YHBT

Also, I'd love to see what you'd have had to say if number 1 & 2 had been reversed and someone had made the opposite argument. Would have have said that the other games didn't beat FF7 because they weren't as good, or would you have said that the list was just the opinions of a small group of people who don't need to be taken particularly seriously? Or would you have said that they chose FF7 because they wanted more hits?

PS. You now know how we feel when we encounter fanboys. Believe it or not, every popular JRPG has a large number of people who have difficulty understanding that some people may not feel the way that they do about their favourite. To imply that FF7 is special in this regard (as you seem to do with your bitching about us being overzealous) reveals that you're the victim of either some questionable reasoning* or the hostile media effect.

*it might (and I repeat, might) be the case that there is a greater number of overzealous FF7 fanboys than there are fanboys of any other FF game or JRPG in terms of absolute numbers (this genre seems to attract fanboys more than others, perhaps due to the greater emotional attachment to the game and characters), but does this mean that FF7 has more of a fanboy culture? The ratio of fanboys to normal fans might be much lower than that for some other games in the series. There are more Catholics in China than in Ireland, but that doesn't mean that China is a more Catholic country...

There is a large difference there.

A lot of people played FF7 before FF6, then vice versa despite it being the later one in the series.  As such, their is always a question of qualification when a Final Fantasy later then 6 gets put ahead of ones earlier then 7.

This is not true for the opposite.

It's like when today, People suggset Kobe Bryant is better then Bill Ruseel... or even Michael Jordan.

Though, not a majority think Kobe is better then Jordan.   A large amount of people who first saw Kobe as a kid think he is.

I'd say a majority of people think Kobe bryant is better then Bill Russel.  This is also a mistake.

Most basketball veterans can tell you otherwise.

It's true that the later games have an unfair advantage in that respect. However, that argument feels like a low blow. Whether or not the person using the argument has that intention, it ends up saying that the opinion  of anyone who played FF7 before FF6 is worth less; it's very annoying to be told that your opinion is worth less thanks to chronological or geographical misfortune, especially when anyone who isn't looking at their side's supporters with rose-tinted glasses can see that there's no difference in average intelliegence, nor in ability to understand what makes a good game, good characters or a good story. It's even more annoying since it seems suspicioulsy convenient; after all, the argument also says that the opinions of people who are in a group that is more likely to like the older games are fairer, and therefore worth more, than those of people who are in a group that is more likely to like the "newer" games (i.e. the ones that came after FF became mainstream).

To show you what it's like, I'll make some factual points of my own. FF7 made the series mainstream in the West. It was also hyped as the "best game ever" around the time it was released and just before. These facts don't seem very annoying until one points out that fans of things that had previously been unpopular often react badly when it becomes mainstream, and that when a game is hyped as the "best game ever", an awful lot of video game fans decide that it's overrated before they've even played it (which isn't surprising, since the main demographic for video games is more rebellious than the general population).

From these facts one might infer that fans who started playing the FF games before they went mainstream are unable to properly judge the ones that came after it became mainstream, in much the same way that the facts you've stated imply that fans who played the later games first can'tjudge the earlier games fairly. However, all these facts do is confirm, to the people that use them, that people who disagree with them don't have to be taken seriously. I'm sure that if I had simply dived into the thread and stated those facts I'd piss off a lot of people and be accused of sophistry, or (as is more likely in these debates) homosexuality. The people who disgreed with me would see straight away that I was using cheap shots.

In my opinion, FFIV/FFII (America) is the best.

FFVIII is a horrible game and should not even be on the list.

Just my opinion.

Not really.  Since such effects, while possible, aren't prevelant.  While there is no real cure for playing a game after it's time.

Most people who have played the games in order's opinions ARE worth more. 

It may seem like a low blow... but it's really just the reality. These people have more expierence and have a more expert opinion on the matter.

The only differences are for people like you mentioned or people who are very good at going back and playing retro games.

It's like saying that someone who goes to two different bands concerts has a better opinion of both then someone who goes to one bands concert and watches the other on tape.  It's not really a "low blow."

It's just true.

Really? They aren't prevalent?

In my experience, they're very prevalent indeed; of course, they're also much easier to conceal, both from oneself and from other people. Even if you lie to others, you can't hide it from yourself if you didn't play the games in order. However, you can easily convince yourself that you don't resent something for making your niche popular and you can easily convince yourself that you aren't jumping the reverse bandwagon. The majority of people who think like that don't know they're doing it.

You see how cheap that is? I can tell you that your opinion is worth less and pre-empt any denials by saying that if you were the victim of those biases you wouldn't know about it. We can all play that game, and that's why questioning people's motives for saying one video game is better than another is a very bad idea. (I'd like to point out that I don't think you're being malicious or deceitful, but the effects of your argument are the same as they would have been if you were).

Also, I have to pick you up on the "expert opinion" bit. For every person who knows what he's talking about, there are 100 who make me think that the only FF game they've played is the one they say is the best. You might be able to think of a reason why the FF fans who got in there first should be better informed, but the reality seems to be that they aren't any better informed than the people who picked up the series with the PSX or even the PS2.

Nothing you've said here has actually disproven my point, and only shows your general defensiveness about it.

You can be defensive, but more experience is more expierence.  There really isn't anything else to say about it.

If you take two perfectly equal people and have 1 play them in order at the time of release, and the other not play them in order.

The one who plays the games in order is the one who will be more expierenced and be able to give a better opinion.

This is generally undeniable.

As such, you would need to prove that the people who started at 7 and beyond were somehow superior inherently to deny the advantage of having played the Final Fantasy games at time of release.

This of course is a claim that makes no sense.

As such, expierence generally wins out.  As for "nostalgia glasses"... these are videogames.  All one needs to do to see if they have nostalgia glasses or not is replay the game and see how it holds up.  Most games that were actually great when you played them will still hold up today, unless what made them great was some sort of industry defining thing that was later copied and improved upon or replaced later.

It really does say something that very few people who have played 6 before 7 think 7 is better... and that very few people who played 7 before 10 think 10 is better.

Also, that nobody thinks FF1 is the best FF ever.  FF1 actually being my First Final Fantasy.

Second Console RPG behind Dragon Warrior.

FreeTalkLive knows his stuff. Some you should take a page from his book.

Lol, the rant video wasn't good. :)

Thanks for putting some of my thoughts into words.  Now we need another thread like this but with Super Mario Bros. :)