Final Fantasy 5 (PlayStation 1)
*General Game Play / Experiences:
The game that brought the class changing system back to the series and for many gamers outside of Japan, it was the first time you could change classes in FF. The game was traditional in the FF sense and greatly followed the awesome improvements that Final Fantasy 4 made. Speaking of the classes, the PlayStation version had 22 classes to master and the GameBoy Advanced version had 26 classes! The really sweet thing about FF5 was that you could mix classes like have a knight that could use black magic. This system was the base that FF11 Online would use years later.
The game revolved around Bartz and his now famously named chocobo... Boko. It seems that the 4 elemental crystals were used to seal a nasty wizard name Exdeath away and now the seal is being broken as each crystal is shattered into pieces. Now like FF4, this game features more than one "world". In Final Fantasy 5, there is a separated world that is similar in design to the first world. The whys and hows are revealed throughout the game to explain the back story as to why there are two worlds and what the characters must do to restore peace to the land.
You end up traveling across both worlds which have quite a few unique areas including some kind of desert pyramid. Moogles were introduced in this game for the first time which would live on throughout the series. There were many cool and hidden things in the game like teaching Bartz how to play the piano by trying every single piano in the game which also ended up unlocking a bard song.
The battle system used the active time battle system that had been created in Final Fantasy 4 but unlike the former game, FF5 added a gauge that let the player know when it was his/her turn to attack. This system became an industry standard and was used in the FF4 remake on the DS as well as games like Chrono Trigger.
The game featured some very fun and unique ways to travel to make the journey easier and many of these methods have not been seen since. You of course had a trusty chocobo for a time but then you obtained a ship, then a dragon, then an airship that later was modified to become a boat, a submarine, a black chocobo... I think that's it but jeez right?
The ending was original and hasn't been done in a similar manner since FF5. Depending on who survives the battle determines the ending the player receives. This is done in many other games but as mentioned, this was only done in this game for the FF series.
*Gripes:
Now I personally didn't care for this game as much as the others in the series because I didn't feel that Exdeath was a very believable villain, at least not until the 2nd half of the game and even then he is "iffy". I hear about this evil wizard who was... born from a tree filled with evil spirits and he made a half assed attempt to attack the opposite world of his origin. He gets out and goes back to his home world and eventually reveals his plans as time goes on.
So I keep playing and now it turns out that the two worlds were once a single planet but had been separated due to an evil power called the void. Exdeath eventually combines the two planets and attempts to do some last minute bad guy stuff to justify how awesome he is (again, I personally thought he failed as a villain). He becomes the big bad guy in the end and woo hoo, all is saved. I didn't really enjoy the conclusion to the game but in Exdeaths defense, he accomplished quite a bit compared to other would be FF villains.
*Side Note:
The game actually spawned a sequel movie called "Legend of the Crystals" which ended up having the minor character Mid show up in ghost form. The original game is slightly mentioned but for the most part nothing is recognizable from the game. It was an ok anime film but I really wish it could have been tied in with the game more. A prequel actually would have been better.
Yea, I have a sealed copy I bought while working at a library. As much as I don't really care for the game in general, it is still part of the FF series and so I still give it props for everything this particular game helped to do for the series.
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Final Fantasy 6 (Super Nintendo)
*General Game Play / Experiences:
Oh god. Do I really need to even talk about this game? I suppose I should try... but can I really condense 500 pages into a few paragraphs? This is one of if not the best Final Fantasy game ever created. The sound track was amazing, the story was amazing, the characters were amazing and yes, the game play was amazing.
The job class system is once again removed from the series but in its place you are given 14 completely different characters (the largest cast in the series with their own unique skills and abilities. From using tools like the over powered auto-crossbow to Sabin's Blitz martial art moves all the way down to Strago's blue magic ability. The game allowed you to customize your main party to reflect your style of game play. The party size was lowered from FF4's 5 person party to 4 person parties.
