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Final Fantasy

Kelise

Maester
Tidus simply bored me, I suppose. I just had no interest at all in his character.

Squall wins the award for complaining the most though, and his forever use of '...'

Cloud I didn't really like either - probably more than Tidus. He's the favourite of most so I'm a bit odd, but Cloud (to me) was a pain.

Really, I don't like any of the main male characters. Seifer, Auron, Balthier, Basch, Reno... I enjoyed their backgrounds and personalities a whole lot more than Tidus, Squall, Cloud and Vaan.

Final Fantasy III is a little harder to categorise, but Ingus was my favourite in that.

No insult meant if I've badmouthed anyones favourite character - I'm quite odd with my favourites in games.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
In Final Fantasy XIII Versus, the character Noctis looks like they're going with the more sombre lead male again. He looks really awesome though so I'll withhold judgment until I see how he acts.

There are basically two types of heroes in FF:

1. Brooding, anti-social
2. Spastic and/or annoying

I agree with starconstant to an extent: I prefer a lot of the secondary characters to the "main" characters. But that's why I like VI so much because they had an ensemble cast. Terra was sort of the de-facto main character, but everyone seemed mostly equal in that game.

Not a fan of Vaan, Tidus, or Squall. Cloud is fine because he's cool in some ways. Ditto Lightning.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
Here's my top characters that I posted on another thread but closed it because it was sort of redundant.

Heroes/Heroines

5. Auron (FFX): A badass with a sword, but in a good way. Auron had the machismo and the mystery, yet the cool demeanor that makes him a favorite in the series. While not the hero of the story, he certainly stands out as one of the better party members and overshadows Tidus and Yuna's story due to his mysterious swagger.

4. Zidane (FFIX); The more light-hearted hero of FFIX, he was the princess rescuing type. He was unique in that he wasn't a sulking hero yet not an annoying whiner. He is the perfect balance of character for me.

3. Terra (FFVI): The intricacies of Terra's character can't be explained really. But she goes from entranced Imperial war tool to a woman awakening to her true form and potential. An intriguing character and one of the stand-outs in the series.

2. Locke (FVI): I like FFVI so I picked two here. Locke is a great hero. He is brave, dashing, funny, unselfish, all the the things that make a roguish hero popular. He's sort of the Han Solo of the FF world. When you think he's all bravado, he actually has a deeper side.

1. Cecil (FFIV): The man with a dark past who sheds his power in order to save the world. Cecil is best hero because his is a story of redemption (which I always enjoy). Despite giving up his awesome dark knight powers, he morphs into something even more powerful by becoming a paladin. He helps many people along the way and becomes to me a true representative of what a hero in FF should be.


Villains

5. Kain: (FFIV) I almost picked Golbez for this spot, but Kain I think is one of the most intricate villains in all of FF. Not only is he a party member at one point, but his jealousy of Cecil and love of Rosa causes him to do strange things throughout the game. Is he really be controlled or is he acting on his own? His betrayal actually hurt me when I first played this game and that's saying a lot.

4. The Archadian Judges: (FFXII) This is my "they look badass" pick. While not necessarily memorable individually, Bergan, Drace, Gabranth, Ghis, and Zargabaath are the types of villains that invoke fear into a gamer. Upon seeing these armored terror knights stalking together, it actually made me cringe. These Judges had an aura of fear about them, making them the type of villains you want in a game.

3. Sephiroth (FFVII): Usually everyone's number 1 spot, Sephiroth is to me one of the most iconic villains in FF history. While some may criticize his ranking as being too high or too low, my defense is that he is the only FF villain to do this:

SPOILER! Skip over the italics if you don't want to know.

He actually kills a party member in Aerith. If that doesn't get him a spot, I don't know what does. Even if not for storyline purposes, he kills one of your best characters in the game! That was enough for me to hate him. And the shock of the moment resonates in gaming history.

He has little emotion, is intimidating, and is the type of villain you want to see die at the end. So for that he gets a top spot on my list.

2. Sin: (FFX) A world-eating monster. This villain never spoke, but to me was one of the most terrifying villains in FF. I rank him so highly because of the urgency of killing him, the fear he invokes, the dread of having to face him, and his awesome appearance. These kind of villains are sometimes the most effective because they don't have any real purpose. Just a mindless machine of destruction. That's cool to me.

