General Final Fantasy Discussion

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#1

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This is a general discussion topic for all of Square Enix’s FINAL FANTASY series!

The FF series is a almost 30 year long tale of many different worlds, sharing common themes but original stories. Crystals, Chocobos, Moogles, and the Warriors of Light, are everlasting themes of myth across the adventures the series holds. The series holds many stories, and many different styles of play. Turn-based RPGs, action gameplay, music games, fighting games, and even a third person shooter, the FF series holds various different ways to play.

The series notable titles consist of:

Main Series:

  • FINAL FANTASY (I)
  • FINAL FANTASY II
  • FINAL FANTASY III
  • FINAL FANTASY IV
  • FFIV Interlude
  • FFIV The After Years
  • FINAL FANTASY V
  • FINAL FANTASY VI
  • FINAL FANTASY VII
  • Before Crisis: FFVII
  • Crisis Core: FFVII
  • Dirge of Cerberus: FFVII
  • FINAL FANTASY VIII
  • FINAL FANTASY IX
  • FINAL FANTASY X
  • FINAL FANTASY X-2
  • FINAL FANTASY XI ONLINE
  • Expansions: Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan, Wings of the Goddess, Seekers of Adoulin, Rhapsodies of Vana’diel
  • Add-On Scenarios: A Crystalline Prophecy, A Moogle Kupo d’Etat, A Shantotto Ascension
  • Add-On Battlefields: Visions of Abyssea, Scars of Abyssea, Heroes of Abyssea
  • FINAL FANTASY XII
  • FFXII Revenant Wings
  • FINAL FANTASY XIII
  • FINAL FANTASY XIII-2
  • LIGHTNING RETURNS FFXIII
  • FINAL FANTASY XIV ONLINE
  • Heavensward
  • FINAL FANTASY XV

Tactics:

  • FINAL FANTASY TACTICS (War of the Lions)
  • FINAL FANTASY TACTICS Advance
  • FINAL FANTASY TACTICS A2: Grimoire of the Rift

Crystal Chronicles:

  • FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES
  • FFCC Ring of Fates
  • FFCC Echoes of Time
  • FFCC My Life as a King
  • FFCC My Life as a Darklord
  • FFCC The Crystal Bearers

Other Notable Titles:

  • FINAL FANTASY: The 4 Heroes of Light
  • FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0
  • DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY (012 Duodecim, Arcade)
  • Theathrythm FF (Curtain Call)
  • Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies
  • Bravely Second: End Layer
  • WORLD of FINAL FANTASY

Notable Mobile Titles:

  • FINAL FANTASY DIMENSIONS
  • FINAL FANTASY Record Keeper
  • Imaginary Range
  • MOBIUS FINAL FANTASY
  • FINAL FANTASY GRANDMASTERS
  • FINAL FANTASY Brave Exvius

Hey! I’m new to this mysterious Final Fantasy thing. Where the hell do I start!?

I hear you say, confused anonymous user. Well, don’t worry! There’s lot of places you could start! For example:

  • I like shiny big modern titles -> Jump into XIII or X HD! Both good starting points you can use as an entry point to try something bigger
  • I love classic RPGs -> IV and VI are fantastically built classic titles and show very strong sides of the franchise
  • I have a PS4/X1 -> Until XV comes out next year, you can try out the action game Type-0!
  • I have a handheld -> Both the DS and PSP over a LOT of titles. Check out DS libraries for III, IV, 4 Heroes, etc and the PSN Store for I, II, Tactics and Dissidia
  • Muh PC Master Race -> Through legal means or no, you can play almost any FF game on PC nowadays. Over the last year alone eight of the fourteen main series games became available through Steam! Try IV or XIII for the best starts!

