FF began to suck balls? yes no?

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rascalz

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I’m not really looking for an answer I just want to find out if I’m not alone in this way of thought. But after Final Fantasy 9, the whole game has just gone downhill completely.

I first played FF7 way back in the days and from then it turned me into a gamer. I then played up till 9 and the previous FF’s loving them all in their glory. I played FF10 and although quite enjoyable there was something very wrong. But now, I’m sorry, they have simply just begun to sucked.

FF12 was just horrible... I didn’t even bother finishing it because it just bored me. For some strange reason they went from having a game with a the most amazing narratives, imagination and playability into the same old shit any game developers can buy. If you think FF12 has good imagination, think again. It just didn’t feel like a FF at all and I hope older FF players agree with me. I know there trying to keep up with today’s market but why take away things that made the game what it is and change it to fit newer players. What happened to looking after the older and loyal player’s! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

I know people are going to say they don’t give a **** what this guy thinks but I just want to get some opinions from other FF fans. I’m not trying to start a rant.

p.s. Oh and I might be the only FF7 fan saying this but please don’t do a FF7 remake. It was a gaming work of art and it doesn’t need a graphic update at all. It would be like stencilling a Ipod on the Mona Lisa! ok maybe too far :P

Looking forward to responses.
rascalz
 
I agree 12 was terrible, but I have good hopes for FF13. I myself prefer 8,9 10 and yes 10-2. 12 lost me due to the amoint of politics and narration, and when I left it for anther game I had no idea what the hell was going on lol. Even with the guide, I was so confused.
 
I REALLY agree with you! 7, 8, 9 was good. 10 was...okay...but 10-2, and 12 :/ I wasn't a very big fan of. I'm hoping that 13 will be better. Sure the graphics got better, but I don't think the story lines did.
 
I dont know,
I kinda liked 12. It felt.......realistic. Maybe that isnt right because its final fantasy =P

For me, I liked all the numbered ff games, other than that abomination known as FF11 -_-
 
It's not going down hill! SE has just been trying new things to try and appeal to the same, and more people. It keeps us waiting to see what will happen next. And yeah, there will be some bad ones. That doesn't mean a whole series has expired. At least, that's what I think!
 
I think X was amazing, but as for the rest, I wish there was an undo button from time to time. FF should be about story line, not gameplay mechanics in my opinion. That's what they focused on in FFXII - I just hope the whole franchise didn't take a drop from it, and this will be the aftermath in FFXIII.
 
I don't exactly think X, X-2, and XII "sucked balls" -__-, although X-2 wasn't... exactly my favorite game. I think, rather, I hope that they're starting to realize they need to keep up with the storylines and they'll make XIII better. I don't think XII was THAT bad, though, I actually quite liked it. And X wasn't bad at all, except for Tidus, in my honest opinion. I just really hope this bullshit with trying to keep up with Western RPG's doesn't hold up. I play JRPG's because I DON'T want to just shoot heads off and walk around a city.
 
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:ffs: Final Fantasy X Was amazing and so is XII so far. I still have not finished X-2 AND XII but I am really near to finishing both. So far X-2 and XII is awesome well for me anyway. Yes I understand the story of XII sucks for some of us but I like it. This is just me here and everyone has their own opinions. Btw if your saying that X-2 AND xii Sucked balls then I dont see your interest in FF here. The series is beautiful and the new FF game Final Fantasy XIII looks really awesome. I myself love the FF series from the bottom of my heart but If your saying some of the previous ones like V was better than X I think there is a problem there. Sure V is ok but for me its the worst in the series. Not that I hate it. I mean I played it till the end and it was just ok for me. What did you not like about X, XII AND x-2? Oh it did not feel like a FF? How so? You cant really tell if it "feels" like an FF. -_-
 
X is my favorite of the series. XII is... okay. XI and XIV make me a little sad, because I don't do MMOs, but I can't really blame squeenix, because online games give them a license to print money. Like many others, I wish they didn't get a Roman numeral. I have high hopes for XIII, however. Just because a company put out some games I don't particularly care for doesn't mean they're dead to me forever. I don't really like III or V, either, but that doesn't mean Square sucked from then afterward.
 
