It should be noted that, despite my dislike of FF7, if you've ever wanted to play it and haven't, you could potentially pick it up on Steam and get achievements. There seems to be 36 achievements.

Getting everything on that dude was a nightmare, but it was always the Running Shoes I would always make sure I got before ending that battle. Being able to get Auto-haste on all of my characters before ending Disc 2 was just way too broken for me to ignore

Yeah, pretty much. On one level I appreciate that they tried something new with the combat, but what they came out with isn't special.

The plot and characters aren't terrible per se, just... totally forgettable. The only "memorable" part of the plot is that I remember at one point thinking I must be about halfway through the game, then they introduced a few story elements that made me go "hmmm.... maybe this game can get interesting after all." and then I slammed into the final boss with essentially no warning, won, and the game was over.

It felt like someone was writing a really slow moving novel that develops its ideas so the interesting stuff happens at the end, but then the author died halfway through writing it, so their agent wrote "and then all the good guys killed all the bad guys and life went back to normal, the end" and sent it to press.

As it's been mentioned in Youtube shows like Extra Credits, the strong point of JRPGs historically has been the story, and Final Fantasy 12 just fails.

Final Fantasy 8 and 10 are weak in that they rely on implausible plot devices to get by in some key spots, but as long as you can ignore that they have pretty good stories. Final Fantasy Tactics has a great "big story" picture that gets bogged down by way too much "filler story" (meeting characters who get important dialogue for one battle but are just totally irrelevant to the story as a whole happens over, and over, and over...) but the overarching story is excellent, so it's "worth it."

Final Fantasy X-2, for a thousand reasons, just takes a huge wet diarrhea **** on anyone who enjoyed Final Fantasy X.

I dunno. I feel like with some of the early Final Fantasy games at least, the only thing that made them stand out was the story, and they deserved all the praise they got for it. That got lost somewhere along the way, and without great story backing it up, Final Fantasy is just so mediocre. Most of them aren't terrible, but I can't see any of the recent ones making a top 10 list.

Storywise I think you can't go wrong with the Suikoden Series. Really is quite incredible overall and its too bad it seems dead as the way the set it up through 5 games it really could have been an epic few last games with everything coming together.

Xenogears 1st disc is near GOAT RPG status. Storywise though it says incredible into the 2nd disc.

Also, maybe not a JRPG but just accomplished this:



In link to the past. 100% completion in 4:42:36. Not that bad imo.

Agree with everything you said starvingwriter.

FF8 had some awful plot developments in it imo, but I still enjoyed the plot in the end. FFX was the same. I also thought the settings for both games were done really well, and especially 10. Even though the plots weren't the best, there's a lot of colorful and unique areas in the game that it makes the plot's shortcoming excusable. FFX especially. That game has so much crap in it that bothers me, yet at the same time there is so much detail paid to the characters and the each of the zones that it remains a great game.

FFT I enjoyed but fell short due to what you mentioned. There's probably about 2 hours worth of plot in the game, and the rest is just finding reasons to kill time and get your group to the next area. The plot itself is great, and Delita is a great character, which is good since he's the only character, but there's way too much nonsense inbetween.

I'm fairly certain that somewhere where they got lost was Spirits Within. A lot of the heads left the company, and are now in Mistwalker. I enjoyed Lost Odyssey a lot, and A Thousand Years of Dreams is a masterpiece imo, especially as far as the gaming world goes.

Especially with final fantasy X, I found I actually really liked the game, but it was punctuated once every hour two with a groan/wtf/sigh moment where the game just went full ****** in the plot or dialogue.

I think that's what appealed to me most about Persona 4 - it takes the strong point of JRPGs (the story) and really knocks it out of the park.

What's the best format to play FF Tactics on?

Hm. I played it originally on the PS2, then played it again on the PS Vita (the War of the Lions version is a PSP game). The PSP version technically has more content but imo it's mostly superficial - the occasional animated cutscenes look neat I guess but are definitely nothing special, and the two added classes both take so much levelling and grinding to unlock and make useful they may as well not even be there, you can probably do just about everything the game has to offer without getting them, so by the time you do get them you're basically just fighting the random battles and grinding for the sake of grinding.

