No, it isn't a trick question. 😉
Most veteran PSXE readers know my favorite game of all time is Final Fantasy Tactics . Of course, not everyone agrees, and I respect that. However, it'd be interesting to see contrasting viewpoints from those who remember the PlayStation classic very well, and are willing to prove their stance…
Our ongoing So You Think You Can Review Video Games user review contest typically involves readers submitting any review they wish. And technically, this new contest doesn't follow those same rules, as the community won't select the best FFT review. I will do it. The only reason is because I'm definitely an expert and I'll catch the untruths and falsifications at a very quick glance. That begin said, a negative review proving your point that FFT is overrated might actually attract my attention more, because I'd be impressed with a well-written, professional analysis that counters my opinion.
Therefore, don't think just siding with me and going, "yep, FFT is the best" will earn you a victory. It still could , obviously, but I'm really just looking for the very best review. And although it doesn't follow exactly the same rules as the contest, I'll still give away one of our available prizes to the winner; follow the links to see everything we have available. See if you can wow me with your FFT knowledge!
Just submit as a User Review; all of them will go up, of course, but only one can be the best…
Its still to this day my favorite SRPG, And lord knows I've played hundreds of them.
Aw darn, just submitted my Lollipop Chainsaw review too.
I never got into FFT and it was when I decided that strategy JRPGs just aren't for me. The only game to break that trend has been Valkyria Chronicles. I went back and tried to play FFT two more times over the years and it was a no go.
It surprises me that there has been no actual FFT-2 since FF is being squeezed so much lately that it has a rhythm game.
I've always wondered that, too, about it not getting sequels.
Though, I don't remember arguments about it being overrated. It holds an 83 percent Metacritic and Gamerankings average. A great standing but not considered "elite" by the critical consensus in terms of overall game offerings. For me Tekken 3 was one of the systems best, along with Gran Turismos, MGS, Castlevania SotN, and the core 3 FF titles.
If aliens abducted me and asked me to produce for them the "best" of PSx I'd pick those 😉
I'd also add Suikoden II to that list.
Only put in a couple of hours back when it came out, and it never clicked with me either for a variety of reasons. I was so into Final Fantasy VII at the time I was barely into anything else, for one. I've never been a huge fan of more traditional fantasy settings, either, so that turned me off a bit. I remember struggling with the interface — I remember getting frustrated figuring out how to save the game, for some reason — and I remember the general tactical layout just seemed so much less interesting than having an entire world to explore, a la the core Final Fantasies.
The game was lauded at the time of its release and many love it still. I kind of regret not giving it a little more time, to see if I could get into it. Who knows, I find thinking about PS1-era JRPGs a lot these days, maybe I'll take FFT for a spin.
In fact, I doubt I'll have time to do it in time for THIS, but that would be a really interesting review premise — how does the game stand up today for someone who essentially didn't play it the first time around? I'm fascinated by the question of how much nostalgia tints our perceptions of our favorite games and gaming memories, and wonder often how much those games would pass muster today.
World, cool, well I feel like I'm getting close to the end of Suikoden. The first one. I took out Teo McDohl, and it just sort of feels like everything is steam rolling now towards a finale. But I dunno. Anyway, hopefully they bring Suikoden II over to PSN. The actual physical game sells for quite a bit these days.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 7/9/2012 11:36:33 AM
I broke down and played it on an emulator. I liked it at least twice as much as I did the first one, they really got in a great story the second time that I felt didn't grab me again until Suikoden V. III was good, IV was kinda blah.
cool, well is 2 harder? The first one seems pretty dang easy, at least compared to like Xenosaga or your average FF.
@World
I felt the same way about the series. Wasn't a huge fan of 3 and 4 was pretty bad. But 5 was a return to its roots. Just wish the random battles werent so frequent and the regular battles were a little longer in exchange. Now let's hope 6 comes out soon.
@Temjin
Suikoden II pretty much evolved everything from the first game and made it a lot more fun. You actually have a reason to keep your other members leveled up because you sometimes have 3 parties in certain and in one epic confrontation. I'm just finishing up the first game for the who knows how many times. Do yourself a favor and get access to the second one. Emulate if you have to like what World said. I'm gonna break my disc out in a month or two as I held onto it.
And yea I'd say it's more difficult in both regular battles and large scale battles that is a completely different system than the Rock Paper Scissors of the first game.
FFT: WotL was the first game I purchased for my Vita and, oddly enough, I posted my review of it last week (in the PSP user review section). Since it's also one of my favorite games I'd also love to see what others have to say.
