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Final Fantasy VIII has sold over 9.6 million copies, third best selling FF game

DrazilKaj

DrazilKaj

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Oct 25, 2017
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Coming off of FF7, ofc it was going to sell well. Those people were in for a surprise though if they were expecting more of FF7.

I despised FF8 with every cell of my being. I don't understand how people actually thought it was great.

I'll probably give it another try down the road with the Remaster. I don't anticipate my feelings changing.
 
Yerffej

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transience said:
not at all. 8 was the followup to 7. 7, 8 and 10 will always be the top 3 given how the franchise exploded during that time. 9 came along when the ps2 was launching and wasn't as big of a deal.
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I see why to a degree, concerning 9's sales but I loved it most out of all of them.
 
skeezx

skeezx

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Oct 27, 2017
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no surprise. coming straight off the heels of FFVII it could've been a kart racer and still be up there

if FFX didn't have the assist from PS2 shuttling out of the gate it'd sit comfortably at #2
 

Normal

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Oct 26, 2017
6,296
If you only spent time on Era and no other community you would think FFV, FFIX, and FFXII are the best selling and most popular games in the franchise.
 
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Meows

Meows

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Oct 28, 2017
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Gegz said:
The salt is palpable <3. I'm having a great time reading this thread.

So far :

- The game sold well only because of Final Fantasy VII
- FF9 has been robbed blabla (Funny that FF9 sold less, since the game was what everybody was asking, a return to the "old formula")
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People also forget that it has a 90 on Metacritic, critically acclaimed. It was beloved then and beloved now (actually, they all were acclaimed until XIII but I won't go there).

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R3birthFl4me

R3birthFl4me

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Oct 27, 2017
191
If VIII sold more because of VII sucess and IX sold worse because no one liked VIII, how do you explain XV selling way more than XIII and it's sequels when the majority of people didn't enjoy XIII.
 
IzzyRX

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BassForever said:
Remasters for all 11 classic FF games make sense (not counting 11 since it's an mmo), what held up 8 was the lost source code. It's why the 8 remaster is such higher quality then the other remasters, a lot more of the game had to be redone.
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I really thought the lost source code thing was a meme, like Chrono Cross.
 
neptunez

neptunez

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Apr 21, 2018
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Still sold well even though it released alongside the beginning of the next console generation. (Dreamcast)

It was a trip seeing Soul Calibur and Power Stone running on demo kiosks while picking up PS1 games
 
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Meows

Meows

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Oct 28, 2017
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R3birthFl4me said:
If VIII sold more because of VII sucess and IX sold worse because no one liked VIII, how do you explain XV selling way more than XIII and it's sequels when the majority of people didn't enjoy XIII.
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The real reason (not stan war'd reasons) is that IX and XII came at the very end of their respective generations, when people had already moved on to new consoles or were getting ready to. Not because VIII and X made them mad.

Both are brilliant games, btw, and deserved to sell way more.
 
AwakenedCloud

AwakenedCloud

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Oct 27, 2017
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Won't XV inevitably take its spot in the long run? I can only assume that a remaster of some sort will come to next gen, and even if they dony, it can't be too far off that number.
 
skeezx

skeezx

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R3birthFl4me said:
If VIII sold more because of VII sucess and IX sold worse because no one liked VIII, how do you explain XV selling way more than XIII and it's sequels when the majority of people didn't enjoy XIII.
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FFIX fell through the cracks mostly because it eschewed everything that gave FFVII (and by extension, VIII) a broad appeal. that's by no means a "bad" thing but if it hewed more towards the VII, VIII and X approach (realistic character designs, modern-ish setting) history would've played out much differently
 
Glass Arrows

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Jan 10, 2019
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R3birthFl4me said:
If VIII sold more because of VII sucess and IX sold worse because no one liked VIII, how do you explain XV selling way more than XIII and it's sequels when the majority of people didn't enjoy XIII.
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Well to begin with, "majority of people didn't like XIII" is a somewhat hard statement to quantify, enthusiast forums don't always represent popular opinion. It's more of a divisive game rather than an outright flop.

That aside while I wouldn't say that "most people didn't like VIII" is true for the same reasons, I think that VIII owing a lot of its sales to VII's prior success is just a logical conclusion to draw from what was happening at the time. VII was a massive explosion of popularity the likes of which hasn't happened with FF since, the game was mega-huge, obviously people were gonna be hyped for a sequel. It doesn't mean that VIII is a bad game or that the majority of people who bought it disliked it, it's just pointing out a fact.

In regards to XV it also had the benefit of a gigantic marketing campaign, probably the biggest in the series since XV, so that probably helped a lot.
 
Hayama Akito

Hayama Akito

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Oct 25, 2017
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Meowster said:
The real reason (not stan war'd reasons) is that IX and XII came at the very end of their respective generations, when people had already moved on to new consoles or were getting ready to. Not because VIII and X made them mad.
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I just wanted to say, because I saw that explanation frequently on the internet, that is not completely true: PS1 was an absolutely beast even with the PS2 release and was good business at least until 2003 (and even 2005 in third world countries), in fact a lot of the best selling games on PS1 are licenced shit past-2000, like the Harry Potter games or even that Stuart Little game.

