You see what I have to put up with now Wright?

brendude13 said: You see what I have to put up with now Wright?

you claimed Final Fantasy X and XIII were the same.  Nope.  

Key difference:  If I Want to pause and play blitzball, I can.  if I want to hunt animals or make my own weapons, I can.  In Final Fantasy XIII, it might as well be on rails.  HUGE difference.  

Plus, you can control all three of your party members in X.  Another key difference. 

Both have similarly linear stories, but that's pretty much it.  Beyond that, there aren't that many similarities.  That's where you're plain wrong, and therefore misguided. 

Timegate to trollville 1997 where FF7 is still the next coming of god, it's time to close that gate people. Propagandhi is very effective in masses, don't fall victim.

I'm a charming fellow.

I also think FFXIII is the most complex story for the franchise, it requires your utmost attention too.

It also has the furthest evolutionary change in a FF battle system since the 1st game. It's brillant! yet, if you cannot accept change and view like the OP that FF7 is the best game ever made... Well you end up making these kind of threads.

Everytime I hear someone say that FFXIII had a "great battle system" (or any battle system anyways), I want to punch myself in the face.

Runa216 you do know that in FF1 you have to defeat Garland to cross the bridge to the North of Corneria. You have to pass the bridge to go head east to Provokia and defeat the pirates to get access to their ship and you are completely confined to a big pond until you fight more monsters and uncover dynamite. Even then you will need a airship after that to reach many other locations/towns/dungeons surrounded by mountains.

In FF6 you have to get to where the world is devastated before you really get an open world environment/non-linearity. In FF4 you really need the Lunar Whale to have a non linear freedom.

Those games I've played multiple times. FF7 only once, one time was plenty enough.

Wikipedia has a beautiful definition. "A video game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences." I consider games like GTA5 and RDR to be this not FF anything. FF games are a mix of both worlds. So you're wrong again.

FFXIII-2 after a couple hours becomes non-linear because you can branch out to so many different time lines and jump around and grab items in a more non-linear fashion. FFXIII-1 is only 1/3 of the total game and it is not all linear so FFXIII trilogy as a whole is probably about 25% linear. But it's not like you guys overblow it and obsess about it for years on years end is it? Oh wait...you stopped and gave up on FFXIII like OP and complain that the whole series is, simply because you gave up before it got really going. Boo-Hoo.

What makes FF games fun is the mix of Linearity+Non-Linearity+Sandbox+branching storylines.

Older Non-Linear games would be Metroid (You can collect items and explore hundreds of different ways), The Legend of Zelda (you can explore dungeons 1-5 I believe out of order access items/weapons/shields anytime just need ruppees), Mega Man (you can start on different bosses/levels until Wilys castle stages).

FFXIII-2 is even listed under the definition of Non-Linear on the Wikipedia article. haha hows that for irony? Do you know the definition?? haha

Check it out. Don't take my word for it ;) Prepare to be blown away! 

A video game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 also features a similar non-linear time travel system to Radiant Historia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_gameplay

That's not a bad choice actually. The saying goes, "your first Final Fantasy will forever be your favourite", and it's been true for everyone I know... myself included. They're so deep and the characters so well realised that once you've grown attached to them future games actually end up reminding you on that game in a way. This isn't a bad thing but it does somewhat colour your opinion of the series.

I started with Final Fantasy 8. In Europe, 7 was the first one released, and I skipped over it as I'd never heard of the series so I'm not starting at number 7... I was convinced to try 8. I then went back and played 7, 6, and the Origins and Anthology collections which contained 1, 2, 4 and 5. I didn't get a chance to play 3 till it was released on DS, same with Chrono Trigger (which is made by the same people), which I've never played. I played X next shortly after it was released, then went back and played 9 and Tactics both on the PSP; I later played X-2 which is Ok but ultimately shouldn't exist and kinda cheapens FFX. I can't get around the controls on 12 so played less than an hour of it, and well... 13 we've covered.

My suggestion. You could start with X|X-2 HD but you might be better starting with some of the more nuanced games. FFX is good, but it's lacking compared to the others in the series... that said you may enjoy FFX more having not played the previous games in the series.

Remember, you can always download the PSOne games from PSN, they're about £8 each now so all great value. I'd suggest starting with either FF8 or FF9 depending on if you prefer sci-fi or traditional high fantasy. FF8 for sci-fi, FF9 for fantasy. I'd then go on to FF6 if you started with FF8 and FF4 Complete (the PSP version, again you can download it for your Vita), if you started with FF9.

Once you've got two games under your belt, then give FF7 a try. FF7 is probably the strongest game overall, but I prefer to avoid starting people with FF7 as it's legacy tends to overshadow thing, particularly as it's spin of games Crisis Core (PSP) and Dirge Of Cerberus (PS2) are actually decent and worth playing once you've played FF7.

So yeah. Here's that simplified.

For Sci-Fi Fans - FF8, then FF6, then FF7
For High Fantasy Fans - FF8, then FF4 Complete, then FF7

Hope this helped.

Again, you even posted the damn definition of nonlinear, and fail to see how previous FF games can be considered nonlinear. 

Example:  In Final Fantasy VII, upon leaving midgar, you can do one of a half dozen different things, one of which being the next step in the story.  There are areas to explore, a chocobo ranch, an optional boss, hidden areas, etc.  I gave that perfect example, and yet you ignored it, then continued to argue your point with broken grammar and 'haha' as a form of punctuation. 

It's very clear you can't be reasoned with if you can't even be bothered to apply your own logic to arguments that aren't yours.  Like I said, I JUST gave a series of examples of nonlinear gameplay in Final Fantasies, and you still claim that 'mpt FF Anything" is linear (yet still follow that up with 'best of both worlds' sentiment."  

My point is that XIII is TOO linear.  previous games wERE best of both worlds experiences (a point I brng up in one of my old articles I wrote a few years back), but FFXIII takes half of that away by stripping all the side content away that has helped previous FF games transcend the strict linear reputation most JRPG's have, which would have been cool if only the story was interesting and well told enough to make up for the complete lack of depth or exploration in Gran Pulse or Coccoon. 

And we're not talking about XIII-2 or Lightning returns.  We can all agree that, gameplay wise, those games were 'better' than XIII, at least from the perspective of someone who likes a bit of freedom in their games. 

I consider XIII one of my favorite FF games, actually one of my favorite games period. I don't disagree with the OP except with the story. There is a story and pretty good one but it's hard to follow. I enjoyed the combat because I didn't use auto-battle and I saw nothing wrong with the crystarium except the fact it gives you less freedom to upgrade compared to the past FF games.

But can we all agree Type-0 and XV will probably be great?

Don't insult my intelligence. It still neither explain why the fal'Cie wish to call a deity, or why they think killing a shit-load of people will make one turn up. It explains nothing. It's a leap of logic that makes no sense. How do you make the jump from "hates the state of mindset the cocoon society" to "let's call God to change it". How can he justify his actions. Why would creating more chaos and killing everyone make God turn up, there's no justification for this assumption. Why would God "reboot" everything, there's no justification for this assumption. What fucking good is all this if you're dead? Never considered. How are you going to "talk to God" if you're already dead? Never explained....

This is not a case of me "no getting it", I understood the story in perfect clarity thank you, that's why I can see the many many ridiculous plot holes and massive amounts of circular logic. Trying to make me out to be an idiot who just doesn't get it isn't going to work, so stop it; the fact is the story is pants on head retarded and you're just too much of a fanboy to admit that.