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Well to start with, FF12, it just seemed like any other RPG game that is out there, offline and online. And I will list a couple examples of where they went wrong... which was pretty much the whole game :P

Final fantasy to me isn’t about graphics or ‘game play’ (<- not game mechanics) it’s about the storyline and imagination. FF12 seems to me to be the end result that people with little FF imagination and originality would think up. The settings, clothes and environment just seem so basic and unoriginal compared to what FF 1-10 has offered.

--1.The game mechanics. Instead of picture based environment or whatever it’s called, they changed it to the typical third person camera mode. You might say what’s wrong with that and I would have to say ‘nothing’, for another RPG game, but FF should have stuck to what made it what it was. I think the previous style is what made it interesting and gave FF its unique look.
--2.Battle system. What were they thinking!? Seriously. It might be enjoyable for some but for me and I’m sure most of the original (if you can say that) FF players, it was a bad decision and, in my eyes, it was what ruined the game for me. I heard that after a while of playing you could effectively make your characters run an attack sequence automatically without the need of the players interaction. What’s the point of playing then? I don’t know if this is %100 true but I do remember I could macro a lot of moves for other players. Also, starting in FFX the summoning moves. The best thing about the summoning spells was the cinematic videos that came with it. I remember when I first saw Kotrt. it went on for like 2 minutes. It was amazing... at the time :P
--3.The Airship... Not being able to control it, why would they take that away? The world map? These are the things that started to change in FFX but these are the little quirks that made FF what it was.
--4.Voice acting. This doesn’t really bother me to much but it would bother me in the slightest if they still had it silent. I’m sure kids don’t read that much these days, and it was good for me as a 10 year old.The reason for this is not that i think about it at this age, my imagination of some of the voices for FF characters were just that, they were left to my imagination and thats better than some of the wimply ass boyband voices they've give us.

And I’m pretty sure I know the reason for all this change. Simply it was the change in designers and management. I actually (being quite bored right now) just went to look of the credits for the FF games and I notice during the time of the game play/mechanics shift there have been a shuffle of old square employees with newer ones. So it’s not that they’ve tried something new, its that it’s there first time trying something at all and they want to make their mark on the game world.

I know a guy that was involved with the character dialogue of FF12 and he said a lot of theses younger game development teams are trying to hit a wide ranged target and maximise distribution. Quite simply make more money. Look at FF-X. Not once have they made a prequel to a FF game but as soon as power starts shifting hands bam! Look at Hollywood movies and how they milk films for all there worth. But what can I do about it now.

Sorry if I sound preachy but when it comes to this game I am quite sentimental. It just seems a independent company has been spotted by money grabbing business men who only care about one thing, marketing! And I’m quite sure that ‘most’ of the big FF 12 fans are from a younger generation... and if I’m wrong big deal, it doesn’t change that fact that FF has lost it. A little comparison in the music world I dont know the age group of these forums but if anyone is a hiphop fan 'Original FFs' (as i put it) would be the Roots, tribe called quest, pharaoh monch etc where as FF12 is solder boy/lil wezzy :D


The series is beautiful and the new FF game Final Fantasy XIII looks really awesome.
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The series? FF12 is completely different, I can hardly notice any comparison to other FF’s. It’s like a completely different game that’s thrown away the recurring element they started with. And FF shouldnt just be about looking awesome!

Btw if your saying that X-2 AND xii Sucked balls then I dont see your interest in FF here.
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Why?
 
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X was terrible, so terrible, I've written many bad reviews about it on many different websites. (Including this one.) Upon playing X, I discovered that SE was heading down a dark path. A path, that I didn't want to start walking down. There was just so many things wrong with that game that I could go on ranting for hours.

XII was just... Boring. I thought SE would redeem themselves, but I thought wrong. The story was interesting... kind of. However, I couldn't sit down and play it. It was boring... so boring...

SE has just been trying new things to try and appeal to the same, and more people.
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The new audience that SE is trying to get is an audience that loves to have everything simplified and easy to understand. Hell, with FFX they succeeded, FFX was simple, easy to understand, and had a terrible plot. I could beat that game easy by bashing the controller on the ground.

It keeps us waiting to see what will happen next.
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Quite frankly, FFX made me want to break the game in half and destroy my PS2. Have you see those GameFly commercials? Yeah, it was something like that.
 