1. Kefka: (FFVI) The laugh. That creepy laugh. My top villain is Kefka simply because he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He's also insane, a FF version of the Joker. An enemy that can't be rationalized with and just keeps destroying everyone that gets in his path. The true face of evil to me is when you face a villain that just cannot be changed. There is no hope for Kefka. The embodiment of chaos, he devastates humanity in order to achieve more and more power. Awesome villain. One of the best in video game history.

So that's my list. Of course you don't have to be so in-depth with yours, but what do you think? What are your top 5 heroes/heroines and villains?
 
Final Fantasy X was my first RPG. I did have old Zelda games and stuff like that but I guess I was too young to like it. Even though FFX has a lot of critisism about it, it was THE game that really got me into the genre. The storyline was really interesting, the characters were all very likable (especially Wakka) and it was just really fun to play. I actual have a Auron T-shirt that says FINAL FANTASY below him. I did play FFXII but didn't like it. Other than that FFX was the only FF game that i have played.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Hey guys, check out my article for Final Fantasy on the main page. Perhaps I address some of the problems we have found in this thread with why Final Fantasy is dwindling in popularity. Comments and thoughts welcome! Final Fantasy Reimagined: J-RPG+Western RPG=Awesome?

I don't know, but to me it reads like you're telling FF games to westernize, rather than forming any sort of merger between the styles. Customizable characters, in particular, are hard to reconcile with the strong, character-based storytelling that Final Fantasy has been known for. Even being able to change the character's name means that no voice actor can even use that name. Being able to change the character's weapons ruins a lot of potential cut-scenes, which couldn't be written with a specific weapon in mind. And those are just the most basic customizations.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I don't think it would hurt Final Fantasy to westernize to some extent. Skyrim got a perfect score in the venerable Famitsu magazine. Meaning Japanese and Western gamers alike agree it's an awesome game. The last three games (FFXII, FXIII, and FFIV) have gotten less that favorable reviews. Mass Effect has some of the strongest characters in RPGs right now and their main character is customizable. Having a given last name like "Shepherd" or "Hawke" (in Dragon Age) would solve characters referring to them by name.

And Monster Hunter is one of the most popular series in all of Japan. And it's really customizable. Weapons, armor, everything. This series currently blows FF out of the water in terms of popularity. In Japan specifically.

Tons of games use the weapons you are currently using in the cut scenes. It's not that difficult to render.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I don't think it would hurt Final Fantasy to westernize to some extent. Skyrim got a perfect score in the venerable Famitsu magazine. Meaning Japanese and Western gamers alike agree it's an awesome game. The last three games (FFXII, FXIII, and FFIV) have gotten less that favorable reviews. Mass Effect has some of the strongest characters in RPGs right now and their main character is customizable. Having a given last name like "Shepherd" or "Hawke" (in Dragon Age) would solve characters referring to them by name.

And Monster Hunter is one of the most popular series in all of Japan. And it's really customizable. Weapons, armor, everything. This series currently blows FF out of the water in terms of popularity. In Japan specifically.

From a business and marketing perspective, this is a really common trend. A few products do well, using one style, and so older product lines have to compromise their styles to match. The result is often, but not always, that they alienate their older customers and simultaneously fall into a batch of copy-cats. In my opinion, they're more likely to succeed if they went back to what worked best with their older games. That said, I also haven't played anything after FFX or many of the other newer RPGs.


Tons of games use the weapons you are currently using in the cut scenes. It's not that difficult to render.

I meant to refer to scenes which integrate those weapons into the scene itself.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I don't see them going back to the turn-based style. If they did, it would have to be for handhelds. In that case, I think it would make huge money. An original Final Fantasy for handhelds would do about as well as Dragon Quest IX did, which made millions in Japan and elsewhere.

However, for consoles I think they need to borrow from other successful franchises. Have the same Final Fantasy charm and great storylines, but have more customization for your main character at least. You could have a default model like Shepherd in Mass Effect. It's already been mentioned that Final Fantasy XV is going to be more action based. So it looks like they're already adopting some level of Western mechanics (like Skyrim for example).
 
