Oh, yeah, I played Tactics as well and a couple of the tactics games on gameboy.
And as for FF2, 3 and 5, I actually played them before they came out in the US thanks to emulators. So yay for those.
Anyway, critiques on good/bad parts of the main series parts of the games.
FF2 got REALLY tedious with it's leveling system. Instead of leveling directly, the more you use a certain stat, the stronger it gets. The problem is that there are a lot of monsters you HAVE to use magic to fight, so you have to level your magic.... and that takes fucking forever! Hey, great, you used "FIRE" in battle 50 times! You get 6% closer to a level-up on it! It was also annoying how your inventory was so limited and, yet, late game damn near EVERY enemy encounter is going to drop a bunch of loot. Half the game turns into deciding what you want to keep and what you want to toss. Add in the fact that inventory space gets taken up by a bunch of useless items that you can't get rid of and you get even more frustrated. Still, it's a solid game with.
FF3 had one annoyance: Airships that can't fly over mountains. Really? How lame can you get? Otherwise, good game.
FF4 had a bit of a steep curve with enemy difficulty. You were at one point where you could fight the majority of the enemies, get to the boss and still have plenty of strength to fight the boss and then, pretty quick, the regular enemies leading up to the boss are almost bosses themselves and you're running from more fights than you're just fighting.
FF6 is probably where they REALLY learned what works and what doesn't. It's like they did everything right in there. I suppose I would have liked it a little more if they had one, singular character who's 'the protagonist' like they do in every other FF game (at least every other one since the characters started getting personalities).
FF7 is a masterpiece. It really is. It has some issues with Engrish here and there, but they aren't so bad that you can't understand what they're saying.
FF8 was a bit more contreversal and I can see why. It can be really easy to miss out on the GF's you need if you don't check everywhere for them and if you don't get enough of them, the game is going to be VERY difficult. Also, drawing magic in battle can be tedious as well. Hey, you need to get 99 Flare spells, right? Well, I just drew 5 of them from this enemy! Now all I need to do is get everyone to draw from him 20 times and I'm set! By the time I do 4 draws, I'm usually starting to fall asleep.
FF9 really went retro and it paid off. Characters were less customizable, but still playable (not to mention, some of their lack of customizability actually worked with the storyline).
FF10 was the first one on he PS2. They did really well, but still had problems with falling into the uncanny valley here and there, especially in the cut-scenes. Having voices for the characters helped, especially since we're able to get the inflection behind voices; we know when people are being sarcastic or mocking now and that's a big upgrade. The battle system is totally different since you can actually pause and think between turns (true story: I actually had an incident where I was unexpectedly away from my game for a couple of weeks and it was still sitting there, waiting on me). They make that change, though, in such a way that stats like speed still matter and I like that.
FF12 was one of my least favorite. I think their battle system is the worst. They kinda try to do too much with the gambit system. If you really get good at it (and spend a lot of money getting all the gambits), you can set some stuff up, but it's also to easy to have your characters keep spamming spells you don't need. It's frustrating because sometimes it feels like you're constantly having to create new gambits for everyone. It was also a little annoying how weapons/armor would only be optimized for their direct attack/defense stat without concern for magic, speed or any other stats. It was even more frustrating when I found out a lot of the equipment had a kind of 'hidden' stat. For example, the axes, hammers and 'hand-bombs?' (I don't know what to call them) were all really unpredictable in how much damage they would do. One attack might do x-damage and the next attack, on the same enemy might do 6x-damage or 1/6x-damage and you really don't have any way of knowing. It's also frustrating the way they have different attack speeds or rate of multiple hits and there's no stat that lets you know any of that.
FF13 was good, but also contreversal. It was too linear and easily the most linear game in the series. In other games, you can always get an airship and go back to earlier parts, or you can teleport around or something. Here, nope. That really hurts the game. You get a little open-world game-play when you leave Cocoon, but most of that is best done as post-game content. The paragim battle system takes a little getting used to, but you can really learn to manipulate it when you get it.
