Final Fantasy 7 vs 8 and 9?

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Basically, I'm getting a Christmas gift for myself, and I'm debating on getting either FFVII+PSX Mem. Card or both FF8 and 9+ Mem. Card. I tnow the price of 7 is quite high, but I've never actually played it and everyone raves about it. 8 and 9 are generally less talked about, but they get good reviews. Sadly, people say how short IX is, and that worries me. I like games that are long and filled with story *coughPersona2cough*, and I don't want IX to disappoint.

Anyways, I'd gladly appreciate help on this, and I hope it's in the right discussion!

 

[Shinra Spy]

Hmm. I think you should buy FFVII. Although I love IX, I think overall VII is better than both games (especially VIII, dear God).

If you like particularly long games, VII and VIII are about even (60-ish hours), but VII has more side quests and mini-games that extend the game by many hours. In fact, I completed most of the side-quests in VIII and still ended at about 60 hours. In VII, though, my game was at least 80 hours with side quests.

Have you ever played a FF before? If not, VII would be the one to try first.

 

[Exoskeleton]

Personally I'd take VIII and IX over VII but that's just me.

VII seems to have a very memorable story and pretty solid gameplay, however I personally find it a bit frustrating in terms of story flow(this is a game that likes to subtly hint at destinations you're supposed to head to rather than tell you straight up). It's got some pretty fun mini games and the world it's set in is fun and interesting.

VIII is my favorite graphically and it's characters seem more relatable. It's gameplay is challenging to those who can't really figure out the complex battle system/junctioning(which I'd suggest reading up on before playing, which will save you tons of time from "drawing" magic like many first time 8 players do). VIII also has a really fun story based on fate with a few outrageous twists. The triple triad card game is also a nice touch.

IX I've found is kind of like peanut butter and chocolate. It's graphics are decent, it's story is fantastic, and it's gameplay is great. Do NOT let the cartoony looking box art fool you, IX has one of the darker/surprising storylines of the series coupled with quirky and memorable characters. It's kinda like a mix of elements from 7 and 8 with a throwback to older FFs.

In the end it all depends on what you want in an FF game.

 

[greenyxi]

Well, I'd say go for 8 and 9. 2 FF games or 1? t's pretty obvious which choice should be taken imo.
Also, FF9 is totally not short. It's a huge adventure. As long as FF7 and FF8 for sure.
Anyways, here are my personal pros and cons of each:

FF7
Pros: Addictive gameplay, great soundtrack, great cast, lots of twists in the story, challenging bosses at times, optional characters to collect.
Cons: Dated graphics, 3 disks instead of 4, annoying final dungeon.

FF8
Pros: Great cinematics, amazing soundtrack, realistic graphics (for its time), some good characters, fun limit break system, some amazing plot mechanics (look out for the sorceress' festival in a dark city)
Cons: Some really poor party members, tedious drawing system, bad leveling system (random monsters level with you), too easy to max stats early on.

FF9
Pros: Amazing story, best party of the entire franchise (1 character is useless though), amazing soundtrack, great locations, a variety of dungeons, great cinematics, one of the best villains, good amount of challenge (some level grinding needed in places), brilliant story, !QUEEN BRAHNE!, good graphics for its time, theatrical (over-dramatic, like a storybook) atmosphere, lots of sidequests and minigames
Cons: Short final disk (same with FF7 and FF8), 1 pointless party member, bad trance (limit) system.

Hope this helps...ask further if you have any questions

 

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Well, I'd say go for 8 and 9. 2 FF games or 1? t's pretty obvious which choice should be taken imo.
Also, FF9 is totally not short. It's a huge adventure. As long as FF7 and FF8 for sure.
Anyways, here are my personal pros and cons of each:

FF7
Pros: Addictive gameplay, great soundtrack, great cast, lots of twists in the story, challenging bosses at times, optional characters to collect.
Cons: Dated graphics, 3 disks instead of 4, annoying final dungeon.

FF8
Pros: Great cinematics, amazing soundtrack, realistic graphics (for its time), some good characters, fun limit break system, some amazing plot mechanics (look out for the sorceress' festival in a dark city)
Cons: Some really poor party members, tedious drawing system, bad leveling system (random monsters level with you), too easy to max stats early on.

FF9
Pros: Amazing story, best party of the entire franchise (1 character is useless though), amazing soundtrack, great locations, a variety of dungeons, great cinematics, one of the best villains, good amount of challenge (some level grinding needed in places), brilliant story, !QUEEN BRAHNE!, good graphics for its time, theatrical (over-dramatic, like a storybook) atmosphere, lots of sidequests and minigames
Cons: Short final disk (same with FF7 and FF8), 1 pointless party member, bad trance (limit) system.

Hope this helps...ask further if you have any questions

Wow....this post convinced me for sure! My concerns, though....

