Trouble getting into Final Fantasy--what games do you like a

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kirby
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Post by kirby »

DeadWolf wrote:A lot of people seem to hate III and it's mostly because of its difficulty. I admit the game is pretty rage inducing at times but it's a good game (or else the wouldn't remake it). The job system isn't broken like a lot of people claim. You just can't jump back and forth and abuse it with out a little repercussion is all. Certain areas force you to change to a specific job in order to complete them (like the one at the beginning where you're shrunken and have to rely on your mages) The way the job system is used in III provides another level of challenge for the game. It requires you to think and plan carefully instead of just jumping in a dungeon running through it like Rambo. III is a true classic RPG that isn't dumbed down for the average gamer.
Actually the other reason I despise III is because I managed to get 3 - 5 of the different jobs to rank 99 except unless you have WiFi you can not get the ultimate items you should obtain after obtaining job class 99.
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DeadWolf
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Post by DeadWolf »

What needs to be done in order to actually get the weapon? Two
simple sidequests. Well, if you're underleveled and aren't very smart with
your tactics, you might be in on a run for your money. I suggest being in
the level area of 40 or above. You need to complete the sidequests "Fix
Sara's Pendant", and "Finding the Orichalcum". Then you must find the
legendary blacksmith a second time (the first time is during the "Fix
Sara's Pendant" sidequest"). Another thing, you MUST have control over the
Invicible airship (to get to Falgabard)
You don't need wifi.
kirby
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Post by kirby »

DeadWolf wrote:
What needs to be done in order to actually get the weapon? Two
simple sidequests. Well, if you're underleveled and aren't very smart with
your tactics, you might be in on a run for your money. I suggest being in
the level area of 40 or above. You need to complete the sidequests "Fix
Sara's Pendant", and "Finding the Orichalcum". Then you must find the
legendary blacksmith a second time (the first time is during the "Fix
Sara's Pendant" sidequest"). Another thing, you MUST have control over the
Invicible airship (to get to Falgabard)
You don't need wifi.
You do not realize what you have to do to unlock the sidequests do you? You have to contact like 8 other players via WiFi in order for the sidequests to open up. In order for the Blacksmith that gives you the job mastery items to start appearing though, you need to start doing the sidequests.
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Post by NightshadeTea »

DeadWolf wrote:NightshadeTea, I think we are exact opposites when it comes to FF. I find the older 2D games to be amazing and the 3D ones to be horrible. I enjoy IX I guess because it's a throwback to the original style I'm use to. VII and VIII don't feel like Final Fantasy games to me because they lost everything that was supposed to make it Final Fantasy, imo. I don't think VII and VIII are bad games. I just think they are the few worst ones out of the franchise.
That might be it. My only experience with the series is the later games and the 3D remake of an old one. I also don't really see FF as an actual "series" with a recurring theme other than the name. I just take each game as it is.

Though I will say, if I had to say which one is the worst, I'd have to go with VIII. I remember quitting that one pretty early. My semi-positive review of the game might be skewed by my brain protecting me by blocking out the worst of the memories.
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DeadWolf
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Post by DeadWolf »

NightshadeTea wrote:That might be it. My only experience with the series is the later games and the 3D remake of an old one. I also don't really see FF as an actual "series" with a recurring theme other than the name. I just take each game as it is.
That's why I said franchise.
NightshadeTea wrote:Though I will say, if I had to say which one is the worst, I'd have to go with VIII. I remember quitting that one pretty early. My semi-positive review of the game might be skewed by my brain protecting me by blocking out the worst of the memories.
I didn't really like VIII at all. After watching that review that Spoonyone did on TGWTG I hate it even more. VII has a decent story but that's it (if you can over look the engrish).
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manaman
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Post by manaman »

kirby,

A quick response: I'm pretty handy with Wi-Fi on my DS, so I think I'm covered there with III. Thanks for the advice though.

Okay, I have two more questions:

What exactly are bonus dungeons (okay, three questions) and are they important? And, how would you rate the length and difficulty of the various games?

Now some random musings on my part: I think I'm going to stick to the SNES version of VI unless the bonus dungeon is really that important because I have a great love for the system, its graphics and the memory of playing a little bit of the particular game with my cousin. Thanks for the mention of the WiiWare sequel. I am aware of a few sequels and tie-ins but I've really tried to limit myself to the main series. For the same reason, I backed out of my original plan of starting with Mystic Quest. I figured it wasn't really part of the numbered series. The other reason is because I bypassed the need for a "trainer" type game which is my impression of it. And that's not a knock on the game at all, especially since I have never played it. Rather, I think it's an important thing for people just getting into the genre.

I could never abide turn-based combat--no, I LOATHED, turn-based combat--until I played Breath of Fire IV (for the graphics and story) and a little bit of Phantasy Star (II, I think) to try the story out (I will go back to that someday) and then finished Vay on my iPod and loved the touch interface and the ease with which I could start up a game in an environment with many distractions (turn-based RPG's are great commuter games).

Anyway, thanks for your help,

manaman
Last edited by manaman on Thu Mar 04, 2010 4:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kimiko
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Post by Kimiko »

Bonus dungeons are just extras tacked onto the game for those who want more grinding. They're not important to the main story and can be ignored without drawbacks.

All the FFs are fairly lengthy for RPGs. I couldn't say if some were longer than others. It depends more on your playing style. Are you the type who rushes through, dying and retrying often, or are you the type who does every sidequest, talks to every NPC multiple times, grinds until enemies are easy to defeat? The former type might attempt a speed run, whereas the latter type will easily spend over 100 hours per game.

As for difficulty, I think the earliest games (I and II) were quite hard at times. VIII so far is the easiest FF I've played. The rest are about average for the series I'd say.
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Duran
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Post by Duran »

Kimiko wrote:As for difficulty, I think the earliest games (I and II) were quite hard at times. VIII so far is the easiest FF I've played. The rest are about average for the series I'd say.
I'd argue that nearly all of them are pretty easy. Because it's so focused on the story, the game has a tendency to "hold your hand" throughout the game by making items easy to access and obtain, save/heal points in every dungeon, and easy-to-find weaknesses on monsters.

Usually, the hidden/bonus areas will be the most challenge you'll find in the games.
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CaraBanana
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Post by CaraBanana »

Duran wrote:
Kimiko wrote:As for difficulty, I think the earliest games (I and II) were quite hard at times. VIII so far is the easiest FF I've played. The rest are about average for the series I'd say.
I'd argue that nearly all of them are pretty easy. Because it's so focused on the story, the game has a tendency to "hold your hand" throughout the game by making items easy to access and obtain, save/heal points in every dungeon, and easy-to-find weaknesses on monsters.
Very true. The junction system of FFVIII instantly made your characters broken. Broken, up until the point where the first stage of the final boss has 10,000 HP ONLY, if you keep your characters at their starting levels.

Alternatively, FFIX is my favorite one. The story is beautiful, wonderful music, great comedic relief and not to mention characters of different races and backgrounds make this game interesting. I also like the ATE feature as well. :)

Oh, Durrraannn.... *holds up a roasted Rabite*
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LunarWisp
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Post by LunarWisp »

Although I haven't played VIII, it's the only Final Fantasy game that hasn't interested me at all. None of the characters, music pieces, or plot points seem even remotely intriguing to me. The junction system also sounds quite bad.

Final Fantasy IX, on the other hand, I've heard endless praise about it. I really want to play it, it almost makes me want to buy a PlayStation. Almost.
kirby
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Re:

Post by kirby »

Kimiko wrote:Bonus dungeons are just extras tacked onto the game for those who want more grinding. They're not important to the main story and can be ignored without drawbacks.

All the FFs are fairly lengthy for RPGs. I couldn't say if some were longer than others. It depends more on your playing style. Are you the type who rushes through, dying and retrying often, or are you the type who does every sidequest, talks to every NPC multiple times, grinds until enemies are easy to defeat? The former type might attempt a speed run, whereas the latter type will easily spend over 100 hours per game.

