Worst/Least Favorite Final Fantasy Game?

[prfsnl_gmr]

Thanks. I do most of my gaming on portable machines now; so, I think I will pick up a PSP soon. (I may start getting some of the games right now, however, since GameStop is almost giving them away...)

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Yep, now is the best time to get PSP games. There's so much good stuff on handhelds! I think I'll skip this gen. I really will.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I agree. I am going to start stocking some essential titles. With two very young children and a busy work schedule, the Nintendo DS Lite has been my system of choice for the past few years, and I think a PSP would be an inexpensive way for me to get some great portable titles. (I also hear that they are pretty good for emulation...)

[SwooshBear]

I've only played VII through X, so I don't really have much of a say-so. VII was my first non-pokemon RPG, and it is in my top five favorite games ever. I really liked IX but never got around to finishing it. X was okay from what I played, and VIII's battle system wasn't great and the game overall didn't hold my interest. I'm really interested in I-IV on psp so I'll be playing one of those the next time I'm in the mood for an RPG.

[greg]

The first Final Fantasy game I played was 7. I liked it, and I was one of the many who were introduced to the series this way. Before then, I had played games like Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger, but not Final Fantasy. So, there is some nostalgic appeal. I've only played it once, long ago. I cried during that one scene just like everyone else. I thought the materia system was pretty cool, so that way everyone could use magic.

Then I moved on to 8. I thought the cinematic cut scenes were exciting (but that isn't what makes it a game), and I thought the Myst-style puzzle solving at the end mansion was real cool. However, I really grew to hate this game, and Spoony's review of this game encompasses most of my complaints. The draw system was tedious, as well as the stat micromanaging. The summon spell animations took too long and became boring. I can't stand card games, so I didn't even bother playing the card game at all. The most annoying thing about the game was its over-reliance on the Guardian Forces. Apparently they took the good idea of the junctioning from FF6 and made it a mess. In 6, junctioning was a way of building your stats and learning new spells and such. However in 8, you must be junctioned to a GF, or else your character is useless. Without being junctioned, not only can you not cast spells, but you can't even use items, for Bob's sake. You can't use even those fire effect items, or a cure potion without being junctioned. You can't even reach into your pocket and toss some pocket lint or a wad of some ABC gum at an enemy, and you can't draw, either. Only attack.

So I didn't bother with the card game, but I managed to get through the game. My hatred for the game drove me to complete it. The evil queen picks 3 characters at random, and by chance all three of my most-junctioned characters were selected from the beginning. I was able to cast the healing, wall, and reflect spells immediately and start fighting. And it turns out that everyone all grew up in the same orphanage together and the evil queen was their teacher, but somehow nobody ever remembers that. HUH? Oh gosh, that was stupid. The thing about Laguna and his daughter was charming, though.

Then 9 came out, and the card game in that was not optional like in 8, but mandatory. Ugh. Pass. Plus the character design for the main character looked so ridiculously retarded. I have never played a FF game past 8. Instead, I turned to the older games.

6 is my all-time favorite. I really enjoyed the storytelling in that game. 5 was great and I like the job system, but the characters aren't very memorable as in 4 and 6. 4 was nice. I stared playing 1 on the PS1 collection, but I stopped about 2 years ago. I got lost on the boat, trying to find the elf village to buy some Softs, and the constant encounter rate really got on my nerves. I got side-tracked and never finished it.

So I have FF2 on the PS1 Origins game, but I also have it for the PSP. I heard that you have to keep slashing your party members to level them up in the original. Are all the remakes an improvement on that flawed system? The PS1 Origins collection of 1 and 2 are basically ports of the Wonderswan versions, IIRC.

[KoLAddict]

My least favorite FF was the original 2 (not the SNES 2 or the official FFIV). I did not like the leveling system at all.

Now as for the card games in 8/9, I actually loved the card game in 8 because there was a purpose. You could break down those cards into items you could use. 9's had that one time you had to actually do the card game, and you couldn't do anything else with the cards. I also didn't like that the cards in 9 had random stats and such, so it was possible to get rare cards that sucked or were completely useless cuz they had no arrows on them.

Now probably my favorite minigame in a FF title is Blitzball in 10. I loved it and probably put more time into that than I did doing the rest of the game. I'm really a sucker for minigames where you get items and such you can use in the regular game.

[Konacha]

The only Final Fantasy game I haven't played is Final Fantasy V, I have it just haven't felt like playing it. As for my Worst/Least Favorite is II and XII but for different reasons.

II, the leveling system was just sooo weird and strange, it felt like I was playing a different game and when I first played it I didn't understand how it worked (I played it on the PSP first) as I thought it was just like the other ones. When I finally learned how to do it I just didn't like how it worked since it felt like I was "level grinding" forever to make sure those stats were the ones to work with only.

XII, I didn't like the story and the game felt like Final Fantasy XI offline, now I played FFXI and liked it (the only online game I played till I just didn't have the time) and the battle system for that worked for online but then when I played XII it felt like an offline version of XI. Plus, it just seemed Vaan was just along for the ride later on in the game and didn't really bring much to the game.

[outlaw_moon]

FFXIII! Nuff said!

Don't know what is going on but it seems pretty CG is at the developers list And I am getting tired of the whole futuristic utopian settings. They need new settings and environments.

[GigaPepsiMan]

VI and IX are the only ones I beat so they are my favourites by default. Surprised by the hate for Final Fantasy VIII because I've seen it get a lot of praise in other players, if anything the thing I disliked about VIII was how the game punished you for leveling up.

I have played several Final Fantasy games extensively and while I like VII the extended universe ruins the experience for me slightly, X is just a really odd game, the theming to me was all over the place and X-2 only made that problem worse.

[Menegrothx]

I thought the materia system was pretty cool, so that way everyone could use magic.

I really liked the system too but I disagree with the bolded part. Apples and oranges, but in good RPG system, like Fallout for example, you can't do everything with one character. You've got to specialize, make hard choiches and sacrifices. If you're a warrior and you want to start picking locks and stealing from people, it means that you either have to gradually become a rogue and play accordingly, or sacrifice some of your warrior stats like strength and endurance in order to acquire those new skills. You'll die faster and hit for less damage, but you might be able to sneak past some enemies, or steal a key and use it on a shortcut, which makes up for the loss of some stats.