particularly the cahracter development towards the end.

The majority of the cut scenes in FF13 were cringe-inducing for me (up until Pulse anyway).

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think FF6 has aged graphically far better than FF7 and it's very primitive polygons and awful framerate. Then again I just love 2D.

I can take the point about the 3D and FF7, but I don't recall any major/consistent framerte issues? Was it during summons?

ancapailldorcha

Retr0gamer wrote: »

MGS4 was much much worse. I can safely say that MGS4 has far and away the worst cutscenes in any videogame ever, including Twin Snakes. FFXIII might have one or two dodgy scenes but it's got a lot of great ones particularly the cahracter development towards the end. It's a far way off the absolute ineptitude and terrible writing of the MGS4 cutscenes.

I meant X-2 was way worse than MGS4. Should've been clearer. I lasted about 5 hours into X-2 until the Arsenic that is the story finally put me off it. I definitely agree with noodler on the Blitzball though. Awesome, awesome min-game.

Memnoch wrote: »

Six is a good, but your better of starting with 7, unless you don't mind the graphics in 6. I played 7 through 10 before going back and playing the older final fantasies.

Agreed. 6 is a lot harder. The GBA version has 4 new espers but a more censored translation as far as I know.

cloud493 wrote: »

I think 7 looks really dated these days... tis the beauty of 2D like that, still looks lovely even now.

Definitely, though to be fair, FF7 was Square's first attempt at a 3D game on a completely new system.

cloud493

That is true. And its a brilliant, brilliant game. But a lot of 3D games from that time look rubbish these days.

Retr0gamer

noodler wrote: »

I can take the point about the 3D and FF7, but I don't recall any major/consistent framerte issues? Was it during summons?

The battle engine maxes out at 15 FPS, for the PAL version it's an even lower 12 FPS.

seraphimvc

if i havent played any FF before, what i'd do is completely forget everything that people said for the games. because most Squaresoft's fanboy started back in 1990s era, where most of us would have no access to the internet and the only information/opinion we could get is from a limited number of game magazines in the local bookstore (there was the time when game magazine do game guides and it was a huge selling point).

so just imagine that you are in a time where Square suddenly released 10 FF games in one day and you have got this magazine that introduces all games in one go but you dont want to get spoiled too much about all these games.

Go http://www.ff-finalfantasy.com/ look for all the wallpapers from each game and read the introduction for each game from here http://www.thefinalfantasy.com/games/ and see which one is the most appealing to you and go for that.

personally, as a religious ff fan myself (ONLY to Squaresoft's FFs), if i had kid one day, i will make him to play FF4 first. and then consequently followed by 56789 10 (10 is still very squaresoft-ish) and FFT. nothing more. ok, if he decided to go for 12 i wont stop him but 13 is a no go. just no. and no to those FFTA games. screw them.

enjoy and welcome to the FF world you will find yourself highly addicted to these games and at some point you will feel like you wish to become one of the character and you might fall in love to one of the female character! jeez, my gf is watching me typing this line of sentence but i really cant say i'd still go for her if aeris came into reality! (cant believe that I used that joke when I was 12 and now 10+years later i will still say the same thing haha)

seraphimvc

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Agreed. 6 is a lot harder. The GBA version has 4 new espers but a more censored translation as far as I know.

*ahem* to me, only the japense snes version is the true version.

Arawn

start with 8. Why?/ Because it's bat **** crazy in the best possible way

ancapailldorcha

FVIII has an incredible soundtrack, a broken battle system, terrible characters and an even worse story. For me it was a big dirty pile of fun, I don't know if I'd start with it but I definitely would not leave it out.

Retr0gamer

I wouldn't start with FFVIII at all. It's got a very messy unintuitive menu system with lots of important stuff hidden away and the battle system is complex. If you don't know what you are doing you'll end up using summons every battle, getting bored of the animations and then getting stuck when you reach Disc 3.

cloud493

Don't start with VIII. Start with.. I dunno. 4 is simple to play, and its got a nice re done version on the PSN.

ancapailldorcha

cloud493 wrote: »

Don't start with VIII. Start with.. I dunno. 4 is simple to play, and its got a nice re done version on the PSN.

That's only for the PSP and the DS version got a bit difficult at times. I'd suggest either VII or X. XII and XIII have very different systems compared to the earlier titles.

Mindkiller

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Definitely, though to be fair, FF7 was Square's first attempt at a 3D game on a completely new system.

I think it has this surreal, almost cubist quality. In fact, I think that of a lot of early 3D games. The sprites in FFIV-VI have a timeless charm as well.

What looks really dated imo are those early PS2/DC releases where it became popular to aim for this super-realistic look in games. Stuff like Shenmue and FFX look horrible today. FFXII still looks nice though, maybe because they didn't try and show off all this cutting edge facial animation stuff. The faces in FFX look really silly now.

Xevkin

I have VIII and IX stored for some rainy day after the exams - which should I actually tackle first? Coming from someone who's at least played every other (minus XI, XIV and XIII-2) FF in some form.

Anyone else feel that FFXII is becoming stronger in hindsight? The problem I felt it had when it was released was that half the characters (Vaan, Penelo and the rabbit-eared amazon) were WAY under developed - each was begging for scene or two late game devoted to themselves. Heck, from what I remember Penelo was only there because she had no else to hang round with. The rest of the game was great IMO, and somehow the combat felt more involved that FFXIII eventually would.

ancapailldorcha

Xevkin wrote: »

I have VIII and IX stored for some rainy day after the exams - which should I actually tackle first? Coming from someone who's at least played every other (minus XI, XIV and XIII-2) FF in some form.

Anyone else feel that FFXII is becoming stronger in hindsight? The problem I felt it had when it was released was that half the characters (Vaan, Penarelo and the rabbit-eared amazon) were WAY under developed - each was begging for scene or two late game devoted to themselves. Heck, from what I remember Penelo was only there because she had no else to hang round with. The rest of the game was great IMO, and somehow the combat felt more involved that FFXIII eventually would.

I'd suggest playing VIII first. I've heard a few times that IX is a homage to the earlier titles so it might be an idea to go at it first.
Fran did have that scene in the Feywood with the other Viera but I know what you mean. There was the fact that

Vaan's brother was murdered by Gabranth

at the start. Penelo had no reason to be there whatsoever. It's been a few years but if I remember correctly, 98% of the dialogue did not involve either of them at all.