I loved FFT when it came out, and played it almost religiously. However, nowadays I just can't get into it anymore when I do play it. I still much prefer Ogre battle: March of the Black Queen over it, and can play that game nonstop even to this day.
I love the game for its depth and strategy but I don't care for the art direction. I had a blast playing it again on PSP a few years back.
I love FFT as well, but not as much as you do Ben. The story has as much depth as it's gameplay, which is definitely meaty, but I think the end fell apart a bit. It's still one of the most memorable experiences in the PS1 era though, and the remake for the PSP cleaned up the dialogue a bit which made it even more badass.
Looking back, I still give the crown to Xenogears for my favourite PS1 title (and possibly of all time). The ending fell apart in this game too, but the overall package more than made up for it. I always get a tingly feeling looking back on that game.
well, write it as a review you silly goose. Win free stuff 😉
Last edited by Temjin001 on 7/8/2012 11:37:57 PM
I prefer Jeanne d'arc over final fantasy tactics. I'm not a fan of strategy games but I did had a blast with Jeanne d'arc.
Nice. Even though I think FFT is a bit better than Jeanne d'Arc I'm glad someone else has played it. I LOVE that game so much and think it's one of the best PSP titles, easily.
FFT is pretty good, and I've been playing through War of the Lions on PSP. I have to say, I love levelling up to try and unlock more jobs for each character, but I am disappointed that some jobs are nigh useless compared to other jobs. I feel like all of my melee characters are samurais or dual wielding knights. And the requirements to unlock Dark Knight are pretty steep.
I was addicted to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance on my GBA. There are more jobs with a lot of variety, and there are 5 races who all have different job combinations. The story of FFTA is cheesier than the original, but the battle mechanics and job system I ultimately found more satisfying.
Disgaea is another one that I have on my PSP, but the possibilities are almost endless when it comes to levelling and it overwhelms me. For instance, you can level to 9999 (!) and then you can revert back to level 1 with the option of increased base statistics. You can make your characters unstoppable gods, but it gets very tedious for me very fast.
Overrated?!…….Blasphemy!
one of the writer of FFXII is the director of FF Tactics. yeah.
huh?
Yasumi Matsuno is my favorite director in Square. He's team produced FF Tactics. He is the director in the first half of the development of XII, one of my favorite jrpg. And the rumor is that they are the team that will be doing FFXV. I hope that's true. Just saying. FF Tactics is one of the best of course.
I understood your statement but felt you should have elaborated a little, thanks! I agree about XII, I love everything about it. I hope you're right about XV.
My bad, he already left Square and joined Level-5 in june 2011. My hope is gone. Damn it.
Last edited by homura on 7/9/2012 12:49:37 AM
It really shows…
As long as the bozo in charge of FFXIII's story isn't involved, I'm happy. Potentially the worst dialogue writing in the history of the franchise…
With all the outsourcing SE has been talking about, maybe they'll give FFXV to Level-5! Then your dream can become a reality!
I really did not dig the combat system of XII but was kind of able to make my peace with it because as an Ivalice title it made some sense to plan out everything your characters would do beforehand with gambits. Now that I think of it it was the precursor to autobattle.
it's a beautiful battle system, you can pause and change tactics even mid battle. Difficult boss battles. You really have to think hard. I've played it with pitiful armor and weapons and my friends told me that you can't defeat that boss with your low level and weak weapons but hell i proved them wrong. And of course feeling of excitement when you're about to die and you have to run to go to a save point to save your progress and were chased by a t-rex. Placing your party strategically in battle and you just have to watch not like Dragon Age II were you have tap the buttons of your controlled party. You can see the monsters in the distance and feel should i go there or follow the story line first. Memories!
Last edited by homura on 7/9/2012 1:34:05 AM
FFXII has the best non traditional RPG battle system I've ever had the pleasure of trying. There was incredible depth with the gambit system and I never felt like I was not in control.
I spent countless hours just mixing up my party and roaming around hunting. Fun stuff!
I loved FF12 too. Gameplay wise it was just really fun and fast. However there were some builds that made the game super way too easy but I think you can find those in any RPG.
I can't remember the weapons exactly but I had swords that could cause death in 1 hit i think? Then for most battles I just hasted and bererked balthier and basch while I healed with Vaan. I beat everything that game threw at me that way, and most of the optional fights in fact all the optional fights that I fought.
I still remember getting the Zodiac spear for Basch…it was such a dangerous trek but man was it worth it.
I'm with homura. I was beating bosses and marks 15 levels below the recommended level (which also meant my licenses didn't allow me sick armor yet). The only reason you could do that was if you spent a great deal of time creating a overarching strategy that also allowed you to sub in the most appropriate alternate depending on which character fell in battle.
