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At this point, Final Fantasy games are wack..

J_ToSaveTheDay

J_ToSaveTheDay

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
18,804
USA
For me personally, XIII and XIV 1.0 have represented the entirety of the bad streak. That was a long time to have FF kind of absent. XV was only okay -- my playthrough consisted of trying to see what it WANTED to do rather than taking it for what it was so I definitely did some mental gymnastics during my playthrough to heighten things that I can see after the fact wasn't really an accurate representation of the game. I went into it pretty hyped and was able to maintain the hype through a full Platinum completion, but every attempt to return to the game since launch for DLC or to check out enhanced features has led to increasing levels of disappointment to even out my initially very positive experience.

That all said, XIV 2.0 has continuously proven that it's being handled by a team that really gives a shit about the franchise. On top of just featuring its own original content that's satisfying as heck, it also features a ton of series fanservice that I think is handled extremely well. It bodes really well for FFXVI in my eyes, even if the debut visuals kinda looked a generation behind present expectations.
 
Quinton

Quinton

Specialist at TheGamer / Reviewer at RPG Site
Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,273
Midgar, With Love
Jroc said:
FF13 fans got dunked on for suggesting that the game "actually got good" after 30 hours or so.

I don't know why FF14 gets a pass for "actually getting good" after 50 hours of grinding/fetch quests/MMO gameplay.
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1.) You've got like 10-15 hours left with FF13 at that point
2.) FF14 keeps going with goodness for far, far longer than its weaker spot
3.) The script, scope, and overarching lore of FF14's world is spectacular
4.) Lord Hien
 
Amishpriest

Amishpriest

Member
Oct 26, 2017
239
I just wish I had more time for XIV. I'm right in between ARR and Heavensward but at my pace it's felt like an eternity to get to that point.
 
Eidan

Eidan

Avenger
Oct 30, 2017
8,565
Antony said:
7 - Yep!
8 - Yep!
9 - Nah!
10 - Nah!
11 - (Who?)
12 - Yep!
13 - Nah!
14 - (Who?)
15 - Nah!

3 officially sanctioned and highly prestigious 'Yeps!' in 25 years… Dragon Quest has been better over the same period.
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If there's one thing that has been clear to me, it's that one of the things that makes Final Fantasy great is how much high pressure experimentation there is with the franchise. Final Fantasy is ambitious in ways most JRPG franchises just aren't. Dragon Quest was, and always will be, a much duller, uninteresting series because of it.
 
Chumunga64

Chumunga64

Member
Jun 22, 2018
14,255
I'm pretty sure some dude looking at an FFII advert in a gaming magazine and shaking his head while muttering "final fantasy is dead"

This is how long the franchise has been "bad"
 
Xils

Xils

Member
Feb 4, 2020
3,349
Darkstorne said:
I really would like to give it another go. I did use the trial about a year ago, and it wasn't so much the story that caused me to stop caring (the game had barely begun) but the combat system. It was clearly reinforcing that MMO trope that all players are dumbasses and can only cope with having one or two buttons to press for the first few hours of the game, and it would slowly hand out a new skill/ability every few hours. It was that, coupled with rigid class design and the lack of playstyle customization, that made me think the game is probably not for me.

I like games that encourage build personalization (ESO, Path of Exile, etc) and have always hated the weird mindset some MMO devs and players have that you can't possibly learn a class by having a bunch of skills all at once, and instead it's mandatory to have class skills doled out individually over the course of 50+ hours to be able to understand it.

I hear so much about Heavensward's story that I'd love the option to buy a level boost that starts me off at that expansion, with a full set of class skills to play around with, and I'd happily learn a class over the next three expansions worth of story. But without that I don't think I could endure the slow pace of skilling up with a mediocre story for dozens of hours before getting there. So I think without a specific Heavensward level boost I'm kinda resigned to accepting this is just a story I'll be missing out on. The game doesn't seem to respect player time up until that point (not unique to FF14 at all of course - that's a common MMO issue), so it is what it is.
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Other than giving people time to learn about abilities one by one, I think it's mostly because they have to spread earning abilities out otherwise leveling up won't feel as worth while if you don't gain much new abilities later on. They also have to be careful with the skill bloat from raising level cap with each expansion so it ended up with earlier abilities getting trimmed making it even more boring.