The real reason why FFIX flopped was because it was not the futuristic, edgy, pretty-face fashion walkway that VII and VIII were. 90% of PS1 era FF fans in the west didn't knew a single thing about Final Fantasy before VII because RPG was an extremely niche and hardcore genre here. I clearly remember how IX was panned because it was "old fashioned" and not a "visual spectacle" like past Squaresoft games. The FFIX love is more like a retrospective than anything else and I'm okay with that, IX is by far my favorite FF title on PS1 (well... not really, is Tactics but is not in the main series so I will pass that).
 
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Cipherr

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Oct 26, 2017
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No, I dislike the game, but I was also there day 1. The hype coming off of 7 was incredible. No one wanted to miss it if they missed 7. Everyone everywhere was onboard.

Shame about it not being as good of a game as 7 was though. All these years later, I skipped 9 because I was so disappointed with 8, I've been told that was a mistake and that 9 was a return to form.
 
Strings

Strings

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Hero Protagonist said:
I forget, doesn't 8 have level scaling too? I think it's the only FF game with level scaling.
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Yeah, which is easily the worst part of the game.
R3birthFl4me said:
If VIII sold more because of VII sucess and IX sold worse because no one liked VIII, how do you explain XV selling way more than XIII and it's sequels when the majority of people didn't enjoy XIII.
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A tremendous amount of advertising that looked nothing like XIII, and releasing 7 years after the last mainline single-player entry. As long as a game looks different enough, I think it can avoid the bad reputation of a predecessor imo.
 
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Thrill_house

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Oct 27, 2017
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8 was great. I think part of that was the fact it was just so different. Really looking forward to the remaster.
 
Korigama

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Was already pretty sure that VII and X were ranked first and second, pleasantly surprised that VIII rounds out top 3.
 

Deleted member 19533

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Not surprising since it came after VII. I bought it on release day and... well... VIII is awful. I dislike almost everything about it. IX is amazing though. Shame it came after VIII disappointed so many.
 
Xero grimlock

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Dec 1, 2017
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Cipherr said:
No, I dislike the game, but I was also there day 1. The hype coming off of 7 was incredible. No one wanted to miss it if they missed 7. Everyone everywhere was onboard.

Shame about it not being as good of a game as 7 was though. All these years later, I skipped 9 because I was so disappointed with 8, I've been told that was a mistake and that 9 was a return to form.
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this was me. bought 8 day 1, and the only psx jrpg i sold after beating. hated it and am surprised i managed to beat it. i did play and love 9 though. Beat x and really disliked that one though and that ended the series for me.
 

Deleted member 19533

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Xero grimlock said:
this was me. bought 8 day 1, and the only psx jrpg i sold after beating. hated it and am surprised i managed to beat it. i did play and love 9 though. Beat x and really disliked that one though and that ended the series for me.
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I'm with you. IX was great. VIII was a huge disappointment, and I never finished it. X was not good either. It brought all the issues XIII had to the table, but for whatever reason XIII, while still not great, gets all the hate for the sins of X. Pun intended.
 

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BigDes said:
The bosses scale too. It's why if you get a level 100 party the last boss can take a month
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Hm my impression was wrong them, I remember i once got to lvl 100 before the train mission (Dumb kid with lots of time) and the Monsters got harder, but the boss was easy. I Lost my save on cd 2 lol
 
bionic77

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Oct 25, 2017
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I really liked all of those games when they came out. 7 was mind blowing for me when I first played it and was basically the reason I bought the PlayStation. 8 was the perfect change of pace for FF, it needed it IMO. And X is just a really cool game. Loved the characters and story and that ending actually got me a little bit. Enough to make me finish that horrible sequel!

For me personally 6 is still the king but the SNES was not as big of a platform as the PS1 or 2. And also those SNES carts were crazy expensive....
 
Haubergeon

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Jan 22, 2019
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It's easy to miss because we're so far removed from the time when it happened now, but FF7 was so huge in its day, and expanded the audience for its type of game so dramatically, it's not surprising that the big follow up after what was considered one of the biggest and most impressive games of all time would sell huge numbers based off that. That was the time for big console JRPGs in the West. I don't really find it at all surprising that it has high numbers, not only due to that, but also the fact that it was re-released on PS3 and PC since then, as well.
 
100%TrophyMaster

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Oct 27, 2017
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I'm excited for the remaster but I have vague memories of the draw system being gutter trash. I've replayed every FF except 8 so I'll be curious to see if the adult me accepts it more. Last time I played this game was at release.
 
ZeroX

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Oct 25, 2017
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VIII is amazing, the remaster will easy kick it to 10mil and 11mil eventually most likely.

Funny the mental gymnastics people are trying to downplay it's success.
 
Terraforce

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transience said:
not at all. 8 was the followup to 7. 7, 8 and 10 will always be the top 3 given how the franchise exploded during that time. 9 came along when the ps2 was launching and wasn't as big of a deal.
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I wouldn't be so confident in it staying like that forever. XV hit 8.5 on its two year anniversary. If it gets rereleased as many times as VII has been then it'll easily catch up.
 
mute

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How many Toyota Echos did they give away though?
 
Foffy

Foffy

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Oct 25, 2017
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I am, if only because that should have been the reason to capitalize on VIII sooner.
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

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transience said:
not at all. 8 was the followup to 7. 7, 8 and 10 will always be the top 3 given how the franchise exploded during that time. 9 came along when the ps2 was launching and wasn't as big of a deal.
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Pretty much sums it up, I remember a lot of people skipping over 9 and 12 due to the new hardware being out and for the setting not being what they wanted.
 
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