Earlier today we went over the 32 bit Fantasies, and it came
to light that 2 out of the 3 titles were really solid, whereas one was rather
mediocre despite having the more complex (and unlikable) characters of the
three. This brings us to Final Fantasy X. This Final Fantasy has incredibly
interesting characters and a solid, fleshed out story featuring interesting
protagonists. Featuring a cool mentor character (who happens to be undead), a
wannabe sports star, a summoner torn between duty and life and love, and your
hero trying to live up to his father's legacy who is torn from his world and is
suddenly forced to decide between going back home or saving the world, the
story in FFX is one that focuses on human sacrifice, human nature, the struggle
of humanity vs nature, control by religion, and a duality of realities. The
battle system which allows active switching of characters is also solid. What
keeps this game from possibly being one of the greatest Final Fantasies of all
time is the 'feel' of the game. 
The game world feels more linear than the
previous fantasies, and in a full chronology of the design of the Final Fantasy
worlds this would be the game to point at which led to the disaster that was
the full linearity of Final Fantasy 13. However overall, FF X was solid, and in
my mind it does represent a leap in quality. While subjectively it is not the
best game we have covered so far (in my mind that would be a tie between 6 and
7), objectively it does improve over the others so much because of technology that
we can consider it the superior title.
The game world feels more linear than the
previous fantasies, and in a full chronology of the design of the Final Fantasy
worlds this would be the game to point at which led to the disaster that was
the full linearity of Final Fantasy 13. However overall, FF X was solid, and in
my mind it does represent a leap in quality. While subjectively it is not the
best game we have covered so far (in my mind that would be a tie between 6 and
7), objectively it does improve over the others so much because of technology that
we can consider it the superior title.  |
| A battle from FF 12 |
We then move on to Final Fantasy XII. This Final Fantasy
took a lot of risks as far as mechanics are concerned, and while to some people
it did pay off, the truth is that the battle system is the worst in any Final
Fantasy. In this FF there are no random encounters. As players approach an
enemy, a lone will appears indicating which enemy is targeted. Players then
select actions (most often attack) from a menu, and the characters will then
auto-attack. The auto attack sequence can be interrupted for the use of items
and spells, after which casting the character will resume its melee assault.
Eventually, when players have leveled up enough, battles come across as one
button press sequences rather than actual menu driven battles. Exploration is
fairly open in the tradition of pre X fantasies,and the characters themselves
as far as design is concerned are fairly interesting, although their
personalities leave a lot to be desired. The story itself, while epic in scope,
felt disjointed, with several plot elements feeling disconnected with the
overall narrative. It wasn't a bad game by any means it just wasn't great.
 |
| Snow and Lightning |
What was a bad game was Final Fantasy XIII. This is a game
that had all the potential in the world, and was ultimately wasted. The
characters have a hint of interesting, and the way they interact with each
other have a hint of compelling, but when it comes down to it, conversations
that could have been used to move character relationships forward are thrown aside
in favor of what are ultimately monochromatic characters. Snow is the guy in
love, Lightening is the badass, Hope is the whinny brat, and who really knows
what Sazh is supposed to be. He makes Barret look like an upstanding citizen.
Certainly, the visuals are impressive, and the premise of the story (racism,
discrimination, religious indoctrination) is really interesting, but the highly
restricted perspective, linearity, and lack of world building make it feel more
like a first draft than a well developed game.
 |
| Noel, Mog (Kupo!) and Sera |
Final Fantasy 13-2 felt like an apology from Square Enix,
and this is not a bad thing. Featuring less linear play, interesting
characters, drama between Snow, Sera, and Noel, and the second enemy in
Final Fantasy history to ever manage to destroy the world (or in Caius' case
all of reality) and with mechanics that keep the only one good thing from FF
XIII (the battle system) and integrate new and interesting concepts, I would
argue that FF 13-2 is the best next gen / hd FF game. Even though some might
think the whole time traveling mechanic a bit wonky, I see it as a videogame
interpretation of the theoretical physics postulates for multiple universes.
And this leads to the Lightening Returns demo. Although the
battle system feels a bit simpler than the 13-2 system so far, the motivation
that drives the characters seem a lot more urgent. So yeah. Go ahead and
download it on PSN or XBL now.
You might have noticed that I skipped over FF XI. That's
because I never played it. I'm not big on pay to play MMOs. Random V, however,
has played it. I'm sure that later today she'll pick up the slack and do a post
on it.
Now here's the (subjective) chart of the FF quality progress:
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