Poll of the Day > I think FFIV might be my favourite FF.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Haven't beaten it yet, but so far it's the most compelling for me. I like that the story is exciting but still simple. It's such a huge leap from the 'basic' stories of the first games, but it still keeps it relatively 'simple' in contrast to later games. I'm in Toroia right now.

i didn't hate it, but i could never really get into it. VI was, to me, pretty much the perfection of pixelated jrpg's though. wish squeenix would remember it exists outside of super rare cameos.

7 and 9 also hit a lot of sweet spots. might give the edge to 7 though just because of how weird and unique looking it is.

Nade Duck posted...

i didn't hate it, but i could never really get into it. VI was, to me, pretty much the perfection of pixelated jrpg's though. wish squeenix would remember it exists outside of super rare cameos.

7 and 9 also hit a lot of sweet spots. might give the edge to 7 though just because of how weird and unique looking it is.

I love VI but it's been a long time since I've played it. I also played it over a long span of time, so I feel like the more complex story didn't 'stick' as much. I'll give it another go at some point.

7 I'm in Crystal Canyon and I really want to play 9.

i think my favorite version I played was the gba version, it was sooo well made.

I really like the simplicity of the story and characters, compared to the overly convoluted stories in the later games (which arent exactly bad, either)

I also really love the music in that one

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aRXSSLPuMF4

Ug. It's the worst of the SNES games IMO.

5 is the best, followed by 6 and 4.

I still think FF1 for NES is the best one, though.

FFV is my favorite FF.

FrozenBananas posted...

i think my favorite version I played was the gba version, it was sooo well made.

I really like the simplicity of the story and characters, compared to the overly convoluted stories in the later games (which arent exactly bad, either)

I also really love the music in that one

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aRXSSLPuMF4

Yep I'm playing the GBA version too.

I always go back and forth between IV and VI as my favorite. A lot of times, it just depends on my mood.

I liked the first game tremendously, and I really enjoyed VII, IX, and X later, but just in terms of sheer joy and impact on my enthusiasm IV and VI are the two that stand out as the best for me.

Especially since it's before some of the more blatantly Japanese elements started creeping into the series and taking over (like Yuna doing an idol concert in X-2, or Squall being a textbook insecure antisocial Japanese protagonist, or just having every major character being an elite veteran as a teenager and over the hill by the time they're in their 20s), and the games still felt like fairly traditional Western fantasy (even if VI was much darker fantasy, while IV was more traditional high fantasy).

Speaking of fantasy, IV and VI were still at the point before an emphasis on tech and sci-fi trends had kind of overwhelmed things - in the earlier games, tech was certainly a thing, but fantasy still kind of predominated. With VII and VIII they went really overboard on the tech and it was kind of a turn-off for me.



11110111011 posted...

Ug. It's the worst of the SNES games IMO.

5 is the best, followed by 6 and 4.

V is easily the worst for me. But I acknowledge that at least part of that is because I didn't play it until seven years later (via the PS1 port), at which point it already felt archaic and inferior to "modern" games, without any of the nostalgia that the other two SNES games had earned to offset that.

(On the other hand, it's not just the graphics, because it also came out around the same time I played Suikoden I and II for the first time, both of which feel a bit "old" by that point, and I absolutely loved them.)

It's probably also at least in part because I was playing IV and VI as a teenager, whereas by the time I got to play V I was already past legal drinking age in the US (ie, the same reason I usually point to for why I never really got into Pokemon, or pretty much anything 90s kids absolutely love). So childhood wonder had been replaced by jaded cynicism.

Though it also didn't help that I found pretty much all of the characters in V to be completely bland and uninteresting, so I didn't really care about them, their world, or their story the way I did the other two games.

https://youtu.be/UXIlo-ExhH8?t=163

IV is my nostalgic favorite. When I first played it, it was around the time that my chronic depression had started manifesting in earnest, and I found characters defined in great part by guilt, self-loathing, and envy paired with a theme of redemption/coming to terms with the wrongs you have done to be compelling. At the time, it was the first game I'd played with a story that was even worth mentioning.

Unfortunately, it has not aged well at all. I think if the game was remade *from the ground up*, properly fleshed out, it could be truly excellent, but much like Secret of Mana, you can see that they were trying to do something large, sweeping, and dramatic, but it was cut short by limitations of the time.

For example, a proper re-write of the game could cut out some of the fake-out death events in favor of a party swap mechanic, as the lack of one is the only reason those happen so much in the story. Characters and areas could be expanded on (the thought bubbles/extra scenes in the DS version and some of the bonus dungeon content in the GBA version is good but I think it could go further), and more limited character units could be expanded to be more comparable to, say, FFIX.

Uh... Do we really need spoiler tags for a 1991 game? Eh. I think a teeny bit more foreshadowing about the Lunarians would probably be in order as well. There IS some in the game if you are paying attention, but a lot of people seem to really hate Zemus (lolol that is ironic) so it might not be a bad idea.