And as for FF2, 3 and 5, I actually played them before they came out in the US thanks to emulators. So yay for those.
Anyway, critiques on good/bad parts of the main series parts of the games.
FF2 got REALLY tedious with it's leveling system. Instead of leveling directly, the more you use a certain stat, the stronger it gets. The problem is that there are a lot of monsters you HAVE to use magic to fight, so you have to level your magic.... and that takes fucking forever! Hey, great, you used "FIRE" in battle 50 times! You get 6% closer to a level-up on it! It was also annoying how your inventory was so limited and, yet, late game damn near EVERY enemy encounter is going to drop a bunch of loot. Half the game turns into deciding what you want to keep and what you want to toss. Add in the fact that inventory space gets taken up by a bunch of useless items that you can't get rid of and you get even more frustrated. Still, it's a solid game with.
FF3 had one annoyance: Airships that can't fly over mountains. Really? How lame can you get? Otherwise, good game.
FF4 had a bit of a steep curve with enemy difficulty. You were at one point where you could fight the majority of the enemies, get to the boss and still have plenty of strength to fight the boss and then, pretty quick, the regular enemies leading up to the boss are almost bosses themselves and you're running from more fights than you're just fighting.
FF6 is probably where they REALLY learned what works and what doesn't. It's like they did everything right in there. I suppose I would have liked it a little more if they had one, singular character who's 'the protagonist' like they do in every other FF game (at least every other one since the characters started getting personalities).
FF7 is a masterpiece. It really is. It has some issues with Engrish here and there, but they aren't so bad that you can't understand what they're saying.
FF8 was a bit more contreversal and I can see why. It can be really easy to miss out on the GF's you need if you don't check everywhere for them and if you don't get enough of them, the game is going to be VERY difficult. Also, drawing magic in battle can be tedious as well. Hey, you need to get 99 Flare spells, right? Well, I just drew 5 of them from this enemy! Now all I need to do is get everyone to draw from him 20 times and I'm set! By the time I do 4 draws, I'm usually starting to fall asleep.
FF9 really went retro and it paid off. Characters were less customizable, but still playable (not to mention, some of their lack of customizability actually worked with the storyline).
FF10 was the first one on he PS2. They did really well, but still had problems with falling into the uncanny valley here and there, especially in the cut-scenes. Having voices for the characters helped, especially since we're able to get the inflection behind voices; we know when people are being sarcastic or mocking now and that's a big upgrade. The battle system is totally different since you can actually pause and think between turns (true story: I actually had an incident where I was unexpectedly away from my game for a couple of weeks and it was still sitting there, waiting on me). They make that change, though, in such a way that stats like speed still matter and I like that.
FF12 was one of my least favorite. I think their battle system is the worst. They kinda try to do too much with the gambit system. If you really get good at it (and spend a lot of money getting all the gambits), you can set some stuff up, but it's also to easy to have your characters keep spamming spells you don't need. It's frustrating because sometimes it feels like you're constantly having to create new gambits for everyone. It was also a little annoying how weapons/armor would only be optimized for their direct attack/defense stat without concern for magic, speed or any other stats. It was even more frustrating when I found out a lot of the equipment had a kind of 'hidden' stat. For example, the axes, hammers and 'hand-bombs?' (I don't know what to call them) were all really unpredictable in how much damage they would do. One attack might do x-damage and the next attack, on the same enemy might do 6x-damage or 1/6x-damage and you really don't have any way of knowing. It's also frustrating the way they have different attack speeds or rate of multiple hits and there's no stat that lets you know any of that.
FF13 was good, but also contreversal. It was too linear and easily the most linear game in the series. In other games, you can always get an airship and go back to earlier parts, or you can teleport around or something. Here, nope. That really hurts the game. You get a little open-world game-play when you leave Cocoon, but most of that is best done as post-game content. The paragim battle system takes a little getting used to, but you can really learn to manipulate it when you get it.
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"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
