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25 hours in and just made it to "disc 2" of FF7. Never really played one of these games before, but i'm getting quite sucked in. FFX for my Vita is also tits.
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Aug 26, 2014 02:55
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chaosapiant posted:FFX for my Vita is also tits. It's almost kind of weird to see appreciation or joy for any post-VII game outside of tumblr. X is one of the best Final Fantasies, so I'm happy to see people picking it up and liking it.
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Aug 26, 2014 02:59
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There are very few FF games I'd actually call out and out BAD, maybe bad by the childhood standards people have built up for themselves but every FF game has its positive traits and its negative ones.
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Aug 26, 2014 03:16
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Rei_ posted:There are very few FF games I'd actually call out and out BAD, maybe bad by the childhood standards people have built up for themselves but every FF game has its positive traits and its negative ones. Except for 3 on the DS. it's the only one I've never heard anyone defend. Even Mystic Quest and 8 had their good parts or defenders.
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Aug 26, 2014 03:46
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Actually every game in the series is bad.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:16
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Rei_ posted:There are very few FF games I'd actually call out and out BAD, maybe bad by the childhood standards people have built up for themselves but every FF game has its positive traits and its negative ones. I'll even go on record saying the same is true for the Spirits Within movie. The concept of invisible alien ghosts killing pretty much everyone on Earth without them having a clue what was happening is pretty interesting and creepy in itself. It's just that everything after that fell completely flat.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:29
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Vanilla FF2 is a Bad Game.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:33
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Pureauthor posted:Vanilla FF2 is a Bad Game. So much. It actively goes out of it's way to gently caress with the player instead of just presenting a challenge to be overcome.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:41
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It's really amazing how many bad design decisions are in it that seemed to make sense at first. Like to get better at running you have to run a lot. Makes sense in the sense that its consistant with how the rest of the game is. Except in practice it means you're punished for playing the game correctly and winning most of your random encounters. Now you're at the end game and can't run from anything even if its really hard/annoying.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:53
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Does After Years count? I've heard nothing but bad about it. Then again, my main source of info on it is this thread, because I've never cared enough to look into it. Edit: same thing for Dirge of Cerberus. Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 04:53
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Don Gato posted:Except for 3 on the DS. it's the only one I've never heard anyone defend. Even Mystic Quest and 8 had their good parts or defenders. I really liked 3's opening animation. Even if about 65% of it was stuff that never happened like Luneth and Ingus getting up in each others' faces because of REASONS. That, and the music was pretty good for an orchestral remix. Nihilarian posted:Does After Years count? I've heard nothing but bad about it. Then again, my main source of info on it is this thread, because I've never cared enough to look into it. After Years had an episodic game style, so you paid about $40 in the end for a game that spent most of its first 7 or 8 chapters dragging its feet then it cranked up the difficulty in the final chapters and just about all the new characters were rendered meaningless (Looking at your dumb asses, Eblan 5, Calca, and Brina). Behind all that, there was just a dumb story that didn't really need to happen. Dirge of Cerberus did one thing right. It put Yuffie and Vincent in the spotlight since they couldn't have any major effect on the story in VII since they were secrets.
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Aug 26, 2014 05:58
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Nihilarian posted:Does After Years count? I've heard nothing but bad about it. Then again, my main source of info on it is this thread, because I've never cared enough to look into it. Dirge of Cerberus, astonishingly, was improved for the western release. Granted these improvements consisted of features that were immediately undermined by the core mechanics of the game but hey, the put a teensy bit of effort in I guess. TARDISman posted:Dirge of Cerberus did one thing right. It put Yuffie and Vincent in the spotlight since they couldn't have any major effect on the story in VII since they were secrets. Yuffie is in this dumb game for like, 3-5 minutes tops. You spend more time playing as Cait-loving-Sith than 100% of the games material involving Yuffie.
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Aug 26, 2014 05:59
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The best part about the Cait Sith segment is that one of his things is a spontaneous mandatory stealth section Also I remember there being optional Cait Sith content if you really couldnt get enough of it. Somehow.
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Aug 26, 2014 06:05
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Barudak posted:Dirge of Cerberus, astonishingly, was improved for the western release. Granted these improvements consisted of features that were immediately undermined by the core mechanics of the game but hey, the put a teensy bit of effort in I guess. Fair enough, truth be told, the only things I remember about Dirge were the last level and the cutscene with the robot arm in the door.
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Aug 26, 2014 06:17
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You can play Dirge with a mouse, I found out. Doesn't make it less poo poo tho.
