Just finished FFXV

One of these days I must have an operation that enables me to enjoy these FF games. I keep hearing so many great things about them - and I clearly don't possess the ability to perceive what those things are

tomasp3n said:

Well…you could seriously abuse the way limit breaks worked in FF8, and that combined with some pretty minor grinding to draw full stores of spells like Ultima and Protect honestly made the late game a cakewalk. I remember spending much more time grinding in other titles.

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I didn't mean it was a grind in terms of challenge. I meant it just seemed really repetitive. Most of the FF games are pretty repetitive, but FF8 felt even more so to me. It probably had a lot to do with not feeling any connection to the world and characters. I was never a big fan of any of the PS1 titles though, and I think they've aged terribly.

FF8 sucked more than any FF had sucked before, and after... until FF15 which is tie on suckness for me.

JDR13 said:

It's interesting how much opinions can differ when talking about FF games. Personally, I can't stand FF VIII. The world and characters did nothing for me, and the combat was the worst in the series. I thought the entire game felt like one long grind.

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Eh, I think with FF, for most people, the one you play first will always be your favorite.
And common man, what about Laguna?
Personally love the game, though still can't make any sense of it. Probably most anti depressing game I've come across.

BoboTheMighty said:

Eh, I think with FF, for most people, the one you play first will always be your favorite.
And common man, what about Laguna?
Personally love the game, though still can't make any sense of it. Probably most anti depressing game I've come across.

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Well I played them in order mostly, but FF1 certainly wouldn't be my favorite. The SNES titles are the ones I remember most fondly, but I'm sure nostalgia has a lot to do with that.

JDR13 said:

Well I played them in order mostly, but FF1 certainly wouldn't be my favorite. The SNES titles are the ones I remember most fondly, but I'm sure nostalgia has a lot to do with that.

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Well, second, third or so, so I'm not that far off.
They all haveextremely repetitive gameplay, that's a given with FF.
X had a button to disable random encounters, but this idgit discovered it just as I was about to finish it.
Got a IX in my next to play list, but really need to give it few months before diving in.

VIII was the worst by far. Minor grinding? I spent half that game drawing magic from enemies so that I could equip the magic into stat-boosting slots. And then I never used magic because that would lower my stats.

Then I somehow missed most of the Guardian Forces, which aren't just summons. You have to have a GF equipped in order to use any combat abilities. So late in the game, I still have characters I can't use because I don't have enough GFs to go around.

Then you pick up all of these crafting recipes to upgrade your weapons, and then you never find any of the ingredients. I went through that game upgrading maybe two weapons because I happened to find ingredients.

And then when you think you finally have a decent team, you have a random encounter with a Malboro who poisons and confuses your whole team at once, and they fight each other while dying of poison. Game over.

And the FFVIII card game sucked. You try to build a decent deck that you can use to beat other decks and collect cards. And then if you play against the wrong opponent, you pick up the random-card rule, which means now you don't pick the cards that go into your battle deck, and instead you get one good card and a bunch of crappy cards, and when you lose (and you will lose when you learn that rule), you lose the only good card you took to battle.

Here we are nearly 20 years later, and I still hate that game.

Anyway, I'll probably end up buying FFXV despite all of the warnings against it when it goes on sale for $5 for PC on Steam sometime ten years from now.

Nathaniel3W said:

I'll probably end up buying FFXV despite all of the warnings against it when it goes on sale for $5 for PC on Steam sometime ten years from now.

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You won't be the only one, I'm seeing frequent titles about that game how it got additional or polished content but never read details so perhaps when they port it, we get a good game for 5 bucks on PC.

Nathaniel3W said:

VIII was the worst by far. Minor grinding? I spent half that game drawing magic from enemies so that I could equip the magic into stat-boosting slots. And then I never used magic because that would lower my stats.
...

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Another thing I hated was that characters were just containers of cards/guardians. Joe is the mage and Bill is the tank. Oh, Joe has to go to the bathroom, no matter, just dump the cards on Matt and he'll be exactly the same mage as Joe. Then for whatever reason (and the game is full of whatever reasons), your party is now Andrew, Alice and Christian. No matter, just dump the cards on them and you have the exact same party as before, just with different names.

Not to mention the protagonist is the least likable protagonist in the history of games, and the love interest for whatever reason ignores his constant complaints and mistreatments.

