The Final Fantasy Thread

[Pargon]

r/FinalFantasy - Final Fantasy Games as Ranked by Japan (NHK)

356 votes and 511 comments so far on Reddit

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http://archive.fo/KCz0t

Here are the top Final Fantasy games as ranked by viewers in NHK's (The Japanese public broadcaster, like BBC/PBS) Final Fantasy Grand Poll, which aired on Saturday night.

1. Final Fantasy X (2001)
2. Final Fantasy VII (1997)
3. Final Fantasy VI (1994)
4. Final Fantasy IX (2000)
5. Final Fantasy XIV (2013-)
6. Final Fantasy V (1992)
7. Final Fantasy VIII (1999)
8. Final Fantasy IV (1991)
9. Final Fantasy XI (2002-)
10. Final Fantasy XV (2016)
11. Final Fantasy Tactics (1997)
12. Final Fantasy III (1990)
13. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (2007)
14. Final Fantasy XIII (2009)
15. Final Fantasy XII (2006)
16. Final Fantasy Type-0 (2011)
17. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (2003)
18. Final Fantasy II (198
19. Final Fantasy X-2 (2003)
20. Mobius Final Fantasy (2015-)
21. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (2013)
22. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003)
23. Dissidia Final Fantasy (200
24. Final Fantasy (1987)
25. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (2007)
26. Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy (2011)
27. Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden; Mystic Quest [EU]) (1991)
28. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (2011)
29. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (2009)
30. Final Fantasy Record Keeper (2014-)

​

MUSIC (Top 10)

1. Zanarkand (X)
2. Clash On The Big Bridge (V)
3. Eyes On Me (VIII)
4. Searching For Friends (VI)
5. Blinded By Light (XIII)
6. One-Winged Angel (VII)
7. Aerith's Theme (VII)
8. Melodies of Life (IX)
9. Final Fantasy (Main Theme)
10. Those Who Fight Further (VII)

CHARACTERS (Top 10)

1. Cloud (VII)
2. Yuna (X)
3. Aerith (Aeris) (VII)
4. Vivi (IX)
5. Zidane (IX)
6. Emet-Selch (XIV)
7. Tidus (Tiida) (X)
8. Lightning (XIII)
9. Tifa (VII)
10. Zack (Crisis Core)

BOSSES and SUMMONS (Top 10)

1. Knights of the Round (VII)
2. Kefka (VI)
3. Hades (XIV)
4. Anima (X)
5. Omega (V)
6. Valefor (X)
7. Braska's Final Aeon (X)
8. Bahamut ZERO (VII)
9. Syldra (V)
10. Safer Sephiroth (VII)

Full results are posted here in Japanese, most of the mainline series also have voter breakdowns by age range/gender. A knowledge of Final Fantasy and basic Japanese is a lot more useful here than mastery of kanji: https://www.nhk.or.jp/anime/ff/

_____________________________________________________________

Personally I would have ranked Tactics higher, but the japs seem to have their shit together.

Of course Japanese players think the game which ushered in a half-dozen shit gameplay choices is the best one. I'm beginning to think they like their RPGs purposefully dense because it covers for how chronically awful their stories are. I certainly love having to swap out party members a half dozen times per battle just to be able to progress, I dunno about you.

 

[Inquisitor_BadAss]

Demo has released today and I’m just waiting for it to download. It’s just the first game mission, while i’m gonna play through the demo to see what it’s like and how it looks I have no intention on buying the actual game since I already have the original on my PS4.

Also it’s been downloading 30 minutes so far and it’s not even reach 25% download yet. So who’s managed to play it?

 

[HeyYou]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: 7 Biggest Changes (That Make Perfect Sense)

FF7 Remake gameplay: Luke and Mike have played three hours of the hugely ambitious Final Fantasy 7 Remake -- here are the biggest changes from the original t...

www.youtube.com

This video is actually pretty interesting, considering they do go in depth instead of just shilling. However, one thing stood out. They mention that they think that the first Remake will be covering Disk 1, which "basically took place almost entirely in Midgar". Hoo boy. Either they're misremembering the original or they're being way too positive.

 

[AlexJonesGotMePregnant]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: 7 Biggest Changes (That Make Perfect Sense)

FF7 Remake gameplay: Luke and Mike have played three hours of the hugely ambitious Final Fantasy 7 Remake -- here are the biggest changes from the original t...

www.youtube.com

This video is actually pretty interesting, considering they do go in depth instead of just shilling. However, one thing stood out. They mention that they think that the first Remake will be covering Disk 1, which "basically took place almost entirely in Midgar". Hoo boy. Either they're misremembering the original or they're being way too positive.