The reason I grew distant from final fantasy was the abandonment of turn based battles, it got that i just couldn't enjoy them anymore
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I think that is where they've seen they're core fan base dwindle off after FFX. Like I said before, I think a new turn-based edition of FF (maybe FF16?) would be awesome and would do really well. But I think they'd have to do it for handheld. Their focus on doing new and different things with their console versions, so they're going to keep pushing in whatever direction they think is best. If they're going to do action based games, however, it couldn't hurt borrowing from action based games that have been successful such as Monster Hunter, Kingdom Hearts, Elder Scrolls, and Dragon Age.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I don't see them going back to the turn-based style.

I didn't at all mean to suggest they return to turn-based combat. That's a very small portion of what their older games were about. I just think the core of the Final Fantasy series is their character-based storytelling, and the more customization they add to their characters, the less finite those characters become for the story to draw upon. That's all.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I think what I was thinking of is more along the lines of Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Knights of the Old Republic. Bioware style games. There's a main character but he's able to be customized and still has his own personality as you pick how he interacts with other members of your party. Perhaps a Final Fantasy game that let you dictate the story more could open the world up to a lot more fans as they'd be able to carve out their own path in branching storylines. So still have the strong story-driven games, just with a bit more control over certain dialogue and branching quests.
 
If I had to put my favorite FF games in order it would have to be;
1. FF 9
The first game I played and an epic adventure. Greatly overlooked because of Seven and then Ten
2. FF 10
The graphics, Mixed with a great story line, along with fun characters and a Main character who wasn't just a silent bad***
3. FF Tactics
Made strategy RPG games popular to begin with and had an awesome story.


Most of the rest were good too but those were my favorite.
 

teacup

Auror
(Time to revive the thread.)

1) FFIX. Without a doubt my favourite game ever. I loved the style, the music, the gameplay, the world, the characters - everything was just brilliant in this game. (The card game was useless though.)

2) FFVII. I think this is way too highly praised, but it is still my second favourite. Sephiroph was a great villain and the storyline had me guessing for a long time. I liked the materia system, too.

3) FFVI. I enjoyed this one a lot, especially the chocobo runaway from Figarro part. Kefka and the steampunk stuff were great. I didn't like how everyone could learn the same magic/skills with no penalty (unlike FFVII as you had limited space for materia.)

4) FFIV. It was good fun, but the actual storyline didn't really do much for me.
The twist was lame, I thought. He's his brother? Oh wow. Nah.
Also, the last boss was very "meh." And I don't mean the battle. I enjoyed the magic system to it, though.

5) FFVIII. Oh man...Ugh. First, I'm going to say that I did enjoy it and the card game was actually useful. Now I'm going to say the writing was absolutely terrible, and I absolutely hate Squall, and though it was supposed to be a love story, it was not done well at all. Here's how it went: Squall doesn't care about her at all. Squall's extremely defensive of her. Squall loves her. No progression between. An event happens then he's like that. (I'll stop knocking it now, because I have too much to say ;P)

Top 5 characters: Vivi, Red XII, Zidane, Steiner, Freya. (Okay, so 4 of them are from FF9, but those are my top 5 anyway.)
 

musycpyrate

Scribe
FF VII was my first and favorite. Cid Highwind does not get enough attention!
FF VIII second. I love the interactive gunblade in battles and the story. Magic was wierd though.
FF XII third. Balthier.... need I say more.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
5) FFVIII. Oh man...Ugh. First, I'm going to say that I did enjoy it and the card game was actually useful. Now I'm going to say the writing was absolutely terrible, and I absolutely hate Squall, and though it was supposed to be a love story, it was not done well at all. Here's how it went: Squall doesn't care about her at all. Squall's extremely defensive of her. Squall loves her. No progression between. An event happens then he's like that. (I'll stop knocking it now, because I have too much to say ;P)

I'm currently replaying this after being part of a group on Facebook where the majority of the members rank this as number 1. I don't get it myself, but it's better than I remember it. I still don't really get the connection with Squall. He's extremely hard to identify with for me. Maybe it's a personality thing, I don't know.

FFVI will always be my favorite one. I loved the ensemble cast and the storyline.
 
I think what I was thinking of is more along the lines of Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Knights of the Old Republic. Bioware style games. There's a main character but he's able to be customized and still has his own personality as you pick how he interacts with other members of your party. Perhaps a Final Fantasy game that let you dictate the story more could open the world up to a lot more fans as they'd be able to carve out their own path in branching storylines. So still have the strong story-driven games, just with a bit more control over certain dialogue and branching quests.

