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I thought FF13 was worse, for many reasons but partly because you were no longer choosing what each character did. In FF12, you were still making these decisions. You just didn't have to push buttons for every character in every little battle.
To me, what made the battle aspect of the Final Fantasy series fun was always the level of thought and strategy needed to succeed. That's why I didn't see any decline in quality between 12 and the earlier ones you mentioned (Coincidentally, I'm shocked you didn't include VII, which is almost always voted the best by FF fans), because you still had to put a good deal thought into your gambits. But a big part of why I like FF12 the most is the level of freedom you're given. Aside from being the last truly open world FF I've played, you get more freedom than even most previous games, because you can equip any weapon, armor, or relic and teach any skill/give any stat bonus to all characters! Add to this the stunning beauty of the game and (at least what I consider) addictive gameplay, and you have a Final Fantasy that has it all!
Except a flyable airship
After 12, I prefer either 6, 8, or 9.
True, I did forget VII.
IMO, having a flyable airship is a must in a Final Fantasy game. You have to have that sense of exploration. Yeah, XII did have some exploration, though it was less than previous games, XIII took a step backwards in that department. Gran Pulse was all you got for exploration. Yeesh.
I loved the points in FFIV and FFVI when you got the airship and immediately went somewhere you weren't supposed to.
FFXIII was okay, but the magic system just turned me off so badly. How annoying was it to have to steal your magic from the opposition? Ugh.
I really hope that after FXV, Squeenix hooks all the old school fans up with an old ATB-style Final Fantasy with awesome graphics, story, massive exploration and a ton of optional content. After all, we're the ones who got them to where they are today. It's fine to try to break into a new generation of Final Fantasy fans, but give us old school fans something that we would enjoy more than a Final Fantasy: God of War. Even though I still do playthroughs of I, IV, VI, VII and IX every few years, it's just losing it's luster and I can't make myself replay any of the new ones.
Agreed. While most FF fans would probably have different opinions of when FF went down and never came back up, I think we agree it has done so. 13 was a beautiful game in terms of appearance, but honestly, that's about the only good thing I can think to say about it... The music was pretty good?
I don't know if we'll ever have a truly open world Final Fantasy with a flyable airship again. I get the impression it's too much for any engine to handle, without sacrificing finer details. So I'm willing to wave bye-bye to that (at least for now) so long as they keep it - or, return to, I should say - truly open world.
FF12 had those moments you could go beyond where you were supposed to (and get slaughtered, hehe). But you're right, it feels better to fly!
4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 I enjoyed. 12's story was rather forgettable though, but I enjoyed the gameplay mechanics. Same thing with 8. Possible to get characters very powerful early in the game makes it enjoyable.
10 had a great story, as did 6 and 7. They felt like open world games even though they really were not. XIII just felt linear and did not enjoy it at all. 12 had more freedom than any of them to explore.
don't see much talk at all about 13-2. I was very impressed with it and I thought they did a good job keep it non-linear. In my eyes, FFVIII is still my favorite even though it is hated on by so many people.
Agreed. While most FF fans would probably have different opinions of when FF went down and never came back up, I think we agree it has done so. 13 was a beautiful game in terms of appearance, but honestly, that's about the only good thing I can think to say about it... The music was pretty good?
I don't know if we'll ever have a truly open world Final Fantasy with a flyable airship again. I get the impression it's too much for any engine to handle, without sacrificing finer details. So I'm willing to wave bye-bye to that (at least for now) so long as they keep it - or, return to, I should say - truly open world.
FF12 had those moments you could go beyond where you were supposed to (and get slaughtered, hehe). But you're right, it feels better to fly!
Final Fantasy XV is slated to have a flyable airship and maybe even a world map!
-There are five major cities: Accordo, Lucis, Solheim, Tenebrae, and Niflheim. Niflheim is the evil one. Lucis is inspired by Tokyo, and governed by Noctis's dad. Accordo is very much like Venice. -Airships will return, according to Nomura. "You can fly across the world in an airship," he said in a 2010 interview. Seems like there's a world map!
