Final Fantasy is Good

General Game Discussion
#61

Final Fantasy VIII is also my favourite.

I know that technically it shouldn’t be, I much more like the story of VI, the timing of V or the complexity(without being so abrupt in certain points) of VII, but I played it on the perfect emotional age, on half-a-tv with no sound and only half an weekend at a time, and it made its mark on me, even if I only finished it years afterwards.

I’ve been considering eventually playing XV because if there is one thing that makes FF for me is that they are stories with a decision and will behind them, with the idea of not making the most sense perhaps, but making the most emotional sense with their themes and style, even if lacking in substance sometimes, and XV seems to return a bit more for that after the black hole that was XIII.

For anyone that shares a similar perspective I recommend Shamus Young analysis of FFX and its plot, which is very focused on such points.

#62

I really want to like FF8. I think it’s half of an amazing game attached to half of a total mess of a game.

A few years ago I decided that, since I never finished FF8 when it came out, I’d give it another shot. I remembered not liking it, but it had been a while. And I was really pleasantly surprised at first. In fact, to this day, I think the first two discs (well, up until the very end of disc 2) are awesome. The world is cool, the story is compelling, the characters are interesting, and I get to break the game wide open with junctions without having to rely too heavily on the card game. Sweet!

Then around the time of the ~orphanage twist~ I think the whole story falls apart with remarkable speed. And Squall’s character development goes haywire, too. Through the first two discs he has this gradual growth from a sullen teenager to a reluctant, if charismatic, leader, and his feelings for Rinoa slowly encourage him to be a warmer, more open person. But all the “gradual” goes away at the end of disc 2–in the amount of time it takes to remove disc 2 and put in disc 3, Squall just rushes right to the end of that character development. And then there’s this sudden swerve to a more distant, less compelling villain, the introduction of the Lunar Cry to give us an end-of-the-world threat to save the world from, and then it turns out no, that’s not the big problem, the big problem is Time Kompression instead, the Lunar Cry was just an excuse to have higher-level enemies on the world map, and…

Sorry, there are a lot of FF8 fans here, I shouldn’t be trashing it. But I wanted to like it so badly and almost did.

#63

No problem, I think most of the other FF8 fans like me recognize that those are issues with it.

And it’s frustrating, because if one reads the wiki articles on the various plot points, the Lunar Cry, Adel’s Tomb and the Time Compression can be genuinely good plot points, but the way they are introduced turns everything into a cluster-fuck of terms and events with no good way to untangle them during the story.

Same with the character stories, which were growing in gravitas, but then get a bomb dropped on them with little to no order and in the end they were maybe unnecessary for the themes of the game. It’s frustrating.

#64

I wish that Edea could’ve stayed the main villain and they hadn’t done the orphanage thing. Then ditch the Lunar Cry part and I think the rest would fall into place much more easily. You could even keep the idea of Ultimecia as this ur-Sorceress who exists outside of time as a backdrop to what Edea is doing, but having a present, charismatic villain like Edea is so much better than the more distant, Sauron-like villain we had for the second half of the game.

It’s a game that comes so close to greatness that I suspect I overstate its flaws just because they seem so much worse compared to what could have been.

#65

Oh hell yes, Edea’s design is so much better and more iconic than Ultimecia that every time I remind myself of it I have to hold my head in my hands. It’s an awfully accurate example of what a woman as a final boss is in fantasy games to such an extreme that every time I see a female villain with a cool design which ends up turning into a cleavage-dress just because I call it FF8-syndrome.

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#66

FFVIII has a lot of good to it and, despite acknowledging a lot of flaws and feeling kind of uncomfortable with it, it’s still right up there with 4 and 6 for me. The more futuristic setting, with rentable motorcars and intercontinental railways and inexplicable gunswords and hovering combat-schools and television signals disrupted by the psychic screams of an orbiting sorceress…there’s a lot of really good stuff there.

3 Likes
#67

That abrupt change after disc 2 is why fan theories such as http://squallsdead.com/ exist. Which, personally, I think would’ve been a much better way to complete the story than what they did.

#68

On FF8: It is my opinion that the orphanage thing is an excellent twist horribly executed.

#69

My problem with this kind of justifications is that they don’t really give the story an emotional and thematic arc, and while one might consider FF8 badly executed, its themes are present nonetheless and do make sense in the story as a whole.

