Ask/Answer

Well....FF9 was intended as a look back from where the series started but I believe that all the different kinds of races/beings in the game were something Square added to make the game unique.

And now, Cap'n Amarant rants about how much he loves FFIX.

The reason they chose to go for the look IX had was because, in the minds of the development staff of FF's I-VI, that was the absolute true look to the Final Fantasy worlds and IX's purpose was for newer FF fans to experience the full true feeling of what the Final Fantasy series used to be before VII and VIII started to take the feeling away. In fact, a lot of the developers and Sakaguchi himself said that if Square ever remade any of the prior Final Fantasy's, it would be in this style. You can see it in the remakes of III and IV for DS but Amano and Nomura's style heavily influenced the CGI scenes.

I enjoyed the style and I think it fit the world perfectly. I don't think I would have liked it as much if they made the characters look more realistic. In my mind, I enjoy a more cartoonish style in games. That's why I'm never really playing games that have insane depth put into the look of people and shit. It was a part of what made the game charming and to make this colorful world dark and gritty would have ruined a lot of what the game was meant to be. I would have prefured some of Amano's concepts be put in for a lot of characters however (Amarant being the biggest one that shouldn't have been so altered). Plus I loved the style because the monsters in this game had hardly any recycled enemies. That's really rare in an RPG! There's only a select few monsters you can actually say is just recolored or had a wing or something added but the rest are their own look and have their own battle animations.

((BTW, this thread is amazing))

Great idea, Erel, forgive me for saying that I didn't think it would be you coming up with something like this. :/ Don't mean to insult, just didn't think of it.

I'd always wondered why they went with this style, but that actually makes a great deal of sense. VII and VIII had strange animation to begin with, but I didn't think it was that that took away the FF feel, I'd always felt the general landscape design and the direction of the story that made it more realistic. That's what I was thinking when I compared the landscape of XII to the first Final Fantasy when they brought back the archaic look, along with rickety old airships. But when I think of the developers trying to recreate the old feel of FF, IX feels the closest out of any of the other titles, in my opinion.

@Amarant, I just thought of something, is the 'realistic' design of XIII partly why you didn't care for it, characters and story aside? I mean, the developers probably felt pressured with it being their PS3 launch title to make it as graphically advanced as possible and to make the characters all appear as real people, but it somehow does take away the FF feel in a way. Just wondering if that influenced your take on XIII at all.

I really loved the game.
The characters were different and all of them were unique (that's one of the createst arts creating a game), and lovable. But I do have to agree on the design-thing. I first thought Zidane was a girl with a cat-tail O_o. And I wasn't a big fan of the style. And about Kuja... He was horrible.
But the pixel art was amazing. I love how they made the cities and it had a special feeling over it. It made me think of the middleages xD (and history is interesting ! )
Also the gameplay was amazing. The only think I didn't like were the bosses (especially on the end) who were so *** hard to beat.
The story also was very enjoyable.

The game also was almost symbolic, I think. The weird archetecture (upside-down castles, weird roads, that whole memory-thing,...) really made me think of that.That makes it also very special. It has been the only FF (I(ve played) who had got it. I just love it <3

It's the old "Dark and Gritty" Vs "Colourful and bright", in all honesty I prefer the later especially in this day and age because it's such an abandoned design choice. I suppose the reason why they went with this move in IX was because they wanted you to be wowed with the amazing world and locations as much as the story and character. It also helps set it as a classic Fantasy rather then a Sci-Fi Fantasy (which is what VII and VIII where).

Ok I've got a question if you don't mind Mr Erel. As I've been stating I'm currently playing VI and after that I will move onto V, I am also playing on getting on IV and have still got to get to Chaos in I. I'm wondering if I should really bother getting II and III, mainly because the general feel I've been hearing around here and the rest of the internet is that they really aren't worth bothering with. Is there any key aspects or story points/character who really make the game stand out?

@question 1--I wasn't really sure about the style of ff9 when I played it a long time ago, it didn't really step up in the graphics department, but one thing it did do was make me completely forget about ff8, which is what I wanted, something in the complete opposite direction. And like said earlier, even tho each ff title is unique, ff9 had a different distinction of uniqueness to it, a different art style, a classical feel, a protagonist from another planet. Now looking back on the art style, although I thought it mediocre and odd at the time, I now think it is one of the reasons I remember ff9 so vividly as opposed to some other ff titles.
@Ry--no help there, I haven't played them

@Nemo: There are times when I am a genius. lol Just certain times.

