I'd add spoiler tags if I was you, although you're not very far into it. I've played a few in the series, namely older one, I, II, III, V and VI. I have yet to play IV. In the other ones I don't recall anything this bad occurring, but it's been a while.
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I played 7 a bit and I found the behavior of all the characters quite childish, also. I guess is part of the saga.
Btw: "to begin with"*?
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Childish behaviour is pretty common in FF games. Asian games/movies/series in general imo.
Pretty often I was thinking "grow some balls", "stop being a pussy" or "you really have to worry about that?"
Doesnt keep me from playing them though. (Final Fantasy IX comning soon, woohooo!)
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That's exatly what I wanted to say (about asian media), but I didn't dare because, to he honest, I don't know that much about it, even though I always had that feeling of "childishness" when playing or watching japanese media. I don't know if it's something "cultural", or they just want to be more in touch with some younger audiences, but it's definetly something there.
As an example, I've been playing Vakyria Chronicles lately and I can't get rid of that thoughts you said above :S
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It seems to be somewhat common in JRPGs (and perhaps other asian media) for massive, crucial misunderstandings to arise simply because characters don't give one another adequate information. Like, the opportunity will be there, but the characters will just say something vague and leave out a clarifying explanation that any normal human would include. Or, a protagonist will be pursuing a character who is under a grave misconception, but will not correct that misconception immediately upon catching up to them. I can't think of a specific example right now, but I know I've seen it a lot. It's a little infuriating at times.
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It's common in the west too. Shrek was a pretty good movie before the last part.
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Thanks for noting the typo. I played some parts of some JRPG's and they always feel childish, but I'm reasonably okay with that. This felt like they just let this character die without reason for the drama, which is way too heavy-handed for me. I could have handled Tellah's silly behaviour if Anna ended up alive, as she should have.
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yes, that's exactly what we are discusing in the comment above yours, it just feels strange to us, I guess
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Wow... Not sure about Final Fantasy in general, but I also keep noticing those games in videogames.
A typical MMO: 'Here, please deliver this message to the guy about 4 meter away because I can;t be bothered to walk myself.'
'You're new around here, but go exterminate all kinds of crap because its to dangerous for the experienced adults!'
Or yesterday in AC2: I'm fully stocked on medical packages, but I still have to carry a girl with a legwound, while being chased, through the whole city, she keeps on losing blood, but I can't just patch her up...?!
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One day I'll get far enough into AC2 to complain about this. :) But yes, I guess player characters tend to be great at healing wounds until it comes to characters that need to die for the plot.
And MMO's, yes. At least my favourite, City of Heroes, had some real stories to play through. It's amazing the number of excuses MMO characters have for not moving from their place and giving a list of chores to the player character.
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I think the worst are JRPG's when one of your partymembers, or even worse, you, know a resurrection spell, am a kickass healer etc. etc. but for some reason you just can't be bothered to heal/res whoever that meant something for you but just had to die, due to some reason ;).
In WoW, there's actually a questchain where YOU get to be the questgiver, which was a nice change of pace ^^.
But the amount of monsters you have to kill to get random vital body part that turn out not to have any is also quite shocking
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An incredibly obvious fix would be for the designers to rename a recoverable "dead" status to "knocked out/KO", in terms of battle mechanics- thus eliminating from the game universe the presence of items and spells that claim to resurrect, and preventing at least one aspect of the "just use a goddamn phoenix down on her" quandary.
Some franchises do this, but others apparently refuse to. Heck if I know why.
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I feel like in the MMO context, it's a cannon-fodder and for-the-sake-of-the-argument. Pretty sure there are some MMOs out there that aren't as tedious as that generic system. e.g. Kill 100 chickens.
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It's a real staple of MMO's. Sure there are better quests in the games, and there are games with fewer such quests, but when I played Everquest 2 originally, that was most of the questing, some excuse to go somewhere and kill something, or some fetch quest. In later years they added better intro questing for level 1-20, but after that it still often degenerated into "I lost this piece of paper when I was chased by Orcs, please find it for me" or "I want to impress my girlfriend with a bear rug, so please kill me some bears".
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Quests? What are those. When I was young all we had were murdering same monsters day after day or repeating same autogenerated dungeons time after time. For months.
