Final Fantasy?

[Homicidal Cherry]

Re: Final Fantasy?

I didn't say there weren't any story-driven games. I implied that WRPGs are more focused on killing things and JRPGs are more focused on story. You'll find examples that break the mold from both sides of the spectrum, but the over-arching standard remains that in the West, we like to kill baddies more than read about things and in the East, they prefer a narrative to endless enemy-slaughter.

And I implied that this wasn't so. I don't know the breadth of your experience with the genre, but that just simply isn't true. In fact, I would argue that Champions of Norath and Dungeon Siege (Not sure about Dark Alliance. Never bothered with the console Baldur's Gate's) aren't even WRPG's. They have much more in common with something like Diablo than Fallout or Kotor. They are dungeon-crawling action-RPG's, not WRPG's. It seems that you have the notion that those two are the same genre, which isn't true.

Combat is not a defining feature of WRPG's. Something like Fallout, with fully turn-based combat is just as much of a WRPG (more of one I'd say) as Oblivion. It is choice, not combat that separates WRPG's and JRPG's. JRPG's are more linear with preset stories that can't be changed, regardless of the character's course of action (because there is only one course of action for the character to take). WRPG's, on the other hand, are similar to D&D, in that the player is supposed to literally assume the role of the main character, and be able to make all of the decisions that entails. Granted, we are talking about a video game here so there has to be a certain amount of restriction on exactly what the player can choose, but I'd say being able to choose the outcome of major plot events is necessary if a game is to be a WRPG.

So, the focus of a WRPG is giving the character the ability to choose, and this inherent characteristic makes good stories frequent in WRPG's. The fact that you are, in essence, becoming the main character means that a great deal of emotional investment in, not only the PC, but the other characters in the game is inevitable. When you are the one determining their fate, your decisions actually have weight, and you actually have to determine which characters live and which die (in Mass Effect for example), the storyline becomes very powerful.

Finally, The Witcher? Boring as hell. KOTOR was okay. One plot twist at the end doesn't do it for me though. Also, I hate Star Wars to begin with. KOTOR II was horrible and left a black mark on the series for me. Oblivion was fantastic, but Morrowind was better.

The Witcher wasn't boring as hell, but I'll skip the argument there so we can stay focused on the general topic instead of focusing on one game (which is quite small relative to the entire genre). KotOR II was a definite step down from the first, but awful? I'll admit that Malachor V was a bloody mess, and that the game was glitchy, but it was still a dam good game.

[zidart]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Well you know the things he pointed out are not always essential in an rpg anyways. I don't know about you but I like to build my character from the bottom up. I'm not worried about getting experience for a character that I don't use. To me it doesn't make sense if your "out of play characters" get experience at all.

indeed, the idea of a party in a RPG is not to use all the characters but rather to build the party you want to build, and use the characters you think might make the best combination.

the only games i actually use different party members and constantly change them is the tales of games but that's because characters do obtain levels and the level of strategy is not as high as other RPGs so i do use everyone in a regular basis (not saying is bad but i think both "all characters level up" and "not all characters level up" are both just factors that made you make more strategic decisions).

i don't think is a design issue because it improves the challenge and the sense of strategy but to each one on their own

[tsugomaru]

Re: Final Fantasy?

How is it more challenging? I've beaten every boss by playing it safe, but as a result the battle is slower. Did designers intend I risk the battle by throwing attacks here and there and hoping I don't die?

It's a designer issue.

Let me tell you, they fixed it in FFVI by giving you a little more leniency when it came to mistakes so you could do some trial and error to see if this or that works without wiping.

~Tsugomaru

[Bahamut-X]

Re: Final Fantasy?

I used to think of final fantasy games as the best things ever but as I get older and play more games I find that alot of them have flaws.

FF7:
- "Attack" syndrome or whatever you want to call it. It seems like this is the case with all final fantasies. Magic becomes COMPLETELY useless once you reach the point where your weapons are dealing max damage every turn, making each battle repetitive and boring. This is a shame since there is so much magic in the game to use.
- That brings me to my next point, the repetitiveness. If you want to max out your materia or levels or whatever, plan to fight the same monsters over and over again using the same commands each battle. Chocobo racing was also extremely repetitive and very uninvolving. All you had to do was hold square and occasionally press circle to win.
- Some of the monsters were just really weird and felt out of place. Pinball machine sentry drones? Possessed motorcycles? I just wish they would have kept to simpler, more believable monster designs (FFX is a great example of monsters that make sense).
- Exploitation of mime+limit break and other materia combinations (like mime and sneak attack with yuffie).
- On the positive side, the concept behind materia was very, very interesting and fun. It was just executed poorly and was underdeveloped. A better materia system could have led to more interesting battles, and a much more worthwhile game.

