On a relentless FF bender: after VII, where to next?

There's really no excuse for me not having gotten into Final Fantasy sooner, and now halfway through VII for the first time, there is DEFINITELY no excuse. I picked up my first two FF games a few months ago (I & II: Dawn of Souls for GBA) and loved both of them. I'm borrowing a PS1, VII, and VIII from a friend this summer with the intent of forging my way through these two as well as IX.

I'm nearly halfway through VII for the first time (and relishing the experience, holy shit) and I'm left wondering which game is most recommended that I proceed to next. After reading reviews of the ones that are accessible to me (IV, V, VI, IX (X and beyond are off limits)), the most promising one looks like VI, though the GBA port version would be most practical for me and I'm not aware of an announced release date for it.

The quality of the music, darkness of the story, and character development are the three factors in determining which game will come next for me. Anyway, what are your opinions? Unless there are strong recommendations otherwise, I may just proceed with VIII, since that's already in my possession.

THANKS.

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The two I recommend most are FFIV and FFVI. Their plots surpass the others you listed based on my personal opinion. My only caution is that if you play the PSX version of the games, be prepared for slow loading times. Otherwise, the games are worth playing through.

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X and beyond are off limits

I'm taking X/X-2 is off limits because of a lack of a PS2.

In that case, sure, why not proceed to VIII. VIII was the first FF and I loved it. Some people complain about how the magic system is basically different. Instead of MP, you have a certain number of spells to use. With this, you can attach (junction) these magic items to armour, weapons, and the like to get the weapon it's attribute. For example, if you junction your gunblade with lightning, it will have lightning properties.

FFVI is pure awesome and is on the SNES platform.
Tina's theme - BEST OPENING RPG THEME, EVER. why lie.
That is Uematsu magic right there.
Since you have a PC (I'm assuming since you just posted), just go get the rom from romnation or cherryroms or the like. That game is surprisingly long, especially the 2nd half when you have to find the rest of your crew. It sounds boring to do that, but it's great. It has a massive cast of protagonists, and each have their quirks and funny traits.

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quality of the music, darkness of the story, and character development

Check, check and check. FFVI wins.


For V, I can't say too much because I stopped playing just maybe 3 hours into the game (when I got the job system). I should give this game a shot again, LOL Butz.

FFIV is also another game I stopped playing. It was an excellent game, I just can't remember why I stopped.

FFIX is also a great addition. Perhaps people complained it when back to the SD characters from VIII, but I didn't mind it. Zidane was a nice person to use, not like anti-social Squall. I'm about 1/2 way through it.

Why not also give FF Tactics a try. It's a bit different, but it's also a very engaging story and way to do battles. This time you're basically looking at an isometric battle field. Battles are MUCH more strategy based as you move your characters from square to square to defeat the other members. The way I make it sound is so boring, but you should try it, seriously.

(No PS2 = No FFXII ;___; )

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FFIV all the way. Easily the best in the series (IMO the only one better than "decent". Can't say I'm a fan of the series...). Excellent plot, excellent characters, and unless you play the SNES version it's a good challenge. My favorite part was the main character's path of redemption.

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Originally Posted by Cellius

The quality of the music, darkness of the story, and character development are the three factors in determining which game will come next for me.

Sounds like VI is the one you want. Anthology version sucks though. The laggy cursor during battle made me opt for my SNES cartridge again.

For me, IV through VII is the peak of the series, with VI being my personal favorite. I'm mostly indifferent towards VIII, IX, and X, though I still think you should try them for yourself.

Tactics isn't a main installment of the series but it's awesome and it excels in the three areas you mention as well. Just be prepared for a different style of gameplay since it's an SRPG.

I was speaking idiomatically.

When I get VI it will be the GBA port version. Any word on a release date for that?
I had a feeling that most of the responses would lead to a toss-up between IV and VI.

