Are modern Final Fantasy games bad?
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I play FFXIV. I'll break it down by expansions, but it's the one that didn't follow the general downwards trend so much.
1.0 - trash. They couldn't figure out how to work together. One guy spends forever making the best looking water wheel ever, in the background, that you never interact with. It's too graphically intensive, and flows the wrong way from the water. It doesn't match the building it's attached to. Meanwhile, they forget to add roads towards main cities. It's an unplayable mess. It's literally unplayable, as they killed it off to replace it with:
2.0, A Realm Reborn - they really fixed it under one guy's leadership. It's playable, and works. It's outdated somewhat today, but has a lot of moral grey areas and twists. There's a lot of running around and time wasting, which was common back then.
Heavenward - they made a great story. It's one of the best expansions. Streamlined and faster. No needless "talk to 5 villagers" quests like previously.
Stormblood - not as great. There's a lot of setup they use later. The world building is really great, though. Some of the best looking areas.
Shadowbringers - the best expansion they've ever made. Perfectly balanced world building and characters, and story. This is peak FF, with the best music as well. Probably because they can ditch much of the old A Realm Reborn story.
Endwalker - ties it all together. The story leads up to "death is inevitable for everything that has ever lived, so just die now" kind of depression hopelessness that you wonder how they'll get out of it. Well, because it's Japanese and FF, it's the power of friendship that saves the day. But, this really feels like the culmination of everything they've learned in the previous expansions.
Dawntrail - this is the downward slide. They force you into a role to support someone for ruler that is almost slapstick bad. Characters don't make logical choices. The theme is all over the place and can't decide what it wants to be. Many people say to stop at endwalker, but we'll see how the next expansion goes, which is years away.
There's plenty to say about the game otherwise, but the general thought is that they're gradually cutting corners, taking longer, and under delivering as they're stretched too thin. They're feeling the same pressure everyone else in the world is - not enough money. Which is crazy, because FFXIV is THE game keeping Square Enix alive.
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"Modern"? I don't know.
Final Fantasy 10 was the last game that fit the 'traditional' turn based (active or not) gameplay. Since then there's been less consistency between iterations.
Final Fantasy 11 and 14 are MMORPGs and are just fundamentally different games as a result. The latest is essentially Devil May Cry gameplay.
A lot of people enjoyed DMC and DMC is not inherently bad, but it may not be what people expect.
But the spinoffs using the Final Fantasy name have always been pretty damn hit or miss. (Compare Mystic Quest to Tactics.) This just now applies to the whole series.
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Fuck it, here's my hot takes:
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Short, but feels just the right length, I appreciate how it seems to borrow more strongly from the D&D roots the series developed from (e.g. spell slots instead of MP)
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First game with defined characters. Enjoyed it but the Elder Scrolls style of leveling through ability use made it feel like you have to play a certain way and I probably grinded more than I needed to by the end.
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It's aight. First game with jobs. Eternal Wind is a good track.
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First game with an ambitious story. Thought it was good, but a bit overhyped.
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The best of the 2D games and I won't hear anyone say otherwise.
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I liked the large cast of characters in the first half. I didn't like having to re-get the cast of characters in the second half. Good, but also overhyped.
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Most ambitious transition between games, going from 2D to 3D. I know it's the darling of the franchise, and it is undoubtably good and packed with content, but I feel it has aged the worst of all of them.
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I can see why it is some people's favorite and a lot of other people's least favorite. Unbelievably charming cast. Good ideas with the combat but could have used another pass.
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The first FF game I played. Amazing cast of characters and an amazing story. Tetra Master is bullshit. Debatably not a JRPG by some definitions.
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Love the game to death, yet hate Tidus so much. I couldn't get into Blitzball.
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Does the current Alliance Raid series in 14 count?
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The Gambit System ruined the rest of the franchise for a lot of people (interpret that however you like).
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Better than people give it credit for. Not without flaws but a lot of the hate feels more like folks never got out of the tutorial. Also, the tutorial is two thirds of the entire game.
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Best story of the entire FF series, but also the one that you'll need to work the hardest to get through. Also, did you know that thereisafreetrialuptolevel70withnorestrictionsonplaytimeincludingtheawardwinningHeavenswardandStormbloodexpansions?