Honestly, I can't think of one thing I liked about the game. I guess the box-art looked ok.

wolfing said:

Honestly, I can't think of one thing I liked about the game. I guess the box-art looked ok.

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:lol:

It did also have some really great cutscenes. Like Quistis shooting the ship's gun at the robot spider thing, and of course the dance scene. Funny how the best parts of some of the worst Final Fantasies were the movies. For a few years I thought Squeenix should stick to making movies. But then the movies were bad too.

wolfing said:

Honestly, I can't think of one thing I liked about the game. I guess the box-art looked ok.

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Opening music was great! https://youtu.be/XyBensMp_MA

After that, it was all down hill. (Though I did like having so many summons.)

The two of you are loco.
Seriously, been a while, but don't remember any of this issues. Got the cards easily, don't remember any more grinding than in other FF…way, way more in XIII or X, I finished recently.
And it had the best cast out of any FF game. Not many things make Bobo cry, but man, that ending…well, almost, every time.

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy meets girl again. Girl loses boy and dog. Dog meets boy.... I made it up into space before I had to stop.

10, on the other hand, does not require grinding. Don't do it! You'll be fine! (Well, not with those optional end-game bosses, but they are quite optional.) It's got a blah love story, too, but it improves once they get out of the pond. And they don't pull any "Oh gee, we all group up together and just forgot" bogosities.

I think FF XII is the best modern FF game by far. Although I haven't played XV yet so I can't comment on that one. They're doing a remaster of XII for PS4 that's due out next month.

7 vs. 12
FIGHT!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=837335666

12 is one of the few I didn't play. I heard the story is not good in that one. I am curious whatever that is true or not ?

I've also heard the story is boring and predictable in FF12. That aside, if the game is not a grinder I'll buy it when ported on PC. I mean, even if the story sucks, the game can still be fun if I'm not under trashmob respawns siege and I can laugh at the poor story.

Console critics went extatic with it:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/final-fantasy-xii

Story wasn't great but it wasn't terrible, either. I do remember getting really confused by the bad guys (and one gal, briefly) because they all kept their armor on all the time. It made it really difficult for me to keep track of which one was which.

It's also the game where I learned what grinding actually was. I tried playing like I always did - moving on to the next area once I got through the current area. It was fine for a while but the game got harder and harder… eventually it got downright impossible. Turns out I was supposed to STAY in those areas for quite a bit longer to level up. There's a list of some sort or other (maybe monsters killed to earn a bonus against them?) you can use as a guide: stick around until that is at least mostly full before you move on and you'll be fine. Bored, but fine.

The combat system is pretty neat, though. You're essentially programming the AI at a really high level. It takes several hours before the game lets you start fiddling with it in a meaningful way but it's good once it gets going!

Geez... Thanks for the warning. Maybe they rework it in the port, but if not, I'll use my money elsewhere.

Zloth said:

Story wasn't great but it wasn't terrible, either. I do remember getting really confused by the bad guys (and one gal, briefly) because they all kept their armor on all the time. It made it really difficult for me to keep track of which one was which.

It's also the game where I learned what grinding actually was. I tried playing like I always did - moving on to the next area once I got through the current area. It was fine for a while but the game got harder and harder… eventually it got downright impossible. Turns out I was supposed to STAY in those areas for quite a bit longer to level up. There's a list of some sort or other (maybe monsters killed to earn a bonus against them?) you can use as a guide: stick around until that is at least mostly full before you move on and you'll be fine. Bored, but fine.

The combat system is pretty neat, though. You're essentially programming the AI at a really high level. It takes several hours before the game lets you start fiddling with it in a meaningful way but it's good once it gets going!

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I play like you do, I hate grinding with a passion, so I basically fight the battles I get on my way to the mission points.

In some games when I find a battle very difficult, I go to a walkthrough to read a strategy for that particular battle, and many times I find that my party level is like 20 levels below the writer's, so usually they say things like "This battle is actually easy, just use the Super-Murasama blade you got as reward for killing those 10000 bears. If you didn't do that, then just use the Super-Ultimate-Spell" (which I'm still like 20 levels from getting). Basically in many JRPGs, the 'strategy' is not in the battle itself, but in grinding easy battles until you are overpowered.

Funny thing is, it seems to be actually wanted by many players. Usually when I'm considering buying a JRPG, first thing I do is google something like "<Game name> without grind"... Well, Google just ignores the 'without' because all the top links are about people asking things like "Where's the best spot for grinding in <Game name>?".