One man's psychotic rage towards Final Fantasy 8

Post by **marurun** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:48 am

I played FF7 up until shortly after the Golden Saucer and watched a friend play portions after. I found the story wholly uncompelling. All the characters were stereotypes and stock characters. The inflatable balloon character graphics didn't help. One thing that drove me nuts, and this also bothered me about Final Fantasy VIj/IIIus was that the enemies seemed to have no connection to actually functionality or the environments they were in. Why the hell am I fighting what looks like a giant robotic yo-yo? And why is it out on the plans, roaming freely? What does it do? What is it's purpose? Why am I compelled to beat it up? Many of the FF games have this problem, where enemies not only don't seem to fit in their environment, but don't seem to belong in ANY environment.

I did not play FF8 but I watched my friend play it quite a bit. I was a perpetual audience. He and I both got fed up rather quickly. We found, once again, the story and characters unconvincing. As with every Final Fantasy game there were a lot of combats and very few were really challenging, making combat largely pointless, an exercise in wasting time to drag out the time between cut scenes or character interaction. And in fact, most of the character interaction was too dragged out as well. I think Both FF7 and FF8 would actually have been more compelling games if the combats were fewer and harder and the character interactions more concise.

I also played the first bit of FF9 recently and just got thoroughly bored with it, for many of the same reasons above.

The FF series is emblematic of the key problems with modern RPGs. Combats serve little purpose save to stretch out the play experience. Most combats aren't challenging at all and feature enemies that often seem silly or out of place. One RPG that really fought this trend was Panzer Dragoon Saga. Yes, it too had random combats, but some of them were hard and all the creatures you fight seem like they belong in their environments and have a purpose other than that of simply opposing your forward progress. PDS also didn't have a lot of wasted motion. Everything you do if the game propels it forward. Clocking at 20 - 25 hours it's easily long enough, but it never feels like the game is wasting your time just to make itself seem longer.

I think a couple selections from Gamespot's review of PDS sums it up nicely, particularly in comparison to most "traditional" console RPGs.

"Panzer Dragoon Saga has been called Sega's answer to Final Fantasy VII, but that is an unfair comparison. Panzer Saga, in its own way, is so much more than Squares' ultimate RPG... ...Panzer Dragoon Saga is truly a 'cinematic RPG.' Wide-screen in vision and Technicolor at heart..."

Post by **Ender** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:26 pm

Agree with you this game can be frustrating at the beginning, but it is so great that I encourage everyone to play it and finish it.
I have a savegame with 110+ hours

The deep storyline is just superb.

Nice videos btw ^^

Post by **marurun** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:07 pm

I shouldn't have to put 5+ hours into a game in order to begin to enjoy it. If the game doesn't become fun within hour 1 it gets dropped. Even the game is supposed to be 40+ hours long and 5 hours is just a drop in the bucket, 5 hours out of my life playing something I do not enjoy is simply a waste of my time and Square's. Why on earth isn't it fun right from the get-go? Sounds like a SERIOUS design flaw to me.

Post by **pocket** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:27 pm

so stop playing after 1 hour.

Post by **GagaMan** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:44 pm

The kind of stuff shown in these videos is exactly what puts me off RPG's almost entirely. I just don't have the time for these things, and half the time they just seem to have any real enjoyment to them, they're more of a chore than anything.

Post by **marurun** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:43 pm

There is certainly an art to finding the right balance, and that balance, for me, has shifted a bit as I've gotten older.

Post by **kinn** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:42 am

marurun wrote:I played FF7 up until shortly after the Golden Saucer and watched a friend play portions after. I found the story wholly uncompelling. All the characters were stereotypes and stock characters. The inflatable balloon character graphics didn't help. One thing that drove me nuts, and this also bothered me about Final Fantasy VIj/IIIus was that the enemies seemed to have no connection to actually functionality or the environments they were in. Why the hell am I fighting what looks like a giant robotic yo-yo? And why is it out on the plans, roaming freely? What does it do? What is it's purpose? Why am I compelled to beat it up? Many of the FF games have this problem, where enemies not only don't seem to fit in their environment, but don't seem to belong in ANY environment.

Agreed 100% on that.

I guess that for these kind of games maybe you have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy them? I mean sometimes you just love a certain song only because of your mood i.e. sad music when your feeling down etc.

I loved FF7/8 a lot back in the day and I still love them now. I've been meaning to replay these again but just thinking about all those random battles just puts me off. I dont even find them enjoyable. Just seems like the designers wanted to tell a story but needed to cram some kind game/battle mechanic in there as well.

That and the massive time commitment puts me off!

Post by **Mozgus** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 12:40 pm

Arg, I lost interest in FF8 since that epic retarded twist at the orphanage. I haven't played in a week now.

"DER! Our GFs erased our childhood memories of when we were raised by Edea! This is so weird!"

Why can't Japanese people write stories? I hate it when this happens. I just don't care how the rest of the game plays out anymore. I hate all the characters now. I'm tired of:

Squall saying "...whatever."
Rinoa crying like a baby
Zell punching air
Quistis moping over being demoted
Irvine not being able to pull a god damn trigger
Selfie jumping up and down over the most boring events

Now that I think about it, Squaresoft never really has made any good characters.

Post by **JJJ** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:05 pm

I think Square has made some great characters. Tons of them in Xenogears, Chrono Trigger. Maybe Chrono Cross too - I haven't gotten far enough yet though.

Post by **marurun** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:28 pm

Oh, you mean like the MAIN CHARACTER in Chrono Trigger who doesn't say a damn thing and therefore has no character whatsoever? Square creates characters without subtlety. They're all caricatures or stock characters, with only one or two personality traits and personal interactions defined solely by those 2 traits.

Somehow the best FPS games have trumped the character development in the best RPGs. How did this happen? Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Wheel of Time, they all make even the most recent console RPGs look like amateurs in the character department.