[General Discussion] Games you consider "Perfect"?

Originally Posted by Borg1982

All that stuff about FFIV being perfect

Sorry. I'm going to have to call bullshit on you here. From a purely objective standpoint, Final Fantasy IV doesn't come anywhere close to being perfect.

"Perfect" by definition means without flaw. Final Fantasy IV has too many major flaws to list. Let's go through some of them.

Disclaimer: I haven't played FFIV in about a year or two, so I don't remember some of the details about the game. Feel free to correct me if I'm blatantly mistaken on something.

1) Worst script ever. I should probably actually say that it's the worst translation ever, though. Take a look at your signature, my friend. What the fuck does any of that even mean? If the "legend" is about Cecil, then I would like to point out that he did not hoist the dark and the light - he abandoned the dark for the light about 5 hours into the game. Also, "arises high up in the sky?" Did no one proofread this? What about the second of this disgusting pair of run-on sentences, where an unknown "it" is mentioned... you know I was actually going to try and deconstruct how foolish this sentence is, but there's not a single word of it that makes any sense. And the sad thing is almost the entire game is like this.

Whoever was placed in charge of translating the game is a damn fool. I don't understand how you're going to tell me the Japanese people who designed the original game are culturally learned enough to name the 4 Mad Gods or whatever they called them in this game (the Fiends of the Elements? whatever) after characters from Dante, but the translator wasn't learned enough to pick up on that? Wow, what a perfect game.

2) Gameplay: Active Time Battle was a farce. Once someone's bar was full, you had to move them - you could not skip them to have someone else take a potentially more important turn, such as ressurecting a dead character, first. This feature was added to all subsequent Final Fantasies. It was a glaring omission. There is no case that can be made for it.

There are several nearly game-breaking glitches, like the notorious item cloning glitch.

The lack of customization is not intrinsically a good thing. Yes it means you have to use "Strategy" to beat the bosses. But it also means you have to use one strategy to beat the bosses. This would be like taking a game like Metal Gear Solid and forcing you to play the entire game through the same way every time. One of the things that makes that series brilliant is that you can take several approaches to any situation. Why is forcing you to fight battles in a particular way a more fun way to play?

3) Graphics. I'm faaar from a graphics whore. But FFIV looks almost no different from FFIII in field screens, and the most major difference in battles is that the backgrounds are now tiled across the whole screen instead of just the top. When you consider the monumental upgrade other NES franchises received on the Super NES, it's criminal that Final Fantasy didn't really get one until FFVI. (At least FFV had a good game backing up its shitty graphics, though.)

4)

Spoiler:

YANG DIES
CID DIES
PALOM & POROM DIE

Spoiler:

YANG COMES BACK
CID COMES BACK
PALOM & POROM COME BACK

Yes, behold the emotional gravity of this game's plot events! Behold as significant occurence after significiant occurence is completely nullified by the writer's lack of ability to come up with a reasonable plot device!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Dayvon, to hold a flawed work as being perfect is to ignore all its flaws. Which only a fool would do. The game is flawed. Its story is not well-executed in the least, between the poorly translated script (www.zanyvgquotes.com has a pretty large section for FFIV) and simply weak, uninspiring events.

Originally Posted by Dayvon

Palom and Porom were stoned which is easily cureable by a mage, like the one from there home town.

Originally Posted by A mage, like the one from there home town

Tellah: What a rash thing to do... HEAL! No effect. They have become stone by their will.

I'd post similar quotes explaining my other storyline gripes, but they're unnecessary. Suffice it to say that when a martial arts master goes into a control room that is about to explode, sacrificing his life to save his friends, that is noble. Cid jumping off the airship as it surfaces in order to bomb the hole shut and save his friends, while completely nonsensical (why not just throw the bomb!?!?) is noble. It's noble because they are making the ultimate sacrifice for their cause. But their return later in the game ruins these scenes.

What is wrong with them coming back? First of all, YANG DID NOT SURVIVE THAT EXPLOSION. Second of all, CID DID NOT SURVIVE THAT FALL FROM THE OVERWORLD INTO THE UNDERWORLD. Can you understand how completely asinine that is without an explanation being required? Okay, let's assume a phoenix down would do the trick - this still leaves the question of "why is it plausible that someone was just randomly walking around the underworld and found Yang's corpse?" Ditto for Cid. Next, their return to health completely nullifies their sacrifice, because they didn't sacrifice anything. Any emotion I might have felt while grieving for their death is completely soured. Just go ahead and ask one of the people who cried for Aeris how they would feel if the designers allowed the player to use a phoenix down on her afterwards: would you feel relieved, or cheated?

Okay. So you say the script stands up on its own, when you don't compare it to the Japanese version? As little sense as that makes, I'd like you to explain the following excerpt from the script.

Quote:

Cecil: It's me, Cecil! I became a Paladin!
Yang: Get him!
Guards: Yes, sir!
*guards attack*
Cecil:Yang! It's me!
Yang: I know that!

It's completely grammatically correct, so it isn't an issue of being "compared to the Japanese version." It's just stupidly written. Who would ever respond to Cecil's plea with "I know that!"??? It's awkward and stilted and the entire game is written like this. The script contains more exclamation points than it does articles. ("Elder of Mysidia says...") Most of the game's scenes are laughable, and that's ignoring the spoony-bard bit.