Gone is the ability to simply learn magic by leveling up or switching classes. Now ANY character can learn magic by equipping "magicite" which not only taught characters magic that was unique to the magicite, but it also acted as a summon crystal calling forth a badass esper. With magic not being a factor for what character you chose, you could now simply pick the guys or girls you thought were the most hard core.
Moving beyond the great characters and abilities let us now look at the story. You have an evil empire that is literally draining summoned monsters of all of their magic. They then take this liquid magic and inject it into their soldiers to give them the ability to use magic. Beyond the injections they also create a number of machines including the Magitek armor. The game was set in a steam powered era and magic had gone missing from the world thousands of years prior.
We are introduced to Terra who is the product of a summon monster and a human female having done the naughty. She is naturally able to use magic and thus is controlled by the Empire to do their bidding. She escapes the Empire with the help of Locke and the story goes on from there. The story is quite epic with a ton of side quests and things to do and find not to mention 2 secret characters.
Final Fantasy 6 is also the game that featured who I consider to be the greatest villain of all time whether it be a book, movie or game... Kefka. Kefka was an imperial general who was the first to get an injection of magic. It caused his brain to snap and he becomes... for lack of a better word... "crazy".
How crazy could this clown looking guy be for me to decide he was the best villain of all time? Well, let us look at a few of his deeds in the game. He poisons a castle full of enemy troops as well as his own, he kills General Leo, he uses Terra in a test by having her burn hundreds of troops to death, he eventually kills the Emperor of the Empire, he becomes the literal and tangible representation of "god" and thus decided to rearrange the continents while making the sky on fire and the water become blood, as god he kills a town's parents but leaves the children alive so that they can die slowly and alone, he kills many summoned monsters turning them into magicite in a single swoop and he creates a massive tower of debris and flesh to live in. Did I list enough?
The airship in FF6 was truly special as it acted as a flying base. You could go inside of it and change characters who moved around inside, there were also shops inside the ship. The game used mode 7 graphics to produce a 3D look while flying which was amazing at the time. Final Fantasy 6 also introduced us to something that would become world renowned in FF7, limit breaks. They were actually attacks you could do while desperately low on health but they were the origin of limit breaks to come.
*Gripes:
There are a few glitches in the game as well as some unexplained plot elements or characters. Some people spend forever trying to fight a "certain sneezy" monster in the coliseum over and over only to fail. One of my biggest gripes about this game is the internet. Yes, the innocent internet full of idiots and liars. I was one of those people who saw a "list of extra" characters that were supposedly in the game like Megaman or Simon Belmont. I remember one character unlocked by standing still by an ocean for a few minutes and I think it was Megaman X that was supposed to be washed ashore. Yea, it never happened and I curse my lack of thinking skills as a child.
The PlayStation release of the game though is a legit reason to complain. It added some cool videos and a bestiary but stuff like Sabin's Blitz moves became laggy. He'd start the animation and then appear seconds later next to the enemy. I still played it anyway but I really wish they had fixed such problems before release.
I'd be happy to talk about this game with anybody as I could literally talk about it for hours.
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Final Fantasy 7 (PlayStation 1)
*General Game Play and Experiences:
What can be said about one of the most successful games of the series that hasn't already been said? When you take a series that was more or less classic fantasy and then throw in: guns, motorcycles, amusement parks, evil corporations and ridiculously large swords, you get one of the best gaming experiences... ever.
1997 saw the release of FF7 in Japan and within 3 days it sold more than 2.3 million copies setting several records at the time. By December 2005 it has sold 10 million copies worldwide. I remember when there were articles for the game prior to its release and thought it'd be cool but I had no idea what I was expecting when it was released.
On release day I decided to visit a buddy of mine who had a PlayStation (I didn't as I had opted for the N64) and saw that he had already picked up the game. I ended up going home 9 hours later and in quite a bit of trouble for having been missing all day. It was less than a week later that I got my PlayStation and the remainder of the summer became a blank but the one thing I can remember about it was the fact that I never left my room and the only game I played was Final Fantasy 7.