'@Everyone that responded: Thanks first of all and reading all of your posts a lot of you mentioned the words: 'Original', 'Classic', or some sort of statement that concurred to those words. That I can understand, but as a proven fact we all mature and grow, won't any of you say that games can keep the feel of a classic tone without sacrificing adapting to the ever changing art of gaming? I can honestly say that when the art of Final Fantasy changed drastically with the arrival of FFVII and FFVIII that they didn't lose the heart of Final Fantasy, it just changed. With FFIX's arrival, I felt a good game, a fun time, and an epic story, however I felt like it didn't hit the notes since I felt it lacked the spark of change that FF gained when they started the shift of art style with FFVII, and FFVIII. I'm a firm believer that change can happen while keeping most of the original personality of a game intact. I think Final Fantasy did well by shifting and trying attract a wider set of people so its success can be bigger than yesterday {but the downside to that is that new audience can't appreciate the good deeds of yesterday's games. Maybe thats why so many hated FFIX because they judged it on looks and not on the game}.

But maybe I'm speaking from a different set of eyes since {as most of you know} I started the series with FFVII, back tracked to FFVI, to FFIV, and still enjoyed the games before the 'HD' genre of FF. While I love FFX but hate FFVIII, I can say that both have the heart of Final Fantasy just in a different stroke each game. I can't say one is a bad game period, I can only say I don't like this game because----

I jabbered there. lol. But I can say FFXIII is the major sign that the new gen of Final Fantasy is trying to get a heart transplant for the FF genre period. I'm not going to say I don't like it, but I will state that the new heart it's trying to set is going to be a beat that some of us may not recognize.

@RY: Actually yeah I do mind, RY. LOL. jk. Again its open for anyone with a question to anyone or everyone. Even if one question isn't done being answered we can always do what we are doing now and 'quote' or specify which question we are commenting/answering on. But to put my two cents on your question, I back tracked as far as FFIV and I Feel like I have a complete feel of the Final Fantasy world. I didn't get the beginning, but I think I got my fill of that flavor from playing FF Tactics with the job system deal. I never played FFII and FFIII but I don't think I need to. But my opinion would not hold that much weight I believe.

nemo wrote:@Amarant, I just thought of something, is the 'realistic' design of XIII partly why you didn't care for it, characters and story aside? I mean, the developers probably felt pressured with it being their PS3 launch title to make it as graphically advanced as possible and to make the characters all appear as real people, but it somehow does take away the FF feel in a way. Just wondering if that influenced your take on XIII at all.

The realistic design doesn't bother me, the character design did bother me because Tetsuya Nomura has an obsessive belt fetish. People don't look or feel real in FF to me anymore. XIII made everyone so friggen pretty. At least in XII, you had these demi-human characters to add some contrast to the human world. People were scarred up from the war and they wore dirty and tattered clothing. XIII made everyone look like they were absolute perfect people. I get the whole "Sacred Eden-esque Living Area" but there wasn't just one oddly formed person at all. So maybe it is an art design thing because in prior Final Fantasy's, people felt real. That's what I liked about Itahana's design for IX because every single person had a physical flaw. Some of the characters looked like perfect humans (Zidane, Garnet) but that's contrasted with Queen Brahne and Quina and a lot of the other inhabitants of the world. Clothing was tattered, people were scarred, there were overweight people, there were overly brawny bums, goofy looking old people. There was a distinction with these inhabitants. XIII's people were like I was playing with Barbie dolls. Everyone has a perfect design to them.

I have a question--I here a lot of talk on here about how ff7 is over-rated and whatnot, so why is it you think so??

The Cap'n wrote:

nemo wrote:@Amarant, I just thought of something, is the 'realistic' design of XIII partly why you didn't care for it, characters and story aside? I mean, the developers probably felt pressured with it being their PS3 launch title to make it as graphically advanced as possible and to make the characters all appear as real people, but it somehow does take away the FF feel in a way. Just wondering if that influenced your take on XIII at all.

The realistic design doesn't bother me, the character design did bother me because Tetsuya Nomura has an obsessive belt fetish. People don't look or feel real in FF to me anymore. XIII made everyone so friggen pretty. At least in XII, you had these demi-human characters to add some contrast to the human world. People were scarred up from the war and they wore dirty and tattered clothing. XIII made everyone look like they were absolute perfect people. I get the whole "Sacred Eden-esque Living Area" but there wasn't just one oddly formed person at all. So maybe it is an art design thing because in prior Final Fantasy's, people felt real. That's what I liked about Itahana's design for IX because every single person had a physical flaw. Some of the characters looked like perfect humans (Zidane, Garnet) but that's contrasted with Queen Brahne and Quina and a lot of the other inhabitants of the world. Clothing was tattered, people were scarred, there were overweight people, there were overly brawny bums, goofy looking old people. There was a distinction with these inhabitants. XIII's people were like I was playing with Barbie dolls. Everyone has a perfect design to them.

