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[alabtrosMyster]

Love me some nonsensical story.

We are Xoomers!

 

[Outlier]

Bad design is bad design. The worst thing a developer can do is waste the audiences time with filler/padding/busy work.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Does this apply to the mmo as well? Always wanted to try it but I feel like the western media being obssesed with japanese content, they always overpraise it.

 

[RydonStarLives]

I played through 6,7,8,9,10, 13, and 15, and am currently playing through 12. And they all use the same way to build the narrative, the same long-winded mission structures, and exactly the same character relationship building designed to work late-game as well and use the same character arcs and character types, over and over.

It is kinda interesting to note that you are playing through the non-Sakaguchi directed Final Fantasy installments. After FF V, the series takes a pretty big turn, and goes more toward technology driven villains/empires, more mellow-drama, and overall more emphasis on the story.

Not to say Sakaguchi directed FF games (FF I - V) don't have story or melodrama, or even technology within them, but it was much more heightened from VI onward.

You will probably still experience the same feelings you have with the other games if you play these, but also, you will probably be looking for them.

I think FF III is one of the greatest games ever made, taking into account when it came out 1989, what was packed within a famicom cartridge at the time, and just how epic the story was. But, for you, you will probably just see the story as padding or busy work, but I would not call it that. Assassin's Creed and other open world checklist games are busy work, with copy and paste objectives to repeat ad nauseum until you have them all completed. Final Fantasy games (at least the old ones in my book, I-IX) have ever changing objectives that culminate in some out of this world, extra dimensional, over-the-top boss battle to save the entire world, galaxy, or universe as the characters know it. It's supposed to be off the wall and over-the-top, that is what is fun about them. You go and do all these crazy adventures, meet new people, and learn some about these exaggerated characters. I wouldn't call it busy work or padding, and if a game feels like that, then you need to shut it off.

 

[ethomaz]

I played through 6,7,8,9,10, 13, and 15, and am currently playing through 12. And they all use the same way to build the narrative, the same long-winded mission structures, and exactly the same character relationship building designed to work late-game as well and use the same character arcs and character types, over and over.

Right now in 12, I'm at the beginning, and I just ran around the city heralding Basch in a strange sequence, and I just ran around in the mines, back and forth. The way it uses 2-3 hours to build a tiny story arch they could have used 30 minutes on, is everywhere in Final Fantasy. It's a common design principle. The amount of holes in the story in 12 is absolutely comical, the entire party I'm running around with haven't even asked each other who they are.

Final Fantasy stories are shoddy sci-fi that relies on the player getting attached to the characters in your party. The way they build the party, and how they make the player get attached to these characters, is almost always based on the stereotypical Japanese JRPG method. That involves spending a lot of time with your party during long missions that add one piece to the story. Over the course of many hours, they build a narrative and relationships that start to yield fruit late-game. It's extremely common to use time like this in JRPGs, you see it everywhere, it's an ancient outdated design philosophy.

The problem with this is that you have to come up with ways to do long missions, and almost every Final Fantasy does this by having long-winded mostly boring grind missions, but by the end when the mission is over and the new piece of the story unfolds, you forget about the mediocre shit you did the last hour cause you are excited to see what happens next. For example, I just spent an hour or two fighting bats and insects in a mine. It was as mediocre as you can get. Yet, people don't wanna talk about that stuff when they talk about FF12, even though those sort of missions is the majority of the game.

I have never played one Final Fantasy where at least 30%-40% of the game was not mediocre. And every time fans speak about the game, they always conveniently only mention the big story arcs or the music and completely ignore most of the game they actually played.

I have doubts before if you ever played a FF game…

By padding, I mean sections of a game that is 3 hours long, but only needed to be one hour.

Final Fantasy is built upon long sections of combat that reveal some slight part of the story, sometimes, the games will spend 4-5 hours before they unveil the next part of the story. Like:

- You meet some girl in a castle you just sneaked into. The girl wants to escape.
- You know she's the princess, it's obvious.
- Spend 2 hours escaping the castle with the girl.
- Spend another 2 hours running errands so you get enough money to buy a ship to escape the lands.
- Spend 2 hours fighting off soldiers who try to capture the girl.
- And then one day she turns to you and says "I'm the princess".

Some version of that is the intro section in every Final Fantasy. You always meet someone mysterious who is not who they say they are. It's 6 hours that was supposed to be one, but the writers don't know how to write stories efficiently, so they do what all JRPGs do, use excessive time and long missions to force the player to get used to the characters. Every little arch in Final Fantasy games uses padding and time to convey characters. It's ridiculous.

Now I’m sure.

 

[WoJ]

Doesn't this describe, like any game where there is an emphasis on narrative?

 

[Xdrive05]

I haven't played the PS1 FF games since the 90s, and I'm afraid to go back and find out they were not "deep" like my tweenage angst perceived them to be.

I like it better this way.

 

[rickybooby87]

 

[Filben]

I'm confused by those terms "boomers" and "zoomers" lately. Never heard them, like three years ago.

Anyways, I liked Final Fantasy before technology was ready to make it anime, with cutscenes, voice overs, over-exagerated body-language and facial expressions you only had a hint of by pixels in the 8 and 16 bit era.

Also, I feel like 90% of open world games these days have 80% padded content. And I hate it.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Who's assed about the opinions of a generation were their FF VII is Undertale. I'm good.

 

[JLB]

A zoomer? whats that?

 

[ethomaz]

A zoomer? whats that?

It is the digital manifestation of generation Z.
They are basically the first generation to be always online (they born after the internet).

I’m from the previous generation (Y or Millennial) that didn’t have internet in the children age… there is big shock of mentality due that.

Basically zoomers believes they knows everything and that the way they do or thinks are the only right way… plus they love to point and tell you are wrong because you are not doing how he believes to be the right way.

I would say it is near impossible to never have constant with a Zooner in the internet… they are pretty vocal to reach you and tells you are wrong.

 

[Lone Wolf]

A zoomer? whats that?

I think its people that own Mazda vehicles.

 

[MikeM]

Had to google what zoomer meant.

Which ones did you play?

 

[K2D]

The complaint about grinding - but I have yet to play a FF where I felt I had to grind? I played 6 through 10 and finally 7R. All of those were designed in a way where you might have to use some brain power if you weren't decently geared or leveled..
And yes that include 8 without resorting to card refining or magic grinding.
Some might interject for 12 through 15 here, but the thread speaks of "every" FF..

 

[Dave_at_Home]

The longer Final Fantasy series goes on, the more evidence the FBI gathers on you weeaboo suckers.

 

[Kumomeme]

 

[01011001]

and you are 100% correct. especially FFVIII which is one of the worst RPGs ever created, and FFXIII which is just a big, long, corridor shaped joke

 

[Tschumi]

I feel like your mug should say "louda crowda clam chouda"

For me final fantasy these days is gameplay gimmicks meets mandatory 60+ hour plot of.. some description meets hairstyles

 

[Bragr]

 

[rickybooby87]

ME: