Final Fantasy?

[Nubzpwnzer]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Yeah basically if you've played one mmo, you have played them all. Enough said.

[MarukuAntoni]

Re: Final Fantasy?

If someone has an opinion, let them have it. The number of FF7 fanthings still far outnumber the number of FF7 haters (and the number of FF7 fanthings is about equal to the number of FF8 haters IMHO).

Sorry about that. It's just me being a hypocrite, again! Damn it, I have to stop that. I need to be open more and less one-sides, or no one will take statements seriously. Yes, you are probably right on there being the same number of ff7 and 8 haters. I just don't understand why people think it's garbage. There are the haters of FF7 due to the over hyping of fanboys, others who hate it for its graphics, and other reasons. Graphics didn't matter much to me at the time, but everything else about it, music, gameplay, plot, all grasped my attention. Not many games grab me like FF7.

[Squeek]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Reminds me. Now I'm up to three official Final Fantasy games tried and four total with "Final Fantasy" in the title.

I did actually start playing FF7 once. However, the graphics were so bad and ATB pissed me off so much that I got rid of it after just half an hour of playing.

You can criticize me for making these kinds of decisions all you want, but the fact of the matter is that the game looks horrible. Yes, it was one of the first attempts at 3-D, but look at all of Nintendo's games. They all age well. Super Mario 64, blocky as it is, still looks more realistic despite not even needing to be realistic. Ocarina of Time was still fun for me ten years later.

Triangles for arms. Wow.

[ClyĐe]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Yes, it was one of the first attempts at 3-D, but look at all of Nintendo's games. They all age well. Super Mario 64, blocky as it is, still looks more realistic despite not even needing to be realistic. Ocarina of Time was still fun for me ten years later.

Triangles for arms. Wow.

Well, I thought I was the only one to think that... Now, just like I said, it was awesome back then but now it hurts me to play it. Though characters in battle looks really good. But outside it's just... Ugly.

Agreed for Mario and Ocarina. I mean, I played OoT and MM when they were out and I'm still playing today, literally, I played today. And it still looks good. There's that transition between 2d and 3d that I don't like too much... Yes it was in 3D... But Donkey Kong Country looked much better than FFVII in my oppinion.

[MarukuAntoni]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Reminds me. Now I'm up to three official Final Fantasy games tried and four total with "Final Fantasy" in the title.

I did actually start playing FF7 once. However, the graphics were so bad and ATB pissed me off so much that I got rid of it after just half an hour of playing.

You can criticize me for making these kinds of decisions all you want, but the fact of the matter is that the game looks horrible. Yes, it was one of the first attempts at 3-D, but look at all of Nintendo's games. They all age well. Super Mario 64, blocky as it is, still looks more realistic despite not even needing to be realistic. Ocarina of Time was still fun for me ten years later.

Triangles for arms. Wow.

You should realize how much room cg effects, motion effects, and other things took up. Squaresoft added so much detail that it couldn't fit into the N64 cartridges. Hence, they had to use CDs to store up the info.

[Squeek]

Re: Final Fantasy?

And yet, the two games I mentioned that looked better than Final Fantasy 7 (thus needing more visual effects to pull off the realism) were on the Nintendo 64. Funny how that works.

Also, it would be great if you could check your facts. Square dropped Nintendo primarily because development costs for cartridges were too high (3x as expensive on average) and that programming for the cartridges was too complicated. They stayed with Sony because Nintendo insisted on using Mini-DVDs for Gamecube and they had already established themselves with the PS2 by the time X was to come out. It's no surprise to me that they're going multiplatform with XIII because of everything that I just mentioned for the jump to the PS1. PS3 development costs are enormous compared to 360 costs and Blu-Ray isn't exactly that much better than standard DVDs, especially when you consider load times, which are unbearably slow on the PS3 even after you install some things on your hard drive.

One serious problem that I see across the board with their 3D games is jumpiness. When I first saw the intro to FFX, I had to turn off my television. It was hurting my eyes. Everyone was jumpy. I don't see this in any N64 games, and Square has had this mistake all the way up to the PS2.

Finally, Chrono is infinitely better than Final Fantasy. It's the only franchise from Square that I can acknowledge as being good. Seriously, compare Chrono Cross to Final Fantasy 8. They were both released in the same year on the same console by the same company. Chrono Cross is just better in every way, yet nobody even knows about it. Tales of Destiny is better in every way. It was on the same console. Nobody even knows about it.

It really makes you wonder why Final Fantasy is the only RPG franchise people repeatedly buy every time when they ignore everything else. I'm going to reverse some of your logic back to you. How do I know Final Fantasy is bad by only playing one of them? Well, how do you know Final Fantasy is the best RPG franchise without playing all of the rest?