Everything seems to point to the first chapter of this being a midgar-only game which is lame but still could be interesting. Midgar is a cool city so if that's what they're gonna do then I sure hope they do it well.

My theory is that the FFV engine cannot support a decent overworld yet and they're focusing on midgar-only for now so they can shore up the feature set for the engine to avoid the disaster of the FFV overworld. There were a lot of really cool looking areas but it was so bland and uninteresting that simply throwing the FFVII story on top of it couldn't possibly save it.

If everything else is perfect in the VII remake but the overworld is just as bad as it was in XV then the game will be a failure; too much time is spent in between towns and the original VII made good use out of its overworld, especially with chocobo breeding.

 

[HeyYou]

Everything seems to point to the first chapter of this being a midgar-only game which is lame but still could be interesting. Midgar is a cool city so if that's what they're gonna do then I sure hope they do it well.

My theory is that the FFV engine cannot support a decent overworld yet and they're focusing on midgar-only for now so they can shore up the feature set for the engine to avoid the disaster of the FFV overworld. There were a lot of really cool looking areas but it was so bland and uninteresting that simply throwing the FFVII story on top of it couldn't possibly save it.

If everything else is perfect in the VII remake but the overworld is just as bad as it was in XV then the game will be a failure; too much time is spent in between towns and the original VII made good use out of its overworld, especially with chocobo breeding.

They're not using the FFXV engine for FFVII remake. It's UE4. Which almost certainly makes it easier to develop. At this point, I'd rather they use a super deformed world map. The other two options are having an empty and unfitting world map, like you said, or making the "world map" linear corridors from town to town. Both are awful.

Demo has released today and I’m just waiting for it to download. It’s just the first game mission, while i’m gonna play through the demo to see what it’s like and how it looks I have no intention on buying the actual game since I already have the original on my PS4.

Also it’s been downloading 30 minutes so far and it’s not even reach 25% download yet. So who’s managed to play it?

I'm playing it. It's pretty fun. The one thing I don't like though is that the story makes it obvious when Cloud is lying. Barret asks Cloud why he doesn't recognize the reactor layout, since he's supposed to be a SOLDIER. The screen fuzzes green for a second (due to the Mako poisoning) and Cloud bullshits an answer about reactors being built at different dates and thus having different layouts. It would have been far more impactful if Cloud just openly lies without skipping a beat, to make the reveal later hit harder. I get that most people playing the game already know how the story plays out, but a lot haven't. It's letting them know way too early that something's wrong.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I'm playing it. It's pretty fun. The one thing I don't like though is that the story makes it obvious when Cloud is lying. Barret asks Cloud why he doesn't recognize the reactor layout, since he's supposed to be a SOLDIER. The screen fuzzes green for a second (due to the Mako poisoning) and Cloud bullshits an answer about reactors being built at different dates and thus having different layouts. It would have been far more impactful if Cloud just openly lies without skipping a beat, to make the reveal later hit harder. I get that most people playing the game already know how the story plays out, but a lot haven't. It's letting them know way too early that something's wrong.

A ton would be blindsided by that twist today. Everyone knows Aeris dies. No one talks about the game's actual twist, and I'm convinced some that played it as kids and haven't touched it since didn't even get it. The original game makes it obvious something is wrong with Cloud early on, but gives no indication that he wasn't actually in SOLDIER.

 

[AlexJonesGotMePregnant]

They're not using the FFXV engine for FFVII remake. It's UE4. Which almost certainly makes it easier to develop. At this point, I'd rather they use a super deformed world map. The other two options are having an empty and unfitting world map, like you said, or making the "world map" linear corridors from town to town. Both are awful.


I'm playing it. It's pretty fun. The one thing I don't like though is that the story makes it obvious when Cloud is lying. Barret asks Cloud why he doesn't recognize the reactor layout, since he's supposed to be a SOLDIER. The screen fuzzes green for a second (due to the Mako poisoning) and Cloud bullshits an answer about reactors being built at different dates and thus having different layouts. It would have been far more impactful if Cloud just openly lies without skipping a beat, to make the reveal later hit harder. I get that most people playing the game already know how the story plays out, but a lot haven't. It's letting them know way too early that something's wrong.