FF8:
- Attack syndrome again.
- Man, did they EVER screw up the magic system in this game. Everything about it is terrible. First of all, to obtain it, you need to spend 10 minutes or so mindlessly drawing it from enemies as they kill you. Second of all, once you junction it to one of your stats, the incentive to use it is basically nonexistent since doing so will decrease the value of spells you have and weaken the stat you have it junctioned to. Third of all, magic wasn't very strong anyway. I don't ever recall using it. Once. The game could have been exactly the same if magic was renamed something like "stat augments", cause that is the only purpose they served.
- Abilities like recover and treatment further render magics like cure and esuana useless. It's almost like they were trying to tell you not to use magic.
- On the plus side, I personally found the card playing minigame extremely entertaining and it was always fun to find and win rare cards. Also, the story and characters really connected with me for some reason.

FF10:
- Alright, here's the deal with the battle system. For the story part of the game the system works reasonably well and battles remain interesting. However, once you break into other people's sphere areas and complete the sphere grid, it once again becomes attack syndrome + haste + protect + occasional revival. Seriously, the hardest boss in the game is incredibly easy because all you need to do is have everyone's agility maxed, attack him with weapons, and occasionally revive if someone dies. Also, by the time your agility IS maxed, all the other bosses in the monster arena besides nemesis will be killed before they get their first turn to attack.
- THE MONSTER CATCHING. OH MY GOD THE MONSTER CATCHING. WHO'S IDEA WAS IT TO FORCE YOU TO CATCH TEN OF EVERY MONSTER? How long did it take you guys to catch the last few remaining monster in a certain area? How many battles did you have to flee from before you got that last tonberry or simurgh or other annoyingly rare monster? My god, they should have lowered the capture limit to 1, or, at the very least, 3 or something. This is the most boring and annoying sidequest in the game.
- On the plus side, the soundtrack is one of the best I've ever heard and the I really liked the story. Also, the sphere grid made "leveling" up your character much more fun and interesting than, well, leveling.

FF12:
- I'm still really not sure if I like this game or not. I'm currently on my second playthrough. One of the problems I have with this game is how hands off the battle system can become. Seriously, if you set up your gambits cleverly all you need to do is run towards a group of monsters, set the controller down, and wait until they're dead. However, I do find myself in some fights where I will have to manually overlook a battle, and those are actually very entertaining and are probably what keep me coming back to the game. Instead of having leveling based around easily killing a high amount of weak monsters, I personally would have preffered it centered around killing a low amount of stronger monsters that force you to use strategy to kill (although there are some of these in the game, just not enough).
- I really, really like the characters in this game. Except for Vaan and Penelo. They contributed NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, to the overall story. Vaan himself even says in once scene that the only reason he's with the main party is to "run away from his own past" or something. Penelo is there then I guess just to stay with Vaan. Taking this all into account, it's mindblowing that they made Vaan the main character.
- The story is very political and, to an extent, cliche. Resistance vs. empire type of thing.
- Voice acting is done very, very well.

I just really had to share my thoughts on this. My recommendation out of the ones I've played would probably be 12 since I find the battle system more involving than the other titles, since magic and strategy tend to play a bigger role.

[TheRapingDragon]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Haven't really been keeping up with this but just wanted to say one thing:

FF7:
- "Attack" syndrome or whatever you want to call it. It seems like this is the case with all final fantasies. Magic becomes COMPLETELY useless once you reach the point where your weapons are dealing max damage every turn, making each battle repetitive and boring. This is a shame since there is so much magic in the game to use.

Master Summon (Knights of the round) + Quad Magic + W-Summon + Mime > Attacking.

Unfortunately some FF games do get a little repetitive with attacking but if you enjoy RPGs then you'll understand that a lot of them (not just FF games) focus on attacking again and again and again.

[Bahamut-X]

Re: Final Fantasy?

They shouldn't. A good RPG should utilize magic and skills along with attacking. Unfortunately however, it seems alot of RPGs do fall into this trap. The biggest challenge I think when making an RPG is designing a well rounded battle system that doesn't just cater to one command or a small group of commands, but all commands.

Also, you are technically right about the knights of the round thing, but realistically no one trained like that. The only time I can see something like that being done is on emerald / ruby.

[zidart]

Re: Final Fantasy?

How is it more challenging? I've beaten every boss by playing it safe, but as a result the battle is slower. Did designers intend I risk the battle by throwing attacks here and there and hoping I don't die?

It's a designer issue.