Originally Posted by Dayvon

Light = cecil, dark = golbez (who both go to fight Zeromus)

Originally Posted by The aforementioned "legend"

one to be born

Next. Yes, in order for a game to be perfect, it must be free of major bugs. A glitch that allows someone to have as many items as they want without any cost is the telltale sign that not enough time was spent making the game work correctly. There are also other glitches that allow you to sequence break, although I've never tried them. There is plenty wrong with the ATB. The inability to skip turns means the game is still turnbased like FFIII. Even though a fast character might have two turns to a slower character's one, they still need to wait for the slower one to take action before they can do anything. A glaring oversight.

You also read me wrong with my point about the customization - I'm all for having the characters have defined roles. Chrono Trigger did it and that game was a masterpiece. But Chrono Trigger also let you pick at least one character on your team, at all points in the game, even allowing you to pick all 3 members towards the end. The characters all had defined roles and personalities, yet you still had the freedom to approach fights as you wished. The rigidity of FFIV means many of the boss battles have a formulaic wash-rinse-repeat feel to them; e.g. Rydia nukes, Rosa heals, Edge attacks, Cecil guards. I should also clarify that I wasn't citing this as a flaw with the game, rather responding to the people who called it one of the game's strengths earlier in the thread. It isn't.

Finally, there's no way you can say the game is graphically on par with contemporary Super NES games. Behold:

There's such a marginal upgrade in quality, bearing in mind what Square later did with FFVI and Chrono Trigger. It was almost like what would happen if Nintendo launched the Wii with a Zelda running on the Ocarina of Time engine.

tl;dr: These are objective problems with the game. You cannot deny them. Is the game good? Yeah, I'll give you that, I had fun with it and there is a reasonably entertaining underlying story. But it's far from perfect, and to call it that is to willingly ignore its very serious flaws.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Relax already, we understand you hate the game, we don't need to see ten more pages on it.

I don't hate FFIV. But it's sloppily made, and far from perfect. If you want to talk about subjective preferences of game qualities then this isn't much more than a "hay guyz whats your favorite game" thread.

Also, lollin' @ "for all the gameplay deficiencies listed..." and then two lines later "Perfect? Maybe."

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Dayvon

Besides, this isn't a thread for logic arguments, this is a thread for celebrating and bragging up the games that you love, and trying to explain why to help others get as much enjoyment out of the game as you do. Is there something wrong with that?

In response...

Originally Posted by Please Read Before Posting Thread

2. Avoid creating threads of the “What is your favourite…” type if possible
Generally, very little discussion is promoted in these threads and were overdone to the extreme on the pre-wipe GFF. Because of this, when an obviously overdone thread is created it may be merged with an existing thread, or closed with a link to the other thread. Versus threads are also topics which lead nowhere.

Borg: You need to wake up, bro. I understand that FFIV is probably your favorite game, and in light of that it is easy for you to ignore the problems with it. But if you're going to not just ignore them, but also point them out, then you really can't be seen in a thread that should be discussing games without any flaws to speak of. As you said:

Originally Posted by Borg1982

I don't think it begins and ends with gameplay, if i were to create a perfect video game in my mind. It would be perfect in every last area. Period.

How can you follow that with things like:

Originally Posted by Borg1812

Graphics don't dictate which games are the best and not the best.

Originally Posted by Borg1492

To the second argument here: I could really care less what they call the bosses.

and expect to be taken seriously?

How can you call the script of a game in which every other sentence ends with an exclamation point perfect? (Oh I know what you're going to say. THE GAME IS DRIPPING WITH EMOTION THAT'S WHY THERE'S SO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS.) What about a script that leaves out words that are sorely lacking for grammar's sake, and uses words that don't in any way fit in?

Quote:

Cecil: We do not understand the meaning of taking crystals away from honest people.
King: Disobeying me?
Cecil: No, I don't.

Dayvon says there is nothing that could be added to FFIV to make it better. How about the words "are you" and "am not"?

Double Post:

Originally Posted by Borg1982

But have you ever seen a movie or show in your life that explains every last comment and goes off on wild tangents to make sure to fill every back story possible?

How about Star Wars, where the wild tangents they went off on ended up being 3 full length prequel movies?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Dictionary definition of nitpick

To be concerned with or find fault with insignificant details.

I'd be nitpicking if I pointed out Symphony of the Night's poor writing, because not only is that game very minimally story-based, but the poor writing is only really evident in the game's introduction. I thought the rest of the game's dialogue wasn't that bad.

I'm not nitpicking here. FFIV, and by extension all of Final Fantasy, is based on story. I'd be nitpicking if there was one or two bad lines in the game. The script is caked in out-of-character deliveries, grammar mistakes, and idiomatic problems. You say it doesn't preclude your enjoyment of the game? Well earlier today I loaded up an old save file of mine from FFIV just out of boredom, and found this gem:



Swing your arms, from side to side - come on it's time to go, do the Meteo!

Honestly, can you tell me someone should be able to read that, and not find it humorous? Can you also tell me humor was the intended effect there? In the closing moments of the game?? If not, your "omg nitpicking" point is crushed.

Quote:

Taking hardware into account, I think FFIV looks better than FF7-9.

I'm going to give you the opportunity to take that one back. FF7-9 were some of the best looking games on the PSX. FFIV used 16x16 character sprites, which weren't even extraordinary by NES game standards. You sure you wanna say that?

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'd like to cast a vote for Ikaruga.

There's only 5 levels... but they are designed so amazingly well that you could spend your entire life just playing them over and over and trying to improve your performance, and it would not be a life wasted. Every enemy ship is immaculately placed and programmed... every boss battle meticulously balanced. There's so many "right" ways to handle most every situation in the game. It is a joy to play for both those who see it as a mindless shooter, and those who attempt to perfect themselves. I doubt any other game has ever come this close to flawlessness.

How ya doing, buddy?