You both have a point here. They looked realistic, but just like the Cap'n said, they were too perfect. I actually even liked the fact 90 % of the IX-population were rather ugly.
But I think it's with almost all new FF's. From what I have seen from the new trailers, those new characters and figurants will be pretty too. And even Advent Children, DoC, Crisis Core,... had only "pretty" people in the game (with normal- or working-class clothes).



@Zack : I actually think FF7 is a bit overrated. It isn't better than other FF titles in my opinion. I think I bought that game 1-2 years ago and I enjoyed it, but it didn't had a "wow" effect. (most) characters are awesome, it has a good story.... But other FF titles have it too.

Zack'sCloud wrote:I have a question--I here a lot of talk on here about how ff7 is over-rated and whatnot, so why is it you think so??

Well I don't think it got overrated until word of the movie came out. When VII came out it was really different than other games at the time. It really stood out against the large collection of PSX games. I think the reason why people really love VII the most is because at the time, it was the main FF game that fans got into. I can almost say that of everyone on this site, our first FF was between VII and VIII because they were 2 of the best PSX games of all time not to mention it fits our age groups.

The movie was made to this day because VII is the best selling game Square has ever created, thus making it the most popular game in the series. If people buy it, it means they must like it. The movie is where VII's retarded fanbase started really. Newer fans saw the movie and thought both "OMG DIS IZ AWSUM" and "FIGAL FEN10SY SHOOD B LEIK DIS". So all these fans who are hard core anime nuts saw the movie and thought it was amazing and that's what got VII popular with new fans. Because VII was pretty much the only FF that fans liked the spinoffs, Square seemed to want to put out more shit that involved VII in the title and that brought on DoC, CC and so on.

Maybe Kingdom Hearts is to blame too. Since KH was directed to children, seeing someone as dark and cool and brooding as Cloud made fans cream. In fact, that's where Cloud's mopey personality started because they oddly merged Cloud with Vincent. In fact, KH was my first incounter with Cloud and I was surprised how he never really that mopey in VII. But some fans never got to play VII after KH and wanted more Cloud. So I really blame the new age groups who got so obsessive with Cloud from the spinoff games. I think the main reason fans say it's the most over rated is because of the extreme fandom behind it.

A lot of people tend to go against popular vote, just to feel like a rebel, so that would largely affect the 'overrated' portion of VII. But like Cap'n said, the spinoffs are pretty much what overrated the series in general.

I liked the spinoffs, but the core game is what I really care about and it just has the "it" that connected with me, and like you said, maybe it was bc my age at the time, idk, oddly enough I hate Kingdom Heart games

Wait, you enjoyed the VII spinoffs yet you hate Kingdom Hearts? That's pretty much the same thing dude. The anime outlook and feel, the bad writing that contradicts the original story, Tetsuya Nomura is the character designer and a part of the production team and there just seems to be more and more spinoff games for these titles. Not to mention several new throwaway characters are added to each game that add so many extra plots that do not fit into the original game.

ya, I didn't like the childish feel to it

one thing I wish the ff series would do is to kill some ppl off, no I'm not trying to be sadistic or anything, but when you build a connection with your players ex: Aerith, and then out of nowhere, the main villain just comes by and whacks her, especially a character with a true meaning to the story, I feel like it has a lot of effect on me. Emotionally time was spent getting to know the character, especially if you enjoyed the character like I did with Aerith (her theme remains one of the most tranquil tracks I've heard to date) and then she is just gone...it really got me invested into the plot and the drive to kill Sephiroth, and not to sound corny, but I could almost feel Cloud's pain after her death. I guess some of these things are why I love FF7 so much, it was the first game I played that broke the barrier in a different way...and things just clicked with me, we all have our games that hit us in different ways and connect with us on a different level, and ff7 was one of those for me. I just wish the FF series would do something edgy like that again, with the same kind of impact to the game...I'm not talking about ===SPOILER=======
the ending to FF13 when you lose Fang, and Vanille, bc the game is over and you move on....it needs to be in the middle of the game where there is an investment lost...the closest thing since was Zidane in FF9, but that was still part of the end of the game

Graphics will always be the main focus with newer generation games, unfortunately. Gamers today really lack the respect to enjoy a game that doesn't look good. Games are turning into a fashion show, if it doesn't look good, it ain't worth buying, no matter what kind of 'meaning' or 'plot' it has behind it. Gaming is no longer a passion anymore, it's a fucking American Idol competition. And the only winners are the ones who look good.

