Final Fantasy series

[cloudvii]

Well , that was supposed to be a normal review for a website concerning Anime and manga and games . but after i posted it there i wanted to shre it with u too , as i think it's a cool one .
here u go .



Final Fantasy series .
Long time ago there were many worlds other than our world , one of these worlds was the video games world , at that time it was still a small newborn world about 10 to 12 years old . That world contained many Kingdoms as much as many heroes , some kingdoms were very strong
, others were weak , some Good and some bad . One of this Kingdoms was Square one of the ancient small kingdoms trying to resist the factors of destruction which was the only danger in that world .
Back to real world , Square soft was a small japanese company which was going to fail after it was established , as a last hope they made their last game -supposedly- , the game was called "Final Fantasy" it was a role playing game for NES ala "Dragon quest" at that time .
Against all predictions , "Final Fantasy" made a huge success in the Japanese gaming community , and that was it , Square Attached to it's Master piece and began to breath safely after it was going to end .
The game had a simple layout , about controlling 4 warriors differing from white mages to soldiers , leaving the naming thing to the player , he can call the hero any name , in a fantasy world makes it deserves the name , the game showed the fight between u and the tyriant Chaos who wanted to rule the world .
After the game succes , Square wanted to go forward , not just to
stand at that victory , so "Final Fantasy II" was made also for NES , serving a similar spot and characters "Final Fantasy III" followed .
The 3 "Final Fantasy" games for NES was the best RPG at their time , but ofcourse they lacked colourfull graphics , deep storyline but that was Nes (what were uexpecting) . The 3 games had 3 different level up systems , the first was the easiest (just level up to learn abilities) , the second was kinda strange as experience was gained
during battles and depending on ur actions and ur way of fighting , the third was the best rpg system ever made and was used in some other FF games later , it was the job system , which enabled u to switch jobs and learn different abilities , like a soldier who can cast black magic , etc .
With time , NES has consumed it's life time and a new console was needed to serve hungry players needs . Nintendo the creator of NES worked alot to get NES enhanced son to compete with Sega and it's Genisis (Mega drive 2) . And it was SNES , the console which dominated most of the video games world map from 1990 till 1996 (and even then it wasn't dead untill 1997) .
Square soft wanted to keep it's game advance through the new console , so they made "Final Fantasy IV" and what a big difference , FF4 really showed the big difference between the new SNES and it's father NES ,
completly different paletes resulting in great coloured sprites and backgrounds , away from the 2-4 coulours of NES sprites and black back grounds of battles in NES . But the best thing was that FF4 was the first RPG to have a unique deep story plot . The story was about Cecil
the dark knight who was the leader of the red wings army who served Baron kingdom the most powerfull kingdom in the world , but that was only the begining of a great game where u end fighting Golbez who wants to control the world using the crystals holding the greatest
power ever . Every character has a unique kind of abilities , like Rosa the archer which can use white magic , Kain the dragon knight , etc .
As usual the game was so perfect that it raised Square title more , again Square continued doing the series who turned to be a great money source . After a year "Final Fantasy V" was released for SNES , FF5 has a very strange situation , as it have the level up system of
FF3 with a good advance over it , more abilities than u can ever imagine (100 abilities for every character) , but the story was so ...I won't say it (choose any bad word) . Although FF5 had a story defect , it had some new wonderful challenges and secrets , it was the first FF game to include weapons , no not ordinary weapons , but
the weapons i'm talking about are kinda like guardians or great bosses , who doesn't follow the main villain of the game (except in FF7 later) most of the time weapons r an optional bosses in the games , and there was some weapons who were more difficult to defeat more than the main villain of the game . FF5's weapon was the Omega weapon (which is the hardest weapon of all of them) , when u defeat him u get the "Omega proof" which is an item saying that u are the strongest warrior in the world (which doesn't worth the pain trying to defeat him ) .
At that time Japanese players had all FF games while US\english players had only FF1 game on NES and FF4 on SNES but saying it's FF2 for US version , Seems like Square thought that non-japanese players
won't stand their games , so Square tried to get US crowd into their series . Square created a special exclusive FF game for US players , it's name was "Final Fantasy : Mystic Quest" , this is by far the worst FF game (in my opinion) it had stupid storyline , about
"your destiny is to destroy the evil" (looks like Star wars ) . The hero had no name like old NES games (you give him the name) , well the semi only good thing is that the last boss was the first last boss to have different appearances when he lose (3 appearances) and that
was used after that in some other FF like FF5 , FF7 and FF8 .
Again FF games returned to it's usual sequence with "Final Fantasy 6" (FF3 for US players) . FF6 was the best rpg for SNES (with a great competition from "Chrono Trigger" another Square game) . FF6 was the first FF game to have the main character as a female , and that wasn't a bad thing as the game was hero balanced , and had many playable characters (14) and that's the hugest number of heroes in any FF game. Terra (the main character) was a girl who can use magic in a world