It's certainly not any worse on the PSP though. I'd say either format is fine.

Sold.

£3.59 till tomorrow on PSN. Now I need to decide whether to start on this or have another crack at Disgaea AOD after I've finished virtue's last reward.

FFVIII hate is so LOL

however,

I do see why people get upset. When you really look back, actually think about the story. Everything that happens after Disc I is kind of out of the ordinary to say the least. FFVIII is very underrated, the part they really ****ed up other than the oping your characters early was the level scaling, so awful. the people who always try to bring up the orphanage thing is are so ****ing LOLworthy as if they have only played like 5jrpgs their entire life. Whats more is that people saying it was sloppy writing which was completely bull**** and SE did nothing sloppy pre 01. Same with Star oceans 3 plot twist, you just have to deal with it and the fact of the GFs erasing part of their memories was an acceptable answer to that. and for all the things in FFVIII, the fact that the orphange gets brought up but NOT NORG or odine simply destroying his machine is completely ridiculous.


FFIX doesn't get as much love even though the past year i ve been seeing more and more talk about it being great. it was really really good, rarely do you see jrpgs start stroong and only get better. FFIX had an amazing 2nd half. it was really ****ing good.


FF series might be completely heading to another direction gameplay wise.

Thread deserves a bump. Been awhile since I posted in this but I've been playing Tales of Xillia 2 (after beating the first one) and I find it's the best JRPG I've played in awhile. Been putting a lot of hours into this game so far. If you like the Tales series this is a no brainer.

same here. my least favorite ff by a huge margin

I took a long break from this game, but am like 70 hours in (also due to Fire Emblem: Awakening, had to make those babies) but I was wondering if you got the Wizards Edition? I was too late on the initial pre-order, mainly wanted to get it for the OST and the Wizards Companion book.

I just started ToX 2



Xillia was easily my 2nd fav tales game, loved the characters, the plot the overall game. I could go on and on but I had a blast playing XIllia


right now xillia 2 is really really pissing me off with the debt system. holy **** they just added this in here so the game would take longer than it is.

already had my say about ff8. it just wasnt thought out and executed as well as it should have been wrt gameplay. felt plot was pretty solid even though the whole game is like a roller coaster with what the **** is going on. still one of my fav FFs and a really good jrpg

can't wait till summer when I can play Persona 4 and FF XV

Beat Tales of Berseria last weekend, as a big tales fan, surprised i didnt enjoy it as much as I thought(alot of abyss vibes and abyss was my favorite), was super rated comin in and maybe that ****d my expectations, still a decent tales and better than graces






I just finished it a bit ago and must say, I wonder if anyone can help me with what im feeling? before I begin, I want to say that TotA(toX is 2nd) is my fav tales game and one of MY FAV JRPGS, had good world building, solid cast but the PLOT sucked me in, it had many layers and twists and i never wanted it to end, the game only got better as it went on for me, the first 5 hours were awful but after that 7-8hr mark i just felt gripped and never looked back.
all but ToG i always felt something, even with ToV which i felt the last 1/3 was absolute DOG****

I felt that ToB had everything that I ALMOST EVERYTHING I WANT IN A JRPG PLOT/STORY, it had a really solid cast, great world building, a unique but solid plot(no political stuff like in TotA but wehatev) with some twists and turns along the way, could have used more spice but still, ToB story had everything I think you could, or at least I could want in a jrpg story.

But for some ****ing reason it didn't grip me like most previous titles did (**** ToG that was ****ty game through and through) literally the first 20hrs I was waiting for that little kick I felt in ToX and ToTA(both super slow starts imo) and it came about right around the 25 hr mark for me rightbut it wasnt anything major like in previous tales games.

I kinda hate myself for not loving this game more, I can see why people praise it apart of its equipment and maybe battle system. but overall, felt it was okay to goodish for sure but expected just a little more investment on my part like in previous tales games. felt a hollow feelign throughout when I know i shouldn't because this game has a lot of things I like in a story, sure tehre are some things it missed but still, felt thi tales game really was kinda like the closest we've gotten to abyss imo, not sure if anyone feels the same


gonna play ToZ now