Classifications - Final Fantasy - Is it fair?

[Shu]

There are many things that make a good Final Fantasy. Typically I always classify a Final Fantasy into four different categories.

1) Is it Legacy or Modern? - I deem anything FF9 or below to be a legacy installation of Final Fantasy due to the typical play style and the turn based gaming. FFX and beyond were on a different graphics engine and better performing systems etc.

2) POV Linear or Linear or Nonlinear stories? - Basically are the stories told from a Point of view perspective (Dirge of Cerberus) where the game is centered around maybe one or two main characters and the rest are just support roles. Also the story line is told in a chronological order.. and does not stray from past to present to future. Is the story straight NON POV Linear where it's told about a group of characters and some "unknown" narrator or just a "story telling" angle. The story again follows a straight path and doesn't stray. Lastly the non linear story where nothing is told from a POV perspective and the story line can be pretty much every where due to different stories of different characters. At times these go from Past to Future and back to Present or Future to Past to Present.

3) Is it Action RPG or Turn Based RPG - The newer RPGs are more action oriented where you either have Gambits, Paradigms, slots (crisis core), or some other necessities to keep the game rolling. You can't take a break and come back without hitting the pause button. The older RPGs were straight up old fashioned JRPGs where you have to assign out an action and wait for the action to take place. The same goes for the Mobs attacking you. Each Boss Mob had some sort of Element/Armor weakness or some cookie cutter strategy to defeating them.

This is why, in my opinion you can't deem it fair to classify "new" rpgs that take away from the typical Eastern Old Fashioned JRPG feel to the new cutting edge Western Rpg feel.

I think it's hard to compare the RPGs straight up only on Graphics or Engine or Play styles. I mean Final Fantasy is supposed to become better for the gamer. Not only is it supposed to be better, but it also is supposed to challenge the gamer a lot more in terms of play style.

From FFI when you start, you know you have to build up your characters to the point they are untouchable due to over leveling. I think as the games progressed they no longer allowed you to just beat the games purely on mindless dungeon crawling as I called it, you needed to study the boss / group of mobs a lot more.

FFI is in fact a great legacy game due to this, and forever can not be in the same classification as FFVII (due to cinematic features, complex materia usage, summonings).

The only real value I feel that FF can be classified on is the ability to tell a great story without heavily involving too much of the old FF features. I mean even if you thought it was "overrated" everyone at one point had to be on the edge of their seat to see what happened to Aerith or Zack. The drama and the story telling around these two spawned another game on it's own. It was able to bring in both Male and Female audiences. The ability to make people think outside of "religious context" and start thinking about the planet as a "whole" brought very adult features to the game. Then finally the ability to travel through time with Lightening and the crew (paragons), brought back a very "Chrono Cross/Trigger" vibe from outside SE games.

The other real classification that can be measured are the "game play." Though again, playing FFXIII-2 to playing FFX there were still a lot of differences here. You have pay attention to the mobs at all points and time. (MMORPG games like WoW capitalize on this). I believe some could say that FFXII was the first real action RPG to take things to a new level.

Though again, I don't think one could ever measure things on pure classification due to Final Fantasy as a whole has grown. You might like one story line better than another, but that's your own view. You might like some of the action elements better than the turn based elements, but that matters on when you grew up, or how long you invested yourself into these games. You might like some play styles better than others. The gambit system where everything could almost be automated, to the Paradigm system of the new games or the classic Tank / Healer / DPS role triangle. It's hard to measure.

That's why to me, every Final Fantasy can be judged by itself and only itself be ranked by you the user. The comparisons/contrasts can be thought of, but every game was meant to be different in it's own way.

 

[Razberry Knight]

There are many things that make a good Final Fantasy. Typically I always classify a Final Fantasy into four different categories.

1) Is it Legacy or Modern? - I deem anything FF9 or below to be a legacy installation of Final Fantasy due to the typical play style and the turn based gaming. FFX and beyond were on a different graphics engine and better performing systems etc.

there's more to it than that, each new installment pushes for something else and up until ff10, the series didn't have to compensate for what generaly made an ff title.