Also, you'd be surprised with how bad people are at handling getting a bunch of abilities all at once lol. You may be fine with it but the game still has to cater to casual players so I guess it's something they can't do much about.

There's a story skip to the start of HW that you can buy it for $11 but you'll still need to buy a job boost separately. The job boost will get you to 70 but you'll still got level sync to appropriated when doing HW contents so it's not like you'll oneshot everything. You'll also need to catch up with the story you skip in some way too like youtube or something because while the narrative in each expansions has its own self-contained arc, there are many things that are set up way before that will be important later and you never know what is or isn't important until waaaay later in some case and that's part of reasons people don't recommend skipping the story. I personally don't have problem with people skipping but if you skip you should know that there will be something that won't feel as impactful as players who'd done everything.

There's a choice to boost then do the New Game+ too. This way you can experience the earlier part of the story without having to worry too much about the early combat system.

But yeah, the game doesn't really have builds so you just have to bare with it with this aspect.
 
JackOfSomeTrades

JackOfSomeTrades

Member
Apr 9, 2018
1,349
Amishpriest said:
I just wish I had more time for XIV. I'm right in between ARR and Heavensward but at my pace it's felt like an eternity to get to that point.
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As someone who went through this recently, it's a slog, and although the lead up to Heavensward and the expansion are a significant step up in quality, I don't think they're quite the second coming that some of its fans will have you believe.

Maybe MMOs aren't for me, it's hard to justify the 130 hours it took to get through ARR and HW when the quality of games out there at the moment is so high. Heck I just finished 7 hours of the Outer Wilds expansion that I enjoyed far more than anything I did in XIV in 130 hours 🤷‍♂️
 
Level 7 Boss

Level 7 Boss

Member
Jun 19, 2018
734
I'm no FF expert currently playing FF7:R and the script and voice acting are so atrocious. I can't believe this is a series with so much esteem if the writing is so bad. The combat system after a good 17 hours in still hasn't clicked.

To be honest the last JRPG I enjoyed was Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2
 

Deleted member 4353

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,559
Ehh I dont agree but I can see where you're coming from. 7-10,10-2 are perfect. 12 is good but not great. 13 is average. 13-2 is great. LR is average. 14 is overrated (I'm not playing through 50 hours of shit to get to the "good" part). 15 is good but not great.
 
Darkstorne

Darkstorne

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,814
England
Xils said:
There's a choice to boost then do the New Game+ too. This way you can experience the earlier part of the story without having to worry too much about the early combat system.

But yeah, the game doesn't really have builds so you just have to bare with it with this aspect.
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OHHHHH that's interesting! NG+? So I could buy the level boost and play through the base game onwards as like, a Gunbreaker? With a full skillset but without feeling too over-powered? That could be something that gets me motivated to try it out again.

And yeah, it's a shame about the lack of build customization (especially with such a rich history of customization in this series, like FFV's job system, X's expert sphere grid, XII's Zodiac Age job system etc) but like you say, I'm happy to look past that if there's a good story to enjoy =)
 
Kinsei

Kinsei

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
20,526
Regarding the "it takes 50 hours of MSQ for FFXIV to get good" thing. I have to disagree. The plot itself is slow, but the dungeons are fun and the primal fights so far are a spectacle both in terms of gameplay and presentation.

I'm still in the 2.0 MSQ (the "bad" part) and I'm really enjoying the game.
 
RPGam3r

RPGam3r

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,499
I don't think they're all wack. Just XI and XIV, and to a lesser extent II.

