What's the worst mainline FF game of its time?

I haven't played at least half of them, but from the ones I did, I enjoyed XII the least.

('of its time' as in compared to its contemporaries, as FF I understandably has relatively more primitive game design and presentation)

15, regardless of qualifiers.

MacArrowny posted...

15, regardless of qualifiers.

II

XIII, but I haven't played XV or XVI.

Actually the objective answer is probably the original release of XIV, but I didn't play that either.

12 by far. I remember getting it on launch day with my friends and just having the soul drained from us in like 30 mins.

15 is conventionally bad but it's really awesome for a long time before you realize it's incomplete nonsense. Then after you accept it's nonsense, it becomes awesome again.

I haven't played the XIII trilogy, XV or the MMOs yet, from what I've played I want to say FFX2 if that counts otherwise FFII probably. I think FFII is a good answer.

Also might be XII honestly, but that's more of a personal opinion.

I feel like FFII has long been accepted as the answer to this question

OG Famicom II sounds uh not fun even at the time

the remasters do a lot to clean it up and even then it isnt particularly strong gameplay wise

ctesjbuvf posted...

I haven't played the XIII trilogy, XV or the MMOs yet, from what I've played I want to say FFX2 if that counts otherwise FFII probably. I think FFII is a good answer.

Also might be XI honestly.

??

13 with 15 on its heels

Yeah from an objective or general standpoint, it isn't 15, it was far universally liked, but the success it had easily puts it above II (and a few others probably) regardless of people's personal opinions here. II is the right answer.

Steiner posted...

??

There was supposed to be a second "I" in that lol.

makes more sense

I mean probably II, although that didnt release of its time in most of the world. Also launch XIV was so bad they had to scrap and entirely redo it.

Discounting those, I think its XIII. That game launched at a time when Final Fantasy was still THE premier RPG series on consoles. The last game, although not beloved by the fandom, still got great contemporary reviews with a 92 Metascore (an easier feat back then but it was well regarded). And then you had XIII promising to be this huge event that would bring back the cinematic flash, major story focus, and reinvent the series. It landed with a big thud. Just relative to expectations of the time it was such a huge disappointment.

Success doesn't have to be a measure of quality

It's XV

XV is both a better game than XIII and also came out at a time when expectations for FF were much lower. XIII (and launch XIV) had already lowered the bar sufficiently.

Isnt the worst of its time basically asking which one is the worst from each era?

NES - FF2 easy
SNES - FF4
PS1 - FF7 (all good, but I like 8 & 9 more)
PS2 - FF12

Havent played enough after that to be able to pick any. Of those above FF2 is still the worst anyways so Id pick that if I had to pick just 1 game period

XV's broken shit is still better and more enjoyable than 12's entire game

XIV 1.0 if that counts

Otherwise, I guess XII. It could be II if we're looking at the first Western release timeframe, but at the time it came out in Japan, it was probably okay.

XII has the nice feature of getting a very improved updated version. But it was pretty disappointing at the time it came out imo (and still is to some degree, but once you accept that the series stopped pumping out all-timers and they had for a while, it's fine).

Guess I need to defend XII, which I was never particularly fond of. In 2006 it was super impressive, possibly the most technically impressive game on the PS2. And accordingly the early reception was actually really good. It was after some time passed things soured, and now people like it again. By contrast XIII felt like a step below its contemporaries.

I feel like people soured on XII pretty quickly after release.

But yeah, XIII was disliked by a lot of people almost immediately.

Funniest thing to me about FF12 was it had a demo released with a copy of a far better game (DQ8)

I hated 2. I had to use some weird cheese builds (shields and fists) to make it less stupid. The story is a bit dark, but everything about it is completely broken, and had to be fixed. I just hope the Pixel Remaster version fixes a whole hell of a lot. I am still leery of ever touching it again.

3 suffers from very few things that really kill it: The Crystal Tower not having a GODDAMN save point. This was remedied in the Remaster at least. What probably isn't fixed is the game forcing you down certain jobs to do anything. Splitting enemies, small hallways, the final boss even? Better have those jobs wink wink, or fuck you. Not quite FF5's freedom.