-You can also control and ride a car and Magitek armor, a high-tech mech suit first introduced in Final Fantasy VI. Chocobos will be in at some point, too.
-In the E3 trailer, we see two familiar Final Fantasy monsters: the Iron Giant and the Behemoth. The summon Leviathan also makes an appearance.
-You'll have to defeat each summon monster before it joins your team, similar to many older Final Fantasy games.
IMO Final Fantasy went down the toilet when Sakaguchi left Square after FF9. For me, FF10 was the beginning of the end (it was still an OK game though). Titus was a little annoying, the story felt less epic than previous installments, horrible voice acting, and it started having bland music with the exception of a few tracks. XII was a little better but it still had problems. It parallels Star Wars a lot (Vaan = Luke, Balthier and Fran = Han and Chewy, Ashe = Leia, Archadian Empire = Galactic Empire, etc) but at least the characters weren't annoying and the voice acting was pretty good even though they kept pronouncing Marquis with an S. The S is supposed to be silent! No biggie though.
Then came XIII. Ho-boy I hate that game. Aside from it being a straight line from the beginning of the game to the end with the small exception of an open field on Pulse, the music is incredibly bland for the most part. It recycles the same five or so tracks way too much and there's only one melodic theme in the entire game. Contrast this with older titles which had themes for each character, corporations and/or entities had their own themes, then there was the main game theme, etc. There are no towns (making the entire game a dungeon crawler), the characters are all super annoying, Lightning's a b*tch, Snow is a self proclaimed "hero who doesn't need a plan", Hope is a whinny little..., Sazh is a walking stereotype, and Vanille ruins any scene whenever she opens her mouth and skips across the frame like a lobotomized clown on laughing gas. Fang is the only tolerable one. The battle system takes away nearly all of the control from the player, it's game over when the party leader dies because evidently the other two characters don't know how to throw a phoenix down, and enemies can and will still attack you while the game is playing the paradigm switch animation which can be a problem if your switching to heal a critically wounded character (this is especially annoying when it's playing the animation where it shows all three characters switching individually, making the animation 3X longer).
All of this would be forgivable if it had a good story but it didn't. It's pretty much just the characters trying to figure out what to do with their focus but they still managed to make it overly complicated with all of the terms we were expected to know going into it (L'cie, Fal'cie, C'eth, etc). There's also very little character development or backstory. As far as I'm concerned, these characters' lives started in Bodhum two weeks prior to the game's beginning. I didn't play XIII-2 just because of spite and evidently Lightning Returns has a countdown timer over the entire game and if you don't finish before that timer hits 0, it's game over. Who thought that would be a good idea?
I have high hopes for XV though. It's looking a lot better than the XIII games. Nomura has even hinted that he didn't like FF13 and wanted to make a game that was the opposite of it (open world, serious tone and characters, etc) hence, XV used to be called "versus" XIII.
Love love love the FF series, but my all time fav of course is FFVII.
But then again FFX was pretty darn good too!
Bahamut is my fav char, with cactaur being a close 2nd.
I agree with you all the way, FFVII was my first FF RPG and it's a very nostalgic game (including VIII, IX, and X). From time to time, I'll play FFVII and FVIII on my PS Vita for dat nostalgic feels .
The Final Fantasy X HD Remaster is about to release next March. Will any of you get that? Pre-order is available :
I agree with you all the way, FFVII was my first FF RPG and it's a very nostalgic game (including VIII, IX, and X). From time to time, I'll play FFVII and FVIII on my PS Vita for dat nostalgic feels .
The Final Fantasy X HD Remaster is about to release next March. Will any of you get that? Pre-order is available :
I most likely will, even though I never finished X or X2. Lets just hope its a good HD port.
You gotta finish X! I love that game and been wanting the opportunity to play it again. Since it's re-releasing as a HD port, I will definitely be playing this.
X2...was alright...I still finished it, but they should have left the story alone I think.
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