1.) Is the junction system complicated, yet fun?
2.) Who is the useless character in FF9?

 

[greenyxi]

Wow....this post convinced me for sure! My concerns, though....

1.) Is the junction system complicated, yet fun?
2.) Who is the useless character in FF9?

1.) Some people find it complicated...some don't. I found it incredibly simple. There's an in-game tutorial and the instruction manual tells you about it too. The junctioning is certainly fun...but drawing the magic for it isn't so much. A way around this is by playing the card game though and learning a move with one of your summons that you start with, which turns the cards into spells.

2.) The character is Amarant. He's the monk of FF9...but there are just better characters all around to use. Also, his back-story and involvement in the main plot is minimal. He's just there to make up the numbers I think.

 

[Yaoi Master Gavin]

Go with VIII and IX. Comparably speaking, they're both better than VII by leaps and bounds. I'm not saying that VII is bad but its far too overhyped. Don't give up when it comes to the drawing system in FFVIII. Pay attention to the tutorial and with some patience early game, the game becomes easily one of the top FF games.

VII Pros: Good story, customizable players, excellent side quests
VII Cons: There are points where you HAVE to grind, there's a point where you are no longer being challenged and it becomes an exercise in getting to the end.

VIII Pros: Triple Triad game, excellent story, the monsters level with you so there's always a challenge (unless its a geezard), you get to level your summons and they get stronger on their own, grinding not needed
VIII Cons: Some of the side quests are derpy (Obel Lake), Selphie, Rinoa

IX Pros: Amazing story, excellent villian development (sexy too), balanced skill system, many twists and better than M Night Shamallamalan
IX Cons: Quina, Steiner and Eiko's personalities,

 

[Paddy McGee]

The junction system is stupidly broken and annoying. I still love VIII for the numerous times I've laughed at two party members idiotic tendencies.

The materia system is brilliant, but I hate the flow of VII, and I dislike Cloud.

IX has the best set of characters and my favourite protagonist, Zindane.

I say you should get VIII and IX over VII- You get two great games for one great game.

 

[Exoskeleton]

2.) The character is Amarant. He's the monk of FF9...but there are just better characters all around to use. Also, his back-story and involvement in the main plot is minimal. He's just there to make up the numbers I think.

Completely disagree. Amarant is one of the characters who isn't quite developed as the others but his monk skills and his Throw ability coupled with the various shurikens bought for it(which are surprisingly cheap compared to other FFs) have made some of the toughest battles short work. Amarant is certainly useful. It's not wise to count out FF characters because of their personalities. I'm pretty sure you've assumed that with FF8 party members as well, which I'll give you some have extreme personalities that may or may not click with players, but their abilities (Selphie's special magic, Zell's, Kickboxing, etc.) more than make up for that. Classifying a character as useless or poor because of their personality does not seem fair if you count out their abilities.

I myself found Quistis' personality to be quite annoying, but you can bet your sweet ass I used her Blue magic to completely destroy annoying monsters/enemies. The same could be said for the annoying Yuffie in FF7. Plenty of people hate her but she's my favorite personality wise and move set wise(And lets face it, we're all dyin to talk to a babe like her ).


If you don't get the junction system there are numerous resources to help. To be honest Magic really isn't all that important as many seem to think it is in FF8. If the GFs are developed you could just flow through the rest of the games refining items into magic and such. It really depends on the person playing though. The junction system give's players the most flexibility in play stayle and how you use it can give you an upper hand. It's definitely possible to complete the game without even touching it though, so don't worry.

 

[greenyxi]

Completely disagree. Amarant is one of the characters who isn't quite developed as the others but his monk skills and his Throw ability coupled with the various shurikens bought for it(which are surprisingly cheap compared to other FFs) have made some of the toughest battles short work. Amarant is certainly useful. It's not wise to count out FF characters because of their personalities. I'm pretty sure you've assumed that with FF8 party members as well, which I'll give you some have extreme personalities that may or may not click with players, but their abilities (Selphie's special magic, Zell's, Kickboxing, etc.) more than make up for that. Classifying a character as useless or poor because of their personality does not seem fair if you count out their abilities.

Oh no, I never count characters out because of their personalities. I may not use them because I don't like their personailities, but I don't think they're useless because of it.

I just found him very similar to Zidane, but with a few different moves. They aren't different enough imo.

 

[Tyler Breeze]

I like Amarant....

Anyway, even though I haven't played ffvii, I would go with Viii & ix.

even though I don't like viii much, it does look like it'll get better story wise. But I hate the battle system.

Everything about ix is awesome. There really isn't anything bad I can say about it.