The intro of the game showed off some impressive graphics for the time and followed with an awesome scene of ass kicking accompanied by music I had not heard in many video games up to that point let alone Final Fantasy. The game completely redefined what an RPG was and so there is no doubt as to why it is on the top of most people's game lists.
The 3D graphics were cool but were very blocky which looked awkward but at the time nobody really cared. The summon spells became ridiculous cut scenes compared to former FF games which made every cast enjoyable. Well, it was enjoyable at least until you had to spam Knights of the Round on the Emerald weapons 50 times.
The series remained without job classes and following the concept of magicite, the new "materia" system was created. It was a bit more limited and carried some negative effects compared to the old system but there was a larger selection of materia to choose from than magicite. The characters in the game were all equally epic but I felt that besides their limit breaks... they are all just about the same where as FF6 had greater diversity. The party number was reduced to the lowest at the time forcing you to have only 3 members though they could be changed.
So there is this guy Sephiroth that provides us with one of the coolest moments in video game history as he strides carelessly through fire. It actually takes a movie and some prequel games to actually figure out why he goes entirelly batshit but he is one of the fanboys top villains in video game history. I personally think he epically fails on many levels as he never succeeds in his plans and besides impaling a few loved ones and murdering the very enemy the main characters seek to defeat, I can't think of what makes him so cool except his actual look. He is slick, his voice rocks and he is an all around badass but his constant whining about his mother and then the fact that he runs away leaving you to fight Jenova makes him lose some street cred.
*Gripes:
There are many items that remain in that do nothing which led to countless rumors such as the ability to bring Aeris back to life. The Japanese version of the game did not have the Ruby or Emerald weapons which was sad for them until they got an international version. The fanboyism of the game is at the highest levels and is at times overly ridiculous.
Barrett is your typical African-American guy with an attitude but unlike his other 1980s counter parts, he sports a gun for a hand. Some characters NOBODY wants to use like Cait Sith, Yuffie or Red XIII as they are all mediocre and Vincent's limit break make him uncontrollable which is a huge disadvantage in many boss fights.
The computer version of the game did not work for about 80% of the people who tried to play it. I personally cannot get it to work even today on my awesome rig of a computer. I also had to buy the PlayStation copy at least twice due to discs getting easily scratched until they released the greatest hits version which used different discs.
*Side Note / Bonuses:
Final Fantasy 7 has gone far beyond a single game. There have been numerous cell phone games, novels, 2 prequel games (one of which is a cell phone game), a few spin off games, massive amounts of merchandise and a sequel movie which also did extremely well in the market. While in Japan I was able to watch all of Advent Children on a massive tv screen on the side of a building in down town Tokyo, good times. The series also continued the "potion" soft drink.
I plan to make a blog specifically about the drink so you will have to wait for it and all of the awesome pictures, cans and bonuses that came with them. Yea, I'm a point whore.
FF7 is a legacy that will live on for many years to come and if you cross your fingers tightly enough, they just may remake the game for the PS3.
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Final Fantasy 8 (PlayStation 1)
*General Game Play / Experiences:
Finally a game I can talk casually about as I have the complete opposite opinion that many others have in regards to this game but we shall save this for later.
The game keeps the format of 3 characters in your party from FF7 and stars the character Squall who wields a "gunblade" while studying at a university. The mechanics of the series were greatly altered in this installment and the magic system from the previous games was scrapped. In it's place was a "draw" system forcing the player to siphon magical spells out of monsters and bosses.
Another radical change to the series was the junction system. You basically attached a summon monster (or guardian force) to a character and then unlocked stat slots with the summon to improve your own character. Attaching 99 full cure or life 2 to a summon creature that has an hp junction slot would in turn give you 9999 life.
The monsters of the game "level up" as you do so that no matter where you go on the map, the monsters would always prevent a challenge to your party. The game also introduced "Triple Triad" which was a playable card game. Characters could unlock the ability to turn monsters into cards or they could battle for cards.