Also, what's wack is how they handled XV. It could have been a much better title with the story all in one place at the beginning.
 
Xils

Xils

Member
Feb 4, 2020
3,349
Darkstorne said:
OHHHHH that's interesting! NG+? So I could buy the level boost and play through the base game onwards as like, a Gunbreaker? With a full skillset but without feeling too over-powered? That could be something that gets me motivated to try it out again.

And yeah, it's a shame about the lack of build customization (especially with such a rich history of customization in this series, like FFV's job system, X's expert sphere grid, XII's Zodiac Age job system etc) but like you say, I'm happy to look past that if there's a good story to enjoy =)
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Not exactly, the level sync system only apply to instanced contents and FATEs (kinda like a mini quest that can appear in the overworld) and not only that it scales down your stats, it'll also take away your skills too, so you'll essentially still have to play at that level for level synced contents. There's currently no way to scale down your stats and still keep the skills.

For NG+, you will keep your level and abilities in overworld but will be synced when doing dungeons and trials(boss fight).
You can choose to do them unsynced though if you just want to get it out of the way quickly (but if you use matchmaking you'll be forced to level synced), you should be able to solo early ARR contents unsynced if you boost to level 70. Doing them synced for late ARR-HW (level 40 onward) should be fine though as you'll have enough abilities by that point that it shouldn't be boring so you'll just have to power through the first few instanced contents then you should be good. Most of the early game will just have you read and teleport around anyway so you don't really have to think about combat much.
 
Spehornoob

Spehornoob

Member
Nov 15, 2017
8,944
Kinsei said:
Regarding the "it takes 50 hours of MSQ for FFXIV to get good" thing. I have to disagree. The plot itself is slow, but the dungeons are fun and the primal fights so far are a spectacle both in terms of gameplay and presentation.

I'm still in the 2.0 MSQ (the "bad" part) and I'm really enjoying the game.
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I find A Realm Reborn is much better when you take it slow and just focus on the main quests and your daily dungeon roulette to level. If you just do everything you can to quickly level up as fast as possible, you're gonna be fetch questing and grinding real quick.

Even the other expansions are best experienced like that, its just more pronounced in A Realm Reborn because the story is padded a bit.
 
dreamlongdead

dreamlongdead

Member
Nov 5, 2017
2,638
Haven't played any single player FF entries past XII, so can't comment on those games.

Even so, I can confidently say that other JRPG series have surpassed recent FF games in terms of critical acclaim. FF is basically the CoD of the genre right now.
 
Starlatine

Starlatine

533.489 paid youtubers cant be wrong
Member
Oct 28, 2017
30,403
I never cared much for XIV neither positively nor negatively but dear God era evangelists made me hate the game
 
Eidan

Eidan

Avenger
Oct 30, 2017
8,565
JackOfSomeTrades said:
As someone who went through this recently, it's a slog, and although the lead up to Heavensward and the expansion are a significant step up in quality, I don't think they're quite the second coming that some of its fans will have you believe.

Maybe MMOs aren't for me, it's hard to justify the 130 hours it took to get through ARR and HW when the quality of games out there at the moment is so high. Heck I just finished 7 hours of the Outer Wilds expansion that I enjoyed far more than anything I did in XIV in 130 hours 🤷‍♂️
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Hahaha different strokes. I had no problem with ARR and HW, but Outer Wilds bored me to tears. I despise everything about how that game plays.
 
Ovvv

Ovvv

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Jan 11, 2019
10,030
dreamlongdead said:
Haven't played any single player FF entries past XII, so can't comment on those games.

Even so, I can confidently say that other JRPG series have surpassed recent FF games in terms of critical acclaim. FF is basically the CoD of the genre right now.
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This entire post makes no sense. You haven't played them, yet you can confidently comment on it in relation to other titles to the point you call it the CoD of the genre? Huh?

