Final Fantasy VII Remake

Malakriss_sl said:

It's been so long but wasn't the person "singing" at the start not even Yuna but the impostor? So the story has you literally kick their ass for singing that? Your dicks aren't shrinking, you're just turning into gigantic pussies.

Click to expand...

Whether it's Yuna or not Yuna singing terrible J Pop, it's still fucking terrible J Pop.

Vorph_sl said:

Not sure what FF12 has to do with anything, but it has a metacritic score of 92 and IZJS improved on the base game in every way possible. I'm fairly sure it's the people who think the game is a steaming pile of shit who are the butthurt vocal minority.

Click to expand...

Seriously... Almost everyone I know loved 12 once they washed the sand out of their pussies and got 1/3rd of the way through the game so they could set some effective gambits(I think they were gambits?). I mean yeah, we'll all just agree to pretend there were no summons in 12. SINCE THERE WERE NO SUMMONS IN TWELVE. But aside from that if no haste -> haste, if hp < 40% cast Curaga isn't some THE GAME PLAYS ITSELF crime. Bitch, you were gonna cast Curaga when your hp was less than 40% anyways, now you can focus on keeping retards out of AOES instead.

12's combat is one of my favorite in any rpg ever, and I really liked the way the IZJS broke up the omni-class stuff. The gambit system was a natural progression of characters who always auto-attack; characters who always cast spells; characters who always do special moves etc etc. However, I will say it directly contributed to the gameplay style that was in FF-13 with the paradigms. Instead of programming the AI via gambits, you just chose a mode for the AI and it would auto-use abilities that players would manually select anyway.

12's big problem wasn't the gameplay or the graphics or the art style or whatever. It was entirely related to the fact that the "main" character of the story isn't introduced until a couple of hours in, and the main antagonist for the entire game isn't really even a bad guy. Not to mention the alien-god monsters controlling the world, which is then never referenced again. The writers (especially since the world is apparently the same as FFT and a few other games) tried to capture the political intrigue and gripping story of Final Fantasy Tactics, but towards the end it just sort of meanders away from that and the ending isn't fulfilling at all. That, and they had to shoe-horn in Vaan and Penelo, two easy to "relate" to characters that really don't have a major role in the story after the first 3-4 hours of the game. After that, they are just sightseers along for the ride. Had the game been Balthier/Fran/Ashe/Basch in a four man party with no Penelo/Vaan, and they somehow tied the Occuria into the story more (and made -them- the last boss) as well as having Vayne do some more sinister shit throughout the game to really put him in "bad guy" territory, it would probably be one of the best RPGs ever made. Instead it is just really good with some story problems.

Balthier was the leading man, and he was fantastic.

I loved FF12 at the start, I'd been playing a healer in WoW hardcore raids for months so putting the healer on auto and playing the tank was awesome, the gambit system was great. It really seemed like the future of RPGs.

Until you realised that it was better to play as the healer and automate the tank since the AI could mistime heals, there was very little depth to character progression, there was no storyline after tomb of raithwall or maybe the occuria, the bad guy wasn't bad...

The world needs to come close to ending in a fucking FINAL Fantasy game. Playing FFT recently was a revelation, why was none of that shit in the game? People needed to turn into demons. Even FFTA had a better storyline than FF12.

Game looked good to start, then ended up being a pile of shit. That about sums FF12 up in a nutshell.

12 was badass and 13 remains the only terrible main-series entry imo. Haven't played 1-3, 5 or any of 13's sequels, though.

13-2 was good. I couldn't get through 13-3, but that's probably because I felt rushed.

The game play in 13-2 was better but the story was awful

Time travel, when it is the primary focus, is generally crap. Chrono Trigger is like the one notable exception.

I enjoyed the combat a bit more (though I enjoyed FF13's combat as well) but the story remains pants on head retarded in that installment group.

I really liked 12/9/sub7 FF's for having multiple equipment slots, for like helmets and crap. Way more interesting than one piece of gear with variable abilities in the slots from a "cool" factor, even if in the end it's effectively the same thing. But I doubt that is coming back, especially with the boy-band in 15.

DoctorSpooge_sl said:

12 was badass and 13 remains the only terrible main-series entry imo. Haven't played 1-3, 5 or any of 13's sequels, though.

Click to expand...

XIII is still better than VIII

Itzena_sl said:

XIII is still better than VIII

Click to expand...

