Favorite things about the titles you hate

[VeloZer0]

What are the things that you really like about the FF titles that you don't like? We spend so much time bashing the games we don't really like that it doesn't often come out what we feel they did right.

*Please note that anyone who likes to pretend they are clever by slipping in an insult in the form of a compliment can go find something better to do with their lives. It goes without saying that you find significant fault with any game you post here, if you can't think of anything nice to say then don't mention the game at all.

FF10
- Constantly trying to optimize turn orders/substitutions for everybody getting experience, taking the least amount of enemy attacks and always getting overkill exp kept me much more engaged than simply trying to win every battle.
- The sphere grid made a linear leveling system more exciting as you get to unwrap you new stat present every level.

FF12
- Voice acting and conversational dialogue was excellent
- Stunning graphics (at the time)
- Being able to program an AI in detail was a great step forward for the 'RPG w/ AI party genre'

FF13
- Stars were a nice incentive to focus on every battle
- Great battle theme
- The first time I ever played a game where controlling an AI party was any fun

[Lamia]

Final Fantasy 8:

-art designs of the guardian forces
-some of the music was great
-Some of the characters: Quistis and Edea

Wow. That's it. I only dislike one game in the entire main series.

spin-offs:

Crystal Chronicles (the original GC one, I heard Ring of Fates is much better)
-colorful art direction
-FF fan service (Moogles, Bombs, Crystals, etc)
-painting your moogle

[Slothy]

Final Fantasy VIII:
- The graphics were a definite step forward from FFVII, even if I missed the disproportionate character models.
- I've said it before and I'll say it again; I love the idea of the junction system, it just needed some tweaking to get it to work better

Final Fantasy X-2:
- One of the most enjoyable battle systems in the series if you ask me. It didn't have a ton of depth, but the increased pace balanced well with what was there to create a pretty engaging experience that didn't drag on longer than it needed to.

Final Fantasy XIII:
- I actually found Sazh quite likeable for the first 6-7 chapters or so. Pretty much up until the point he tries to off himself then he kind of stopped developing much. But still, he was the only one who seemed to react to the situation in a way that made any sense and that made him the most believable and relatable guy in the cast for me. The chocofro was just icing.

[Bolivar]

I don't dislike any of the games in the series, but out of my least favorite:

IV: The story is obviously what it was all about in this one. Not just what happens, but how it's presented, the accompanying music, and the graphics. Obviously this is a classic.

VI: The dungeon design was ridiculous in this one, especially with the multiparty dungeons. I also love the cornucopia of unique equipment that allowed you to do so many things with the characters. Four equipment slots and two accessory slots may just scream "break me!" but I still adore having that level of customization in a game.

XIII: I really, really liked this game up until Gran Pulse. Law school meant I had to wait a few months to start the game so I could really dedicate myself to it, and at that point, I was able to push the lack of towns and lack of level design out of my head. I was able to just experience it for the entertainment experience it was, and it was glorious.

But the reason I liked the first chunk a lot better was because they limited you to only 2 or 3 party members total. Not only did this provide unique gameplay experiences for the battles but you also had unique character interactions which, when you have only two interacting with each other, allowed a lot more of the characters to shine through the game. I think I agreed with Loony BoB back in hatefest spitstorm that was the XIII Backlash Era, that these seemed like the most fleshed out characters in any FF to date. I think I still stand by that. But when you got to Gran Pulse, the party was really together, and at that point you realize a couple of things that kinda showed how deficient the game was, which I'm not going to get into because that's not what this thread is about.

[Del Murder]

FFII: The story & characters were good.

FFXIII: I liked some of the characters and the game was obviously a visual masterpiece.

[Flying Arrow]

I only really dislike two games in the series: X and XIII. They both have things going for them, though.

X:
*The graphics, music, and setting. There's something about the tropical feel of the adventure that I find really appealing and memorable. Square were the best world-builders out there at the time and Spira is a place that I find myself wanting to play in again even though I dislike the area design and general pace of the quest. The whole thing is just a feast.

How could anyone forget this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2i6DNgHcrM

*Combat in general. While I feel there were too few enemies to fight (I remember fighting a lot of slimes) I really enjoyed the full turn-based system and how each fighter has a specialty. It's a bit easy at times, but that's a criticism for every game in the series. It's not too hard, but still very enjoyable.