2) POV Linear or Linear or Nonlinear stories? - Basically are the stories told from a Point of view perspective (Dirge of Cerberus) where the game is centered around maybe one or two main characters and the rest are just support roles. Also the story line is told in a chronological order.. and does not stray from past to present to future. Is the story straight NON POV Linear where it's told about a group of characters and some "unknown" narrator or just a "story telling" angle. The story again follows a straight path and doesn't stray. Lastly the non linear story where nothing is told from a POV perspective and the story line can be pretty much every where due to different stories of different characters. At times these go from Past to Future and back to Present or Future to Past to Present.

All the stories of FFs are "linear" but the problem is when the gameplay is linear. meaning you literally have to go from point a to point b.

3) Is it Action RPG or Turn Based RPG - The newer RPGs are more action oriented where you either have Gambits, Paradigms, slots (crisis core), or some other necessities to keep the game rolling. You can't take a break and come back without hitting the pause button. The older RPGs were straight up old fashioned JRPGs where you have to assign out an action and wait for the action to take place. The same goes for the Mobs attacking you. Each Boss Mob had some sort of Element/Armor weakness or some cookie cutter strategy to defeating them.

some of the older ones had some fast pace oriented to it with the active time battle system.

This is why, in my opinion you can't deem it fair to classify "new" rpgs that take away from the typical Eastern Old Fashioned JRPG feel to the new cutting edge Western Rpg feel.

I'm not sure you are saying here. But i dont think anyone is suggesting what you are. that doesn't mean classics aren't incomparable to modern games. especially when elements of the traditional are used in other games too.

I think it's hard to compare the RPGs straight up only on Graphics or Engine or Play styles. I mean Final Fantasy is supposed to become better for the gamer. Not only is it supposed to be better, but it also is supposed to challenge the gamer a lot more in terms of play style.

From FFI when you start, you know you have to build up your characters to the point they are untouchable due to over leveling. I think as the games progressed they no longer allowed you to just beat the games purely on mindless dungeon crawling as I called it, you needed to study the boss / group of mobs a lot more.

FFI is in fact a great legacy game due to this, and forever can not be in the same classification as FFVII (due to cinematic features, complex materia usage, summonings).

The only real value I feel that FF can be classified on is the ability to tell a great story without heavily involving too much of the old FF features. I mean even if you thought it was "overrated" everyone at one point had to be on the edge of their seat to see what happened to Aerith or Zack. The drama and the story telling around these two spawned another game on it's own. It was able to bring in both Male and Female audiences. The ability to make people think outside of "religious context" and start thinking about the planet as a "whole" brought very adult features to the game. Then finally the ability to travel through time with Lightening and the crew (paragons), brought back a very "Chrono Cross/Trigger" vibe from outside SE games.

The other real classification that can be measured are the "game play." Though again, playing FFXIII-2 to playing FFX there were still a lot of differences here. You have pay attention to the mobs at all points and time. (MMORPG games like WoW capitalize on this). I believe some could say that FFXII was the first real action RPG to take things to a new level.

Though again, I don't think one could ever measure things on pure classification due to Final Fantasy as a whole has grown. You might like one story line better than another, but that's your own view. You might like some of the action elements better than the turn based elements, but that matters on when you grew up, or how long you invested yourself into these games. You might like some play styles better than others. The gambit system where everything could almost be automated, to the Paradigm system of the new games or the classic Tank / Healer / DPS role triangle. It's hard to measure.

That's why to me, every Final Fantasy can be judged by itself and only itself be ranked by you the user. The comparisons/contrasts can be thought of, but every game was meant to be different in it's own way.

Assuming people are even complaining about the graphics...personally, i believe they are focused far too much on it that it sacrifices some of the issues.

the thing is fans actually do compare and contrast. they see what previous FFs valued more and what they didn't. when people say FF hasn't been good since ff10, that may be because after ff10, it hasn't been giving them what previous ffs have. the gameplay matters to me, but so does story. now i can forgive an ff for having shady story, but i can't forgive an ff for having bad gameplay. the only exception is lightining returns where the story is so bad.