Additionally, part of my motivation for crashing through all these games is because I possess a very large amount of FF music, but I rarely listen to it because I lack the context that playing the games provides. I listen to the VII soundtrack on almost a daily basis, compared to the months of nothing before I picked up the game.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I like VIII a lot, but I guess I am in the minority. Of course you should play VI because it is the best of the series {outside of Tactics}, but I would suggest avoiding the PSX version of it. I would play VI and VIII before playing IV, but that isn't to say that IV is bad, it is just, to me, inferior to VI - VIII.

FELIPE NO

Definitely get FFIX, my personal favourite, probably because it's the first RPG I played. It's a highly enjoyable game, and next to FFVI, the best FF game from the main series. Final Fantasy Tactics beats all of them though.

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Final Fantasy IV: Definately worth it. But if you're used to the graphics from FFVII and FFVIII be ready for the SNES graphics. Character development while good for a SNES game won't be what you're used to on the Playstation. But it's a great introduction to Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy V: You get to see the early version of the class system they later used in Final Fantasy Tactics here. Lots of customization for a SNES Final Fantasy. On the minus side forget any story. With a villian named Ex-Death and a hero who has three princesses following him around in his party you can guess how much story this one has.

Final Fantasy VI: Considered by many to be the best Final Fantasy. It's a very good game. Considering that it's for the SNES and how many characters it has, I'm surprised that they managed to develop them to the degree they did. Kefka has the greatest evil laugh too.

Final Fantasy IX: I was neutral about this one. I didn't mind the return to the SD characters. My problem with it was a "been there, done that before" attitude. It felt like it didn't really add anything to Final Fantasy. This also feels like the start of the decline in music for Final Fantasy although it had a few tracks I liked. Final Fantasy X didn't have any tracks I liked.

Final Fantasy VIII: I think this one has the best music in the series. Lots of character develpment but the story gets questionable at the end. Proof that having enemies level up with you is dumb.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

FFVIII has a pretty good battle system, to bad almost everything else sucks. I pretty much enjoyed it just for the battle system. There is also a couple of good music tracks in it too.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Final Fantasy V and VI are my favorites. The games were great, the music was good, the plots are awesome (For FFVI at least), and the villains are badass.

Spoiler:

I mean, shit, FFV, ExDeath is a TREE. How much more badass can you get. And FFVI? Where other villains failed at doing so, Kefka suceeded; He destroyed the world.

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Why not just go in chronological order by original release dates? FFIII is suprisingly awsome for an NES release.

Each game has it's own quirks, best just play through them all in order so you can get the feel of the series "evolution" into what it is today (which you can judge for yourself)

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Originally Posted by Rasputin

FFIII is suprisingly awsome for an NES release.

I thought III was never released in America?

I had originally intended to go in as chronological an order that I could, but VII and VIII were right here, and I had no others on hand. And since none of them are related, I figured it's like watching Bond films out of order: no big deal.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Play VI before you die. It's obligatory. But since you want to wait for the GBA version, play IV first. Keep in mind that it's an olde-tyme RPG, so the story is limited and kinda kiddy. Not that there aren't some neat bits in it.

I really enjoyed VIII's battle system, but the story is lame. Specifically, the only character they ever bother to flesh out is Squall; everyone else is defined by who they are to him. Even then, his personality is neither believable nor likeable. But the battle system is enjoyable, and the card game is fun too.

V is overrated, but it has Gilgamesh and oddly enough, it has neat body language considering how few sprites each character gets.

If I were you and waiting for GBA ports is necessary, go with IV or VIII first.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Final Fantasy VIII. Play this game, it is the true gem of the series that most people fail to recognize.

Final Fantasy IV and VI are what made this series what it is. My personal favorite is IV but bot are amazing. They're oldschool, but playing these games will teach you what Final Fantasy is all about.

FELIPE NO

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FFVIII: I hated FF8. There I said it. It was a terrible game. It had good stuff. It had great music and great graphics. Yet it was destroyed by lame characters and retarded plot. Honestly, I would skip this game. There are far better games in the world to play.

FFX: Damn it, did I already use the word retarded to describe FF8? Well, FFX is fucking retarded. I mean wow. I can't believe I played this game to the end. Seriously lame. Don't touch it. Play every other game in the world first.