...so, like Chrono Trigger? At least with the branching storylines :p

I'm currently replaying this after being part of a group on Facebook where the majority of the members rank this as number 1. I don't get it myself, but it's better than I remember it. I still don't really get the connection with Squall. He's extremely hard to identify with for me. Maybe it's a personality thing, I don't know.

FFVI will always be my favorite one. I loved the ensemble cast and the storyline.

I adore FFVIII. I'm actually in the middle (or well, last 1/3) of a replay-through as well, and I actually like and enjoy Squall and most of the characters a lot more. Maybe I was a little too young to understand the stoicism, and I think that the game loses something in having these polygons trying to display emotional depth through body language.

Squall is absurdly stoic, and most of the time (at least in the first 2 and 1/2 discs) the player has to guess at what he's thinking. But well, it's really not that hard to guess, and some of the party members help out now and again by explaining it.
One of the things that almost ruined him for me in this playthrough (and I imagine, in previous playthroughs as well) was how long it took him to go rescue Rinoa in the attack on Garden. I thought it stretching things a little bit too much, but at the same time, we already know how seriously Squall is taking being a leader of Garden and doing his best for everyone, putting them ahead of himself (and his desire to save Rinoa).

At the same time, his absolutely ridiculously amazing and hopeless rescue of Rinoa in space completely redeems pretty much everything he's done or not done with Rinoa up to that point. He absolutely says "eff it all" in regards to all his responsibilities and goes after what he wants the most even though even by going after her, they had almost no chance.

I've heard recently that FFVIII is much more popular with girls than guys, but well, if it was designed in the last ten years it would definitely be my favorite.

Anyway, my lists:
1. Final Fantasy Tactics: Not a main series entry, but my favorite Final Fantasy of all-time. The story is amazing, the graphics were clean and beautiful (which was pretty major for PS1, this is the same system that housed FFVII, a game I can't play anymore because of the graphics and lack of analog stick support). The job system was life-consuming. The recent update for PSP is even better than the original and is the sole reason I would like to own a PSP (I borrowed my brother's for a summer).

2. Final Fantasy X: The story, characters, gameplay mechanics, and graphics were all completely amazing. My only gripe was being forced to do mini-games to get ultimate weapons fully unlocked—some of which I could never even get close to being able to do (LIGHTNING TOWERS I HATE YOU)

3. Final Fantasy VIII: I think people had their expectations so high after VII that nothing would have satisfied them. I loved the junctioning system and the characters. The love story was fantastic and Squall's depth was impressive. My biggest complaint is that Cid wasn't very awesome (I'm used to Cids being awesome). The graphics were so much better than VII.

4. Final Fantasy XII: The battle system goes down as being one of the best of all RPGs I've ever played. I enjoyed the storyline and I loved all the references to Final Fantasy Tactics scattered about. The bestiary was very cool, and the judges as well. I loved getting demolished in the first area by a tyrannosaurus...taught me not to attack everything I see! I disliked the summons, and the lack of a love story was a surprise. I have some other complaints as well, so if some of the older games had better gameplay or directing, they would probably unseat this.

5. Final Fantasy VII: Probably my favorite end-game experience with the master materia, weapons (both the kind you equip and the kind you fight) and everything else. I loved materia and it goes down as one of my favorite magic systems. I loved all the characters with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Yuffie being some of my all-time favorite characters. The creepiness of following Sephiroth or Jenova was one of the more horrific things I had ever experienced in a video game at the time. I also love all the extra story that has come out since the game. Crisis Core and Advent Children Complete are fantastic in their own rights.

6. Final Fantasy IV: I only recently got to play this game (compared to everyone that played it as FF2), and I found it surprisingly compelling and deep. I enjoyed the difficulty and not being coddled. The story and characters were nice and it has aged well, although it would definitely benefit from a face-lift.

7. Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core : I really enjoyed the ease and set-up of this game, and it's completely gorgeous too. Got a little bit too easy there at the end, but I enjoy power-gaming so that wasn't an issue for me. It was nice seeing more of Zack and especially more of Aerith, Sephiroth and Cloud, but I found the extra content a little distracting. I don't think that the plot of this game really added much to the mythos of Final Fantasy VII, other than being a chance to see SOLDIER and Zack in particular in action. I have similar feelings towards what I know of Dirge of Cerberus.