I think it was more After FFX

I did like FFX-2 But it never had the same feel to it after FFX, Crisis Core and Dissidia have been Epic though so can't really Complain
 
With 12 yes they began to suck donkey balls.

I hate the real time thing, it's ruining all my favorite games, and it's now ruined FF. I like the strategy involved in having time to make my decision, and not being mega rushed. I loved when I could command all my characters, too, instead of just playing, I use the term loosely, as one. I hate the Gambit system, it sucked.

I actually liked the story of 12, just not the gameplay. Long live 8,9,10, and 10-2, for they are my favorite FF games.

For me FF10 was the last good one, because it was the last one that remained true to the orignal turn based system. Sometimes turned based makes a better gaming experience, like in the Civilazation games, and, in my opinion, Final Fantasy.

To me Final Fantasy is no longer an RPG/Strategy game, it's an Action/RPG. As the first, it was great and original, as the second it's overshadowed by other games in the same format, i.e Oblivion/Fallout 3.
 
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I wouldn't say the FF series has started to "suck balls", but I also feel like they are no longer the games I used to love.

For me the golden age off FF's were FF4-9. The ones before that were great too, but were still just developing as far as characters and plot were concerned. FF4-9 had an awesome combination of characters, music, plot and also managed to add a hint of humour to make the whole experience magical.

FFX kept most of these elements, and I still felt it was an enjoyable game. I loved the cultures they had created for the game, among the best in the series. The beautiful scenery had a very hindu feel which was strikingly different and more beautiful than a lot of the other games.. The plot and characters were great too. However it lacked certain elements such as an airship and world map, which is where it fell apart for me. I loved the apparant freedom of being able to fly around in previous games.

I think the graphics were also too good for the game as well. It wasn't so bad in FFX as such, as the environments still looked stunning, but I think the environment styles of FF7-9 (the sort of backdrop style) suited the series better as they were able to be more creative. With fully rendered 3D scenery the tendency has been to make it look more generic and not very inventive (this was more an issue for me in FF12 and certainly in Crisis Core).

FF12 was ok, but I never grew attached to the game. I wasn't keen on running around and having my party members slap the monsters as I ran past them. Everywhere just felt like an arena, and it looked as if they'd decided to just slap a field in places for the sake of having a spawn area for monsters. The music wasn't to my style, but it was the style that suited Ivalice best I think so I can't complain much about that. It kept it linked with the Tactics series, where the music worked well. Some of the characters were good too, Balthier and Gabranth for example, and such towns like Rabanastre were excellently designed, and had a lot of culture within them. However I just felt overall it was missing something. I think in this case, again, it is lack of a world map and airship, and with that freedom.

Now the FF7 spin-offs are a different story. I didn't like them much at all. I only really played Crisis Core because I'd bought it thinking I'd like it. Within a few days of playing I realised that it wasn't to my liking. The music didn't feel right to me, it was far too generic and lacked the beauty and feeling of magic that FF7 had. The battle system also felt wrong... The maps were generic and repeated and were essentially always paths with a slight bulge every 5 paces where a group of monsters would ALWAYS spawn... The story didn't appeal to me at all and created plot holes for the original story, which I always felt was fine as it was. I didn't like how they made Sephiroth appear less-important by having an apple-munching guy called Genesis who went through similar problems as him. It sort of lessened the whole impact of FF7, and the world had been in crisis before, with a similar villain.

Some people might like it, and some people like it more than FF7, but I didn't. I just didn't like what they were doing with it.


So to answer you, I think they're heading down a very different path now. I'll wait and see how FFXIII turns out, as that does look quite good, but they've been going through an experimental phase (FFX-FFXII) and also a fan-cash-in phase (Crisis Core, AC etc) at the same time. I'll still play the new games if they look good, but I think I'm going to have to accept that they're probably not going to make them like they did in the time from FF4-9, where in my opinion they hit the balance perfectly.
 
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I'd say the series has only gone downhill in terms of difficulty. Optional bosses aside, the games have been getting easier and easier. Compare FFIV to FFVIII and there is a huge contrast in difficulty.

Story-wise, I think they've gotten better. I found XII to be much more interesting than IX or X, at any rate, and the battle system was definetely a turn in the right direction. I don't think they've gotten worse just because they don't adhere to the strict turn-based formulae the earlier FF games did.