FFX-2: What? WHAT? WHY GOD? I played this for 10 minutes. The worst 10 minutes of my life.

At least you didn't put FFVIII at the bottom of the pit . Also a word to Cellius, I may not agree with Badrad's rating of VIII and X, but X-2, what is this shit. Next please.

X-2 basically takes a rather decent cast and turns them into pop singers and flashy GURL POWER. I don't understand why SE would do this. FFVIII was loved by both guys like myself and girls as well, because it had a good balance for both genders to be interested in. X-2 was just no.

Here's a nice summary care of Denicalis:

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Spatula, I'll round this out for you. Your friend earlier lied. It does -not- give good closure to Tidus & Yuna. It makes it trite and convoluted. It takes away any semblance of real emotion and turns it into "OMG! MY DEAD BOYFRIEND!" It's actually highly insulting to the Yuna character. She goes from being a stoic, intelligent young woman to a ditzy pop-star in about thirty seconds flat. Is the entire world open to you? Yes, but Saga Frontier did it first and much better. It has upsides, definitely. The battle system is near perfection. I adore it to no end, and would encourage any game company to adopt it. However, it suffers from a problem of taking something millions of people loved, and turning it into Charlie's Angels. That's what it is. Also, if you liked Blitzball, don't touch this game. It will anger you to no end to see what they do to the fantastic mini-game from X fame.

Do you get to revisit old friends and locations? Absolutely. Are there some touching moments with Wakka, LuLu and a few others? Definitely. Are the majority of those moments spoiled by terrible, hackneyed dialogue that reduces the character interactions to something you'd see on The Breakfast Club? Unfortunately, yes. This game is a fun concept, if they hadn't attached the X title to it, it would have been much better.

At the crux of it is this. You explore the same regions you did in X. You run all across the Calm Lands again. Yes, there are new areas, but a large majority of these you've already seen... already done to death. It is just a painful look back on something that should be left as a pleasant memory.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Denicalis FTW for the Saga Frontier praise. I'll briefly argue that I liked 10-2 better than 10-1 (shock) for the fact that it didn't take itself so ridiculously seriously like 10 did. There were some pretty big suspensions of disbelief that 10 demanded, and 10-2 had a good time poking fun at them.

Anyway, on to the games that the author is concerned about.

FF7: Some say it's great, some say it's overrated, I tend toward overrated but you're going to find out yourself anyway. Strong points are the soundtrack, the amount of side-quests available, and the admittedly cheesy but entertaining ability to over-level your characters to such a disgusting degree the Ikaruga creators are still crying tears of blood over it as we speak. And the game is older than Ikaruga.

FF8: My personal favourite of the series. It removed the absolutely sick over-leveling present in 7 and added more challenge, but not so much that it was frustratingly unplayable (a universal deal-breaker in my book, right along with jumping puzzles). Best soundtrack of the PS1 generation with 9 following closely behind, had the most interesting visuals, and a real whopper of a final dungeon. The cast seems to be the #1 complaint about this one, and I'll agree that playing Teen Beat RPG was a bit of a turnoff. The odd plot twists near the end put some people off as well, but for whatever reason they didn't bother me all that much. Play 8 for the soundtrack, battles, and cinematics, but be prepared for said cinematics to get plentiful to the point of being excessive.

FF9: I have really mixed feelings about this one. The story is definitely its strong point. The translation is virtually error-free, and the plot stays relatively straightforward except for its major twist about 3/4 through the game. After that, though, there aren't any other weird twists. The one huge, HUGE complaint I have about FF9 is the laggy-as-a-motherfucker battle engine. Jesus christ, Squaresoft, optimize your fucking software would you please? Only Xenosaga 2 has worse lag than this game during battle (15-second load times for the lose). The whole thing overall feels sluggish, from menus to battle to minigames. High points about 9 are again the soundtrack, which is done in a more traditional classical style than 8's (which had some very interesting but very weird experimental tracks), and which is absolutely huge at ~110 tracks; some nostalgia trips for players of the older games in the series; and about the best visuals the PS1 games had in the way of character models, textures, and resolution. Aesthetics cannot be objectively judged, and so I will withhold judgment with the note that I preferred 8's style, but that you may find 9's more fitting for a fantasy game.