Let me tell you, they fixed it in FFVI by giving you a little more leniency when it came to mistakes so you could do some trial and error to see if this or that works without wiping.

~Tsugomaru

no designers intend that you used your head in order to see the patterns of the boss and think of a strategy to beat them, your technique makes the battle slow, heck if you think about it if you played all out defense in every other RPG (but FFX because they show the turns) you would get the same slow paced result.

oh and magic is very useful if you know what is the weakness of the enemy.

[azntony8030]

Re: Final Fantasy?

FF VII is crap, FF VIII is good, FFIX is good, FFX is alright, FF XI no, and FFXII is alright.

[Zephyr57]

Re: Final Fantasy?

FFVII was a good game on its own, but the offshoots and so-called "expansion" from the FFVII project kinda killed it, Dirge of Cerberus especially.

I still think my favorite to this day is FFX, but don't ask me why. I just like that one more than the others, although I've only played VII-XII.

[ArvinG]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Personally, my favourite FF was 5, and thats mainly because it introduced the Job System, kind of, I mean, there already was one, but you couldn't switch between jobs, and FF5 had a huuuuuuuuge list of jobs you could play, around 30 or so, I think.

Anyways, it was a pretty simple game, it could have been a lot longer, but monsters like Shinryuu and Omega made up for that, they would pretty much rape you in a matter if seconds if you got unlucky, I was even getting game over @ lvl99. FF5 also had Gilgamesh, and its awesome theme, that alone is enough reason to at least try the game.

[Squeek]

Re: Final Fantasy?

Oh hey thread was updated so I'll crosspost my thoughts on FF6 here.

(10:42:47 PM) Squeek: just for kicks i am going to play ff6
(10:42:57 PM) Squeek: if the battle system pisses me off at all i am going to quit
(10:43:06 PM) Squeek: and believe me when i say i am fast-forwarding the opera scene
(10:43:11 PM) Shashakiro: hahahaha

TIME PASSES

(11:02:56 PM) Squeek: so far
(11:02:59 PM) Squeek: i hate the battle system
(11:03:34 PM) Squeek: i hate the time waiting thing
(11:03:38 PM) Squeek: it doesn't make sense to me
(11:03:40 PM) Squeek: i said attack
(11:03:42 PM) Squeek: don't just stand there
(11:03:49 PM) Squeek: go run up, swing, and run back into place waiting to take damage

TIME PASSES

(11:07:03 PM) Squeek: GOD THIS IS SO RETARDED I QUIT
(11:07:14 PM) Squeek: HEY GUYS
(11:07:16 PM) Squeek: THIS SNAIL THING
(11:07:21 PM) Squeek: IT'S BAD IF YOU ATTACK ITS SHELL
(11:07:22 PM) Squeek: SO DON'T
(11:07:24 PM) Squeek: OK
(11:07:25 PM) Squeek: so
(11:07:27 PM) Squeek: i target the head
(11:07:31 PM) Squeek: but he ducks into his shell
(11:07:33 PM) Squeek: and because of the atb
(11:07:38 PM) Squeek: i'm already set to attack
(11:07:39 PM) Squeek: so
(11:07:41 PM) Squeek: they attack the shell
(11:07:42 PM) Squeek: and i die
(11:07:45 PM) Squeek: what a retarded game
(11:07:49 PM) Shashakiro: gg
(11:07:50 PM) Squeek: this is the first ****ing fight
(11:07:57 PM) Shashakiro: lol

And that's how far I got into Final Fantasy VI before giving up.

That was absolute bull****.

And I didn't even make it to the opera scene.

Also what's with the title screen that I can't skip?

God these games are so poorly made. I can't believe anyone plays them.

-End crosspost-

Just so you know I did end up beating that fight after another try or two but the fury I felt from how stupid the battle system was made me quit playing instantly. I put in Super Punch-Out and played that for a solid hour without even knowing what to do. Fun game.

Also the plot of the first thirty seconds of ff6 was horrible. You know what that story-writing reminded me of?

the flams go to 20 feet

Come on you can't even be more original than "slave crown"? Wow. I wonder what it is. Oh hey it's a crown that makes you unable to think. How convenient.

[ArvinG]

Re: Final Fantasy?

.........................


wow you're just awful, that wasn't the games fault lol

[leo172519]

Re: Final Fantasy?

lol, I definitely understand the hatred to to VI's battle system, but for its time it was amazing imho

VII: Over hyped but it still has a great backbone on the magic system although I'll have to agree on the repetitiveness of attacking once you hit...lvl30?