[leo172519]

Re: Final Fantasy?

I love seeing the technology difference from each FF especially the HUGE transition between VII and VIII, its like night and day.

EDIT: I agree with Squeek, Crono Cross was the better game although I never got to finish the thing

[MarukuAntoni]

Re: Final Fantasy?

I thought it was the combination of the two, format and cost. Square had a vision of making games with FMVs and other cinematics which couldn't be experienced with the 64 cartridge. Once the effects and designs were made, all the rendering would've taken up a lot of space.

A quote from Hironobu Sakaguchi:

"When we discussed designing the field scenes as illustrations or CG based, we came up with the idea to eliminate the connection between movies and the fields. Without using blackout at all, and maintaining quality at the same time, we would make the movie stop at one cut and make the characters move around on it. We tried to make it controllable even during the movies. As a result of using a lot of motion data + CG effects and in still images, it turned out to be a mega capacity game, and therefore we had to choose CD-ROM as our media. It other words, we became too aggressive, and got ourselves into trouble."

I don't know the deal with Blu-Ray as I don't see a total difference in quality. I just know that it holds more space. Like you said, it's no surprise they're going cross platform. They'd save more money, especially after losing so much from sales.

I know Square was interested in Dolphin, or Gamecube, but I don't know what happened after that.

I didn't say that Final Fantasy was the best RPG franchise. I said in another post that each franchise had their up and down games. I loved Xenogears story than any of the games in Final Fantasy. In my opinion, its story was better than any of the Final Fantasy games. It could've been a great franchise, but Xenosaga wasn't good. I think that people know more about FF than other games because fanboys do hype it up and it's possibly the only RPG they've played. They need to expand their gaming experience. I'm not sure where your last two questions stemmed from because there is no possible way you can.

[zidart]

Re: Final Fantasy?

And yet, the two games I mentioned that looked better than Final Fantasy 7 (thus needing more visual effects to pull off the realism) were on the Nintendo 64. Funny how that works.

Also, it would be great if you could check your facts. Square dropped Nintendo primarily because development costs for cartridges were too high (3x as expensive on average) and that programming for the cartridges was too complicated. They stayed with Sony because Nintendo insisted on using Mini-DVDs for Gamecube and they had already established themselves with the PS2 by the time X was to come out. It's no surprise to me that they're going multiplatform with XIII because of everything that I just mentioned for the jump to the PS1. PS3 development costs are enormous compared to 360 costs and Blu-Ray isn't exactly that much better than standard DVDs, especially when you consider load times, which are unbearably slow on the PS3 even after you install some things on your hard drive.

One serious problem that I see across the board with their 3D games is jumpiness. When I first saw the intro to FFX, I had to turn off my television. It was hurting my eyes. Everyone was jumpy. I don't see this in any N64 games, and Square has had this mistake all the way up to the PS2.

Finally, Chrono is infinitely better than Final Fantasy. It's the only franchise from Square that I can acknowledge as being good. Seriously, compare Chrono Cross to Final Fantasy 8. They were both released in the same year on the same console by the same company. Chrono Cross is just better in every way, yet nobody even knows about it. Tales of Destiny is better in every way. It was on the same console. Nobody even knows about it.

It really makes you wonder why Final Fantasy is the only RPG franchise people repeatedly buy every time when they ignore everything else. I'm going to reverse some of your logic back to you. How do I know Final Fantasy is bad by only playing one of them? Well, how do you know Final Fantasy is the best RPG franchise without playing all of the rest?

i don't say is the best RPG franchise but it's up there (like in second place in my opinion XD) but my library is 80% RPGs so i don't think you got a point when you say "Well, how do you know Final Fantasy is the best RPG franchise without playing all of the rest?", i don't think is the best but i don't think is as bad as you describe it.

also graphics don't matter at all, polygons or detailed graphics??? i don't care for them, i don't care if i got a super blu-ray detailed game or a crappy pixelated one (even though the polygons in FF7 are decent enough) HECK tales of the abyss animations are awkward and the backgrounds are like a ps1 megaman legends game, but do i care??? no is still one of the best games ever (and well FF7 is awesome but not the best just great)

[Squeek]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Graphics don't matter unless they're really, really bad.

There are three kinds of graphics in my opinion.

Horrible graphics, which severely underestimate the potential of the system they're on.
Decent graphics, which are standard for the system they're on.
Great graphics, which push the limits of the system they're on.

Among those three categories, there are three more categories. Graphics that make the games worse, graphics that don't change the gameplay at all, and graphics that make the game better.