Garg, have to go to class. Will be back for parts 5 and 6 on SNES.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

A lot of people hate on 5 for some reason, but I enjoyed it a lot more than 6. 6 might have more interesting features as far as the combat and character design goes, but there were multiple times that I found myself wondering just why I should care about anything that was going on in the plot. Not so with 5, which I enjoyed immensely up to the end. The plot might have been simple, but at least it was engaging. Also Kefka is the fucking worst villain I've ever seen.

VII and VIII kinda stand alone in the series right now in terms of the darkness of the story, as you put it. Most of the others share a lot of resemblance to anime, up to and including cheesy sounds and music, goofy expressions, and uninteresting and unrealistic dialogue. VII and VIII have that, but to a much lesser extent.

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Forget you ever played VII and go get IV, V and VI. IV and V still have that oldschool charm, and VI probably marks the series' initial foray into scifi garbage - except it's more steampunk than scifi here, and it's actually amazingly-well stylised.

I really can't stand ANY of the PS1 FF games. VII was the worst in the series, VIII wasn't much better and IX was an ill-conceived stab at trying to regain that retro-charm.

Tactics isn't bad, either.

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Final Fantasy X-2 is basically Final Fantasy: Slut Edition.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, me. I'm more interested in the newer FFs heading down the "Square Enix pipe". Final Fantasy XII and the Fabula Nova Crystalis Project; of Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Looks like you got a lot of responses already, but I'll throw in my opinion if you wanna read on....

Final Fantasy I - I think you said you played this, but yeah, this game is very challenging (at least for me) and it's a lot of fun.

Final Fantasy IV - Seconded as being one of the best games ever. Seriously, more plot twists than you can shake a stick at.

Final Fantasy V - Awesome game with an awesome class system. It's a pre-taste of Final Fantasy Tactics if you decide to pick that up. And yes, the main character's name, by default, is Butz. Pronounce it as you wish.

Final Fantasy VI - This is THE FINAL FANTASY GAME. This game cannot be beat. With a deep story, awesome music throughout (I'd have to say this is the BEST boss battle music here), and a utterly evil villan. You'll seriously want to punch this guy in the face when you reach the end.

Final Fantasy VII - Awesome game too, I guess you're already playin this one.

Final Fantasy VIII - Pretty good game, I like it, though not as much as others. A little different, I'd have to say, but good, nonetheless.

Final Fantasy IX - I liked this one a lot, but some people don't like this one. I dunno. It's kinda like a return to the "fantasy" world with the return of the traditional Black Mage, Moogles, and Chocobos after their lack thereof in Final Fantasy VIII.

Take your pick, they're all really good.

FELIPE NO

My opinions:

IV - The story is great, really engaging. The system and the graphics somewhat less so. It's not musically a stand out.

V - The story is perfunctory. It's not up to much, in general. Faris is cool, though. I really enjoyed the game system, but not as much as...

VI - The SNES stand-out, and possibly the series stand-out. IMO, best graphics, story, and system. I love this game. Only the sound is not above all others.

VII - The music is outstanding. The graphics are showing signs of age now, but they were cutting-edge back then. The story has plot-holes big enough to drive a truck through, and... I don't know about anyone else, but I sort of stopped caring by the time I got to the third disk. I did finish it though.

VIII - I'm not a fan. The graphics, the system. I hate it. I forced myself to finish it, because in those days, I finished all my RPGs.

IX - It was fun, but ultimately forgettable. I didn't even complete it. It wasn't bad, as such, just plain. I just would start playing, and get bored instantly. The Chocobo stuff was kind of fun though.

X - I loved it. Not everyone does. I loved everything about it, except the voices, which were only OK.

X2 - Avoid at all costs. WHY GOD WHY???

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