8. Final Fantasy XIII: Beautiful and the Fal'Cie are cool. It was nice having a female protagonist, but I didn't particularly care for most of the characters. I never developed the rapport I had for, well, anyone else in any other Final Fantasy game. Lightning is awesome, but I didn't fall for her. Snow is strong, but I found him annoying. I wouldn't be sure of the names of any of the other characters, and I'm not even sure I can picture them. The linearity made the game go quick and I thought the battles were engaging but stupid. They made you stand up and make sure you were doing everything right, but it was a bit too formulaic for me. Combo to stagger then damage dealers, blah blah blah.

9. Final Fantasy IX: I really didn't care for FFIX the first time I played it. I got Chrono Cross first and was glad I did. I eventually enjoyed IX enough to play it through to the third disc this last year, and I have high hopes I will play it to the conclusion by the end of next year. I did not care for the character designs. I loved the feel that they were going for, and I wish they had pulled it off better. One of the things they did best was establish a world that felt like it was a living, breathing place. X did this as well, but both VII and VIII made you come away thinking things like "How do they have an economy?" and "Where is the infrastructure?" So this was a welcome change in IX.

9. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest : This was my first Final Fantasy game. I played it for hours upon hours way back when I was a kid and I really loved it. It paled in comparison to when I finally got to find out what all the fuss was about with a game called "Chrono Trigger", but I played Mystic Quest for at least a few years before I got to play any of the greats.​

I tried playing FFI but couldn't get into it. And yes, I am aware VI wasn't on the list, a game that is universally regarded as being in the top two best RPGs for the SNES (Chrono Trigger being the other), but I never got to play it. I'm looking forward to doing so eventually.
 
In regards to your article, Phil:

I'm not sure that I care about personal customization of the characters. I think what Skyrim gains in customization it loses in storytelling. I would love to see more customization on the gameplay side and more open-ended content as well. One of the things I love about Skyrim, besides it being such a fantastic little world that feels believable, is that there's always tons of things to do. And you can always download more things to do via mods (at least if you have the PC version).

It would be fantastic to continue on in FF games, getting stronger, getting better items and equipment, exploring more of the world, visiting more settings, seeing more cutscenes, finding out more about your party. After a good Final Fantasy, I am just always left wanting more.

Short of fan-fiction or pipe dreams of remakes, playing the game over only has so much to offer.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
That article's one of the first ones I wrote for Mythic Scribes, I think. :)

My opinion has slightly changed since then, but not much. I think some of the online entries of Final Fantasy (11 and 14) allow for a lot of customization, so perhaps that scratches that particular itch. Maybe doing so in a main entry wouldn't work for the series. However, what I meant by giving players more options is allowing them to shape their relationships with characters and even the world around them, the same way you can do so in Skyrim. If you want to be a murdering psychopath, you can be that. If you want to be the hero that saves the day, you can do that too. I agree that I don't think Skyrim's storyline is as strong as its playability, but I guess I don't expect that from the Elder Scrolls games.

FFVI is on a lot of top RPGs of all time lists, and for good reason. I think one reason is because the story is incredible, everyone can find a character that they like or relate to, and it had some pretty revolutionary ideas at the time. Without giving spoilers away, the game blew my mind at a young age with some of the things it dared to do.

For me, I imagine, some what if situations:

1. What if you could play the game as a Dark Knight, the same way you could in FFIV. However, you don't have to become a paladin, but instead stay on your same path. What if you decide to turn to the "dark side" so to speak? How would this effect your relationships with other characters?
2. What if your party could be wildly different and react to you depending on your actions (a la Dragon Age or Baldur's Gate.) If you went around slaughtering moogles and destroying crystals, you couldn't have a good party. But if you were a defender of everything that was good, you couldn't have certain members in your group.
3. What if a Final Fantasy game allowed you to truly shape the way things turned out, for better or for worse?

These are things I imagine that could allow for the series to get a boost. Sure, Chrono Trigger allowed for branching storylines, but you didn't have too many choices that actually effected the game (unless you count what to do with Magus, which I always loved). For me, allowing a bit more ability to craft your own main character (with voicework like Mass Effect does for both male and female) and then decide what path they take through a world like Ivalice or Spira would be incredible in my opinion.

So while I believe too much customization may tip the scales too much, if you allow choices for players, I think it could really spike some interest in the future.
 
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