Final Fantasy VIII has fantastic presentation. The background designs (specifically Balamb Garden, Dollet, Esthar and Deling City), the chosen colour palettes for each of the backgrounds, the musical score... that stuff worked very well. Also, the character designs, outside of maybe Zell, were great. Quistis is probably my favourite character design out of the bunch.
The story... uh, well... there should've been a metal theme about riding trains!
Let's come to a concensus (if that's possible), rate the FF stories by epicness...
IMO:
IV 8/10 - fascinating story concept, incredible to think about honestly
V 5/10 - too "Eastern" and boring, shattering crystals break the balance of the elements, why would I shed a tear? lol
VI 9/10 - epic character developments, cried for the first time in a video game
VII 10/10 - the definitive in every aspect and an incredibly deep and dark story that possesses interest right from the start, the story was incredible if you can understand it, never a dull moment
VIII 7/10 - loss of the darkness and perhaps the epicness of the previous for a more light-hearted (and humorous at times) plot, I never lost interest though
IX 7/10 - honestly I can't remember right now...
X 8/10 - pushed the series into more of the J-pop "fantasy" feel for better or worse
X-2 ?? Not even interested enough to play through
XII 6/10 - couldn't keep interest, well done but waaay too political ala Star Wars
XIII ?? - Have not played, can someone else summarize?
XIII-2 ??
I just simply can't agree with this at all. FFIV has a few good characters, but the story itself is a mess, ruined by plot-twists that are almost as stupid as VIII's. ("I will sacrifice myself so that yo can go on~" -> a few hours later: "so, turns out this dying thing is a lot harder than I thought, I'm back, lulz")
Amorehumblesquare, why do you dislike my favorite FF games. FFV was absolutely brilliant, one of the best of the old school FF games.
I agree with the users who dislike FF8's story, its a joke. The premise was great and the game was off to an excellent start. It introduced its characters well, their motives and their raison d'etre. (Poor Quistis disc 1) but then the game just TANKS after disc 1. Want to know what happened to Squall and friends after the "strong" finale from disc 1? TOUGH YOU GOTTA HANG OUT WITH LAGUNA. And from there the narrative just gets messy and shonen like. The game goes throws way to many plot points at you
(wait Edea is a good guy? What happened to the assassinate the witch plan)
and by disc 3 and 4 I can't give a fuck. Rinoa is a witch? Ok, but it doesn't really manifest in plot and barely manifests gameplay wise... ok then.
The real villain is ultimecia who was introduced at the last second literally? And there's a CONVOLUTED PLAN THAT MAKES NO SENSE TO STOP HER.
Check.
God i know i'm ranting, but fuck FF8 pisses me off so much.
Also i'm not too bent out of shape over the FFXIII-2 terrible story. I doubt it will reach the frustrations of FFVIII. FFIX is the only modern day FF I hold to my heart. Such a good game...
FF9 fans, where u @. (FFIX fans are the coolest FF fans)
If you want me to rate the FF stories, I will. Because I love letting my opinion be known and I love rating things.
FF4-I've played it on the GBA back when that came out, but a revaluation of the PSP Version makes me realize the whole thing is kind of corny. I really couldn't stand it this time so I'll give it a 5/10 because it is old.