Thanks for the correction on the engine, I'd heard otherwise. It's a shame, i liked a lot about the feel of FFXV, but nothing came together nicely.

An actual, meaningful world map to fit modern expectations in the FFVII world would be great. Move shit around to ensure the world serves gameplay over nostalgia. As long as there's a Zolom somewhere

 

[Kideo Hojima]

We got around a month until the first part of the remake comes out and turns out Red XIII won't be playable.

Spoiler: TEXT

Final Fantasy 7 Remake features Red XIII, but the beloved character will not be playable in the first game in the remake series. Talking to VG247, Final Fantasy 7 Remake co-director Naoki Hamaguchi said "We felt the point at which Red XIII joins the party in the story is very late on so we thought okay, if we’re gonna have him as a full character and try and get the player to enjoy his character development arc and growth as a character through that, it’s not really enough time to do that."

Instead of being a playable character, Red XIII will instead be an AI-controlled 'guest' party member, fighting alongside your playable team. "We thought that the best way to have him involved was as a guest character," Hamaguchi explained. "Normally throughout the game you’ll be playing as a three-man party, but you will have him as a guest character that fights alongside you during the the last part of the story.”

Hamaguchi reassures that the talking wolf/dog/flame-tailed canine will still be equipped with all his "nostalgic" moves, so it seems sensible to expect a bit of Sled Fang action in the Shinra building towards the end of the game.

Not explained in the interview is if Red XIII is confirmed to be playable in the second game in the remake series. Square Enix is not talking about the next game in general, though, so this isn't necessarily a sign of anything.

For more from Final Fantasy 7 Remake, check out our latest hands-on preview, as well as a close look at one of the biggest changes revealed so far, and our discussion with producer Yoshinori Kitase about Sephiroth's expanded role in Midgar.

 

[Inquisitor_BadAss]

So just completed first demo play through

And here’s what you get

Cloud starts of with the buster sword (obviously) a bronze bangle and the flame spell. Barrett when he joins the party gets cure and lightning during the scorpion sentinel fight.

Combat is free flowing and Cloud gets two modes of attack, operator for quick light attacks and punisher mode for heavy attack which makes it harder to dodge and you can change modes at any time during combat. Spells take mp (again obvious) but to use items or spell you must have at least one part of your gauges full, this charges automatically but depleted with commands used in your ability menu.

The guard dog is a hard enemy to fight and quite an early game tank while the shock trooper will dodging most attacks and hits like a tonne of breaks.

The scorpion sentinel is a bit of a slog for a first boss but by this point you’re going to have enough potions to get through it.

You can set the bomb for 20 or 30 minutes before fighting the scorpion sentinel but it isn’t a timed fight and the timer doesn’t actually start until the fight is over. It only took me ten minutes to get out of the reactor so they’re quite generous with how much they give you.

Story wise the sentinel actually does more damage to reactor then bomb itself, in fact the bomb doesn’t destroy the reactor (think of a fire cracker being set off next to a tank). President Shinra orders robots inside the mako reactor to attack the reactor and finish the job.

That’s where the demo ends and I enjoyed it quite a bit but I still don’t see myself buying the game at this point.

Pros - Looks great, voice acting is good except for Barrett who I found a little grating at times. Tutorial was well done and you got everything you needed to know within the first few minutes.

Cons - Barrett is slow in combat and I found it difficult for him to dodge. His gun will stop firing after sustained bursts but it fills your overcharged meter. Same again with cloud in punisher mode he practically slows to a crawl when moving unless he attacks.
Also there was a lot of needless waiting for doors to open before getting inside the reactor.

8/10

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Story wise the sentinel actually does more damage to reactor then bomb itself, in fact the bomb doesn’t destroy the reactor (think of a fire cracker being set off next to a tank). President Shinra orders robots inside the mako reactor to attack the reactor and finish the job.

This triggers me. If they're going to change things I wish they'd do it to make decisions in the story look less retarded rather than more retarded. Dropping the plate in the original game is hilarious overkill to kill like five dudes. In this game Avalanche is implied to be substantially larger. That's an improvement! But this..

 

[Tanner Glass]

This triggers me. If they're going to change things I wish they'd do it to make decisions in the story look less exceptional rather than more exceptional. Dropping the plate in the original game is hilarious overkill to kill like five dudes. In this game Avalanche is implied to be substantially larger. That's an improvement! But this..