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Aug 26, 2014 06:21
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I was thinking more of the core 1-14 games. But yeah, 2 is... hm. 1 is just a good old fashioned party-management game in the spirit of the western tabletop games that inspired it. 2 was sort of a clusterfuck of experimentation 3 felt like it was a direct sequel to refining the tabletop ideas of 1 into a more flexible system 4 introduced broader scope and characterization, and the storytelling conceits of the FF games became more apparent 5 went back and refined the job system of 3 while focusing on the broader storytelling of 4, but I feel its plot was a bit weaker than 4 6 returned to static jobs but brought together the at that point most cohesively realized setting with fantastic art direction. It was just really well realized in all facets, a good example of gestamtkunstwerk 7 vies towards the more cinematic but leveraged new technology to bring scale and theatrical elements to the series. It also hasn't aged well AT ALL, it's a very dated looking game now in the worst way. It was also buggy and when you sort of step back and think about any of the characters interactions in terms of the games entire plot it seems INSANE. 8 experimented with mechanics with varying success but has a really compelling story that really suffered from localization more than anything 9 was clearly pushing the limits of what the PS1 was capable of and suffered for that, but probably had the most well-realized setting since 6 and was very straightforward in its mechanics 10 is about as refined and perfect as the party-based ATB system is ever going to get, it was very well laid out and presented to the player, and it had GORGEOUS visuals even today. Nomura's aesthetic showed its age here though and I don't think a lot of the characterization was well conveyed, but if you're willing to dig it's fantastic. 11 is the last pre-WOW MMO and it carries all that's sort of good and bad about that period of game design. Punishing and monotonous but a lot of interesting ideas here if you had a good group of friends to play with. 12 tries really hard to be Star Wars and I think the License Board is about as annoying as progression ever got in FF, but that's supposedly fixed in the Internatonal version. It's...got a lot of problems but it tries really hard. 13 is sort of all over the place in terms of its plot, and I don't think the combat was really all that fun until 13-2, but 13 has some fantastic characters in it and it has a lot of charm. 14's trending in a strange direction right now but it's probably the best MMO on the market, able to hold on, and even surpass WOW in a lot of ways. Sokken's music is loving incredible.
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Aug 26, 2014 07:36
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Nihilarian posted:Does After Years count? I've heard nothing but bad about it. Then again, my main source of info on it is this thread, because I've never cared enough to look into it. After Years is a fun enough game with a mostly bad story with a few clever moments.
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Aug 26, 2014 07:40
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chaosapiant posted:25 hours in and just made it to "disc 2" of FF7. Never really played one of these games before, but i'm getting quite sucked in. FFX for my Vita is also tits. Things are starting to get really good story-wise right then! Enjoy that, it's still my favorite numbered FF.
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Aug 26, 2014 09:17
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Don Gato posted:Except for 3 on the DS. it's the only one I've never heard anyone defend. Even Mystic Quest and 8 had their good parts or defenders.
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Aug 26, 2014 09:31
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My two least favorite FF games are VIII and XIII but I'll still admit both games have some good things about them. But I'm a crazy man who think XII was one of the best FF games so what do I know. All I can is that I've seen much worse JRPGs out there than any of the FF games I've played.
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Aug 26, 2014 10:57
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NikkolasKing posted:My two least favorite FF games are VIII and XIII but I'll still admit both games have some good things about them. But I'm a crazy man who think XII was one of the best FF games so what do I know. VIII deserves some credit for being experimental, and having plenty of callbacks to older games. I like it over at least half of the series, even if it cannibalized Xenogears' budget.
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Aug 26, 2014 11:53
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Eh, from every level that isn't graphics/arguably music, Final Fantasy games are pretty unexceptional. There are worse JRPGs for certain but there are many which are way better too. They're not bad but it is really is a franchise that has coasted on its presentation for a long time. I think I've said this before but if I had to list my favorite Square/Enix games from every generation, there wouldn't be a Final Fantasy in the top 5 of any of them.
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Aug 26, 2014 11:59
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FF9 is the best PS1 JRPG, all other FFs are decent-to-meh.
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Aug 26, 2014 12:03
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ImpAtom posted:Eh, from every level that isn't graphics/arguably music, Final Fantasy games are pretty unexceptional. There are worse JRPGs for certain but there are many which are way better too. They're not bad but it is really is a franchise that has coasted on its presentation for a long time. I think I've said this before but if I had to list my favorite Square/Enix games from every generation, there wouldn't be a Final Fantasy in the top 5 of any of them. Wait really? I thought you were saying games but just SE games? Personally FF9 and FFX are probably in the top 10 for me on both systems they were on. I have to think harder about the PS2 because that thing had so many good games.
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Aug 26, 2014 12:05
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Rei_ posted:10 is about as refined and perfect as the party-based ATB system is ever going to get So what you're saying is that the best way to do ATB is to not do ATB at all.
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Aug 26, 2014 12:05
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Wait ImpAtom you've made that post before and I have to know: would DQ8 be in your PS2 list? Because it better be.