The graphics improved drastically from FF7's 3D box look and the music toned back down from the previous games former feel. There is still an absence of job classes at this point but a fairly balanced group of characters similar to FF6 make up for it. The summon spells in the game also got crazier in FF8 as you could now button mash to increase damage.
The story switches between two groups of characters for awhile but eventually focuses on the main party as the story advances. The plot is often confusing at times and leaves you with a feel of... what exactly am I supposed to be doing right now? There is one really cool thing about FF8 and that is the fact that you have to fight summoned monsters to obtain them. This is similar to previous Final Fantasy games but they had much more to say this time around.
Despite a few strange systems that were added to the game, the battle animations are extremely well done and the overall style is fun to watch. I personally love seeing Zell hit a limit break and just go to town Tifa style. Some characters are less used but in the end you can choose the party that suits you the best. I never really cared about any of the characters so I just went with whatever was the strongest at the time.
*Gripes:
Finally, *cracks knuckles* now we can get down to business for my reasons as to why this is one of the worst games in the FF series.
So you wake up at the hospital... yea a hospital and eventually find yourself at a different town and low and behold, there is a car rental service. I rent a car and drive it for a bit but uh oh, I didn't buy extra gas so now the car stops and I am stuck near a forest. Why the hell is there a car in Final Fantasy? Why the crap do I need to buy gas for it?
The drawing system is ridiculously retarded. You spend countless hours sitting there as the monster hits you so that you can give the max number of draws from a monster and as mentioned above, you then use said drawn magic to increase your stats. Yea, just after the first disc I found a golden caterpillar which had like full cure or something and I sat there drawing from it and after junctioning I had 9999 life... WTF.
There is a stupid system of upgrading your weapons so you need to find parts for them. Whatever happened to simply buying the new sword conveniently waiting for you at the next town?
At one point in the game missiles are being aimed at your school and you attempt to stop it. Yea, rocket powered missiles are being shot at you, nice right?
How do you make money in the game? Surely you just kill crap and sell the stuff you do not need right? NO. You have to take these stupid tests to increase your rank in the group that you belong to and receive periodic paychecks.
The main villain of the game changes 2 or 3 times and you are eventually sent back thousands of years in the past. You walk in the final castle and BOOM! You lose all of your abilities except fight. You then have to fight bosses in a specific order to obtain them back, but wait, a paycheck comes to you casually BACK IN TIME. How the hell does that work and at that point of the game where do you plan to spend this money?
There are some cool moments in the game and it is not all bad, but it is one of two Final Fantasy games that I only played and beat once and never plan to go back to again. The other game was Final Fantasy 2 (the real one) which also sucked.
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That is it for part 2 of my Final Fantasy retrospective/rant and I would like to remind everyone that all of this is solely my opinion and is not exactly fact. I left a lot of things out of the retrospective but if you really wanted details, this would become part 2 of 20 so be thankful I kept it like this =p.
To anybody who actually read it all, I offer 1/10th of my body fat to you.
Greetings my fellow g1's. I was recently talking about Final Fantasy in a few posts and had a neat conversation with my wife tonight about the series and so I decided to contribute my thoughts on the Final Fantasy Series. It would take hours to really express my thoughts and feelings on each individual game, which would not exactly be fun to read. Instead, I will write a few key notes per game and my take on them. Enjoy.
Final Fantasy 1 (Original NES)
*General Game play and stories:
Wow, when FF1 hit the NES in 1990 I was only 5 years old but I was all over that crap. My original party (which you could choose) was a Fighter, White Mage, Black Mage and a Black Belt. After a little frustration... I'm sorry... insane frustration with the white mage, I restarted and swapped my mages for a Red Mage and a Thief. Towards the end of the game I found out the Red Mage could not buy any of the high level spells, I shook my fists at the heavens and restarted a third time.