Good/memorable things about FF8:
1) Groundbreaking (for the time) graphics with the opening cinematic being the best in the series.
2) In depth passive stat/ability development system with GF levelling and abilities (separate from Draw and Junctioning Magic which I liked but is controversial so leaving off).
3) Triple Triad.
4) Great rival/antagonist battles with Wedge/Biggs, Raijin/Fujin/Seifer and Edea.
5) Awesome moments: Liber Fatali/sorceress battle themes. Reverse Zantetsuken. Laguna sections (the music!). Dollet/Timber/Deling SeeD missions. Garden battle. Lunar Cry. Aliens.
Sure you can point out just as many flaws, but the game has some substance in it's defense and I loved it. It has the 3rd highest sales in the series behind 7 and 10.

Now... what are the things you liked in FF13 (without googling anything)? Or you going to be predictable and just attack things I like?

Chris_sl said:

Good/memorable things about FF8:
1) Groundbreaking (for the time) graphics with the opening cinematic being the best in the series.
2) In depth passive stat/ability development system with GF levelling and abilities (separate from Draw and Junctioning Magic which I liked but is controversial so leaving off).
3) Triple Triad.
4) Great rival/antagonist battles with Wedge/Biggs, Raijin/Fujin/Seifer and Edea.
5) Awesome moments: Liber Fatali/sorceress battle themes. Reverse Zantetsuken. Laguna sections (the music!). Dollet/Timber/Deling SeeD missions. Garden battle. Lunar Cry. Aliens.
Sure you can point out just as many flaws, but the game has some substance in it's defense and I loved it. It has the 3rd highest sales in the series behind 7 and 10.

Now... what are the things you liked in FF13 (without googling anything)? Or you going to be predictable and just attack things I like?

Click to expand...

The draw mechanic was a cool idea executed in a manner calibrated for maximum annoyance. I agree with everything else and consider it a strong entry, although I consider them all strong, excepting FFXIII.

I liked being able to grind out an advantage and I learned from FF7 that regular magic was useless so I never used things junctioned to my stats anyway (thanks Enemy Skill!). I get that for others it was tedious and if I played it as an adult I don't think I'd be too happy with the time waste... when you learn the game you can get magic from GF refining (Siren + some tents = 300 Curaga) and Triple Triad instead though.

The Draw system single-handedly makes 8 the worst FF in the series despite Chris's highly subjective list of positive qualities. None of those things matter when your core mechanic is so wholly terrible.

The Ancient_sl said:

The Draw system single-handedly makes 8 the worst FF in the series despite Chris's highly subjective list of positive qualities. None of those things matter when your core mechanic is so wholly terrible.

Click to expand...

Sure it's highly subjective, I get that some or all of those things won't impress some and I'm growing to respect those opinions more as this topic comes up once a year.

My point though is that it would be very difficult to honestly post a similar list of highly subjective things about FF13 even from it's biggest fanboy. It just lacks the elements which make the other games Final Fantasy.

Tanoomba_sl said:

OK, confession time: I played through and cleared all the Final Fantasies up to and including 7, and haven't cleared any of its successors. I'd like to get back in the game (so to speak), so which one should I play through?

Click to expand...

Just skip 8 & 13

IX is something of a fan-favorite if you don't mind retro graphics and it really is quite good. It shirks the Scifi setting of VII and VIII pretty much altogether.

X along with VII is considered (no citation but for the legion of admirers I encounter on various forums) to be the apex of the series. It's the most linear of the series up to that point, but the combat system is fluid, fast and honed, and the sphere grid (replaces traditional character levels) is all kinds of addictive once you get far enough into it. Has some of the best music in the series and imo hands down the best post-game. I hated the characters, though, but on balance consider it stellar.

XII I never beat but appreciated its earnest attempt to adapt to a shifting RPG landscape. Plays a lot like a narrative-focused single player MMO and has a system that automatizes a lot of what you might consider reactive play (e.g., when a character needs healing, your healer heals for you in lieu of you having to worry about it). It's a sequence of if...then statements that some people might tell you automatizes gameplay excessively and others might tell you is a really feature. My opinion falls more in line with the latter. Story-wise, I thought it was quite good as far as I got. It's more overtly political (not necessarily in an alegorical sense - I just mean the story has a lot of fantasy politics) than its more character-driven predecessors, and I quite liked it, but I never beat it and somebody here made a fool of me at some point by revealing how absurd it eventually got.


XIII causes cancer.