Dropping the plate isn't just to kill the 5 dudes, though. It's supposed also demonize the larger Avalanche group and anyone who would associate with them. It's a world-scale event that helps paint Shinra as victims and gets them sympathy.

Additionally, Shinra is having issues harvesting power from the midgar area and it's a way to cut power by 1/8th, they don't care what happens to "Old" Midgar as they have the pie-in-the-sky plan in "Neo" Midgar. If they could blame more shit on Avalanche, they'd probably drop more plates.

 

[HeyYou]

Story wise the sentinel actually does more damage to reactor then bomb itself, in fact the bomb doesn’t destroy the reactor (think of a fire cracker being set off next to a tank). President Shinra orders robots inside the mako reactor to attack the reactor and finish the job.

That's not how I interpreted it, but my interpretation might be wrong. It seemed like the bomb worked, but the place was going to blow up much slower than expected. Shinra then ordered the place to be blown up faster to hopefully take out Cloud and Barret, who were still in the building. Or maybe he had a 4D chess plan to destroy it to discredit Avalanche, considering the reactor would need tons of repairs anyways.

My problem with the Cloud-Zack connection in Crisis Core is that Cloud was indeed pragmatic, arrogant, and quite the sarcastic anti-hero from the start of the game, and that persona really only broke down after Cloud's recovery from Mako poisoning and he realized who he was again. After that, Cloud, while still being a little snarky was way more similar to how Zack is portrayed in Crisis Core. When Cloud finally regained himself, he was a little more goofy, a little more kind, and a lot more optimistic (which completely through me off when I watched AC for the first time).
If Cloud really took on Zack's persona at the end of Crisis Core he would have acted like Zack to begin with, and then changed into his own personality at the end. Instead, it seems Cloud's personality at the end is more similar to Zack in Crisis Core.

Quoted for effing truth. I keep saying the same thing. If anything - in the original, pre-memory fix Cloud has more in common with Sephiroth than with Zack, making the comparison between Cloud and Zack utterly bizarre.
This is probably true. Though I also think that a lot of people just sorta forgot what Cloud was originally like playing the game.
Time passed, people played FF8 and FF9 etc. and the only memories that stuck with them from FF7 were naturally the most iconic ones, like the death of Aerith etc. where Cloud is, understandably, very emotional and very sad. Those scenes though, conspire to render their impression of Cloud as being largely emotional and sad as a character when they can't remember any of his other traits.
I'm playing the OG in Japanese on my PS Vita right now, and there, it's more obvious than ever that pre-memory fix Cloud has absolutely nothing in common with Zack what so ever. If anything, compared to the western localization, Cloud is a real jaded a-hole. His speech pattern, and sociolect shows him as often being condescending and mean - like a less slang-ridden Barret and less swearing Cid, but just as abrasive but without "a heart of gold" to compensate for it like the two other characters. It really isn't except when Tifa calls up memories of his old self, or when Aerith starts kicking on his heart-strings that Cloud shows any signs of being anything more than his SOLDIER persona in the beginning of the game.

Like I said in my previous post, I don't like claims that Cloud's true personality is similar to Zack. Outside of the fact that it defeats the entire point of the game, it makes no sense if you consider the out of game release dates. The only way Cloud's true personality = Zack is if you use Crisis Core, which was released after the original game released. So people are using a compilation game to disprove a compilation reading of Cloud's character. If we're just going off the original game, there's nothing that says that Cloud wasn't copying Zack's personality in his cocky state. Zack's quite cocky and carefree in the flashback, like yelling at the old man to drive faster and referring to Elmyra as "the mother". People are using non-FF7 sources to say that Zack is a complete nice guy. If Crisis Core is a valid source, Cloud is not a confident and extroverted character, he's shy and self-conscious. Going off that, his personality in Advent Children makes complete sense. Even if you consider the original game, Cloud was extremely emotional. He was self-conscious that the village kids didn't like him, dreamed of being a SOLDIER so he'd be accepted, and was overall very self-hating in the section where you put his personality back together. So either all of the compilation is valid, or none of it is. It's not fair to pick and choose.

We got around a month until the first part of the remake comes out and turns out Red XIII won't be playable.

Spoiler: TEXT

Final Fantasy 7 Remake features Red XIII, but the beloved character will not be playable in the first game in the remake series. Talking to VG247, Final Fantasy 7 Remake co-director Naoki Hamaguchi said "We felt the point at which Red XIII joins the party in the story is very late on so we thought okay, if we’re gonna have him as a full character and try and get the player to enjoy his character development arc and growth as a character through that, it’s not really enough time to do that."

