Final Fantasy VII through XII

I shall continue now with the second part of my marathon. Remember, these reviews are unbiased because I managed to beat each title this year.

Final Fantasy VII

Rating: 8.6

What can I say? This is together with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time a juggernaut of a game regarding impact back in the 90’s, and during my FF marathon I finally, finally beat my first Final Fantasy game I played back in 1998. As I was passionate back then to beat it, I just could not defeat Safer Sephiroth after barely killing Bizarro Sephiroth before. In 2003, I got as far as defeating Hojo, sickening close towards the end. Both times, either I gave up, or other issues came, honestly, I cannot remember which. 

Final Fantasy VII is simply the best RPG in the franchise yet for its grand department from the 16-bit era, throwing in adorable yet very memorable graphics, another interesting storyline plus villain, a stunning soundtrack, a great deal of mini games(Fort Condor, Bike Chase, Gold Saucer) and just a streaming flow of good RPG gameplay, lowering the difficulty but with the entertainment perhaps risen because of the animations. Not only during battles, but also during story sequences. 

The materia battle system is another noteworthy new feature in FF7, it’s kind of a mix between the Esper and Relic system from FF6 as you decide which person gets what kind of ability/spell/summon/support and then, by gathering so called AP points, these materia stones will eventually level as well, sometimes granting better spells or stats.

The nostalgia is very strong for this one, especially when listening back towards some of the very best songs of the game, such as the Main Theme on the world map, Still More Fighting and Buried in the Snow. The main characters are widely known, I was very impressed with the Shinra Corporation and the main villain is both really. Glad to have finally beaten the antagonist Sephiroth without beating Ruby or Emerald weapon, without getting a Gold Chocobo and without the summon Knights of the Round, just wanted to point this out.

Many of us loved the game back in 1997, and I can definitely agree. Despite that everything has been said about it already positively as well as negatively, Final Fantasy VII will always be a juggernaut of an RPG.

Final Fantasy VIII

Rating: 7.4

The last Final Fantasy I played, before ignoring the series almost entirely through a decade. I got around the end of Disk 3 in 1999, but I barely remember where exactly. Upon beating it now, I remember that I was stuck in the maze city of Esthar. Part 8 is a mixed bag of good and bad things. The bad things are its pace, slow gameplay and ultimately weird story direction. The good things are the setting of it, improved graphics, a decent soundtrack with Balamb Garden sticking in my mind and 2 major systems which I will list below.

The Junction system is a complex system at first that lets you play with variables by adding a GF here or there, Magic here or there and then playing around with the various advancements they bring you. It is a detailed system where you can either manually or automatically set the settings, adding for example a certain element to a weapon, or boosting your magic defense with the Ice elemental. While playing around with this, the Guardian Forces level up through AP’s, gaining new stats and abilities for the main characters as well as their own.

Triple Triad is the most addictive mini game I have played in a RPG game. It is a collecting card game, with different rules depending on which region you currently are in. Monsters, bosses, GF’s and characters appear as cards, and generally the rule is to empower other cards by having a higher number than those they present towards either the east, the west, the south or the north. Later on, you can no longer pick cards by yourself, elemental rules come into play and collecting becomes more fun as well as dangerous, unless you abuse the save system. At times, I just had way more fun with it than Final Fantasy 8’s gameplay itself. I think that Triple Triad is an excellent game for a mini game.

I must note that level grinding is very tempting to do here. As you draw out stronger magic from enemies, another new feature, your level stats will go up faster. It is even wise to draw a lot in order to stock up on useful spells, as well as hidden summon GF’s. While the grinding is different here in FF8, I think it both has a high and a low point, for lowering the difficulty, but raising the customization and honestly, I had not seen the art of drawing magic before, so it gets a thumbs up for me. On minor notes, equipment is almost entirely gone and the currency system depends on how well your SeeD rank is, you can no longer grind it.

Looking at it all in overall, with its experimenting ways, FF8 is bold just like FF2, only it is much better. It even can get emotional at times with its odd story. However the bad things I mentioned do make me doubt the overall fun I had with it, thus lowering its rating. And it gets tedious after seeing a GF’s animation for the umpteenth time, because YOU WILL use them a lot, more than any other FF game.

Abusing the gameplay system here is a must. The first time in 1999, I had no idea why my normal attacks were so damn pathetic compared to the GF’s might. Playing it now in 2011, I breezed through the game. The amount of abuse to be found here is broken, no question about that. If you don’t know what you are doing, then be prepared for mindfucks and annoying hazards caused by enemies in the final stages. 

Lastly, this is the longest Final Fantasy game for me yet. I honestly felt that this game was way too long for its own good and that the length utterly destroyed the pacement of the game. And experiencing frame drops during many battles is just a sign of bad design in my opinion.