where no one can use magic without special magiteks since thousands of years after the war of the Magi (as the game refers in the intro) , she was at the center of eyes of responsibles of the empire . The game had good variety of characters which differs in many things and had
more concentration on personalities , you have Locke the treausre hunter , Edgar king of Figaro kingdom , Sabin his brother who left ordinary life so that he can train his skills more (Ryu ?) , to Shadow the legendary warrior who wanders along the world with his dog. The game was the first to introduce limit breaks (which is a character
special attack , and is used at danger , maximum anger , blowing the most powerfull attacks of the character) .
After FF6 , Square wanted to do it's next FF game for the next generation consoles coming (that was in 1994) , Square kept working quitely in the next FF game , but had other teams to make some other last games for SNES , some but not all ("Chrono Trigger" , "Super
Mario rpg") and that last one was a Nintendo + Square soft game in 1996 .
Nintendo's next system was called "Nintendo 64" (N64) which was Nintendo's horse in the next generation competition , N64 had 2 bad things which destroyed Nintendo's dreams of it , the first was the late release (1996) which made most companies release games for the early PSX (Playstation made by sone in 1994) and Saturn (made by Sega in 1994 too) . The second bad thing was the storage media which was cartridges (CDs for PSX and Saturn) , Cartridges had much less storage
space that CDs , and that was the main problem between Square and Nintendo , as Square was wiling a good console to show the best of their games , So Square went to PSX and made "Final Fantasy 7" .
FF7 the best rpg ever made by most of critics opinions (I'm one of them ) . That game was choosen as one of the most 15 game which have changed the history of gaming , and that's for real . The game had no tiny bad thing to tell , Wonderfull story , best characters
design ever made in terms of personality and style . The level up system was simple and genius altogether (but still Job system is better) . The most noticable thing then was the graphics (by that time terms as it was 1997) , the game had for the first time FMV , reasonably story helping , and 3D charcters models and that was a
great jump at that time . The story was about Cloud , an ex-soldier and mercenary who joins Avallanche a terrorist group trying to stop Shinra government acts against absorbing the planet energy (Mako) .
The story line leads u to greater mission of saving the world from Sephiroth (the only villain I love) who is trying to destroy the world .
(Whatever I say about that game , I can never explain it's beauty , so go play it your self)
FF7 success was the biggest ever in gaming history (I guess) and was said that the game was the best game for PSX later (with "Metal Gear Solid" near by) , so Square used the chance and made a fighting game called "Ehrgeiz" with Namco and included some of FF7 characters , and the game was a nice start for square as the first fighting game , but not as good as other Namco titles (Tekken , Soul Calibur) . Square made a new FF game but this time it was as rpg as strategy too.
That was "Final Fantasy Tactics" one of the best FF games which depended on the job system again , the game was good and had many good scenes , that game had a ff7 cameo (Cloud and Aeris in one of the missions) .
For about 2 years , things went quietly at Square's headquarters , but hey that's just a fake silence . With time news was told about the next FF game , no more super deformed charcters , time for a new graphics engine to offer a real like moving characters , using motion capture techniques to make characters act like they are real persons , and that was "Final Fantasy 8" . But that's not all , FF8 was the
first FF to have a main love story (yes , the story is a love story between Squall an orphan training to be a mercenary and Rinoa the daughter of a general Caraway a great responsible in Galbadia Government ) , and that made me sick at the begining , just to see that I'm a blind man who can't see that the story is pretty good . The level up system was about to be perfect but for one thing , the juction system (it's name) was based on 2 things : (1) teaching ur GF (summon monsters) abilities (and that was cool) . (2) Drawing magic and junctioning it .
Well , drawing magic was the bad things as it was stealing magic from ur enemy with maximum of 100 of each type , and that was a long tiring mission (not talking about that when you use your magic , you should draw it again) . FF8 had another new thing , that the monsters can now level up as u do ?!! Yes , You read it right , monsters can now level up as much as u do , so that you find difficulty in fighting even at level 100 .
Another year another FF game , "Final Fantasy IX" was a try from Square to return to old SNES FF style (not 2D ofcourse ) , the game had the all heroes as children ranging from year 6 to 17 . Zidane the main hero is a member of tantalus bandit group who want to kidnap princess Garnet , who at the same time wants to escape from castle . The story wasn't as good as many FF stories , but the good thing was that it gave you the impression that u are in a fairy tale . The villain was
cool too , but seemed much feminine too , his name was Kuja .The level up system was good but was slow too , it depended on learning abilities from your weapons and armors . FF9 had no weapons this time (I mean weapons ala Omega weapon) , and that was the first time since FF5 . But it had 3 optional bosses , and are really very
hard to say the least (Demon book , Hades and Ozma) .