All major game spoilers should be hidden using the forum-wide spoiler tag. For the purposes of this thread, marking the title its from ahead of the spoiler is very helpful. Hide spoilers using the [spoiler] tag.
Some dumb things as examples:

(FFXIII)Snow is a douche
(FFType0)Sice is the best girl
(FFCCTheCrystalBearers)Layle looks great in a tuxedo

Please always make clear what game the spoiler is referring to, so everyone can stay spoiler free!

Another thread-specific detail is that the discussion of Final Fantasy XIV related topics should be posted in the forums dedicated FFXIV thread.

Enjoy!

4 Likes
#2

I hate moogles.

3 Likes
#3

I can say that Final Fantasy series are the best of RPG game but There is one series that listed into worst games forever is Final Fantasy: All the Bravest, why?, I think It’s gameplay isn’t too bad, It was strange and fun.

#4

FFX IS THE ONLY GOOD ONE.

ringoffateswasfuntoo

1 Like
#5

Took us quite a while to make a topic about this franchise, huh.

I love the FF series. I grew up playing these games, VII and X especially, and it was sort of my first gateway into Japanese anime culture. By now I’ve played IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, XII, XIII and XIII-2, and there’s not a single game among them I dislike. I even imported the International versions of X-2 and XII because their gameplay is just so damn fun. It’s thanks to a Final Fantasy community I frequent that I came to read my now favorite visual novel.

FFX is my favorite, and before I discovered Key it was also the most emotionally compelling game I’d ever played. It’s still my favorite non-VN game in general even now. On the whole though I’ve gotten less attached to the series over time. I have Lightning Returns sitting on my shelf since launch day and I never feel like playing it. Same goes for Type-0. And it’ll possibly be the same for XV. But that’s okay, it’s still a series with huge nostalgic value for me and I’ll always treasure it.

#6

My experience with Final Fantasy is pretty limited, and mostly second-hand. I’ve spent enough time around gamers to have a pretty good idea of what the games are like and how they’re played, but the only games I’ve sat down to play to completion are XIII and XIV.

I know XIII gets a lot of slack from the community, and while I can certainly understand its flaws, I really really enjoyed it. The battle system was very refreshing and exciting, the strategy of maintaining a flow of changing between paradigms (and designing those characters and paradigms) were all very enjoyable for me. And hell, the story and visuals are pretty amazing too. I can forgive it for its faults if only for it being a great story with awesome battles.

#7

My first exposure to the series was Final Fantasy X, which I thought was amazing then, but just okay today. From there, my experience with the series became a little sporadic, especially as I started dabbling in emulation. I played IV first, then I tried VI for a while, then V, and so on until I managed to play a little bit of every title before X. The only main series games I’ve fully completed are IV, VI, and X. I’m kind of afraid to play anything beyond X because of all the criticisms that the later games get, although XV looks pretty hype. Too bad I don’t have a PS4… :expressionless:

As for the side games, I’ve played a little of Mystic Quest (which was incredibly boring), and there was one point where I owned Crystal Chronicles on the GameCube before I sold it for another game. I bought IV: The After Years one Christmas on my Wii and found it way too difficult. I also played and completed Tactics Advance on a whim, and I think it’s my little brother’s favorite spin-off FF. It’s part of the reason he likes the Disgaea series so much now. But I digress. My dabbling in the spinoff games ends with the Wii demo of My Life as a Darklord. Pretty nice.

There was a time where I burned a disk full of my favorite Dissidia remixes, along with some other FF songs, and listened to that on the way to school. I consider the Bravely soundtracks to be some of the best in JRPG history, although I hold the first game’s soundtrack in higher regard.

Come to think of it, since when did the Bravely series count as part of Final Fantasy? It certainly has the spirit of an old-school FF game, but I thought it was trying to be its own thing. If we’re counting not-Final Fantasy games here, The Last Story should be up for discussion as well. :confused:

#8

JRPGs suck for one big reason: Gameplay.
When you lose interest as quickly as I do, you can’t put much time into any of these games. And you know that by the time you go back to finish it, you’ll have lost the save data somehow. Also, now a lot of them are going open world-ey, my least favorite thing in gaming. I’ll just get lost, end up somewhere designed for 20 hours in the future, and game over.

