Can someone please explain what's so special about Final Fantasy?

[Belfpally39]

Okay so before I ask the question I may as well give a reason to why I am asking the question. So when I was hanging out with my friends guild last night they were going nuts over the new Final Fantasy game and I simply asked "What is Final Fantasy and why are you guys acting like its the greatest game ever?" I just wanted a explanation on what the game is and the answer I received was "Are you F***ing retarded?" and so I asked again and was just being ignored from that point on. So I come here today to ask the people on the mmo-champion forums what is so special about Final Fantasy? Like I would really appreciate it if someone could explain the Final Fantasy game series for me. Thank you for your time.

[Wynnyelle]

They're popular JRPGs. People like them because they're fun. I don't know what else to say about them, really. If you don't know what they are, you should look up videos or something. That should give you a good idea.

[Belloc]

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy

[Belfpally39]

Alright thanks.

[Phookah]

They are J-RPG's. Cant' really explain them as 95% of them have nothing to do with each other.
As for why they ask you incredulously "Are you retarded?"
Not knowing what FF is and being a video game nerd is like being a movie buff and not knowing what Star Wars is.

[unholytestament]

It's a Japanese role playing game series that's almost as old as console gaming itself. I cannot fathom anyone being into games all that long without hearing about it.

[RaoBurning]

Final Fantasy is a long series of mostly really awesome role playing games put out by Squaresoft, and later Square-Enix. The first launched on the Famicom/NES in 1987. According to rumor, the game was titled as such because it was to be Squaresoft's final installment before going under. It was a huge success, however, and saved the floundering company.

There are many numbered titles in the Final Fantasy series. There are certain common elements, but the continuity for each is unique. There are few true sequel games, such as FF X-2 (read as ten-two) and two sequels for Final Fantasy 13. There are unnumbered spinoff titles, such as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

What makes Final Fantasy unique is the high quality of the gameplay and grandiose story telling. The series has been very well received by fans for nearly 30 years, with rare exception. The great debate among fans is whether Final Fantasy VI (III in the original American release) or Final Fantasy VII is the greatest installment in the series to date. FF VI debuted on the Super Nintendo and VII on the Playstation, which may account for some of the controversy given the generational and graphical differences between the two. Fortunately, they're both awesome so you can't go wrong playing either.

For more details, see the Wikipedia entry.

[teddytous]

Why don't you just go play one? You need someone to explain the concept of why a game is popular?

They are a party based RPG with linear stories set in a quasy-connected universe(numerations are not set in the same exact world, but you do see recurring elements, or perceived elements. Most of them consist of a party of 3-4 PCs, and most the later renditions give you choice over what characters to use. Most of the stories consist of the PCs trying to stop a larger evil, with political overture or background story, and the use of recuing magical elements(usually through stones, crystals, or some sort of physical manifestation). It also has recurring steampunk elements, but they are not central to the theme. It has been in existence since 1987 on the NES, and has had many spin offs and numerations on the SNES, PS, GAMCUBE, WII, PS2, PS3, PC, and all of Nintendo's handhelds. It has action, strategy, racing, and puzzle spin offs, and is often considered to be the JRPG that finally successfully made its way into western culture.

[Sj]

Please don't make threads with vague titles. Renamed thread.

[Deleted]

I have never liked Final Fantasy so here is m take of it. (ITS MY OPINION SO BACKOFF WITH THE FIRE!)

Ok here goes:
You are a fancy-pancy-elf-like-person with colorful fluffy hair. You run around in this fancy world where everything is supper shiny.
The combat is turn based, so if you wanna play a better game in the middle of the combat you are free to do so. The story is linear, so no matter what you do the outcome is the same. The story is a fine balance between cheesy and corny. The voice acting makes you wanna stab yourself in the face and the dialogue is written by a angst-ridden teenager. You can never tell if the characters are male or female and they all carry ridiculously large swords and yell out random Pokemon names as they swing.

There, I just saved you like 30 days of your life. You can now do something useful with that time like... making a huge tower out of cottage cheese.


Please do not troll. --Sj

[Alvito]

The console games after FF3 pretty much pushed the limits on the graphics you saw from any other games out at the time. In depth stories and even the bad games have good game play. That and the much forgotten awesome FF Tactics is just pure awesome!

[Deleted]

Nothing. They're overhyped and and severely outclassed by superior JRPGS like the Persona series.

[MisterMxyzptlk]

They are about 5 good games, FF2 through 6, 4 okay games. FF1 and FF 7 through 9, and down hill from there out.
None of them deserve the praise they get from the fan boys. Long story short they are over-rated JRPGs

Note: I'm only counting the numbered FF, not FFT FFTA and FFTA2, cause those where totally different and awesome.

If you want some really good JRPGs... Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, most of the "Tales Of" games, Mario RPG (also the mario and luigi rpgs and paper mario rpgs except sticker star), Earthbound, if you can read Japanese or have a way to translate it Mother 3 is awesome, skies of arcadia.. i could go on but all of those i found more enjoyable then any of the FF's

Edit: almost forgot "The Last Story" totally epic game from Hironobu Sakaguchi the creator of Final Fantasy (who btw wrote was 6 the last good one, and the last one he even worked on was X-2, the last one before the major decline)

[Rucati]

They're basically just JRPGs that are grind heavy with turn based combat. Could never get into it personally, grinding enemies for experience for hours is boring as hell, and turn based combat is always a turn off. Never seen a fight where people take turns hitting each other with swords, not to mention it's kind of brainless, you can't parry or dodge or anything, just click to attack and click what to attack and sit there. Hell I think there are some versions with auto select attacks, basically plays the game for you.

[Deleted]

They're basically just JRPGs that are grind heavy with turn based combat. Could never get into it personally, grinding enemies for experience for hours is boring as hell, and turn based combat is always a turn off. Never seen a fight where people take turns hitting each other with swords, not to mention it's kind of brainless, you can't parry or dodge or anything, just click to attack and click what to attack and sit there. Hell I think there are some versions with auto select attacks, basically plays the game for you.

Staple of the RPG genre, instead of bashing buttons and twitching like a mong, you use your head and think of the best course of action to take.
if you want the former, you aint looking for an RPG, but a hack and slash.

[namelessone]

Staple of the RPG genre, instead of bashing buttons and twitching like a mong, you use your head and think of the best course of action to take.

And the best course of action to take is grind. So instead of using your skill with game mechanics, you rely on a mass of free time you have.

[Tackhisis]

They were actually fun in 1980s: they had an explorable world with cities, buildings and dungeons, airships... but now they are just grindy anime crap they actually always were.

Just look at new edition of FF3 and tell us whether you want to puke looking at sexless protagonist?

[Gandrake]

Nothing. They're overhyped and and severely outclassed by superior JRPGS like the Persona series.

really?

Persona is less about character building and customization and more about character relationships than anything. Unless you put in some kind of cheat code for all of the skill cards, then it's about being overpowered and beating up the same monsters in the same environment, doing the same thing over and over again that requires no actual ability to process any truly unique thought.

Final Fantasy games used to be popular because there was nothing like them. A vast universe, sidequests, fun minigames, long as hell, character exclusive special abilities, an extensive selection of abilities and equipment, tons of characters and party diversity.

But in a game like Persona, "party diversity" is defined as "this pokemon is super effective against that one". With a game like Final Fantasy, it can still be like that, but it's a little more complex than "fire hurt bad on this one".

[unholytestament]

And now this is devolving into a "my JRPG is better than yours!" argument...

[Deleted]

The ones I played had EPIC ost. Like real epic. Nobuo Uematsu <3