PSX dies slowly , it's hardware is begining to stop functioning with more advancing in Details and graphics , so Sony makes it's new Console PS2 (Playstation2) and guess , who was going to make best rpg for the new console ?
Let's stop here , why ? Because there is something about Final Fantasy is on the scene , and i can't include it on the PS2 story , in 1997 after FF7 was made , Square decided to enter movie making development , so they participated with Sony pictures and Coloumbia in a secret project , things went quiet and no one knew anything till .....
After FF9 , Square announced their first movie . It was the best CG movie (till now) , it's "Final Fantasy : The spirits within" .Unfortunatly the movie didn't make a huge success so it was a big mess in Square's economy . The story was pretty good , but it didn't depend on any FF game !! The main Character was a female like FF6 ,
her name was Aki Ross a scientist in a world haunted with ghosts which takes your soul if it touches you . The movie had the same idea of FF7 where the planet is a living creature .
Back to PS2 , "Final Fantasy X" was released in 2001 , declaring a new graphics concept , which makes you wonder how you were saying that FF8 has the best graphics ever . Tidus , a famous blitz ball player sees
his town destroyed by a strange catastrophe "which is known after that with "Sin") and after that he finds that he is in another world , and that no one knows where to find his hometown (Zanarkand) . The story is awesome and have a love connections in it with the lovely Yuna ,
and i can say with passion is that FF10 is the second best FF game after FF7 . The level up system was cool and can make powerfull heroes even more powerfull than FF5 or FF8 . New thing that your HP (Hit points) can now exceed the 9999 wall (at last) .
After that Square returned to it's old tradition and left FF series to create some other games , "Kingdom Hearts" was what's gained .The game was Disney + Square game feauturing many FF heroes and Disney Heroes .
Suddenly "Final Fantasy XI" was announced to be the first online game. That wasn't bad , but the bad thing is that till now Japanese and US players are the only who can play it .
As FF10 had a sad ending (I won't say the ending ofcourse) , Square made all it's fans happy by making a sequel to FF10 called "Final Fanatsy X-2" with the main character as a female again : Yuna , along with 2 other females : Rikku and Paine . The level up system is again the job system . Unfortunatly i haven't finished that game yet .
Now I've talked about all released FF games and related things to FF series . But I left the pocket FF games , FF animes , FF XII , "FF Crystal Chronicles" and "FF : Advent children" .
Square released 4 Final Fantasy games for Game boy : "FF adventures" , "FF legends" , "FF legends 2" and "FF legends 3" but they were nothing to talk about , small , with simple stories (even simpler than NES ones) . And 1 FF game for Game boy advance which was really great , "Final Fantasy tactics advance" , it's not a tactics sequel as much it's a game with the same elements , unfortunatly the game had unlogical story about kids who found a book talking about FF game monsters they were playing , at night all the city changes to a strange world with FF elements , and the heroes want to return every
thing as it is ( ) .
The first FF anime was made upon some of FF5 and i jsut heard about it . The second was called "Final Fantasy : Unlimited" which had a story similar to that of FFTA I said earlier , but the story was some way different with cool heroes , and some FF elements like weapons .
FFXII isn't released yet , so I can't say anything .
FF : Crystal Chronicles is on Nintendo's newest console (Game Cube) as a way of peace growing between Square and Nintendo again .
FF : Advent Children is a DVD only release (no theatres this time) .Square is making a sequel for the ultimate FF7 game , telling what happened after 2 years of FF7 ending . Some trailers were released and seems like Cloud is here and is active as usual , lone as usual . The movie is supposed to be released next summer (summer 2004) .
FF series had some common elements :-
(1) Chocobos : Yellow birds looks like large chicks . And are used as means of transportation , most of time (but some times they are story related like in FF5 , and sometimes they are Summon monsters like in FF4 and FF8 . (there are many types depending on there power and abilities like black , blue , golden , etc)
(2) Summon Monsters : Special Strong Monsters which live in their own world , and come to help humans . some of them are known mythological gods and heroes in our history (our real history) , like Odin , Bahamut , Shiva ,etc .
(3) Monsters : Ordinary Monsters are every where on the field and the world map , well they are just here so that you level up
(4) Cid : Since FF2 and there is a character called Cid (while not the same character) , Cid is playable in FF4 and FF7 only .
(5) Moogles : White short intelligent creatures , who help you from time to time like in FF9 and FF6 , summon Monsters like in FF8 and even one of them was a playable character (Mog) in FF6 .
(6) Weapons : As I said earlier , Weaopns are guardians who don't follow the main villain most of the time (except FF7) .
List of Weapons :-
Omega weapon : FF5 , FF8 , FF10 (the hardest ever , probably their master)
Atma weapon : FF6 (Said to be the same as Ultima and Ultimate weapons)
Ultimate weaopon : FF7 (Said to be the same as Atma and Ultima weapons)
Sapphire weapon : FF7 (No one played it as it's defeated in a FMV)
Emerald weapon : FF7 (you play him under water , has four eyes)
Ruby weapon : FF7 (Hiding under desert near Gold Saucer , the second hardest)
Diamond weapon : FF7 (easiest ever)
Ultima weapon : FF8 , FF10 (Said to be the same as Atma and Ultimate weapons , in FF10 it's said that it is Omega's shadow)