The FF series is one of my favorite JRPG series, but I’ve only ever finished one game, Crisis Core. The one game where the story was good enough to make up for the gameplay. (It’s on my top 5 games list. So yay.)

I did enjoy FFs 1-6 quite a bit, 4 and 6 being the best of the bunch. FF9 was cute too.
I think the games started to go downhill from there though. FF7 and 8 were okay, but pretty boring and stretched out at times. FF10 was arguably the worst (although people have warmed up to it now for some reason.) 11 was okay. A pain to play at times, but that’s because it didn’t age very well. 12 had a sewer level, so I never got far through that game. I daren’t touch 13. Tried a demo when the game was being previewed, and the gameplay was worse than 12’s somehow. Dunno how they managed that. Oh, and the voice acting of the English version is unbearably bad.

But yeah, FF 1-6 were pretty interesting.

I got Dissidia with my PSP, hoping to have fun with all the great characters in it… Man that’s a boring game. The gameplay is incredibly basic and repetitive, and the story is just badly written cheese. Big disappointment.

#9

Well it was made to be OG Final Fantasy because anyone who knows things knows that the industry has to move forwards, so it’s respected as one really, and should be supported as much if people wish to get more of that kind of experience.

#10

It’s entirety of its gameplay is swipe the screen over and over, which is pretty terrible. Admittedly I did have fun trying to fill in the monster and weapons collections, and unlocking all the Jobs over time. But once that wears off its really bad. One of the major reasons it gets a lot of shit is because when it first came out it cost money, rather than being free. Its already a nothing game with microtransactions for special content so. Wasn’t taken very well.

Bravely is the direct successor to 4 Heroes of Light, and those three games are all modernizing the classic style of Final Fantasy titles.

#11

Played an okay amount of the Final Fantasy series, mostly the older games. I’d say that my favorite main series title is prolly IV, but my overall favorite would definitely be War of the Lions. Final Fantasy Tactics is such a fantastic series that I’m dying to get more of.

Let’s see, I’ve played I, II, III, IV, X, X-2, XII, XIII, XIV, WotL, Advance, A2, EoT, and RK. Completed all of those except X-2, and XIII (XIV and RK don’t really count). Oh, and I played Final Fantasy III: Expanded Edition/Bravely Default.

It’s not technically Final Fantasy but that’s pretty much just in name alone. It plays exactly like an enhanced FF III, and it’s like lying to yourself if you don’t include it in a list of Final Fantasy games I feel.

Anyways, like I was saying, Tactics series games are honestly probably my favorite out of all the FF games, with the original/WotL being the best. Probably my favorite Final Fantasy story and the mechanics are still incredibly fun and sound even today. Of course, this is all coming from somebody who’s a Fire Emblem and Disgaea nut, so I enjoy that kind of game in general. Was annoying to have to mod my PSP to get the thing to run properly, though. Apparently releasing a game that doesn’t lag horribly is too much to ask. Curious if anyone else has stuff to say about it. Only other person here I know has played it is @Bowiie.

I could talk some about the main series titles, but I’d rather quickly mention Echos of Time for being (at least at the time) a really damn fun multiplayer DS game. Granted I was a lot younger at the time, but I remember the local multiplayer being quite good, and even though the overall mechanics were still janky I had a lot of fun and got a Warrior up to level 99. Can’t really comment on the Wii version except wow that’s like the pinnacle of lazy ports.

#12

Oh man, Final Fantasy was “the big thing” for me until I started anime. FF6 is still my favorite game, FF4 and War of the Lions are stellar as well.

I still play a crapton of 11, even though it’s on its way out.