Final Fantasy 7's graphics are pathetic, and they make the game worse. Tales of the Abyss's graphics are horrible-decent by some people's standards, but they actually make the game better. Trying for realistic graphics like FFX did will make the game look worse. Stuttering framerates, choppy animations, and so on. You won't find this in Tales of the Abyss. And yes, I know FFX came out long before Tales of the Abyss and that FF7 was one of the first games on the PS1, but there are other games that came out around the same time that prove that realistic graphics were easily possible at that time.

And graphics don't make a game, either. Take Crysis. We all know it's the biggest graphic-pushing game out there now. I hate Crysis. It's just shallow gameplay mixed with horrible controls and a worthless plot. I really like first-person shooters and I've played dozens of them, so in this regard I think I actually have a meaningful opinion.

[zidart]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Graphics don't matter unless they're really, really bad.

There are three kinds of graphics in my opinion.

Horrible graphics, which severely underestimate the potential of the system they're on.
Decent graphics, which are standard for the system they're on.
Great graphics, which push the limits of the system they're on.

Among those three categories, there are three more categories. Graphics that make the games worse, graphics that don't change the gameplay at all, and graphics that make the game better.

Final Fantasy 7's graphics are pathetic, and they make the game worse. Tales of the Abyss's graphics are horrible-decent by some people's standards, but they actually make the game better. Trying for realistic graphics like FFX did will make the game look worse. Stuttering framerates, choppy animations, and so on. You won't find this in Tales of the Abyss. And yes, I know FFX came out long before Tales of the Abyss and that FF7 was one of the first games on the PS1, but there are other games that came out around the same time that prove that realistic graphics were easily possible at that time.

And graphics don't make a game, either. Take Crysis. We all know it's the biggest graphic-pushing game out there now. I hate Crysis. It's just shallow gameplay mixed with horrible controls and a worthless plot. I really like first-person shooters and I've played dozens of them, so in this regard I think I actually have a meaningful opinion.

but then that just contradicts yourself... saying they don't matter then saying that bad graphics actually make it better (and by the way there's a difference between GRAPHICS and STYLE.... example difference between Tales of the abyss and Tales of Vesperia thank you very much).

sometimes game's graphics are not that good but that actually doesn't make it better or worse, even if the graphics suck big time (even though FF7 were very nice for being one of the first 3D RPGs Note: i said "one of the" not "the first") and i already said my example, Tales of the abyss has a nice style but the graphics have some problems and the characters just don't move naturally (but who cares still best game ever IMO).

yes there were games with better graphics back then but does that necessarily make FF7 a bad looking game for its time? i don't think so, and quite honestly an RPG is not in the list of games that "Graphics that make the games worse" (besides the battle cutscenes were good looking anyway)

[tsugomaru]

Re: Final Fantasy?

And in the end it's all opinion. So what if someone hated FFVII graphics and thought that ruined the game for him? That's his opinion and nothing you say is going to change it.

You can argue about your philosophies about how graphics should or did influence a game, but in the end, it's different for everyone. I myself will ignore bad graphics if the game's design is extremely good, but it would definitely be nice if the graphics weren't choppy. I have friends who would rather choose to play a game with good graphics and completely ignore bad design characteristics.

~Tsugomaru

[Athefre]

Re: Final Fantasy?

And in the end it's all opinion. So what if someone hated FFVII graphics and thought that ruined the game for him? That's his opinion and nothing you say is going to change it.

You can argue about your philosophies about how graphics should or did influence a game, but in the end, it's different for everyone. I myself will ignore bad graphics if the game's design is extremely good, but it would definitely be nice if the graphics weren't choppy. I have friends who would rather choose to play a game with good graphics and completely ignore bad design characteristics.

~Tsugomaru

Same here. I think it's weird that almost every time I go to the game section of Walmart I see a group of kids hovering around the PS3 demos constantly saying "Look at those graphics!".

Another related thing I would like to comment on is how some people will buy a game just because they liked what they saw in the commercial. But maybe they don't know about these online game sites and forums to keep up with and research games before they make their decision.

To stay on topic I'll say that I don't like many of the Final Fantasy games. I'm a Dragon Quest guy though

FF1: Interesting to play because it makes me remember my NES days.
FFVII: Couldn't get into it.
FFVIII: I loved the story but couldn't get into the battles or the usual FF (annoying to me) minigames
FFIX: I liked the style but more minigames...
FFX: Fun
FFXII: I loved this game, I spent 90 hours on this.

[plasmix]

Re: Final Fantasy?

I haven't seen anyone mention the terribleness of VII's fixed camera. Pressing in a direction could send you up to 45 degrees off your mark. Pretty much ruined exploration for me.

Also, to whoever said that VI's storyline was cliche, did you play up to the part where Kefka destroys the world halfway through the game?

[Phynx]

Re: Final Fantasy?

FINAL FANTASY 7 FTFW! Nuff said.