8 is a mess of silly ideas and execution, but I'll be damned if it doesn't have some energy and weirdness to at least be memorable. The OST is amazing too...so I'm willing to look back fondly on it.

12 and 13 can fucking rot. They are not Final Fantasy games to me. They are the first attempts Square made to "modernize" the gameplay, which didn't really happen until 15 and 7R anyway. 12 just lacked any spark and intrigue that felt like a FF game to me. It was a serviceable western style RPG, but everything about it, from the Gambit system, to the different composer (good in his own way, but it didn't feel "Final Fantasy" to me), and every character not named Balthier and Ashe just made it the first FF game I ever dropped...then I dropped AGAIN in the same place (Raithwall). Tried Zodiac Age and lasted only two hours. This game gives me PTSD.

13 is its own problem. It's trying for a slick, fast moving system, but it just annoys the hell out of me. I'm not the best for "strategic, fast moving combat" and gearing up for certain systems. It introduced the Stagger system, but other than that and music that felt like FF again (having X's composer), I wasn't all that interested.

15, 7R, and 16 are at least attempts to streamline the action combat to the point where I can deal with it enough to enjoy the characters, style, music, etc. 15's whole open world was a damn mistake, but what story is there, and Ardyn is amazing....so whatever.

so, 2, 3, 12, and 13 can die in a fire. Everything else is either godlike (4-7, 9 and 10), or good enough in some ways to mask some bullshit that isn't for me.

NES: 2-3
SNES: All are great
PSX: 8
PS2: 12 (Yes; I love X-2 more than 12)
PS3: Yawn
PS4/PS5: 15, though it has Ardyn at least

XII has the good fortune of the first couple dozen hours being the best part of the story, while XIII's first 20 hours feel like a tutorial in many ways.

swordz9 posted...

Funniest thing to me about FF12 was it had a demo released with a copy of a far better game (DQ8)

FFXII is much better than DQVIII.

swordz9 posted...

Funniest thing to me about FF12 was it had a demo released with a copy of a far better game (DQ8)

god, bring back random ass demo discs

I got the ff8 demo from pizza hut back in the day and it single handedly altered my video game trajectory for life

IX by a mile, considering the other PS1 and even SNES titles are so much bettter. And that's not even counting the masterpiece that came out just 1 year later, which isn't really fair because the jump to PS2

Without qualifiers still IX but II has a case

If you wanted a physical demo of an upcoming big game now it would probably only be included in the $100 Ultimate Version sold at a single retailer. Sad times

15 or maybe 2, can't see how it's anything else.

Zero: You put 8 over 9? The fuck?

You should put VIII over everything.

But if we're talking about reception at the time of release, VIII was much more well regarded than IX. That's only flipped in recent years.

The answer for the SNES era is V because that's only flipped in recent years, too.

swordz9 posted...

If you wanted a physical demo of an upcoming big game now it would probably only be included in the $100 Ultimate Version sold at a single retailer. Sad times

rip =(

But I had to Google it real quick to make sure it wasn't just a fever dream I had

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/321ca3ff.jpg

what a time to have been alive

Strife2 posted...

Zero: You put 8 over 9? The fuck?

As one should.

Strife2 posted...

Zero: You put 8 over 9? The fuck?

I put every game with Final Fantasy in the title over 9

And most games without!

I bought Brave Fencer Musashi solely to get that FFVIII demo.

Thankfully BFM turned out to be a really fun game, too!

The actual objective answer is XIV 1.0, but I don't know if anyone here actually played it.

XV is my personal most hated game of all time and I think it's truly a worthless product.

LightningStrikes posted...

Discounting those, I think its XIII. That game launched at a time when Final Fantasy was still THE premier RPG series on consoles. The last game, although not beloved by the fandom, still got great contemporary reviews with a 92 Metascore (an easier feat back then but it was well regarded). And then you had XIII promising to be this huge event that would bring back the cinematic flash, major story focus, and reinvent the series. It landed with a big thud. Just relative to expectations of the time it was such a huge disappointment.

To be fair, XIII also released at a time of pretty open xenophobia in the games journalist space. The Phil Fishening. Of course the game also wasn't great, but I don't think it's even close to being the answer here. XII is my second place answer.