Final Fantasy IX

Rating: 7.5

After a long break from March through early June, I went back to my gaming deeds and needs and passion. Continueing on the Final Fantasy marathon, part IX happens to be only slighter better than VIII for some better upgrades here and there. As a so called return to the older final fantasies, it still feels quite different from other titles. I honestly didn’t care for the card system this time around, as I was focused on beating the game.

IX also had some decent songs, the story was alright and difficulty was quite normal, perhaps the easiest of the three PSX main Final Fantasies. However, Part IX simply did not grab the same momentum ride I had with Part IV, V and VI and is thus rather average. Kuja was a decent antagonist, but I wasn't fond of the twist surrounding him and Zidane, since it has happened before. Still, it’s not a bad game by any means.

Final Fantasy X

Rating: 5.7

Well, this is where Final Fantasy would change radically for the first time. Excluding only FFVIII’s rather more complex system here, the series always used its battle system traditionally (well FFII didn’t…), and now it truly has changed dramatically. Conditional Turn Based system is the new kid in town, which I actually first experienced with Mega Man X: Command Mission. Everything is fully 3D rendered now, there no longer is a world map and voice acting is also introduced , which isn’t that overwhelming, but I remember it being a big deal back in the day. The playable characters this time are perhaps the worst cast I have seen in the franchise yet.

It also has the most annoying mini game, which is Blitzball. The lip synchronization is horrible, as expected from JRPG’s with voiceovers. And it is cramped with cut-scenes, marking this pretty much the first game for me that has so many, it could be considered a movie instead. I cringe to think about the cut-scenes people have said about Metal Gear Solid 4, which I will play in the future.

The storyline is a major step back towards general RPG storytelling, and is severely damaged because of the linearity of the game. It is mainly about the Yevon religion and the duty of summoners to pray, while an unusual large group of guardians does their thing and in the end a very stupid creature was constantly bothering everyone destructively called Sin. Seymour can hardly be called an effective villain and is rather forgettable other than “that blue guy” from part X. OH AND THE WHOLE BLITZBALL STORY WAS LAME.

Final Fantasy X is the easiest RPG in the series yet, for including an abusive new system called the Sphere Grid to theoretically give any ability or stats to any character and for giving Wakka a friggin certain dodgeball that can instagib normal enemies. However, like FFVIII before, both of them happen to have hard as hell sidequest bosses that honestly are not even fun to try to beat. Which essentially means that the difficulty was either non-existent, or right in your face.

The only thing that was consistently designed is the new battle system here, everything else surrounding the game was terrible. I can’t believe that since Final Fantasy 7 was released, there hasn’t been a greater momentum. X happens to be the worst FF since I beat II some months earlier. I’m skipping on FFXI because I dislike MMORPG’s, especially discontinued ones, and I hope that the next one will be a saving grace.

Final Fantasy XII

Rating: 6.9

I must take my words back from FF X. XII happens to have changed even more, because the gameplay is totally different now. In fact, it all bears a striking resemblance towards MMORPG’s, but offline then. It is interesting and entertaining at first, but eventually becomes quite repetitive, like pretty much any generic RPG, but actually, I wasn’t really bothered by XII that much. Except for uninspired music, scarcity of gil and some enemies that are way too strong and could instant kill party members at certain points in the game. But that is all really.

I liked the changes this time more than before, as the game’s presentation is well done, including professional voice acting, better lip synchronization, a more decent cast (Not hard to overcome X’s) and a David Attenborough sound alike narrates the events happening, while a cut scene skip button IS available. The gameplay is only a bit less controllable, because normal attacks are automatic now (Active Dimension Battle).You can still cast spells, use techniques and items and summon beings. A new Gambit system is now used, which really is a luxury sounding name about how to let the A.I. issue orders by themselves. Lastly, the Sphere Grid has now turned into the Licence Board, which by design is less intriguing, but I think by available upgrades better balanced.

The story, NPC’s and such is alright. I did not read every wall of text the many NPC’s offered, but I’m sure that most of it was well written, looking at the text of the cutscenes. The story is passable for offering political themes in some kind of medieval based setting with of course science fiction and fantasy elements. While XII is a step back up in the right direction, it does not has, let’s say, the same magic and memorable characters that VI or VII had for me. XII also is perhaps, the most unlikely main Final Fantasy game yet, simply because it’s designed world looks so much like any generic MMORPG nowadays.

Well, this marks the end of my Final Fantasy marathon. I must say that I have seen average, great and disappointing titles, all for different reasons. It’s good however that each title is quite different from each other and it feels like a huge achievement that I managed to beat all of the main entries excluding XI, XIV and XIII. I will probably never try out the first two, and I am simply unable to play XIII yet, but I have heard very bad ominous things about it….can Squeenix be saved from my criticism? Until the future.