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Well, we couldn't afford a random generator, so we played the same dungeon again and again for 50 years, murdering the same monster then resurrecting it just so we could kill it again.
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And unfortunately, they became norm in single-player RPG too.
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Still not as annoying as watching the protagonists declaring their feelings for each other for ten minutes, while there is some deadly situation requiring their attention asap.
"The water is raising! We need to close those vents or we'll drown!"
"We will have to split! If I don't make it <insert a long monologue here>"
<insert a long kissing and crying scene here>
<insert a lot of running and managing to close the vents just in time here>
Every. Single. Time.
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I can't remember reactions to deaths in FF that are as silly, but it has been a long time since I played one.
When a certain character dies in FF5, they at least attempt to use healing items and spells, and it still doesn't work, but thumbs up for trying.
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That's "technically" the first FF I played and, yeah, that part of the game was just ridiculous. It feels like it's a "for the sake of the argument" kind of thing because IIRC the father joins you because of that, as well as Edward(who is kind of a bad character, and he's a bard or something, pfahahaha!). Lots of games seem to do this, where they just "do something" for it to make minimal sense.
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When playing games with healing items I always assume that the healing items (especially potions) are just for the player (along with resurrection and stuff) and they are not actually part of the universe.
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Wait until you see the party member death sequence in FFV then…
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It was a Morgul arrow, duh! :P
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It's the first Final Fantasy game I'm playing. Is this kind of behaviour normal for the series? That scene really destroyed my suspension of disbelief and took me out of the game.
Yes.
Final Fantasy games as a rule have:
Weak storylines, average gameplay with lots of grinding if you want full completion, and ridiculous interactions or plot components.
They ALSO [as you move up in the series] have strong cinematics, straightforward and accessible gameplay, and interesting flavor gimmicks [that unfortunately aren't usually well implemented].
I also really liked the music in 10.
Overall, FF is a weak series (Note: I haven't played 13 onward or any modern portable FF games), unless you really like accessible JRPGs. I know back in the earlier days, it was compared unfavorably toward other JRPGs of the time (Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, etc) but as the fanbases for 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 grew, it got more and more notable as a series.
[All the ones before 6 are ridiculously weak, so no, later games aren't QUITE as bad as 4.]
Personally, I enjoy the games, but that's 'cause I can accept their flaws, and enjoy the more casual gameplay as a break from more involving games. I enjoy RPGMaker games for the same reason, but they're rather obviously far less well produced than a FF game- and FF's gimmicks, while frustrating or weak, can often be a lot of fun to play with for a while.
So, in summary: Yes, they're all going to have a similar feel.
Much like a Bethesda game, it's going to be weak on story and plot and characterizations- but it'll make up for it with other features.
If you're looking for a rich, deeply immersive narrative, without goofy or grindy interjections, you'll need to look elsewhere.
It's a good series, though- just not as good as its well-known name may make you think it would be.
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I think that most RPG's are grindy. I picked FF4 to play over Baldur's Gate because it was shorter and I wanted to play a Final Fantasy (and 4 was generally recommended). It's not so bad that I'll drop it. I'll see how it continues.
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Rather, I should say- if you like 4 and don't find its quirks too bothersome, you should like the later games a lot more, since they are definite improvements.
Though, definitely play remakes, not originals, they add a lot.
This is especially true for 7 and 8, which I tried replaying recently, and honestly, the graphics in many parts are too painful to go back to. Nevermind that the upcoming remake of 7 looks incredible. =O
Again, for clarity, I'm a fan of the series.
In fact, I quite look forward to each new release- there's a guarantee of assured minimum quality, and the production values are always top notch, and I know the gameplay will be accessible.
In a way, they're comfort games. :P
But I wouldn't say they particularly excel in any way, aside from typically having excellent-for-their-release cinematics. Rather, it's the all around polish [even with weak gameplay elements and story elements] that makes the series stand out.
And, y'know, if you enjoy grinding, there's usually a ton of special weapons and the like to farm out, and those can be fun. Also usually several minigames in each FF, which makes for a nice palate cleanser as you play.
In any case, my personal recommendations are 8 and 10- 10 has the most style of any game through 12, 8 has the most complex storyline [though the ending is complete, ultra-lazy garbage, so you'll have to brace against that eventual disappointment].