Finally we get to the final states
Music : 10/10 (The great musician Nobuo Uematsu is known to be the greatest maker of the video games music in the history)
Graphics : 10/10 (the games pushed the consoles to it's limits since NES till PS2)
Story line (9/10) (excluding Mystic Quest , we can say that FF sereis ,delivered wonderful story lines , and when I said FF5's stroy was bad ,I meant that it was bad when compared to other FF not all other rpg stories )
Overal (9.7/10) (Nothing more to say)

[Recca]

I suggest splitting it up in sections as its a pain to read.

[cloudvii]

sorry i copied and paste from the original one
can't edit anything now (i want to sleep)

[Zell]

Well it's a complete review !!

[l3illyl3ob]

i think it's impracticle and dumb to review the series as a whole. FF8 is one of the worst games ever made, and FF6 is one of the best. the series is so different, one overall score would not reflect any single game in it.

[Syed Fawad]

Man. You have so much time. I envy you. Nice work though.....

[almighty bob]

wow... thats a long read =P
i stopped reading after the ff6 bit

u forgot the msx version of ff1 that featured greatly improved colour depth

[Modem1]

If I were reviewing it, I'd just do it in 1 through 10 hehe.

FF1: 10
FF2: (going through currently, but right now I'd give it a 5)
FF3: Not sure
FF4: 10
FF5: 8
FF6: 10
FF7: 10
FF8: game: 2... *maybe* 3 (or 2.5) Cinamatics: 8
FF9: 6
FF10: 8
FF10-2: not sure, and probably never will
FF11: not sure, and probably never will. I will NOT pay to play a final fantasy game.

But that's just IMO.

[cloudvii]

thx guys
well i'm reviewing the series not single ff games . so i didn't give a score for every game , just the overall series . And i didn't mention remakes or ports .

and l3illyl3ob , every one has his own opinion .
If i had more time , i would have added some notes about "Tetsuya Nomura" , "Nobuo Uematsu" and "Hironubo Sakaguchi"

[Cid Highwind]

This is a nice way of rating the series
FF1: haven't played it, seemed not very interesting
FF2: a friend of mine liked it, haven't played it myself
FF3: Great game! Liked it a lot for a NES game! IMO one of the best NES games ever made 9/10 (because there are so many limitations relating to the hardware of that time)
FF4: 8.5 long time ago, I will start it again soon. Liked it a lot, but got stuck at the end, which was too difficult (played a translated Jap version)
FF5: 9 I liked the story and the gameplay was really great, this game is a bit underrated IMO
FF6: 8 Couldn't hold my interest untill the end. Also because I saw some spoilers (thanx to my little brother).
FF7: 10 That's all.
FF8: 7 Liked it in the beginning, but after playing with materia, the draw system was ^&*(%&*%(&*$%*&( !!!!! And the ending wasn't that good, very bad comparing to FF7. But the first part of the story: until Edea 'changes' (can't say more because of spoilers), that was great. Also there were great movies.
FF9: 9 I loved the story!! But the end of the game wasn't as good as the beginning. And I liked the fairy tail part. And the story, characters, and graphics were more Fantasy than 8.