Other than Zidane being a complete ineffectual perv for half the game, Eiko being a whiny annoying kid, and it running slow as balls, I wouldn't really get why it would be "worst" anything.

Besides, it has Vivi in it.

LightningStrikes posted...

In 2006 it was super impressive, possibly the most technically impressive game on the PS2.

Technically yes, but ONLY technically. You couldn't ignore that the art style was super bland (remember every game was gray/brown around that time) and the hyper-compressed audio made every cutscene unbearable. It was a giant cautionary tale of the infinite growth mindset of AAA games.

I feel like I recall Vaans designed being laughed at and disliked before 12 even launched. Like he was immediately dismissed more than any FF protagonist I knew back then

I think moreso than even the art, was the music. I usually like Sakimoto in other things (Odin Sphere/Valkyria Chronicles), but none of his tracks ever feel like anything but background noise. I won't say Hamauzu (X, XIII) is super amazing, but I always felt he felt more like Uematsu. Very "riff" based, trying to have catchy songs that, while simple, tried to tie its music to a certain place.

Outside of Rabanastre, I can't tell you one XII from the next, other than it being 'orchestral stuff.' I get keeping continuity between production teams, but going back to XII for any reason just feel like a chore. Then again, maybe I'm just more suited to stuff like rock and metal music. The way orchestral stuff is structured would probably never grab me.

Comparing to its contemporaries makes it tricky. People have mentioned FF13 for example, but that game came out during am era when JRPGs in general were in a slump or a weird transition point. There are some smaller games that have gained a bigger following in the years since (like Lost Odyssey and Nier) but I would say 13 is easily still the benchmark for JRPGs of that time, even if it was disappointing. Though, if Xenoblade hadn't taken so long to get localized the conversation might be different!

For me it's a tossup between 15 and 16. Honestly I kind of like 15, but I love the mess, and it's still doing interesting things other games just don't. 16 though, there are so many better things going on with RPGs now, and that game would have been better served if it was just a straight up action game.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

There are some smaller games that have gained a bigger following in the years since (like Lost Odyssey and Nier) but I would say 13 is easily still the benchmark for JRPGs of that time, even if it was disappointing.

Persona 4 is by far the most beloved JRPG of that period.

LeonhartFour posted...

The answer for the SNES era is V because that's only flipped in recent years, too.

Well the reason this flipped is because we didn't get a good international version of it until the GBA. I'm not sure if that even counts. The game seems well regarded in Japan, and it apparently sold more than FF4 on release!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The actual objective answer is XIV 1.0, but I don't know if anyone here actually played it.

XV is my personal most hated game of all time and I think it's truly a worthless product.

To be fair, XIII also released at a time of pretty open xenophobia in the games journalist space. The Phil Fishening. Of course the game also wasn't great, but I don't think it's even close to being the answer here. XII is my second place answer.

This is a very good point, the early 2010s were pretty wild in terms of the anti-Japanese sentiment that was getting openly thrown around. However, I think that was mostly after XIII and XIII would have gotten the same treatment regardless. Because its a bad game!

MacArrowny posted...

Persona 4 is by far the most beloved JRPG of that period.

Persona 4 is a generation behind the other games I mentioned despite releasing in the same period. It was outdated on release. It is in no way a benchmark for the generation despite being the breakout cult hit.

I said JRPGs were in a really weird spot!

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Persona 4 is a generation behind the other games I mentioned despite releasing in the same period. It was outdated on release. It is in no way a benchmark for the generation despite being the breakout cult hit.

If you don't think it's a benchmark there's something wrong with your standards.

https://youtu.be/EG3qZtOPy-Q?si=16OAyCp0RALMjBaj

It's really truly just not a debate unless you don't think it should count.

Macs probably right, but back then Persona was still a very niche series too and PlayStation 3 had already been out like 2 years or something too by the time Persona 4 came out.

PS3 era definitely seemed to struggle a lot for JRPGs though for sure. Despite divisive reception XIII pretty easily felt like it visually set the bar for JRPGs back then if nothing else. Most other stuff was much lower budget anime-like stuff that didnt really compare

Actually think the benchmark was Vesperia if you dont want to count Personas

or I guess the WRPG still counts so Mass Effect 2 works