The Gaming Den

I'm going to commit some hardcore heresy here, especially considering how shallow my complaint is: I actually don't like FF9 all that much. I've played and seen enough of the game to know that I could really like it but I absolutely despise the character designs in the game. It's a complete dealbreaker for me. I seriously would rather play the shallow teenyboppers of 8 than the goofy cutesy cartoon characters of 9.

I'm the opposite. I much preferred the chatacter models of 9. It gave it a weird retro feel ( for me ).
The big heads and general character art direction made it feel like an SNES game stepped into '3D-land'.

I think it might be a reactionary thing: FF8 went for more grown-up realistic characters (admittedly, teenagers with no/bad personalities, and the overall graphical effect was really grainy because of the level of detail they were trying to get in that engine). Also, everybody hated FF8 (because it was shit).

So the take-home lesson for Square was "people want the character design of the SNES games, which is also the non-combat design FF7 had" and then they just went all-out and made half the cast kids (and the rest of them extra cartoony, like Rusty).

FF9 didn't seem to be that popular, maybe because of timing or advertising or "people still had bad feelings from 8" or because there was no iconic sword, or maybe because they didn't want to play as cartoony kids. Either way, it seems they then launched back in the other direction for 8, going for all-adults (or late teens) again, and this time with a processor that can handle the level of detail. And 10 was actually popular enough that it didn't result in 1112 being back to chibis or children.

Koumei wrote:FF9 didn't seem to be that popular, maybe because of timing or advertising or "people still had bad feelings from 8" or because there was no iconic sword, or maybe because they didn't want to play as cartoony kids. Either way, it seems they then launched back in the other direction for 8, going for all-adults (or late teens) again, and this time with a processor that can handle the level of detail. And 10 was actually popular enough that it didn't result in 1112 being back to chibis or children.

Yea, all of the above.
It was released way too late in the PSX life cycle, the PS2 was already slated for release ffs.

As well as 8 burning people out and not appealing to the ZOMG GRAFIXIZ crowd, 9 was definitely a niche game. It wasn't as awesome as other under-sold games (Xenogears), but it definitely didn't get enough love.

I also didn't like the way FF9 seemed to rely too much on mini-games and sub-systems I wasn't interested in. I hated the FF8 card game, and I hated the FF9 one just as much. Likewise having to Steal* all the time just to get good items and to power up Z-Man's best attack, and having to Demi enemies so Fatso could eat them and learn moves...

*Enemies having steal-only items that aren't found on their corpses is something that particularly pisses me off in games.

FFTA and Marche.

Hero or villain?

Lago PARANOIA wrote:FFTA and Marche.

Hero or villain?

Hero.

The games got a pretty obvious message about how it is important to live in the real world, not some elaborate fantasy. It could have been done a lot better, maybe drawing some parallels between the one guy's dad (Mewt?) drinking rather than facing his problems, but it is easy to see what they were going for.

Besides, you would realize Ivalice is a crap sack world if you had to live there. The all powerful monarch, the omnipresent judges unfailing enforcing the interchanging and pointless laws, that fact that the number one economic activity seems to be gang warfare, and the fact that monsters are so rampant that mercenaries are always in demand all add up to a world that would be terrible to live in if you were not the star of the show.

Oh, oh, can we talk about Ivalice? Specifically the non-tactics games that are set in Ivalice. We could talk about XII, which I like a lot, but I'd rather talk about Vagrant story, which cannalogically takes place in Ivalice after all the races other than humans have died out due to a cataclysm.

Guys what is you favorite Bahamut to make an appearance in final fantasy? Mine is ff9 because blind demon dragon fucks shit up is important to the plot if only vaguely.

Also why the fuck is there only five summons in all of FF15? My only complaint for the game is is lack of summons damn it.

Mine is the FFIV version because in the first North American version (the one released for the SNES as "Final Fantasy II") Megaflare is called Meganuke, and that is the most awesome name for a spell in any Final Fantasy ever.