As for difficulty, I think the earliest games (I and II) were quite hard at times. VIII so far is the easiest FF I've played. The rest are about average for the series I'd say.
All the FF are lenghty for RPG's and you can not really rate each game on length. You can rate the bonus dungeons, the final dungeon, final bosses, combat system, etc. It is just sort of hard to rank the length alone. The Dragon's Dungeon in FFVI is one of the herdest bonus dungeons though.
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LunarWisp
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Re: Trouble getting into Final Fantasy--what games do you li

Post by LunarWisp »

If you're interested, manaman, Final Fantasy IV was just released on the Virtual Console today. There's a higher random encounter rate and the script is worse than the other two versions of the game, but its still just as fun. It's only eight dollars, as well.
kirby
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Re: Trouble getting into Final Fantasy--what games do you li

Post by kirby »

The Hooded Man wrote:If you're interested, manaman, Final Fantasy IV was just released on the Virtual Console today. There's a higher random encounter rate and the script is worse than the other two versions of the game, but its still just as fun. It's only eight dollars, as well.
Except, due to the fact it is based on the SNES version of the game the bonus dungeons are not included in the game.
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Kimiko
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Re: Trouble getting into Final Fantasy--what games do you li

Post by Kimiko »

Oh, I posted this on another forum last night. I should share it here as well:
I just finished Final Fantasy VIII. Finally.

As usual, I spent ages and ages grinding, collecting magic and items, and generally exploring every corner of the game. I get my money's worth out of games this way, but by the time I get to the end of a Final Fantasy, I'm about completely fed up with it, and just want to get it over with. Doesn't help either that the final dungeons in FF games are usually the ugliest/least interesting.

FF8's final dungeon was much better though. It actually had quite interesting puzzles, environment and bosses. Well, except for the last boss, which was one of those with umpteen reincarnations, more than I can remember from other FFs. The ending was.. okayish. Despite being an enjoyable part of the game, that final dungeon totally didn't fit in the story ("we took away all your commands/abilities, and now you have to go through all these hoops to get them back before the final battle"). After that there was little in the way of a conclusion / 'what happened afterwards', just a looong movie that didn't give many details.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. Because of the junctioning/GF mechanics, battles were usually very easy (although with my tendency to over-level, I usually don't have too much trouble), so it felt like this game was more focused on its story than other FFs. There were plenty of side-quests and rare items to collect though, so I didn't get bored quickly.

The characters were about par for FF. Squall was the usual bland protagonist (although his emotional stupidity was even worse than FF7's Cloud's) who can't be removed from the party. Rinoa kicked ass, but was unavailable half the time because she had to fill the distressed damsel role. It's so annoying when my favorite character (and one of the strongest too) is forced into helplessness. The other characters didn't have a lot of depth. Selphie seemed annoying at first, but ended up one of my favorites because she actually had some story and personality to her. It's embarrassing though that the camera nearly always took an angle that looked up her ultra-short dress.

Visually, this installment was better than its predecessor. I suppose that's to be expected of course, but I liked that the characters were realistically proportioned, as opposed to FF7's (and the 3D remakes of 3 and 4's) chibi ones. Monster models were also more detailed, but strangely lacked 7's sleeping/weakened stances.

Musically however, there wasn't anything to write home about. Some themes were recycled from FF7 (and not the good ones), but some FF classics, such as the intro, battle and victory themes, were absent/replaced with lesser stuff. The best piece was easily the song that played for Rinoa&Squall's romance, and even that sounded like it was mostly copied from something popular.

All in all, this was a solid entry in the Final Fantasy series. Definitely one of the easiest I've played so far, but that didn't detract from the experience. It felt like some corners were cut (monsters lacking weakened stances; the ending being only a movie), but not so much as to be too disappointing. Let's hope Squeenix will learn to create more interesting characters in the next installments.
kirby
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Re: Trouble getting into Final Fantasy--what games do you li

Post by kirby »

... This has got to be the longest rant I have viewed from anyone here except myself maybe...

Anyways the only thing I would like to know is how many time must you fact the final boss in FFVIII? I own FFVIII right now except at the location I keep it at I do not have a PS1 memory card.
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