Final Fantasy

[Robsturgh]

Ah I like this idea,

FF6: The part where everyone splits up initially, where I think its Celes and Locke together in that village (my memory of FF6 is terrible).

FF7: The inn in Kalm. Fuck Kalm. Fuck that inn. Fuck that flashback. Same goes for the coma Cloud section.

FF8: Loads of tiny sections grate me in this game. The puzzley dungeon near the end of Disc 1 is annoying. The Prison at the beginning of Disc 2 is annoying. Clearing the Ragnarok is annoying.

FF9: I haven't played FF9 as much as I should have (A comment that is likely to get me banned), but the beginning part of Disc 2 seems to drag.

FFX: The first 1/4 of the game, I can never bring myself to starting again since everything is so bloody drawn out at the beginning and gaining access to some of the abilities and features of the game (Blitzball ruled too much to not start it earlier).

FFXII: Most of the story.

[Benji]

The only ones I have problems with are VIII and IX.

In VIII - the jail. I'm a completionist, so to get everything you have to go up and down and round the entire prison several times. Once I'm past that tedium, it's easy.

In IX - Hilgigas. Again, my completionism gets the better of me. Stealing that fucking Fairy Flute is a nigh on impossible task sometimes

[TKz]

Played more of FFVII at work today, WHY DO I ALWAYS PICK THE STAIRS!? Damn you Shinra building. There couldn't have been a secret escalator or something?

I agree with Rob on FF6, I've actually never beat FFVI because of that part. I remember not being able to find a few crew members and just loosing interest quickly. Never really gone back and done a proper play through. Maybe I will if I end up picking it up for the PSP when I get paid, but I've got a lot more games to get before that.

[Ruki]

Listening directly to player feedback, Square Enix has reintroduced towns to the franchise, with us catching a glimpse at one with NPCs galore littering its grounds. With everything from friendly NPCs who make comments and NPCs with speech bubbles above their heads, offering multiple dialogue options, all the way to secret hidden content, several branching paths and other optional content, players are encouraged to explore these regions and have been included to offer player choice and give players a more complex experience than in Final Fantasy XIII. Players can even jump in XIII-2 and Square Enix has even included rain and other weather effects to keep things fresh.

Yeah, I'm probably gonna be done and ge tthis game. And then wish it was more like 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 >_<

Rest of the article is here.

[TKz]

Towns is a move in the right direction, but it's the ability to level and not being on a completely linear path that needs to be fixed.

[Benji]

Towns is a move in the right direction, but it's the ability to level and not being on a completely linear path that needs to be fixed.

Wrong. You need the illusion that you're not on a linear path. Most of them are incredibly linear until you get the airship. But you need to be able tto go back later and not be forced into what was quite literally often just a tunnel.

[Skummy]

Yeah, Final Fantasy games have, since 7, if not earlier, done a very good job of preventing the illusion of freedom when, really, there's very little "choice" offered at all.

[stokeriño]

If I can get past the New Game button I can pretty much play IX forever.

You're not the worst on here though, Norris and Stok have to get their partners to turn on their PSPs when they want to play something other than IX. Otherwise they're four hours in before they realize 'wait... didn't I want to play FIFA today?'

Actually my sticking point with FFIX is typically Lindblum, although I often only get as far as the Evil Forest before going "eh...".

Random desire to play FFX has now taken hold - but it's a PS2 game! I'd have to dust down the console, get it connected to the back of the TV, rearrange the living room so that I can sit close enough to use a wired controller...!

Damn these small yet astonishingly insurmountable obstacles!

[TKz]

Yeah, Final Fantasy games have, since 7, if not earlier, done a very good job of preventing the illusion of freedom when, really, there's very little "choice" offered at all.

I'd say the world map gives more than enough freedom. You've got the freedom to run around and level, go back to places and play mini-games. With 7, you had the chance to get all the extra materia, catch chocobos, get the extra characters, Gold Saucer, get all the Enemy Skills and so on.

[Skummy]

And that's all fun - believe me, I love VII - but it's an aside. It's a distraction, it's not choice. It's more freedom than what XII offers you, sure, by far, but is there anything you can do in VII that has any bearing on the plot? The closest I can think of is Vincent and Yuffie.