However, I started with VIII, so I suppose I'm not an "old school" fan, or whatever.
 
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III, VII & XI would be my most rememberable ones.

However, I started with VIII, so I suppose I'm not an "old school" fan, or whatever.
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Yeah, thats was I count as an original in the PS era man. Dont get in a fuss.

Pretty much X onwards i see as a different line of games to be honest. X was a great game and 90% was enjoyable but like the guy above it started to go down a bad path for FF.
 
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I'm about as old school as they get, considering I actually played Final Fantasy on the NES in the '80s. (I think I just heard my hip break.)

Complaining about the gambit system and lack of story is fine, though I never had a problem with either, and frankly the gambit system gets a +1 in my book because it saved me from having to input White Magic > Curaja > Party 48 katrajillion times over the course of my 85+ hours of gameplay. (Still not finished :gonk:)

But to complain about going away from picture-based environments and going to voice acting seems short-sighted. Why, with the advent of next-gen technology, would you not use said technology? If you don't, then you become a fossil. A relic. And in the technological world, that's the equivalent of ritual suicide. It may appeal to hardcore Final Fantasy fans to keep text boxes and battle screens, but you have to remember, the vast majority of potential consumers are not hardcore Final Fantasy fans. And Square-Enix is a business. Their goal is to make money, not to cater to fanboys.
 
a lot of nostalgia factors in when remembering the older games, i know it does for me. regardless of that, i enjoyed the newer titles just as much as i did the PSX titles, because i judge each game individually and have no expectations on what 'should' or 'should not' be in an FF. maybe i'm wierd for having that train of thought.

the series is evolving, for better or worse and IMHO while change can bring about good or bad changes, stagnation will bring nothing in the end.
 
Well to sum up FF's path over the years:

FF1: good
FF2: decent
FF3: Meh
FF4: Awesome
FF5: so-so
FF6: Epic
FF7: Awesome
FF8: Marmite (love it or hate it)
FF9: Awesome
FFX: Good
FFXI: Terrible
FFX-2: Bad
FF XII: Meh

Now the "dips" in quality seem to occur when there has been a direction change, or a staffing change, in the case of 11 and 10-2 there was a change of director, in the case of 12 there were staffing changes, and I still say to this day 8 was rushed to keep with the hype of the amazing job they had done with 6 and 7, now the direction has begun to swing back to gamers wanting a challenge back and substance from there games, and the developers are delivering, just look at crisis core and dissidia, there are some great challenges to be had in both games that can keep you playing.

For me Crisis core was a definate return to form on the narrative aspect and although a spin-off, it is more indicative that SE have finally overcome there glitches and are ready to deliver another great title, recapturing the magic of 4-9 will be difficult however and I really hope that there time spent researching character backgrounds for dissidia will assist them in seeing where they went oh so wrong with 10-2 and 12.

And those that do read the manuals and listen to the story in dissidia will notice how well they managed to tie them all together and helped clean up a few lose ends for some games, but at the same time, create a possibility for new sequels (high possiblity of a sequel for 1, 4 and 6 judging from what ive seen so far)
 
I don't generally think the series has begun to suck balls at all. SE may have deteriorated in terms of their reputation ever since Squaresoft's controversial merging with Enix, but I have never considered the FF series to have been deteriorated. I started playing FF with a rather odd title- FFX-2. Don't ask me why, but thankfully I went through FFX before finishing FFX-2 and I backtracked to the older titles, namely FFVII.

I agree that FFVI-IX were amazing FF games and I loved every single one of them, one more than another. The traditional approach to them (world map, airships, turn based combat, picture environments) really appealed to me. Looking at FFX, I realise that change was something that had to be embraced after playing the older titles. The series can't remain as it was forever. The changing climate of the gaming industry would mean the death of SE and the FF franchise. Change and adaptation is needed for survival, and I accept that.

I may be in a minority here to say that I actually enjoyed FFXII. There was a good political story loved by some and hated by others. The lack of a love story did not bother me. A new approach to the storyline felt fresh to me, and I must admit that Vaan and Penelo sucked as main characters. I actually enjoyed the battle system. It was faster and at times more frantic than in the earlier games, and the gambit system saved you from the constant spell inputting.
 
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