Decoy is the most useful thing in the whole game. I always made Vaan the tank, and the first gambit was self: decoy then that spell that turns healing magic into damage and attacks into healing. He had whatever weapon and shield combo gave him the best evade, and all the protection spells imaginable cast by Fern. Big bosses would focus all their energy on him while the others pummel it down from behind. All the while, and as long as you're fast enough to keep his guard up, he wouldn't come close to dying.
There was a lot more to the strategy than that, but that's the meat and potatoes. I found the gambit system far more complex than auto battle. And honestly, if FFXIII had incorporated gambits so that, for example, my sabateurs would cast the spells I WANT them to cast, they would do it, then I would have liked FFXIII's battle system MUCH much more.
Auto-battle in FFXIII gave you no control over the other characters, and paradigm shifting turned complex battles into a game of picking between 6 paradigms. Any moron could beat anything in that game. It should have been harder and more complex.
Another thing FFXII did well was allow you to travel with your entire party…
I pretty much set up a killer complementary gambit system and mainly only needed to intervene to use potions when the team couldn't get to a spell on time.
I think FF12 was beautiful and is one game that should have a HD version made for ps3. I really enjoyed it and would love to play it again in HD.
@World
Yeah, there's definitely a number of different approaches you can take, too. I like the fact that you can create a number of different strategies. Some of my friends didn't really do much, though, and it showed. Some would just basically make everyone sort of average at everything with no distinct roles and no time spent on organizing gambits. They tended to struggle often. Especially with bosses.
I didn't like how XIII basically gave each character 6 possible individual strategies. The worst was the time it took to shift that initial shift… >.<
FFT is one of my favourite games and the only console game on which I've approached the 1000 hour mark. I generally don't do this, but I very well may write a user review for this contest.
I have to be honest here, I never thought much of the game. I couldn't get into the story/world (Same with any game set in Ivalice…). I also hated the battle system, but then I am not into strategy RPG's, I don't like moving my character around a checkered board.
I also hated the visuals too, that high up angle at a slant. Does the game have any exploration? when I played it you just go across this paper map with icons on and go into another battle.
I personally don't even consider it an FF title. But then it was never released here in the UK at the time… No that's not it, I have played games like Xenogears and Parasite Eve only recently and love them, so it's not just about playing it at a later date.
I personally wish all these Ivalice titles wouldn't bare the name Final Fantasy, they all stick out like a saw thumb. They feel more closer to the Tactics Orge games or Dragon Age.
Last edited by Vivi_Gamer on 7/9/2012 2:35:05 AM
Of course it will be similar to Tactics Ogre because Yasumi Matsuno are the one behind FF Tactics and Vagrant Story.
Last edited by homura on 7/9/2012 3:13:19 AM
True, but I just don't think his style suits Final Fantasy it's just to… formal and follows a very standard fantasy art style. While Final Fantasy takes the foundations of Fantasy and goes further to explore medieval and sci-fi areas. I found XII to be one of the most bland experiences in gaming I have ever had. All I remember from the games was landscapes and temples. The characters just had no charisma and weren't exciting to follow (Apart from Balthier, the reason I struggled through the 80 hour ordeal.) The problem was politics was brought to the foreground and the was just no emotive connection to be found.
I can respect him, but I just don't think it suits to Final Fantasy.
I would rather have political intrigue and war. Than have to deal with the mellow drama that was FF13. I thought it was refreshing that there wasn't a love story shoved in your face in FF12. Although you could tell who liked who, there was pretty much no love story.
I do agree though most of the characters weren't really interesting like the characters from the PSX era were.
I do love a good love story, but the japanese tend to make them unbearable to watch.
Really? I thought Final Fantasy VIII handled it so well. iF FFVIII has a problem it is that the love story took over everything and other than Squall and Rinoa the rest of the cast in your party felt secondary. Still Squall's story and character was so well told I can over look that.
I liked XIII's cast, I while they lacked depth, they're we're very charismatic. The part where Hope confronts Snow in Palumpolum had me balling in tears it was very sweet. Most FF games have elements of war within the object, FFX has the battle to overcome sin, FFVIII the war between the Gardens (Utterly epic btw!) & even political aspects, just take the greedy Shinra corp. for an example.
But as I said before, XII took the politics and pushed it too far forward. The characters motives seemed flat, most of them just seemed to be along for the ride with no real purpose. Ashe was the only character with a real objective, Vaan failed as a lead character, I always used Balthier because he was the only one who was fun and actually had an interesting backstory.