#13

FF1 was my favorite. Completed FF1, FF2, and FF7. I played little bits of FF3,4,5,6,8,9,10… But never really liked them enough to get very far. (Although I remember enjoying 8, 9, and 10 a lot.) I was really enjoying 13 as well, but I never completed it. So, my experience in Final Fantasy is rather limited but I’d like to play through each one until completion. (Though some of 'em would just be me forcing myself.)

#14

So, let’s see here.

The first Final Fantasy game I got to play was 7, but I didn’t complete it all the way initially. 8 was the first one I played to completion, later to go back and finish 7. Loved them both, crazy good. But, not my favorites…

My favorite of the franchise is FF4. That game I’ve played just about every remake of and still not tired of it. The characters, the story, the combat, THE MUSIC, AHH. So good. A masterpiece, in my ever so humble opinion. I could gush about it for hours on end, but I’ll spare you all the inane garble.

My second favorite is, in my opinion, the most underrated of the series, FF5. I played the GBA version during a summer a while back and enjoyed the hell out of it. Highly recommend as a hidden gem among mostly circlejerked titles.

And, like quite a few of the others here, I am super addicted to FF14 right now and play it a ton. Have played (on and off) since 2.0, and still love it.

Edit: P.S: DEATH TO MOOGLES.

#15

I love me some Tactics. I have been a FF nut for years and just by chance one day I saw FFT on sale as a kid and knowing nothing about it picked it up. Best impulse buy of my life. Tactics is by far my favorite Final Fantasy game, but not series. As much as I loved Tactics I hated Tactics advanced. They basically took everything that made Tactics fun, and threw it out the window and replaced it with judges…which I hate.

Granted I really like the main series games of FF pre-X, with IX being my favorite main series. The original games were a lot of fun and were all must haves for me growing up. I remember finding FF7 on a website called half.com and convincing this huge ruse about how it was a “rare” game and since the site had it for like $30 my mom just “had” to buy it for me, hey it worked. I sort of single out the MMO’s as an aside even though they are listed in the main series for obvious reasons, but ignoring them ever since X I haven’t been thrilled with the series direction. In my opinion the later games have been plagued with good gameplay but characters that I would rather see die off than deal with (X, X-2), or some amalgamation of both (XII, XIII). Its was to the point where when XIII came out I wasn’t really all that excited since SQEX had dropped the ball so much it was hardly worth picking up, but despite my misgivings I still gave it a chance, and got burned again. But here I stand again with XV on the horizon finding myself excited about FF again. It’s an addiction at this point I think.

#16

Played every FF from “Main series” except for Lightning Returns but only few made me to replay them after years, these are: III (cuz of remake), V, VII, VIII (eternal war between 6 and 7), and IX. To be frank I didn’t finish every game. For example i couldn’t finish X only because of main character - seriously i couldn’t bear with
Tidus. Now that i’m thinking about it I’ll try it again for plot.

Still my king and god is FFVII and yea I’m one of those who are overhyped about remake :smile:. I dare them to screw it >.< . Anyone else waiting for it?

Sometimes I’m playing FFXIV (MMO) but more of fondness for the series than because it’s good.

About FFXV… I’m not sure what to think. It looks great, played demo but… I dunno, it didn’t leave good or bad impression it just was. Demo = no plot, so it isn’t something to base impressions of the whole game.

#17

This game won’t be on consoles in the west until like 2017 but I wanted to still link it because its SO COOL

1 Like
#18

Don’t say that! I’m optimistic about a simultaneous east-and-west 2016 release. I’m pretty sure Final Fantasy has a bigger market share in the west now, which is why we’ve been getting a lot of attention from SE these days.

#19

Even if it is simultaneous it would a Dec. 2016 release which is still so far away =o

Hey @Bizkitdoh did you beat XIII yet

#20

I am very interested to see what Dissidia FF has to offer. I’ll hold judgment until I see some solid hours clocked into it.

Also no I haven’t, been very not focused. I plan to get back to it sometime soon hopefully.