12 is tons of fun to play at the start, but eventually you get the right set of AI unlocks to be able to stick the same AI on every character and auto-win every battle you play due to there being an 'ideal overall setup'. Add in tons of really grindy elements, and it may actually be the weakest of the entire series.
7 and 9 tend to have pretty split opinions, so it's really hard to give an impression there.
6 is usually treated the most favorable, as it's the last one to play in a traditional JRPG format, and has the most depth of the early games.
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I'll wait and see what comes up on Android. FF9 just showed up recently, FF7 hasn't yet even though it's on iOS. I do have 13 on Steam and 13-2 on the 360, but I play mostly on Android these days. (And I have FF1 and 2 on Android, since they were given for free, but I understand that they're not worth playing.)
In any case, I might try Baldur's Gate next, and if that does appeal to me I guess I'll be stuck with it for a long while.
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Baldur's gate for freedom of exploration and party building
Icewind Dale for more precise tactical play [it's best with fewer characters, especially in co-op] and a straightforward progression.
Planescape Torment for the richest story and setting, best replay, and least straightforward progression and gameplay.
Neverwinter Nights for more modern, very straightforward action-RPG gameplay.
Drakeensang, Pillars of Eternity, and Aarklash Legacy are all very similar Real-Time-With-Pause RPGs.
Temple of Elemental Evil is turn-based, but also an excellent option [and made by the fantastic Troika Games before they were forced under by Activision].
You've a lot of options- and a lot of time to lose- if you get into that area of gaming. :)
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I played PS:T and enjoyed it, played NWN (original campaign) and enjoyed it. As I said, currently I'm playing mainly on my tablet, and I have BG, BG2 and IWD. Might return to Shadowrun Returns. I have to restart it, but I did enjoy what I played of it (stopped due to problems with the Android version, but they should be fixed). But maybe after FF4 I'll go back to an adventure game.
(On the PC I have a lot of games. Too many to think about and keep my sanity.)
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I gotcha :)
The new Shadowrun games look fantastic, but I haven't gotten a chance with 'em, myself =O
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I have I-VI of the series on iOS, and VII & VIII on Steam. And I played most of them.
You may need to know NES and SNES' target audiences were children, not adults then.
FF - Beginning of the series. As far as I know, it's a terrible D&D copy. Random encounter will kill users having small patience. Very simple storyline.
FF II - Beginning of character drama. The system is weird(?), you need to be hit to increase characters' HP, etc.
FF III - Beginning of Job change. Endless grinding. :P
FF IV - Another drama. Some characters will leave the party with their expensive/rare gears temporarily or forever. As you said, childish story.
FF V - Did I say Job system means the endless grinding? Job and Ability system is worse.
FF VI - Army of characters. Their story is better than above.
FF VII - First polygon heroes became popular internationally. While I don't like Cloud very much, I love Aerith. I always have her learn Great Gospel. >.<
FF VIII - More cinematic. The unique leveling system is... meh. =ㅅ=
I have not played FF games on PS2 and PS3, only watched a few scenes, so nothing to say about them.
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Ive got to admit, older FF games (and current) are pretty dumb in terms of the obvious but I did really love that game and it was super creative so I gave it a second chance.
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It always annoys me when there's a character who really has to say something important and he keeps getting interrupted like 'i already know what you want to say blabla' and then the character just gives up? Like? What you had to say was really important idiot. And then he's like 'well i can tell them another time' and no you can't this is a video game.
