So, five years ago, my favorite game series of all time was most definitely Square’s Final Fantasy. They were all great. I’d played these games since I had been playing games back on the NES with Final Fantasy 1. Each one took the basic model and just kept improving it.
Then, something happened that hadn’t happened before. Something thought to be impossible. Square released Final Fantasy X-2. The first direct sequel to a game series 10+ games long. Sure we’d had side games like Tactics and Mystic Quest but never a true sequel.
This was actually a high point of the series. Possibly THE high point. FFX-2 quickly surpassed FF8 as my favorite game int he series. It’s fun campy gameplay was quite a refreshing take on what an RPG story should be. Especially a Final Fantasy RPG story.
From that game on unfortunately Square has been continually killing my interest in the series. After the unforgivable mess that is FF11, Square started churning out sequels for it’s popular Final Fantasy 7 title. They’ve basically stated they want to push FF13 games for the next decade or so as well. Now we’re getting a FF4 sequel for cell phones.
Part of my love for the series came from the interesting and unique stories. Now, Square will slap the title on everything it can to sell crap. It’s ruined the integrity of a once good name.
December 16, 2007 at 12:48 am |
Say what you will, but I am looking forward to FF4 DS remake I sure am
December 17, 2007 at 10:35 pm |
It’s funny, cause I remember hearing people say this about the series back when FF7 came out, but now it seems to be actually happening. Meanwhile, I’ve replayed FFX and am replaying FF8 now and still enjoying them. I may dig back into the SNES days soon.
I need to play FFXII again, cause I got 90% of the way through it and I’m still not sure what the hell it was about.
December 18, 2007 at 11:13 am |
I’ve heard nothing but good about FF12 but at the same time, it’s the only Final Fantasy ever that I stopped playing out of sheer boredom. Seriously, I don’t have any care for anything in it. It’s not any level of hatred like with FF11 it’s just simple apathy.
Also the battles are boring as fuck since the game “plays for you”.
December 22, 2007 at 2:41 pm |
I actually liked FF12 myself. The game plays some of it for you, but you can wrest control from it and do things yourself as well, if you think you can do better than a simple formula. For boss battles, I do not use as many of the gambits as I do just whacking little wolves and things. The music and atmosphere are good too, tactics like. I’m also glad Ivalice is part of main line final fantasy at last too.
December 23, 2007 at 2:19 am |
The battles didn’t bug me, cause I can micromanage to any level I care to, and adjusting Gambits was fun. That was actually what I liked most about the game. I just have no clue what the story was about. Plot threads were introduced and then dropped randomly, half of your characters have no input in the storyline, and there’s no unifying theme to any of the proceedings. I kept waiting for it to pick up and reveal what the underlying conflict was, and it never did.
I’m going to play it again to make sure I didn’t completely miss everything, but I’m not convinced there’s much there.