 

[Like Like]

1.) Some people find it complicated...some don't. I found it incredibly simple. There's an in-game tutorial and the instruction manual tells you about it too. The junctioning is certainly fun...but drawing the magic for it isn't so much. A way around this is by playing the card game though and learning a move with one of your summons that you start with, which turns the cards into spells.

2.) The character is Amarant. He's the monk of FF9...but there are just better characters all around to use. Also, his back-story and involvement in the main plot is minimal. He's just there to make up the numbers I think.

I don't know why (and this is a bit off topic), but Paper Mario Sticker Star reminds me of FF8 a little....

Anyways, Amarant seems useful, as he has throw! I mean, Shadow was awesome in FF6 because of throwing!

 

[greenyxi]

I don't know why (and this is a bit off topic), but Paper Mario Sticker Star reminds me of FF8 a little....

Anyways, Amarant seems useful, as he has throw! I mean, Shadow was awesome in FF6 because of throwing!

Yeah, throw is handy...but I never use it in FF9. Hell, use Amarant if you like. I'm not stopping you . He's just...not my cuppa and all that.

 

[The Master]

Oh no, I never count characters out because of their personalities. I may not use them because I don't like their personailities, but I don't think they're useless because of it.

I just found him very similar to Zidane, but with a few different moves. They aren't different enough imo.

Unless you are talking about Yuffie. Her personality sucks and so does her character.

I have NOT played IX, is it as good as everyone says it is?

 

[Sheechiibii]

Okay. I would choose either VIII or IX. It really depends what you like in a game though. I personally never noticed that IX was any shorter than the other games. I'm also not a raging fan of VII so that's probably why I rate it last out of the three.

VIII

There are a few things different about this game that not everyone likes. The junction system isn't like your normal level system, it uses magic to make stats stronger. You can draw magic from enemies or draw points in different locations and on the world map. GF's are the summon of FFVIII but they also serve a purpose in the junction system and that's because the abilities they learn allow the character they are given to to junction magic to more stats and make your character stronger and able to use more abilities in battle. The characters don't really have set roles such as healer/mage/fighter though you can set them up for that. So it's not as straight forward as just winning battles and collecting the stat growth. Personally I like it, but some people hate it so much they discredit the entire game just because of it. Weapons aren't really much use in this game since there are only a few available for each character and you basically upgrade them when you can. Also, enemies level up as you do, so overleveling is not always the best way to go. Some might see this as a good thing as it means you don't have to spend so much time grinding, but others like grinding and perhaps miss it a little from this game.

I like many of the characters but some of them can seem like background fodder there only to further the plot and not much else in terms of story(Irvine I'm looking at you). This is mostly because the majority of the development goes on between the two lead characters, Rinoa and Squall. This story is a definite romance, far more so than in IX, in this game the story is the romance - it drives the plot. So if you don't like romances all that much, this game might not be your first pick. There are some side characters that are really interesting and unique and you get to live in the past at points in the story which is really cool if you like those characters. Overall it's pretty action packed, it's futuristic mainly with lots of fantasy elements, and there are lots of optional places to visit and things to find. The card game deserves a special mention too because although it is 100% optional, it's a great minigame and can get you heaps of really useful stuff.

IX

The gameplay here is much more traditional. As you equip weapons and armour each has abilities that you can learn while they are equipped. Fighting will have you learning these and once you have learnt them the ability is yours and taking off the equipment will not take it away. Each character has a role - Vivi the black mage, Garnet the white mage/summoner etc - so it is pretty easy to get the hang of and understand. Simple but effective. Obviously since your weapons give you your abilities they are very important in this game. There are many different weapons for each character and syth shops to create your own. Characters have a limit called trance (which is annoying as hell) with some great abilities and super strength/magic/summon while they're in trance mode, which is usually for about 3 turns. Unfortunately, and this is where it's annoying, you don't have a choice when you reach trance, it triggers automatically even if your fighting the easiest opponent in the game, even if your teammate has just defeated the last enemy, even if a boss is right around the corner. It doesn't matter, and it does make trance really annoying. But amazing if you get it at the right time.

The story in this game is pretty epic. I'm not sure if it is shorter than others. I hadn't noticed, to me the story feels just as long as the rest. It's filled with twists and revelations and secrets that you discover along the way. So many of the characters are important to the story - which does leave a couple who are essentially pointless other than to fight - and have great development. There is love, but unlike in VIII it isn't the main event of the story. The world in this one - to me - feels bigger than VIII or VII's. I don't know why, maybe it's the way you descover it, but I like IX's setting the best of the three. This one is not at all futuristic like VIII and VII, it's traditional fantasy setting, knights and princesses and thieves. It feels like your in a magical land, unlike the other two where it feels like a future setting of our own world. There are lots of dungeons to search and secret stuff to find. There's a side quest to help moogles deliver letters and there's a card game (though it sucks in comparison to VIII's). Definitely worth a play.