FF6-While I think maybe the characters are a little less great then everyone says they are, they are still pretty enjoyable and the story feels epic. There's a lot going on, so it never feels boring. Plus that amazing ending. It's pretty much the most well rounded. 9/10
FF7-I find a lot of the side stuff to be very boring, but the main plot and Cloud's story is very engaging. 8/10
FF8-Trash/10
FF9-I like the beginning a lot more then where the game goes. When the story is simple it's very fun, but the ending is kind of a let down. When Zidane goes through his identity crisis I lose some interests. Still Vivi's story is very thought provoking and keeps your interests. 8/10
FF10-My personal favorite. it's just very well paced, but I'm pretty bias with this game. Great/10
FF11-The world is very interesting, but I never played enough. Don't know/10
FFXII- I actually like XII's story. It's really up and down as it really feels like it kind of loses steam, but the actual themes are well stated in Ash's story and Vayne is an actual cool villain. Too bad his believability goes out the window when he becomes Brolly. 7/10
FFXIII-I like XIII's story. It has a pretty interesting premise and while the ending is made up of contradictions, I actually think up until Pulse it's pretty good, but after Pulse it just seems to bum around with nothing happening and having basically all its points continually restated. It peaks too early. 6/10
I just simply can't agree with this at all. FFIV has a few good characters, but the story itself is a mess, ruined by plot-twists that are almost as stupid as VIII's. ("I will sacrifice myself so that yo can go on~" -> a few hours later: "so, turns out this dying thing is a lot harder than I thought, I'm back, lulz")
It had it's cheezy moments (not as bad as V though) but I blamed the localization for much of that. I suppose it was the most "in our reality" FF we ever got (the moon, the world named Earth, etc.) and that brought it closer to home for me and for some reason that raises the epicness on my scale (a la Phantasy Star II's ending which was incredible in that aspect but I won't go there).
*spoilers* Yes it wasn't presented as well and was cliche'd with the usual power of crystal elements, the bad guys under possession and pawns of something continually highersbut something about the story of an alien race that came to EArth early in its history, dwelling as Lunarians deep within the center of the moon awaiting humanity's advancement and the subsequent mixing of two individuals who escaped to Earth early on one with ulterior motives, is fascinating in my book. The theme of redemption for Cecil after having been born a dark knight and then to suddenly hear his lunarian father speak out to him at that point upon his being "lightened" and to where that would ultimately take him as the truth of the world and his origins and its origins are uncovered to him/them.
Ahah, that's why you were curiously absent here. Considering you were one of the few supporters of the much under-appreciated XIII – and your "review" as usual really detailed – I was really looking forward to your opinion on this sequel. But then I guess I'll have to wait for february when both we'll have our games.
Still, it's so funny sometimes to see how much different are your opinions from Kagari's ones. Even on Maaya Sakamoto now
That sounds like a typical jrpg to me. You fought tons of enemies that required different deployments of your classess. I'm not sure what more I could ask out of XII.
That sounds like a typical jrpg to me. You fought tons of enemies that required different deployments of your classess. I'm not sure what more I could ask out of XII.
Considering you were one of the few supporters of the much under-appreciated XIII and your "review" as usual really detailed I was really looking forward to your opinion on this sequel.
@SQUARE_ENIX_EU
SQUARE ENIX EUROPE
The Crystal Edition of Final Fantasy XIII is nearly sold out in the UK. More copies will be made available today. Well update with links.
45 minutes ago via TweetDeck
FF8 has the best world design in the series. No amount of time kompression and orphanages can change that. We all know you want to live at Balamb Garden, so stop hiding it!
i disagree ..Even if teh ap was more than average , the means of trasnport were bad and uneven , .. not to mention the poor DISC 3 were you're basicly left to wander because the indication given are unefficient . Even if teh map design is already , i can't enjoy it because of all the restructions the put into ( i have to get fuel for my car ? WTF ) Balamb garden was also unimpressive to me.
EDIT : sorry if i'm late ..
Anyway back to FF13 ..So we have a bad ending and possibly a good ending ? i hope the ending is determined on side quests done , and not on some stupid conditions ( stuff like missable events that you HAVE to do before a certain time. )
Too non-linear would be a problem for me because I hate games that are too open-ended ._. I'd prefer FF XIII-linearity over the open scale of Skyrim...
Nobody is complaing about the linearity of final fantasy. They were always linear. They were complaining that in ffxiii the so called 'dungeons' are bloody straight lines.
A little further in. About 4 hours now? Seems like most of the main gameplay elements have been introduced. Cool stuff so far. The last dungeon I cleared was quite large with lots of different paths and loot to look for.
This really is a very different beast from XIII. Loving it.
She'll give it to us straight, she didn't hesitate on FFXIII's problems at all which is why I value her opinions. Despite her slight obsession with all things FFXIII, she didn't do any sugarcoating.