This time around I used my original party and worked my way to the end of the game. I was one stair well away from the final boss "Chaos" and boom! The boss before the final boss kills my White Mage. I went into the final fight with 3 members only as there were no "life potions" or other ways to revive a character and there was no leaving the dungeon. I went full out damage and just before my Black Mage fell in battle, I won. Take that Chaos, owned by 3 guys and no heals.
The general feel of the game is of course classic, there was an over world map, dungeon maps, town maps and so on. An assortment of vehicles... well 3 helped you to traverse the world a bit faster and with the exception of the water based craft, avoided enemy encounters. The game used a traditional turn based combat system where you could select different commands from Fight to Run, good stuff and the system is still more or less used today.
The magic system was fairly limited as you had to buy your spells. There would be a selection of level 1 spells, but you could only learn 3. Each level of magic allowed a certain number of uses depending on your level so dungeon crawling was more along the lines of quickly get what you need and get the hell out.
*Gripes:
My god, the swamp cave South West of the Elven Kingdom. The cave was long, the enemies were resistant to a lot of your attacks and when you finally grab the chest with crown, 3 monsters jump at you that are extremely powerful. I remember running through this cave a good number of times until the remake.
The potions as well as just about anything else were extremely expensive. You had to buy every spell for the characters that could use magic and each character could only hold a certain number of weapons/armor. It was most certainly a hassle and I was sad every time I had to throw away my resistance armor.
So I get to the "Air Fiend" and I have my Fighter, at that point a Knight with what I believe was the "bane sword". I take a swing at the boss and killed him in one hit due to the effectiveness of the sword. The mini-boss patrolling the bridge before him was far more powerful and I felt like it was all a waste of time. All in all, it was a fairly good game with a decent story and most importantly, it brought the crystal plot into creation (at the time it was orbs until the remake).
All the new gamers get remade versions of Final Fantasy 1 with life potions and easier ways to save, prettier graphics and a very nicely remade sound track but if you are looking for a fun and still tough rpg, look no further than Final Fantasy 1 on the NES. Though if you want it to be easier and look pretty, hit up the remake.
So I get to the "Air Fiend" and I have my Fighter, at that point a Knight with what I believe was the "bane sword". I take a swing at the boss and killed him in one hit due to the effectiveness of the sword. The mini-boss patrolling the bridge before him was far more powerful and I felt like it was all a waste of time. All in all, it was a fairly good game with a decent story and most importantly, it brought the crystal plot into creation (at the time it was orbs until the remake).
All the new gamers get remade versions of Final Fantasy 1 with life potions and easier ways to save, prettier graphics and a very nicely remade sound track but if you are looking for a fun and still tough rpg, look no further than Final Fantasy 1 on the NES.
Final Fantasy 2 (Remake)
*Game play:
Ok, so they really changed the combat system in this game. Now you can level up weapons by using them repeatidly and the same tired magic system with limited uses per magic level remained. Chocobos decided to pop up in this game as well as Cid, hurray. This game also brought about a password system similar to the Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior series... naturally this was scrapped after this game.
*Gripes:
So you start off with 4 kids but BOOM, you lose one. As a result, the 4th spot is replaced with a random quest person. This person is similar to the "red shirts" from Star Trek... in that they die constantly. They have a wife and kid? Nobody cares they are dead. Oh it's Cid? A classic and legendary airship builder? Too bad, he is dead and so on.
You go through the game and pow, hell itself opens up revealing pandemonium castle. Yea... hell. I was confused as it hadn't really been mentioned up to this point. In fact, the game centered around an evil empire and a resistance movement (aka FF6). Well ok so hell is about and now we have to break in and take care of business, that's fine and dandy right?
WRONG. So we go into the magical castle of death and dark and... darkness and guess what? There is NO SAVE POINTS ANYWHERE!!! You die and that's it son, back to the beginning you go. So the new player goes through the castle avoiding everything possible and says ooo a chest. You open it expecting perhaps a magical sword. WRONG! You get a large boss that wants to kick your ass and send you back to the beginning of the castle. That game... it will always remain in my mind and will forever haunt my dreams.