CoD is the cookie cutter FPS that hardly sees any major changes or overhauls entry after entry. FF is the one major JRPG that consistently tries to do something wildly different each entry, throwing away decades of mechanics in search of something new, for better or worse. There's genuinely not a single other major JRPG taking the risks FF takes with its franchise. Not even one that's fucking close. I wish other franchises had the fucking balls to take the risks FF has taken. Maybe the genre would have evolved in the last twenty years if they weren't one of the only major players trying different shit.

The cmparison doesn't even make sense. If anything that should be reserved for series that haven't evolved their titles whatsoever beyond aesthetics.
 
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Starlatine

Starlatine

533.489 paid youtubers cant be wrong
Member
Oct 28, 2017
30,403
Eidan said:
You never cared one way or another about a game, but people loving it really made you hate it. You should examine that at some point.
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You should tell that to your local Jehovah Witnesses cell, they will be delighted to know they`re not bothering anyone, just loving their religion too much
 
Trigonometrize

Trigonometrize

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,143
Kyoufu said:
Play FF14, get hyped for FF16.
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I did. For three hours. And it was typical MMO crap: zero good story thrust, lots of running around to murder creatures in boring combat to collect things I don't care about, and (on console) a UI experience better left unmentioned.

I'm not basing my XVI interest on my experience with XIV, but if I were to, it would be the opposite of getting hyped.
 
dreamlongdead

dreamlongdead

Member
Nov 5, 2017
2,638
Ovvv said:
This entire post makes no sense. You haven't played them, yet you can confidently comment on it in relation to other titles to the point you call it the CoD of the genre? Huh?

CoD is the cookie cutter FPS that hardly sees any major changes or overhauls entry after entry. FF is the one major JRPG that consistently tries to do something wildly different each entry, throwing away decades of mechanics in search of something new, for better or worse. This comparison doesn't even make sense. If anything that should be reserved for series that haven't evolved their titles whatsoever beyond aesthetics.
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My CoD comparison could have been elaborated on, but I'm not bashing FF. It's what got me into RPGs in the first place.

But why would you have issue with the first sentence of the second paragraph? FF XIII and XV are not considered top-tier JRPGs even by people who played and like those.

It's games like Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, and Xenoblade that are delivering in terms of critical acclaim. Even the newly released Tales of Arise is getting way more love than the last few single player FF games.
 
Rzarekta

Rzarekta

Banned
Nov 27, 2017
1,289
I think part of the problem is they still think they're making games primarily for young kids. Those previously young kids, their primary fan base, is older now. So what they are thinking is cool or edgy for kids is in reality cringey and juvenile for many adults still expecting an epic and memorable experience from these games.

I have hope for FF16 based on what they've said/shown so far though.
 
Ovvv

Ovvv

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Jan 11, 2019
10,030
dreamlongdead said:
My CoD comparison could have been elaborated on, but I'm not bashing FF. It's what got me into RPGs in the first place.

But why would you have issue with the first sentence of the second paragraph? FF XIII and XV are not considered top-tier JRPGs even by people who played and like those.

It's games like Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, and Xenoblade that are delivering in terms of critical acclaim. Even the newly released Tales of Arise is getting way more love than the last few single player FF games.
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The last single player FF game was incredibly well received. It has the same score as Arise. It actually has a higher score than the base version of DQXI lol. XC2 has the same score as FFXIII.

Not to mention that excluding XIV is bizarre considering your original post didn't mention anything about having to be singleplayer. Shadowbringers is only less critically acclaimed than P5 on that list lol. Stormblood and Heavensward have the same score as Arise, too.
 
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silva1991

silva1991

Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,496
dreamlongdead said:
My CoD comparison could have been elaborated on, but I'm not bashing FF. It's what got me into RPGs in the first place.

But why would you have issue with the first sentence of the second paragraph? FF XIII and XV are not considered top-tier JRPGs even by people who played and like those.