I also dislike the MMO sytled gameplay, What really bugged me was how you select your attack, then you have to wait for the bar to attack it just left me impatient, whilst in other FF games you wait first then you select then you attack, the old battles just seemed to flow better (So did XIII's IMO.)
FFT is among my best game and probably the best srpg ever .I really don t see how someone that like srpg could say it s overated since the gameplay and story are real good .
I completed it 3-4 time and i will play it 1-2 more time for sure .Still need to play it using only beast master ( not sure of the class name ) and monsters . I also nee to play it using only only standard troops ( non story character ).
–POTENTIAL SPOILERS–
(although, nothing explicit. The section(s) about Vanille and Sazh could be considered spoiler in nature)
I thought Lightning's plethora of one word answers removed any depth she might have had. There wasn't even an internal dialogue like there was with Squall to combat that. Hope wasn't charismatic. He was a whiny [email protected] The writing was horrible. They went out of their way to SPOON FEED the reason he hates Snow. There was so much potential to develop the character silently, but they had to take the cookie cutter cut-out on a silver platter approach that basically assumes the audience is incapable of perceiving any level of depth.
Snow was a charismatic character at his core, but again, his dialogue forced unnatural conversations because the writers again didn't feel we were smart enough to see his hurt unless they explicitly told us about it. Vanille had the same problem. They were way too obvious that she was hiding something. And it took almost no time to figure out what it was… and you figured it out WELL before we should have.
Sazh had one excellent moment in the story. And I actually appreciated it, -BUT- it's overshadowed by how non-serious you take him throughout the rest of the game. He's basically a stereotypical character who's a bit of a bumbling idiot before that point, and that trend continues well after the point as well (see anything with the chicabo and the cactaur).
Fang is the -ONLY- character that was actually well done. Her dialogue does not give in-your-face predictions about her character. She speaks strongly and has moments of weakness that feel genuine. They don't forcast her story to anyone on a silver platter and throughout the story, she is a character we must put -EFFORT- into getting to know. She was truly well done.
The main story is good at it's core, and if you look through the archives, they put a ton of thought into it. BUT… the archived information did not make anything clearer (I read it all) or matter much to the main story. You got the impression the world is probably ginormous, but you never experience it's depth. The whole thing is just poorly executed and the concept of it's scale is completely lost.
So we're left with what is basically a children's story minus Fang: the only bright spot.
FFXIII was a huge pile of potential that was basically just flung at the wall and spelled out as basically as possible… and that applies to both it's battle system and story. It had the pieces to be a wonderful and -PERFECT- experience, but it was fu**** up. Something as simple as increasing the game's difficulty and incorporating gambits (so Vanille doesn't spend so much time casting every spell in the book before getting to the poison spell I WANT her to cast, or waste time not knowing an enemy's elemental weakness despite already figuring it out 30 times already) would have made the battle system much better.
FFXIII is the worst in the series for what I'm pretty sure amounts to basic developer laziness. I'm sure of it.
I hated Squall as a character. Not as much as I disliked lightning but I seriously didn't like his dark angst emo nature. I just can't relate to characters who are so serious like squal was. I must prefered Zell lol. I didn't really notice the love story in FF8 as much as the love story in FF10. But you are right they were done better than most japanese love stories but I still thought they were awkward and frustrating to watch. I did enjoy FF8 but its my least favourite of the PSX era for sure.
I think the characters in FF12 were great. Penelope was the only one I thought didn't really have a place. Everyone else seemed to fit nice I thought.
Squall ruined VIII for me. World seems to love the guy.
Yup, Squall was a great fit for me.
I had two friends who were in love with his character design, both how he dressed and how he acted. They just related better with him than me. I wouldn't say Squall ruined it but he was up there with main characters I didn't like.
I fell in love with Zidane and actually the whole cast of FF9. It is bar none my favourite FF game of all time. I felt like FF8 was a bit of a let down, still good but with FF9 they redeemed themselves in my eyes. Loved the world they created with all the races and stuff, man I need to play it again.
I'm kinda in the same boat – I just don't 'get' Final Fantasy (I've never played any of them). To be honest, I also really don't get the general popularity with Japanese stuff on this site, like anime & what-not.
So…wanna hide under this rock with me, too?
There's enough room. It's really snuggly too. If you wanna snuggle, that is. 😛
I've got my pitchfork…someone else get the mob and follow me, I know where they're hiding 🙂
NOT WHILE WE'RE SNUGGLING!!!
Yeah I loved FF Tactics! I still consider it my favorite FF out of all of them. I played threw it 2 or 3 times before I even found out you could get Cloud as a character, then I played it like 3 more times. There is no way I could write a review though as my writing skills are poor, so I hope the rest of use do it justice.