Final Fantasy 3 (DS Version)
*Game play:
I recently played and beat this game in Japanese when it was released so I will tell you what little I can. FF3 introduced job classes to the series. This seems like a cool concept... like wow, I can pick whatever classes I want for any fight? Sweet. Well not quite kiddies but we will cover that part later. The game still uses a familiar magic system with the typical turn based combat of the time. Fun and repetitive, oh yea.
The DS version really made the game a lot better than the original in so many ways. It had a kind of 3D look to it, the maps and graphics were satisfying to look at and the game as a whole felt better. Classes that had been neglected in the Japanese original were improved to make them a bit more battle worthy and some overly used classes were reduced.
*Gripes:
So when you change classes, the next 10 battles or so you are fairly weaker as a result of the change. Some boss battles FORCE you to be a certain class to survive the encounter. One particular instance is when they first introduce the Dragoon class and armor. The boss fight you face after obtaining said armor and class forces your entire party to be dragoons or its good night for all. Oh and yea, when you switched classes, they are level 1 so you have to go and level up those classes needed for said forced fights.
The game itself is fairly long for a game of that time and there are moments where you ask yourself... am I done? Can I stop? Some of the bosses are ridiculously hard, where as others are extremely easy. The end of the game tries to throw in some last minute story plot stuff but at that point, I really didn't care anymore. I wanted the beast slain and done so I could move on to the next game though in FF3's defense, it was a fairly satisfying game over all.
Final Fantasy 4 (Original SNES)
*Game play:
Finally we move out of the horrible magic system from the first 3 games and move onto our beloved "magic points/mp". We lose the ability to change jobs but with badass characters like Cecil, Kain, Edge, Rydia and Edward (syke, you suck Edward), who would need to change classes? This game had a ton of vehicles and more than one airship... in fact not counting the remodeling done to the ships you had 2 plus a ship that could travel to the moon... yea, the moon.
This was the first FF to really leave an impression on me when it came to character development, music and story sequencing. The story sucked you in and the music would not let you go. You traveled the light world, went underground, journeyed to the actual land of summoned monsters and ended your journey on the moon itself. A fairly epic adventure for the time and it became the base for what Final Fantasy would become.
*Gripes:
Ok, so some characters are a lot less cool than you would like. Edward (Gilbert if you played it in Japanese) is a whiny biatch who eventually gets too sick due to being thrown into the ocean to continue the quest. I honestly think he wanted to stay in Troyia due to the secret dancer/strip club in the Inn basement.
The game had a few dull moments where they smacked you again and again with sad parts followed by nothing to pick up the mood. It's like oh, you got owned and your friend died, ah well back to fighting monsters. It was kind of depressing as a kid.
The version that landed in America was considered to be a weakened copy and the Japanese kept a harder version for themselves. In the lifespan of Final Fantasy 4, 3 versions were released in the states. The original "easy mode", the playstation "normal mode" and the eventual DS remake which was the "harde mode" of the three.
*Side note:
This game featured what I like to call a "Final Fantasy Epic Moment". This game started the trend and it is repeated in all Final Fantasy games. What do I mean? At the end of the game when the giant of Babil decides to start destroying the world, the party gives up and lowers their heads in shame, but wait! A fleet of airships arrive with characters thought to be permanently out of the game and then a large force of tanks show up from the underground with even more characters you had thought to be down for the count. This moment brings everyone together to face certain destruction and is a recipe followed again and again by the series.
This concludes part 1 of my Final Fantasy rant, I may try to spruce it up a bit more but I think I got my general experiences across to you.
Part 2 will include: Final Fantasy 5, 6, 7, 8
Part 3 will include: Final Fantasy 9, 10, 10-2, 11
Part 4 will include: Final Fantasy 12, FFMQ, Misc, Final
Remember, these are just my opinions on these games and if you really wanted details and specifics... it would be 1 blog per game, haha. I hope everyone could enjoy and please look forward to the next edition.