VII

Okay, I'm not going to lie. I've played this game only once all the way through, and twice I couldn't finish it. Not because it was bad or because I was stuck but just because I lost interest. Which is something that never happens with other FF games. So some of this might not be as acurate as the above.

Lots of people like the materia system, it's pretty highly rated. I don't like it, I find it dull and boring, but I know many people think it's the best thing ever. It involves equiping orbs called materia which each contain an ability, the better the equipment the more slots you have to give you character materia. As you keep materia equiped it levels up and becomes stronger. This stays with that particular orb, not the character. This means you can choose what skills you want certain characters to have. Obviously you can only decide for some characters more than others, as characters gain stats while they level and their stats generally suit whatever role they are initially give (like Barret/Cloud being warriors their strength gains more than other characters).

The storyline in this one doesn't have lots of twists like in IX, but it does have one huge twist, and one shocking moment. There isn't romance in this one like in VIII, or even like in IX. There's pretty much only hints in this game towards any romance going on. The focus is on a revolution, an uprising against the government, and on the main characters more personal development in the story. There are a lot of characters in this game who don't really have a point to them, more so than in VIII and IX but two of them are optional so your party might not end up as big as it could. One of the optional characters though, Vincent, turns out to be way more interesting than some of other non-optional characters. I felt like this world, more than VIII and IX, was linear. This is pretty much because you don't usually have the ability to get to anywhere other than one or two places at a time. The map also seems much smaller than VIII and IX's which does make it feel like there's less freedom sometimes. But there are just as many sidequests and interesting things to do/find in the world of VII as there are in the other two games.

All in all it really depends what you think sounds the most interesting. I do think IX is sorely underrated. I have no idea why VII gets so much attention when to me it is average in comparison to the other two, but it does vary from person to person. I will throw out there that I think you should go with IX and VIII. Two games instead of one. You won't really know what you like best until you play them.

 

[C i d]

*Moved to FF General Discussion*

 

[Squid]

IX is the best out of them all. Amazing characters, I love them all besides Amarant. The story is the best. People say it's too lighthearted but i think it's actually quite dark. I love the graphics but a lot of people have an issue with those too, because the characters look a bit 'chibi' but I think it gives it that fantasy charm it's known for. Battle system is a lot of fun, locations have a lot of charm to them, music is the best music in any FF game I think. Only thing I dislike is the trance thing. It's just kinda dumb.

VIII is the worst of the 3. It's such a bore and the junction system is balls.

 

[Ilyena]

The story is the best. People say it's too lighthearted but i think it's actually quite dark. I love the graphics but a lot of people have an issue with those too, because the characters look a bit 'chibi' but I think it gives it that fantasy charm it's known for. Battle system is a lot of fun, locations have a lot of charm to them, music is the best music in any FF game I think. Only thing I dislike is the trance thing. It's just kinda dumb.

VIII is the worst of the 3. It's such a bore and the junction system is balls.

Pretty much what Toni said here. I hear people say that FFIX is lighthearted and too "happy go lucky" as well and I wonder if they played the same game I did. How can anyone think the game is happy and lighthearted? I won't go into story details because there are people posting in this thread who haven't played it but I also found the story to be pretty dark and very sad at times.

VIII I didn't enjoy as much as VII or IX but there were some parts of it I liked. The story does tend to drag a lot and I found some of the plot twists to be stupid but there are a lot of people who love the game so you won't know until you try it.

IX is my personal favorite of all of the FF games so I recommend going with VIII and IX.

 

[kratoscar2008]

FFVIII is the best for me as is CG and Junction system makes a great package, i didnt liked 9 just because of the horrendous characters that display there, pretty much why i dont like Zelda games because of the creepy character design.

In FF7 i loved facing the Weapons and the materia system is my favorite third only to Junction and Sphere Grid systems.

 

[Shinra Executive]

Basically, I'm getting a Christmas gift for myself, and I'm debating on getting either FFVII+PSX Mem. Card or both FF8 and 9+ Mem. Card. I tnow the price of 7 is quite high, but I've never actually played it and everyone raves about it. 8 and 9 are generally less talked about, but they get good reviews. Sadly, people say how short IX is, and that worries me. I like games that are long and filled with story *coughPersona2cough*, and I don't want IX to disappoint.

Anyways, I'd gladly appreciate help on this, and I hope it's in the right discussion!

It really just depends on which one you want personally. You can get VII or VIII for fairly cheap on the PC if you're desperate, but IX is only on the PS. I would go with IX simply because it's the only chance you'll ever get to play it.

VII is good, but you may find that it has aged quite a bit. XI is a bit more contemporary, and probably takes the cake as having the best graphics on the PS1. It is lengthy and fun, and you will be fully satisfied. That's all I can say