Overtly explaining why it is Kain was susceptible to their influence but Edge and Tellah were not is a good idea. You can infer it if you understand the characters- Kain (and also Theodore, later revealed) is in turmoil over his negative feelings for people he cares about which makes him vulnerable to control, and this fundamentally differentiates his negative feelings from Edge and Tellah, who are "righteous" in their negativity aimed at the villains; there is no turmoil to be found there.

Unfortunately the game absolutely does not make it properly clear that that is why the baddies keep yoinking control of Kain; even the DS ending just has Rydia make a quip about how it was unbelievable that Edge had not fallen victim to Zemus' influence, so even the characters in-lore seemed baffled by what was going on.

And just for a quick aside, I always found it a bit strange how hated Edward is. I always liked him, even when I was little. Edge was my least favorite party member and Cid was my least favorite unit; Edward's status inflictions alone made him better than Cid.

But it is a very concise and decent to play game even to this day, and it doesn't get enough praise for the slew of optional bosses guarding loot it has in the final dungeon, that was awesome.

Compared to 1-3 it's a pretty huge improvement and it's still a very good game. I think 6 is the best playing of the SNES ones and 5 is wholly unique. I wish the series leaned (at least occasionally) back in that direction and had some silly fun instead of what it's turned into.

I think FFIV, FFT, and FF:E are my favorites.

Gaawa_chan posted...

And just for a quick aside, I always found it a bit strange how hated Edward is. I always liked him, even when I was little.

It's because he's a spoony bard, obviously.

Though it's more likely because he's one of the more useless characters in the game - he has low health and defense, one of his special abilities barely works, and the other consists of him hiding and leaving you to get beat on by the bad guys, so he feels like an absolute load. He's barely a character, he's a tactical handicap you have to suffer through until you can get rid of him.



Gaawa_chan posted...

Edge was my least favorite party member

Yeah, but he was a ninja in the 80s/90s, so most kids were contractually obligated to love him.

Exdeath came out of nowhere. That was the only thing wrong with FF5. It was fun for what it was.

I never gelled with iv much, i always consider it the weakest of the snes trilogy, although it is still pretty solid. v for me is the best of the 2d ffs, the amount of customisation with the job system is fantastically fun.

I call it my pound for pound favorite. It's not my favorite in any category like story characters gameplay etc. But it's the only one I have no complaints in really any department either. The one complaint I do have is overuse of a character being presumed dead but they aint.

It's the one I've replayed the most

IV is absolutely my favorite, I played it back when it was II.

At the time I was a mostly arcade gamer, fighting games, racers, shooters, etc. Buddy of mine got an SNES and this game for Christmas, and he literally would not stop talking about it, so I agreed to play the intro to shut him up.

Two hours later, he's like "So are you done?" and I go "Leave me alone, this is awesome!" to his general amusement. The concept of a game that had an actual plot, characters who interacted with each other, the scale of the world, it was a sea change in my gaming life, and RPGs have remained my favorite genre since.

DiScOrD tHe LuNaTiC posted...

IV is absolutely my favorite, I played it back when it was II.

At the time I was a mostly arcade gamer, fighting games, racers, shooters, etc. Buddy of mine got an SNES and this game for Christmas, and he literally would not stop talking about it, so I agreed to play the intro to shut him up.

Two hours later, he's like "So are you done?" and I go "Leave me alone, this is awesome!" to his general amusement. The concept of a game that had an actual plot, characters who interacted with each other, the scale of the world, it was a sea change in my gaming life, and RPGs have remained my favorite genre since.

I don't know what my first RPG was but I think FF6 was the first one I really played.

Revelation34 posted...

I don't know what my first RPG was but I think FF6 was the first one I really played.

For me technically Pokmon. Otherwise final fantasy 1 (orgins) 7 was the first I beat outside Pokmon though

Revelation34 posted...

I don't know what my first RPG was but I think FF6 was the first one I really played.

My family bought a bunch of used NES games in bulk in 1991. My first RPG was Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) 1, though you could also consider Zelda 2, Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, and Legacy of the Wizard RPGs as well and they were all in that stack of games my parents got (though imo LotW is an adventure game, not an RPG, and it's odd that some people classify it as such).

I think the next RPGs I played were FF2 (4) and Dungeon Master on the SNES... or maybe Castle of the Winds on the PC?

sabin017 posted...

https://youtu.be/UXIlo-ExhH8?t=163

god those 3d remakes look awful.

11110111011 posted...

god those 3d remakes look awful.

Yeah, the DS is not a great system for 3D graphics. The CGI intro is good, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRah-zYboFw

Gaawa_chan posted...

Yeah, the DS is not a great system for 3D graphics. The CGI intro is good, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRah-zYboFw

Honestly - this looks pretty bad as well.

11110111011 posted...

Honestly - this looks pretty bad as well.

*shrug* was a DS intro from like... 2007, I think.