VIII: For the longest time I loved the story but after a quick replay of the game I realize that it get weird by the end of the 3rd disc...they hit a tangent and shoot off. Time compression?? come on.... main thing I don't like is that you can keep your level below 10 and beat the game rather easily considering the monsters lvl with you.

X: Some of the puzzles took a while, other than that blitzball is fun and the idea of the sphere grid was nice out of the box thinking. Although I beat the game it didn't particularly get me in the mood to give a go at X-2 and I own it :/

XII: I love the battle system although like Bahamut-X any clever set-up of the gambits can get you through many enemies and a lot of levels quickly. I also didn't like the whole hunts concept. I mean it was amazing, but the amount of running around was kind of boring and many of the monsters were ridiculously easy to kill. Next is the license board system that reminded me of the sphere grid in X minus the how easy it is to be overpowered if you take the time to level. Oh...I also hated having to go back a second time with a strategy guide just to make sure I don't open up a few crates........

[Squeek]

Re: Final Fantasy?

.........................


wow you're just awful, that wasn't the games fault lol

You're not the first person to tell me this.

I cannot get used to ATB. It will never make sense to me and I don't understand its function.

I have never played any other RPG where I lost a fight for a reason other than being underleveled. In both Final Fantasy games I played, I lost fights because I didn't know the "proper" way to win.

I'm assuming the first time you played Final Fantasy 6, you saw that "Garuuuu" flash on the top of the screen and knew not to issue any new commands. I assumed that too, but I had already told one of my guys to use an attack. He just decided to wait five seconds before using it.

I hate games like that.

So now I'm going to cross-post the reply I had to the first person who told me "lol u just suk"

Only someone who is used to ATB can use ATB. I'm not. I hate it. I don't understand it. So now, not only are you running up, doing a punch, then running back to wait in line to take damage, you're doing it against a clock that takes FOR ****ING EVER to replenish.

Turn-based combat doesn't make sense to begin with, and now this? "Sorry guys, swinging my sword once took a lot out of me. I am going to rest for a while. Yeah the bad guys can hit me. It's cool. I'm not going to defend at all, no. I'm just going to stand here."

Now, the snail thing would have worked in a standard turn-based battle system, but only if he ducked his head in after the last person in your party took a turn. That's not what happened. He ducked his head in while the last person's clock was charging, and once it finished, he ran up and attacked. I couldn't stop it.

I know you're going to use the same point so many people say: SRPGs like Disgaea. I love these games despite the turn-based system and I'll tell you why. It's not a "I run up, hit you, and run back waiting for you to hit me" system. It's strategically placing units outside of enemy range and then coordinating a battle knowing full well that doing so leaves you vulnerable to enemy strikes after you do so. Enemies come to you, you go to enemies. Unless you really, really suck at a game, you don't run up to them and then run back.

Let's put this in perspective. YOU are a random farm boy and you and a bunch of friends with pitchforks and whatever are walking along when you see a giant monster in the road. You try to escape, but he's too fast for you. You decide to fight. Are you going to run up there one at a time, give it one hit, then run back to your starting position waiting to take damage? Hell ****ing no. You're all going to split up and attack it from behind if possible, using one or two people to distract it from the front while the others go around back. You would only stop attacking to defend against an attack that you see coming.

Now let's look at Tales of the Abyss. Your party of four encounters a giant monster. You have your two mages set to be situated in the back, giving them distance from the monster, as your two melee characters handle the beast from up close. You send one melee character to attack it from behind as you take care of it from the front, attacking with many different attacks to try to confuse it and make sure you keep it away from the mages. You can block, parry, dodge, or magic-guard all of his attacks if you're not in the middle of attacking yourself. You see it begin to cast some kind of magic, so you furiously work in a combo that will knock it over to cancel its cast, but you're too late and the magic spell is cast. You quickly dash out of the way of the spell to avoid getting hurt and wait for it to end before rushing back in to attack once more or try to go around the spell to get in attacks from behind while he's focused on the magic.

The difference in combat systems is so insane that I cannot imagine how anyone could prefer the turn-based retardedness of Final Fantasy games. And, what's more, aside from some of the optional bosses in Tales, I never lost a fight. Yes, the fights were hard if I was underleveled, but I never lost. None of the fights require anything special to win. You don't have to push a monster off a cliff, you don't have to wait for a certain head to pop out, etc. Bosses also block and move around just like you can, and human bosses are incredibly intelligent. The need for retarded means of making a fight harder is no longer necessary. I wish Final Fantasy developers would learn this.

[ArvinG]

Re: Final Fantasy?

do you have it on wait on active >.> and you can skip turns with a button, I can't remember which one it is, but it was triangle on psx (which blows, SNES ftw)