It's games like Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, and Xenoblade that are delivering in terms of critical acclaim. Even the newly released Tales of Arise is getting way more love than the last few single player FF games.
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Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE expands upon and reimagines the spectacular world of the original PlayStation game. It covers up through the escape from Midgar and is the first game in the FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE project. INTERGRADE is a bundle that includes both REMAKE and the new episode featuring...
www.metacritic.com www.metacritic.com

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Take part in the next saga of FINAL FANTASY® XIV Online with the next legendary expansion pack—SHADOWBRINGERS. New jobs: Gunbreaker and Dancer New races: Viera and Hrothgar Level cap increased: 70 to 80 New cities: The Crystarium and Eulmore Journey through expansive new areas, such as the...
www.metacritic.com www.metacritic.com

I dunno about you, but I would count 89 and 90 as critically acclaimed. Certainly higher than Arise and Xenoblade 2.
 
MisterAnderson

MisterAnderson

Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,517
Even as a kid I thought the writing was abysmal lol. People love them though so they will continue to be churned out.

One of these days I'll give the FF7 remake a go, but I have a feeling I'll dislike it based on the reception since a number of fans have claimed it has a lot of fluff and bloat added into it. I'm waiting for the rest of the remake to be finished, so it'll be a while.
 
Truno

Truno

Unshakable Resolve
Member
Jan 16, 2020
4,829
Starlatine said:
You should tell that to your local Jehovah Witnesses cell, they will be delighted to know they`re not bothering anyone, just loving their religion too much
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Excuse me, have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime?
 
Ovvv

Ovvv

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Jan 11, 2019
10,030
silva1991 said:

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE expands upon and reimagines the spectacular world of the original PlayStation game. It covers up through the escape from Midgar and is the first game in the FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE project. INTERGRADE is a bundle that includes both REMAKE and the new episode featuring...
www.metacritic.com www.metacritic.com

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Take part in the next saga of FINAL FANTASY® XIV Online with the next legendary expansion pack—SHADOWBRINGERS. New jobs: Gunbreaker and Dancer New races: Viera and Hrothgar Level cap increased: 70 to 80 New cities: The Crystarium and Eulmore Journey through expansive new areas, such as the...
www.metacritic.com www.metacritic.com

I dunno about you, but I would count 89 and 90 as critically acclaimed. Certainly higher than Arise and Xenoblade 2.
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Xenoblade 2's "acclaim" is equivalent to XIII's.

If you take the average of highest scores across all versions the last 3 major FF/Persona/Xenoblade/DQ (not including X cuz seemingly no score, so XI, IX, and VIII) entries released (FF7R Intergrade, Shadowbringers, Stormblood) the average score is only lower than Persona's lol.
 
Scottoest

Scottoest

Member
Feb 4, 2020
11,348
I never played a FF game before about three months ago, when I started FFXIV. I now love that game, and am interested in playing FFXVI when it comes out because of Yoshi-P's involvement, and have already pre-ordered Endwalker. The Shadowbringers expansion in particular is just some A+ storytelling and character work.

I don't really care about the series outside of that, but the existence of FFXIV disproves the "wackness" of the series as a whole.

You've no fight left to fight. No life left to live.
 

Gyro Zeppeli

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,289
supercommodore said:
I'd agree with this, but the problem for me is that means the last great mainline game (non-MMO) released back in 2006… so while on the whole the series is great, it's been quite some time since I've loved an entry.
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FFXII was the last good non turn-based FF game and FFX was the last good turn-based FF game. FFX was also the last good classic design FF game. It's interesting when you consider that FFIX was viewed as a final send-off of the medieval theme and it was a hint that big change was happening on the horizon, which ended up being the modern setting of FFX.
 
Broseph

Broseph

Member
Mar 2, 2021
4,871
Loved XV and 7R so I'll disagree with that! XII was an incredibly overrated game so the love here shows how wack the opinions of era are. What a boring combat system
 
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