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A fun game with a good story and cast of characters, but the missing chunks of the game that it was supposed to be are apparent.
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Didn't like it as much as I thought I would but still found it to be overall enjoyable. Heaviest story an FF game has ever told (including Tactics). Wish there was more of a "party" but Clive and Ben Starr's voice work are too good not to love.
Bonus 7R hot takes:
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Remake: Somehow they turned a 4-hour chunk of the original game into an enjoyable 40-hour story without it feeling too drawn out. Great gameplay. Plot changes actually helped me appreciate the sequel more. Anyone worried about the game being a money grab sold in 3 parts doesn't know what they're missing.
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Rebirth: Despite people's apprehensions about plot changes, it manages to continue being incredibly faithful to the original story, with some tasteful additions. Probably the most uncompromising AAA game I've ever played. Can't help but love it, and am really interested to see where part 3 goes.
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To explain the joke:
!Half of the early FF games weren't released in the West until later on. FF1 was, but 2 and 3 were not. So when 4 released outside of Japan, publishers thought it would be weird to have the numbering go from 1 to 4, so 4 released internationally as FF2. And then 5 got skipped over as well, so when 6 released internationally, it was released as FF3. However, they wanted to standardize the numbering starting with FF7, because FF7 was a Big Deal
, so for players outside of Japan, the series numbering suddenly jumped from FF3 to FF7. And the skipped games were later released internationally, so the numbering is now consistent with the initial Western numbering now largely forgotten.!< -
I can say that I enjoy the Final Fantasy series just for the fact that I respect they are always trying something different with each one. This has the end result of me not getting on with several of them, but critically, someone else does.
I just find it kind of beautiful that a series is willing to experiment with itself to such a degree, and that at this point there really is at least one game in it for just about everyone.
All it really means is that I have to accept that not every game has been made with me as the target.
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For the record, I was also immensely disappointed in XV. However I loved XVI. The ability cool downs in particular felt very ATB-like to me and I loved the customization. The story is very good and one of my favorites from storytelling perspective (in other words, HOW the story is told).
I also really liked the combat and exploration of XII. And the Zodiac version makes it even better.
I thought XIII had some of the best moments in the series.
XIII-2 perfected the gameplay from XIII and made storytelling and exploration "fun"
XIII: LR is very experimental and has some of my favorite action-based combat in the series.
World of Final Fantasy is a lot of fun if you want turn based monster capturing.
Stranger of Paradise is a blast. My only issue with it is that you can't really overpower by leveling up. I hit a hard wall with a boss and the only way through is "get good".
I didn't get much into Type-O but I keep meaning to.
Theatrhythm exists. I love it, but it's also it's own thing entirely.
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Some of us have favorites that arrived well after starting the series.
That said, I feel the need to tap the sign: if anyone thinks mainline Final Fantasy games are bad, they need to play some genuinely bad games for perspective. There are plenty available even within the genre: Beyond the Beyond, Ancient Roman, Lunar Dragon Song, etc.
The series is constantly reinventing itself, and that's going to leave people behind. SQEX still manages to retain consistently high production quality despite that.
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X was the last one with a good story
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being a linear game isn't a negative though and in ffx you get the airship to do nonlinear content.
interests are subjective I thought the game starting off with the destruction of a city and being flung "1000 years" into the future held my interests
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How do you like the toppings on your pizza?
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Clearly they haven’t played Persona 5/Royal, and seen how much you can innovate with turn based battles and make them really fun
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16 is absolutely fantastic. I haven’t read any reviews for it so I don’t know what they are saying but I had an absolute blast playing it. Had a smile on my face from beginning to end. Well, I enjoyed it atleast I found the ending very sad.
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FWIW 16 isn’t a basic medieval fantasy setting.
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I played FF7 only and loved it. I did not care for the first remake game, and have not finished it. Hanging at like 70% complete.
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FF16 is at least advanced medieval fantasy setting
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::: spoiler Tag given a huge part of the story is literally aliens either you didn’t play the game or think aliens belong in medieval fantasy. spoiler text :::
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I'm not quite that far yet
::: spoiler spoiler
I smashed the mothercrystals and there's the big dark crystal and Mid made the hideout a boat, I gotta get back into it tho clearly!
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