[Kane]

I personaly an not a fan of rating the series in this respect, as the quality varies too much game to game. Case in point: The graphics of some of them were the best in the time, but look dated today, and some had merly mediocre graphics. The soundtracks weren't all as good as each other, the plots vary wildly from the epic (FF6/7) to the laughably obvious (FF8/9) to the non existant (FF3). The gameplay also varies, from FF6, 7 and 10's interesting concepts to the dire, boring and downright annoying Junction system of FF8. The same goes for longevity and the overall quality of each game.
For instance if I were to rate the Matrix Trilogy, it'd be a little different as they have some sort of a continuing plot..... Anyway, the rating for the Matrix Trilogy would be quite low, because one bad apple destroyed the series. This is no reflection on the first movie, which was a triumph, or on the second, which while not up to the first's quality, was a good movie in it's own right.

Thus if I were gonna do a big essay like this, I'd either make it a competition between the games (a la my PSX FF review type thing), or I'd make it a short review of each game individualy.

I'm not saying this isn't good work, but I will say it can give a mistaken perception, and thus would not be the way I'd do it.

[cloudvii]

Well , i reviewed all the ff games mentioning the good and bad things in it .

So plz don't say that it'sn't that good because i didn't give every game a rating out of 10 !!?

i was talking about FF series , like when someone ask u about final fantasy series , u'll say it's pretty good or it's pretty bad . u won't say ff1 is better than ff2 but ff3 was worse than ff1 and ff4 was better than ff2 while equal to ff7 quality (or something like that)

i just made the review and i'm very satisfied with it

what i want to say is that i rated "Final Fantasy" in general with it's good and bad things , not rating every game .
btw , thank u every who read that , as i know it's a big effort (i can't read it again myself )

[Kane]

i was talking about FF series , like when someone ask u about final fantasy series , u'll say it's pretty good or it's pretty bad . u won't say ff1 is better than ff2 but ff3 was worse than ff1 and ff4 was better than ff2 while equal to ff7 quality (or something like that)

If someone asked me I'd say that there are some gems worth playing, but definately not all of them.

[MaZa]

My own thoughts about FF serie games.

FF1: Havent played too much so i wont say anything

FF2: Never got into it for some reason...

FF3: This one really kicks ass.
Story:9 Sound: 5 (Well, its NES after all) Gameplay: 8 (job system is quite good)

FF4: My first Final Fantasy game. Everything is almost perfect
Story:10 Sound: 9 Gameplay: 7 (uses safe good old level up and get specials. Doesnt leave room for customizing unfortunately)

FF5: Quite nice overall. Very hard for novice Final Fantasy gamer.
Story: 8 Sound: 9 Gameplay: 8

FF6: PERFECT OVERALL! Absolutely nothing wrong in this one. Esper system is good, so you can customize characters a lot, but unlike in FF7, there it is clear that which character is magician oriented and which fighter etc...
Story: 10 Sound: 10 Gameplay: 10

FF7: Very good FF game. Nothing horribly wrong in this one too. Great villain and characters.
Story: 10 Sound: 10 Gameplay: 8 (very customizable, but every character is basically same, except limit breaks. Every one can be almost equally strong and use same magics. Quite boring.)

FF8: This one could have been huge success, but square screwed it up. Very soapy story and characters, and i like it. One of greatest stories IMO.
Story: 10 Sound: 7 (It has couple of good songs, but thats it...) Gameplay: 1 (YES, !1! Junction system sucked monkey ballz. Real pain in the arse to play )

FF9: Overall nice, but it misses something. I dunno what, but it still does. I have played it thru once, but it really doesnt draw me to play it once again...
Story: 8 Sound: 8 (improved from FF8) Gameplay: 7 (Not bad, but it is quite annoyng sometimes.)

FF10: Havent played. Waiting for PS2 emu.
FF10-2: Ditto

FF11: Havent played, and probaply never will.

Oh, Cid, kick your brother to the ballz for ruining the best FF game ever.

[Raqia]

Heh, which one of you fanboys wrote these?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Enix

lets not forget:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_emulator

There's quite a nice entry on goatse as well if you're familiar w/ that "shock site." I like wikipedia's broad range of interests!

[cloudvii]

how should we know ?

[Radix865]

I liked every FF game but I have finished only 3 of 'em because I like to play games but usually(especially FF's)when I'm almost in the end, I want to start over... I have almost whole FFU series(1-21), haven't seen the FF crystals, and didn't like the spirits within... I especially liked 6,8,9,10 and all those get at least 8/10, but the best game is clearly FF VII 10/10.

[Cid Highwind]

I tried to continue FF6 the other day..... BLAAGH, after 2 minutes I quit... I really don't like it.... Maybe it's just me...
Maybe another day.