Instead of being a playable character, Red XIII will instead be an AI-controlled 'guest' party member, fighting alongside your playable team. "We thought that the best way to have him involved was as a guest character," Hamaguchi explained. "Normally throughout the game you’ll be playing as a three-man party, but you will have him as a guest character that fights alongside you during the the last part of the story.”

Hamaguchi reassures that the talking wolf/dog/flame-tailed canine will still be equipped with all his "nostalgic" moves, so it seems sensible to expect a bit of Sled Fang action in the Shinra building towards the end of the game.

Not explained in the interview is if Red XIII is confirmed to be playable in the second game in the remake series. Square Enix is not talking about the next game in general, though, so this isn't necessarily a sign of anything.

For more from Final Fantasy 7 Remake, check out our latest hands-on preview, as well as a close look at one of the biggest changes revealed so far, and our discussion with producer Yoshinori Kitase about Sephiroth's expanded role in Midgar.

Yep, it's Midgar only. Fuck me. I have no idea how they're going to expand the Midgar section to be a full game, and if ends up only being 15 hours or so it's fair to be pissed. They claimed each part was going to be a full size game.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Yep, it's Midgar only. Fuck me. I have no idea how they're going to expand the Midgar section to be a full game, and if ends up only being 15 hours or so it's fair to be pissed. They claimed each part was going to be a full size game.

And this game's supposed to have been in development since, what, 2014? And all we get is an expansion of the first 4 hours of the original game?

What truly concerns me is when this game is going to be done, with all the parts actually released. It took them like 6 fucking years to finish what's basically the prologue of the original game. At this rate, they'll be done with the game by 2050.

 

[Marissa Moira]

We're supposed to be able to explore the upper plate and a ton of other areas we couldn't before.

Mind you the Trails series is based around this concept of offscreen mentions/world building getting full on couple hour long sequences in later games. The series is also up to 8-9 games with no signs of stopping.

Expanding stuff in games works, especially if all the shit is integrated and feels natural. Going by the trailer and demo nothing really feels out of place.

And there's nothing like that bullshit quest to collect 12 chops in Final Fantasy 12.

Also they've been working on the sequel to it for awhile now, so I'm not expecting the second part to have a decades long gap, especially since they will be re-using shit form the first game. I wouldn't say yearly release, but I would say a year and a half.

 

[Plunkie]

Was Jessie this horny in the original FF7? Jesus christ they are trying their absolute best not to be subtle

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

President Shinra orders robots inside the mako reactor to attack the reactor and finish the job.

Yeah that threw me off a little. Seems like they're going to whitewash Avalanche (the only other purpose this would serve is the foreshadow the Sector 7 incident, but I don't see how that's necessary), while in the original Barret later got called out for killing civilians by Cait Sith/Reeve.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Was Jessie this horny in the original FF7? Jesus christ they are trying their absolute best not to be subtle

I haven't played the demo yet and won't be able to until this weekend, but it was kind of obvious she had a huge crush on Cloud in the original. That said even the trailers made it more obvious, which like you said removes some of the subtlety from the original.

 

[Sayon]

If they're whitewashing Avalanche then I expect them to do it to the Turks and maybe Rufus (and showing him running to some escape hatch when that Weapon blasts him) too so they'd be more like their Advent Children versions. Like making Reno not the one actually detonating the sector killing bomb, taking out Tseng slapping Aerith.

I haven't played the demo yet and won't be able to until this weekend, but it was kind of obvious she had a huge crush on Cloud in the original. That said even the trailers made it more obvious, which like you said removes some of the subtlety from the original.

You all need to recognize that this is FF7 post-Sakugachi, post-Compilation, and post-FFXIII. It's obvious that Sakugachi played a big part in the game turning out how it did (especially with the death of his mother impacting the game's inglamorous portrayal towards death). Wouldn't be surprised if they're taking from fanon too (hence Jesse's attitude towards Cloud being more obvious).

 

[Red Hood]

Was Jessie this horny in the original FF7? Jesus christ they are trying their absolute best not to be subtle

It was implied she had a crush on Cloud, but for fuck's sake it's like she's waving landing lights to her cooch in the demo.

 

[Inquisitor_BadAss]

It was implied she had a crush on Cloud, but for fuck's sake it's like she's waving landing lights to her cooch in the demo.

And then she dies so it all works out in the end.