I'm still the passionate gamer I was back when I barely knew how to even hold a controller, I look past all the image BS and try to find the hidden messages that the developers enveloped into the story and the character plots. The thing I can't stand is when the developers get the oh-so-brilliant idea to remake or further an already great game. This is what ultimately turned me off to the FFVII compilation was how much it was being refined and tweaked. One small change to any game is enough to make me think that the developers are prone to peer pressure and I can't respect that. It's great that they're willing to give us more of what we want, but when you change the plot and characters so much that you don't give the main character so much as a blink in one of the spin-offs, it shows that they're completely careless about the original concept of the story, which no matter the visuals is still beautiful and moving.

@Zack, tragedy is a fantastic element to a story, and remains to be a major influence to go through the game again, but is kind of difficult to set up and sometimes leads to disappointment to the fans. Which can lead to another fucking sequel or spinoff, like X-2. Instead of leaving the story where it was, you know, PERFECT, they decided to bring Tidus back, turn Yuna into Ke$ha and come up with a plot that had little to nothing to do with the original story. Which leads to more disappointment and can most likely destroy a good game.

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS

@Zack: Well, FF still does that. A lot. Pretty much since FFII, there have been key figure characters who die in the story. The characters may not be playable sometimes but their deaths are still meaningful to the player and the characters. We got Tellah's death and how nearly the entire cast of characters react to it, Galuf's sacrifice for his friends was tear jerking in V, General Leo's last stand, Aeris and the AVALANCHE gang in VII, Kenok and the Rhonso's being used for Seymour's monster forms and so on.

Then one of your favorites, XII, has several characters that die throughout the game that hurt the characters. Ashe's husband, Vaan's brother, Gabranth, Reddas. Dr. Cid even counts towards Balthier because although he's still alive, the man he used to be is long gone because of the evil god thingy that hung around him (Forget his name). FF has always done something edgy like the death of a character but everyone seems to only remember Aeris' death and the impact she had when there are other, if not more, emotional moments of a characters sacrifice. It's never left the series.

I guess ur right Cap, but most of those had little or no impact to me personally I guess, and I think if they are playable, it makes it more dramatic...Galuf I guess would be the closest, but I didn't care to much for FF5. Ashe's husband died in the opening frame of the game....so ya, I didn't know Vaan even had a brother lol, Gabranth was a good one, even tho it was at the end, Reddas and Dr. Cid meh.

I don't blame you for forgetting Reks, his involvement was only useful to make Vaan into a stubborn rebel. Therefore, no one can really remember him, nor care at all that he was even there. The fact that he's voiced by Yuri Lowenthal also has something to do with that.

o ya, now I remember Reks, don't remember much about him tho, or how he died, so he wasn't that important

I reckon the main reason why everyone only cares about Aerith's death is because you actually lost a real member for good (no other new member appeared later with the same stats from said dead character). Thats why all the rumours of how to resurrect Aerith spread like wild fire.

Also I think Cap nailed why I think VII is over rated. Great game made sh*t by it's "Compilation". The only reason I have Advent Children is because watching the fights in HD is awesome and Crisis Core cause it's a decent PSP game (and it came with the console itself). Still love VII, still at near the top for being an amazing game and the first one I played but Over-rated no doubt about it.

But Aeris isn't the only one and people don't realise that. Pretty much the entire cast of FFII aside Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon you lost for good with no stat moving to other characters and half of those characters were killed. You got access to Minwu, Josef and Ricard in the Soul Rebirth but not in the originals. Same with FFIV. In the original version, you lost every single playable character aside from Cecil, Kain, Rosa, Edge and Rydia. Tellah died and the others got so injured they never returned to the main party and you could never switch them into the party until the remakes for GBA and PSP.

If it's death or not, when you have a character for a long ass time and are forced to throw them away after so much leveling and grinding throughout the game you're pissed. That's what pissed me off so much about those two titles is how many characters you work with and get attached to and are forced to abandon them.

If you were attached to Aeris when she died, whatever, that's your view. But when you blow off other characters who have died throughout the series because of personal opinion is what drives me nuts. It doesn't matter if you liked those characters or not, it's the same thing. It's an emotional moment to lose these characters that you took so much time and effort into leveling and to really get to know them and it hurts to see them leave. In any game, this is true. Aeris isn't the only character to do this. In fact, I've got a question.

Do you think Aeris would have the large fan base behind her if she never died in VII? I honestly don't think she would. For the first third of VII, Aeris was my least favorite character. I did not find her enjoyable, she was more of a hassle to the story than help aside from summoning Holy. She would just get in the way or fuck things up because she's a damsel in distress. I don't get the fanbase behind her. I feel the large base of her "emotional impact" was because she croaks and "She was a nice lady". Well so were literally every female character in the prior 6 games. Discuss.