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i am big fan of final fantasy i played them all my opinions are not fan boy based tho i am quite old to jump to fan wagon anyway cause i take all things in moderation so to answer your questions final fantasies are based on mangas and i dont wanna go into crazy details mangas are wierd if you try to seek logic in videogames in general you will lose it (any fps game todays have auto healing from bullets without living in a magical word etc) but in this case in final fantasies in combat you will often recieve a killing blow and the only thing that you can do is either use a phoenix down or use the spell revive or life its clear that you character just died and one brought him back to life but on the same time you kill things and i dont mean random monsters noone cares i mean characters the game presents them to you as vilains if all those were to be easily resurected it would feel odd to you even if someone argues the spell must be used sort after otherwise it comes back as zombie many times allies of those vilains are near so story wised some characters stay dead and ff is one of those games that you will see killing your characters not all of them do it cause people dont like it but the one you are playing does do it so it can build up drama as for the second part that Tellah was blaming Edward there are 2 sides of the story the first one is basic human life how many times some things could easily clear up with a simple question what happened but noone asked everybody assumed and things got complicated not in games but in actual real life and the second reason if you see it through his eyes in his pain he just lost his daughter and he express sorrow with anger in his eyes if his daughter never fell in love with Edward she would be alive thats true but stupid also cause its not like she agreed to die she agreed to have a relationship with him but again that scene is a cliche how many times you saw it on movies or other videogames the same thing happening , FF games might be good they alwasy have a nice story but there are a lot of cliches in it and sometimes they do feel childish but most of the times the chars are too young and also in order to enjoy them try to separate combat with story in a way a lot of things stop make sence once you combine those 2, hope i helped you a litle bit the one you playing its actually really good but there are more cliches coming your way
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First of all, I think I deserve a medal for reading this. I'ts nice that you did include a couple of commas, but it would be much easier to read if you broke it into sentences and paragraphs.
Anyway, the problem isn't precisely that Tellah was blaming Edward. As you say, that's natural. But Tellah didn't even bother to check if his daughter was alive, which isn't natural, and even that exchange with Edward was, as others said, childish. Tellah is a pretty strong mage who can do over 100 points of damage with a single attack to any normal enemy (and Edward is quite squishy, as later combat shows), so if he lashed out at Edward that could have been fatal, and if he was holding himself back he could have just talked, but no, he had a combat sequence, where the player had to wait for the bar to fill up just so Tellah could do 2-3 points of damage to Edward, listen to him ask to be heard, then refuse it and repeat the process.
That disconnect between cutscene character and combat character is a major reason why the scene was hard to swallow for me. A powerful combat character like Tellah doing minor damage feels silly, and a good healer like Rydia doing nothing to save Anna feels really wrong.
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Thank you for the spoilers. It's appreciated.
Kidding, I don't give a shit.
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I wonder how much of the "childish behavior" is actually just bad translation. Any native speakers know if it comes off any better in Japanese?
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not really the tranlation most of the times is ok but there are a few small differences to go along with the west colture better there is a ff (wont say which) at a scene a character says to another in english i love you while in japanese he/she says thank you and there are also many false rumors of bad translation that are false but cause they are wide known what started as a lie today its the truth like Aerith its not a bad translation her real name is indeed Aerris in japanese she is called Aerisu and the way they speak the u in the end you almost not hear it today tho Aerith is a standard and there is a good chance ff7 remake would have aerith instead while other bad translations gone unoticed like ff6 Terra her actual name is Tina what is bad a simple s vs th or a erra vs ina :P
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while other bad translations gone unoticed like ff6 Terra her actual name is Tina what is bad a simple s vs th or a erra vs ina :P
That one was intentional. Tina was chosen because it was an exotic sounding name in Japanese, but considered normal in the US, so it was changed to Terra, which is much more uncommon.
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i agree as i said many changes are made to fit western colture it makes sence to name her terra to me as it makes sence for people to argue for aerith since the th in japanese doesnt exist they use su and since there isnt voiced we will never know what the fev wanted since he quoted aeris and aerith doesnt matter they are both sounds ok to me why everyone make it such a big deal but i kinda prefer aeris since it sounds better in english
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Warning: a FF4 minor spoiler.
I'm playing Final Fantasy 4 (for the first time, on my tablet). I'm not far into the game, just got into Damcyan, where Anna, the daughter of Tellah who I just adventured with, took an arrow for her lover and is lying on the floor. Tellah starts harassing said lover (Edward) with minor magical attacks blaming him for what happened to his daughter, until Anna breaks things up and everyone is surprised that she's alive, then she explains everything and dies, and everyone is sad.
How stupid are those people? Not only do they neglect to check if Anna is dead to begin with, when they find out she is alive do they use one of the healing potions they carry or ask Rydia, who's a pretty good healer, to heal her? No, they let her die and then slap Edward for crying over her death.
It's the first Final Fantasy game I'm playing. Is this kind of behaviour normal for the series? That scene really destroyed my suspension of disbelief and took me out of the game.
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