The narrative is still linear, the levelling system is still linear, but it does a good job of making you think you're making a difference to it. Lately, Squeenix have just given up that pretense in favour of walking you in a straight line for days with little reward.

[TKz]

What would you consider not linear, then? And have you got an example of game that isn't? Honestly just curious as to what you'd consider to not be.

[Skummy]

To be honest, what I've described is symptomatic of JRPGs as a genre, and in most cases isn't really a problem, as there's plenty to keep you interested, and keep you busy.

Final Fantasy V and VI were much less linear than later games in the series - V in terms of levelling, and VI in terms of plot - the entire "World Of Ruin" portion of the game pretty much left things in your hands.

Western RPGs tend to be considerably less linear than their Japanese counterparts, largely due to their grounding in Dungeons & Dragons - Daggerfall, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Diablo, Morrowind, several games in the Ultima series and even Fallout are less linar than most, if not all, of the Final Fantasy series.

Generally, we're confusing Non-Linear with Freeroam a lot - they're not necessarily the same thing. A lot of the Final Fantasy games offer a lot of free-roaming, but the plot itself remains linear - you just get to wander about a bit. A non-linear RPG would be one in which your actions and the decisions you make have a genuine impact on the progress of the plot, but this is generally lacking in the Final Fantasy series as a whole. In that respect, Chrono Trigger could be said to be more non-linear than Final Fantasy too.

[TKz]

Eh, to be fair I suppose VI did, but I've never managed to get past that point. When it stops telling you where to go and just lets you do whatever, it didn't feel like freedom to me so much as a lack of direction. And Elder Scrolls I love, but the story isn't really non-linear. You can do the next story bit whenever you want and you can do as many side-missions as you want in between, but the story is still the same. You go to the next place you need to go, beat the monster there, continue on. In that respect, how is it much different than taking some time out from the main quest of FFVII and doing the Wutai side quest or going Chocobo Racing to try and get yourself some extra materia and items?

[Herr Matzat]

Eh, to be fair I suppose VI did, but I've never managed to get past that point. When it stops telling you where to go and just lets you do whatever, it didn't feel like freedom to me so much as a lack of direction. And Elder Scrolls I love, but the story isn't really non-linear. You can do the next story bit whenever you want and you can do as many side-missions as you want in between, but the story is still the same. You go to the next place you need to go, beat the monster there, continue on. In that respect, how is it much different than taking some time out from the main quest of FFVII and doing the Wutai side quest or going Chocobo Racing to try and get yourself some extra materia and items?

But there is a differenc if you have an open world to explore or if you are pritty much bound to one single path like in FFX or FFXIII.

[Liam]

Yeah, Oblivion does have one continuous string through it, but the side quests often give you a better knowledge of the characters and the world that the characters live in. It happens in FFVII, but it is more linear than is sometimes suggested is the point Skummy was trying to make, I think.

[Sousa]

Really, if you're looking to any Final Fantasy game and hoping for a bastion of "do what thou wilt," the conversation begins and ends with the World of Ruin, and even that is basically the act of gathering characters and items and dinosaur corpses until you're ready to go beat the shit out of Kefka and wrap up the plot. Everything else comes down to being able to choose which sidequest box to tick. If you consider having to buy a strategy guide (or, today, look at GameFAQs) to learn how to properly make chocobos fuck so you can get to some obscure corner of the world and nab Knights of the Round, then you need to look up the definition of the word "freedom" and compare it to the definition of the word "obsession."

[Herr Matzat]

[TKz]

I don't know why I bother Junctioning magic on FFVIII. It just gets un-equipped twenty minutes later and I have to do it all over again. :|

[Ruki]

Why do you unequip it?

And in VIII, I usually spend the first 20-30 minutes running up and down the beach, fighting the fish until I can get 100 Water to junction onto Squall.

[Herr Matzat]

I have been playing a bit of FF III on my iPad. I think it´s prittymuch the same remake they did for DS. I am surprised how well don it feels, i was kinda of by the idea that they just remade a whole game. There dossent seem to be much of a story but i like the job system and that the difficulty is a bit more intense than other "new" releases these days.