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Aug 26, 2014 12:07
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THE AWESOME GHOST posted:Wait really? I thought you were saying games but just SE games? Personally FF9 and FFX are probably in the top 10 for me on both systems they were on. I have to think harder about the PS2 because that thing had so many good games. Yeah. I'd much rather play the Soul Blazer Trilogy of games or Dragon Quest V or Chrono Trigger or even Front Mission over the SNES FF games. In terms of the PS1 there are a bunch of JRPGs I'd rather play, including Square/Enix stuff like Valkyrie Profile. By the PS2 there were a billion RPGs on the market I'd play over any given Final Fantasy game, including stuff like Dragon Quest VIII. Even in terms of 'bad' games, I think that their non-FF 'bad' games are more interesting than their FF ones. Xenogears is a hot mess but it's a hot mess in a far more interesting way than FFVIII is. Something like Vagrant Story is charitably called a 'cult classic' but it has a ton of personality and style. Endorph posted:Wait ImpAtom you've made that post before and I have to know: would DQ8 be in your PS2 list? Because it better be. Of course it would. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 12:12
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You know in all my searches for JRPG recs, Dragon Quest games never come up. I always had them pictured in my mind, and this is based on practically nothing, as these rather bare-bones stock fantasy things. Maybe fun to play but nothing else of note. I tend to prefer JRPGs with a lot of story emphasis and I don't think I've ever had a DQ game suggested to me on the basis of its story. I also never hear the soundtracks for the games listed as particularly amazing either. (and I spend a lot of time looking up music lists for games on YT since OSTs matter a lot to me) But these posts here coincide with posts elsewhere I was reading listing the DQ games as some of the best JRPGs across the generations. So maybe I need to rethink my old conceptions.
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Aug 26, 2014 13:49
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Dragon Quest games are not very plot heavy. The plots tend to be 'save the world from evil." What I tend to say is that Final Fantasy games are about the characters, Dragon Quest games are about the towns and places you visit. The characters certainly matter (especially in certain games, like V or VIII) but the focus of the games is the places you visit and their trials and tribulations. What they tend to be is just fun. They're certainly generic in that Dragon Quest is the template that all JRPGs are born from, but they focus on the sense of excitement and adventure instead of diving up their own asses. Even the most serious of the Dragon Quest games is still a lighthearted adventure story. They're certainly a bit samey, especially compared to the Final Fantasy franchise and its huge variety, but they're dependable. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 13:54
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Dragon 8 has good music and amazing dialogue. For real though the plot isn't that deep but it's a very good not deep. It's just a fun story about four dudes beating up an evil wizard. There aren't any revelations about the meaning of life or anything, but it's a simple story executed in a fun way, and the dialogue manages to be funny and charming consistently. I definitely wouldn't call it barebones, the emphasis is just on the adventure itself instead of the grand reasons behind said adventure.
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Aug 26, 2014 13:55
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Gotta third the recommendation that people play DQVIII. If you read this thread and have ever lamented, out loud or inwardly, that FF can sometimes try too hard to impress with all the in medias res and plot twists and poo poo, it's just what the doctor ordered. The game feels like... it feels like it doesn't have to try to trick you into enjoying it. It's confident that it can entertain you with its premise.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:12
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Dude I can get your point but in medias res and plot twists are such basic concepts of writing that I can't understand how you can refer to them as 'trying too hard.' Especially since Dragon Quest 8 literally starts in medias res and the entire second act of the game is plot twist after plot twist.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:13
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I did add "and poo poo". My point, which I suppose I could've made clearer, was that DQ8 is upfront about itself and doesn't use red herrings as much as FF games can do sometimes. Or it just does it better. Iunno, the game just felt refreshingly earnest.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:18
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I guess I'm going to the minority and say DQ8 bored me to the point that I returned the game. The simplicity of the combat and the kinda generic ye olde setting wasn't captivating me enough to even get halfway through double-digit hours.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:22
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Dragon Quest VIII is the only DQ I've played a lot of (that I remember) and it's really fun. I'd probably put it in my top 10 PS2 games. FF X-2 would also make it, I think. And Final Fantasy has almost universally excellent music.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:26
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More people need to play DQ5.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:30
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Well I will be sure to give DQ a look in the future. It will just have to wait till after NieR, the Chrono games, and...well, I dunno what else. Those are the ones at the top of my To Play list. While we're on the topic of Square classics that are better than FF, what about those...uh, Seiken Densetsu games? Always see SD3 listed as one of the best games of its time. And yet we never got that one I take it from the fact it wasn't called "[Something] Mana".
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Aug 26, 2014 15:36
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Dragon Quest games have excellent gameplay with no gimmicks, just extremely solid design. The stories are smart but understated, and the art and writing has a charming sense of humor (gently caress you if you don't like puns). A guiding principle of the series from its inception is that a Dragon Quest game should be a suitable introduction to the entire concept of RPGs, or even to video games in general, for any literate person of any age and experience level. It has a lot less genre bullshit as a result. They pick up kind of slow, though.
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Aug 26, 2014 15:36
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Don Gato posted:Except for 3 on the DS. it's the only one I've never heard anyone defend. Even Mystic Quest and 8 had their good parts or defenders. 3 on the DS is one of my favorites  I've played through it like 3 times now and I never have an issue outside of the final dungeon which is stupid and bad. People call it grindy but I seriously never had to grind (aside from the final dungeon, which I will never defend). I really like how the jobs worked 
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Aug 26, 2014 15:40
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I'm not entirely sure why we never got SD3 stateside. I remember going to the local library to keep up with gaming news from the Nintendo Power issues they had (good grief, where has the time gone) and reading up on SD3 coverage. They definitely intended to bring it over, but... never did. Surely someone out there knows why. I can tell you it's not a name issue, though, it was being marketed as "Secret of Mana 2" at the time. Cape Cod Crab Chip fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 15:41
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