#70

I’ve always liked games from the series that most people didn’t like, like Final Fantasy X-2 or XII.

X-2 because it was way more fun than X and I liked the Dressphere/Garment Grid system.
XII because I liked the story and the open world combat system.

1 Like
#71

But Rinoa is Ultimecia.

1 Like
#72

Uh, we all know Squall is Ultimecia, he’s the only one who could pull off that dress.

#73

Obligatory top three are 9, 10 and 7.
I also really didn’t like 13 but I gave it a final shot last year and really got into it. I probably wouldn’t touch the direct sequels to it though.

The problem I have with the orphanage twist is that, it is foreshadowed but it’s foreshadowed by optional dialogue. I feel like if you’re going to set something up to be an important plot point you should allude to it in a way that no one can miss it. My main problem with 8 is the magic system and Squall and Rinoa’s love story. I never believed their relationship, and couldn’t get into it. Other than that it’s alright.

#74

I don’t think it was even dialogue. Wasn’t it shoved deep into that computer with all the tutorial text? Like, even looking for it I have a hard time finding the text that says GFs cause memory loss in there.

#75

When you graduate as a SeeD if you talk to one of Cid’s aides he mentions it, and that was literally all I read about it before the orphanage scene.

#76

Yeah, I don’t remember that line at all. Probably not the best idea to shove the only foreshadowing in such a specific spot, especially if that’s right after the mission that discourages you from talking to anyone.

1 Like
#77

It’s really cool to see a lot of different opinions and tastes on this series. I’m stoked to hear about why others enjoyed one of the games that I didn’t particularly like much. Even if it can’t help me feel like playing it, I think it lets me appreciate it more through someone else’s enjoyment.

6 was my first. Played it a lot as a kid, but never got very far. Still really enjoyed playing the first couple of hours over and over. Finally beat it years later and was blown away by how fun it is.

7 was next. Watched my brothers play it when it first came out. The music and the CG scenes are a huge part of my childhood. I really love the art style, and was pretty disappointed when the Advent Children movie took it in a different direction. For the longest time, 7 was my favourite for pure nostalgia. Cautiously optimistic for the remake series, but I know the quirky 90s art style will be absent.

8 is one that I’ve seen a lot of, but haven’t really played myself. I know enough about the story to know that it’s really not my thing. I love the music and sound effects, though.

Tactics is amazing. Probably too dark for me when I first played it, but it really is a fantastic combination of fun game mechanics and intriguing plot. I remember not understanding the significance of character signs (Gemini, Leo, etc.), but I think that could be explained by the often clunky translation.

5 on the PS1 was great, if terribly slow with the load times (and 1 and 2 had even worse loading problems somehow). 5 could be my favourite purely based on gameplay. Yet there is another that has stolen my weeby heart.

9 has one of the best opening two hours of gameplay and story. When I first played it, I didn’t really like the direction the plot took. Since then I’ve seen an amazing LP (avalaible on the LP archive) that points out 9’s Hawaiian roots.

Out of the first 4 games, I really only like 3. Come to think of it, I’ve never completed any of them.

10 didn’t do much for me when I first played it. But it has become my favourite because of its story (particularly its setting) and gameplay. It has a ton of issues (those dungeons with the spheres are dreadful), but I love it despite its flaws. X-2 is silly, but more games in X’s setting is a purely good thing.

15 is the first mainline game I’ve played since 12 (which I played maybe an hour of before giving up). I’m really enjoying 15, but its troubled development history is pretty evident in the finished product. Ignis for best boy.

Looking forward to 12’s HD release on PS4. I feel like I didn’t give it a fair chance back on PS2.

#78

Final Fantasy is in fact bad.

Except Brave Exvius; Goddess bless gatcha games.

1 Like
#79

I remember I used to make fun of an old girlfriend of mine’s insistence on pronouncing ‘Zidane’ as ‘Zee-dahn-yuh’. Fast-forward to, uh, 16 years later when I actually looked up the pronunciation of it in real life and seeing it as ‘Zee-dahN’ and feeling like kind of a tool.

#80

I always pronounced it like it was spelled (Zid-Dane), same with Tidus (Tide-Us)