mrstickball on 03 July 2008
FYI:
Never played SO3, as I actually do not own a PS2. My girlfriend owns a PS2, so if I buy any PS2 RPGs, it has to be for her (I bought ToL as a cheap primer for ToV).
I've played SO1, and IMO, it was an incredibly great SNES RPG - one of the best, easily. Will probably get SO2 and 3 as a primer for SO4 at some time in the future.
My whole reasoning behind the "who needs FF" wasn't a bash against FF, but a comment to show that other JRPGs are coming along nicely, that it is probable that SO4 could be awesome, and trump FF (and for me, Kingdom Hearts did that in many ways).
Back to the industrial/magical revolution issues I brought up:
But the "industrial/magic revolution" may have become a core theme in FF. However, FF is one of the most flexible series so this might change. Also, Mass Effect shouldn't be compared to FF because WRPG and JRPG are very different genres. I don't know anything about phantasy star so I won't speak for that one. But in regards to FF9, to me, it should be called FF:crystal something and should have been on n64 because the art style fits that description and FFXI should have been called FF:MMO. Those are the final fantasies that are the most questionable from their appearance.
I've only played tales of the abyss among the tales series and I find it funny that people who hate FF12's battle system love this series because the gameplay was frankly almost reduced to a button-mash fest. The characters moved awkwardly in battle and sometimes you couldn't understand what you were targeting. The A.I. also sucked which is why I greatly appreciate FF12's gambit system. I give it credit for the story though...it sure was better than FF12's
From the look of things, it seems like the new traditional FFs are just not to your liking so you probably should just "skip" them but its not necessary to bash them because as I'll reiterate, we can hopefully all agree that this series defined what a JRPG should be and the production that goes into development of these games are unrivaled.
1. If you haven't played any entry from the orig. Phantasy Star series (the non MMOs), you shouldn't comment on the industrial/magical issues I bring up. Phantasy Star was a far superior series to most every Final Fantasy, and was Sci-Fi too. FFVI and onward began to incorporate some of the elements of sci-fi into their series, but to me, it reduced the overall taste, and world of what was the FF series (and I've played the vast majority of them).
2. To be fair, FFXII involves no button mashing whatsoever. I'm in the minority (it seems) that loved FFXII due to the battle system, and hate the idea of Square not optimizing that battle system into something better.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
