this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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IMO Final Fantasy is not good. I’ve tried playing several of the games but every time the story is so cliche and overly complicated. I’ve been told “oh just try a different one. This version is better!” If I have to try that hard to enjoy a franchise it’s just not for me.
While I'm a huge fangirl of the series, they are blatantly "JPRGy" and are always very full of the numerous JRPG tropes, which can definitely give a cliched feeling.
Admittedly, overly complicated isn't a way I'd describe most of the games, but that definitely fits many of the more recent entries (especially 16). IMO, 7-10 and 12 are the peak Final Fantasy games. My personal favourites being 9 and 10. And even they have some cringe moments that I pretend don't exist lol (for 9, everything involving Quina or Eiko; for 10, stuff like most of the outfits and the utterly bizarre laughing scene).
The sleepy plot-twist at the end could have only been imagined as good in a dream. It felt so lazy and uninspired I didn't even bother giving X-2 a try.
BUT FFIX and Tactics: War of the Lions are definitely the best ones.
Did War of the Lions fix the game's balance? I loved the original Tactics, but wow that game was whack where balance is concerned. You could go from utter broken characters being unbeatably strong to being soft locked if you only had one save because some battle was so hard.
I didn't really feel the story was much. I'm struggling to remember it at all! But damn the gameplay was really something.
Final Fantasy is the OG JRPG. They invented most of those the tropes that are used today in RPG-style games.
That's true, but I don't think that makes it worth playing these days unless you're curious to see how things have evolved. You'll find better written stories and more interesting features in pretty much any modern RPG.
I'm a fan, but even I can admit that they can be fairly 'typical fantasy saga'. What kinds of videogame stories do you like?
I mean, how many other games were tackling climate change, imperialism, genocide, and deindustrialization in a single game in 1998. I’d say some of the story beats can be cliche in FF, but the stories are pretty unique. Unique AND over-complicated.
That said, I live Final Fantasy. I’ve played most of them. I have never really liked the combat in any of them. Not the real time or turn based combat. It feels tedious, and the rock paper scissors mechanics get tiring after a while. I still replay them way too often,
X has the best story of any game I ever played. IV and VI have good stories as well. The rest didn't pique my interest.
Final fantasy is a really weird series. Every game is different and every fan has their own opinion of which games are good and why, or what’s important in a final fantasy game.
When people tell me that the story is what’s most important in a Final Fantasy game, I know they probably started with 7 or later. I like the parts where you customize your party and explore and have battles and make decisions and solve puzzles and all that video game shit. Yes, the stories enhance the game, but the story was never meant to be the entire game: But after 7, a whole bunch of new fans were like “there’s this new genre of games where the whole point is to watch cut scenes and read a lot of dialogue”, and the games have changed to accommodate that.
I guess my point is maybe try an earlier game (probably 4, 5, or 6) that has better gameplay, and you can get through the dialogue faster without having to watch all the slow animations of characters putting their hands behind their head.