XIII:
*Like X, the graphics. Again, I'm not big on the level design or quest pacing, but it's almost worth playing through the whole thing a second time just to arrive at Oerba for the "first time" again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei5IDNc_s9I

*I also kind of dug the story for the first chunk of the game. At least between chapters 4-7 when it felt like it was slowly building up to something subtle and interesting. I particularly liked the interaction between Lightning and Hope and Sazh and Vanille.


edit: I also recall disliking II. However I remember so little of it that it's kind of pointless for me to throw out either criticism or praise.

[Sephex]

I wouldn't say I HATE any of these Final Fantasy games, but...

II: I appreciate the risk of changing how characters leveled up, and I actually enjoyed how it turned out on the GBA version. A total departure of gameplay elements is rarely seen today.

VIII: Had an excellent soundtrack and superb use of colors.

X-2: I wish this battle system would have been used in a FF I liked a lot more.

[VeloZer0]

The title is meant to be a little bit of a hyperbole. ;)

[Sephex]

The title is meant to be a little bit of a hyperbole. ;)

I figured.

I also read that word as "HYPER-BOWL" even though I know that's not how its pronounced.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well I only really hate one entry in the series... but I'll add the ones that are the bottom of my list as well.

Hate

FFXIII - I'm going to agree with Vivi22, in a game with a bunch of insufferable whiny cliches, it was nice to have a genuine character whose problems were the circumstances in his life, as opposed to having to learn that a good part of his problems is that he is an idiot or asshole like the rest of the cast have to endure. So yeah, Sahz is pretty much the only good thing about FFXIII.

Dislike

FFX - CTB, is a great idea for a combat system that is simply just made obsolete by the mishandling of the rest of the gameplay experience. I'm happy some other games came along and did it justice *cough* Persona 3 *cough*

Not my Top Faves

FFII - It certainly has it's problems, but I don't agree the leveling system is one of them. Could it have been handled better? Yes but it's absolutely brilliant in how it works out when you incorporate it's balancing system and equipment. The system was really designed to push the player into building makeshift jobs by making them choose to optimize weapons or certain skills and stats, whose inherit balancing mechanisms would make you choose certain choices for making the character a certain way. The level of control it gave you in developing your characters was years ahead of it's time.

FFVII - I love the world design. The concept of the Lifestream and Jenova add both a nice quasi-religious mysticism to the world and the other gives it a nice heavy sci-fi angle like Aliens or The Thing which I can appreciate it. The WWII industrial design gave it a nice aesthetic touch even if I never felt the character designs themselves did it justice.

FFVIII - Squall and the concept of Garden and SeeD before the Witches showed up. I really liked Squall, and I found his growth to be one of the better ones in the series franchise. I really liked the concept of child soldiers being raised as mercenaries as well, I was just disappointed that they approached the idea in an unrealistic high school anime shojo manga style as opposed to something more realistic to the heavy subject matter the entire concept suggests. I also love the concept of the Junction system and drawing magic, it really changed how I approached battles and learning skills.

[ReloadPsi]

X - The battle system. In fact if it were possible to skip every single cutscene I would be willing to say I liked the game. Also the soundtrack.

XIII - The battle theme music, and the fact that my friends really enjoy watching my videos of me raging at the game.

XI - It made one of my friends stop hooking up with random girls online.

[Crop]

Out of the FF's I've played I've only disliked two of them (hated one of those two with a passion).
I cannot think of any good point to make about FFXIII other than "the graphics were good!" which is a given, so I'll forcus on my old enemy - FFVIII.

I found the card game, Triple Triad, to be one of them most addictive and enjoyable minigames I've played in ANY game. I know it's a kind of love it or hate it game, but I for one loved it.
I also really liked the story up until the end of Disk One. I thought the character development (and characters in general) was awful, but the story, climaxing with the assasination attempt on Edea was excellent. Shame it went downhill from there.

[Kenshin IV]

I like this thread.

FF8: This game was one big example of terrific and ambitious ideas that were all poorly executed. The underlying story is actually quite interesting, the idea of having enemies level with you is something I think needs to be worked on again (though, if they level with you, why have leveling?), it's been proven with games like Dragon Quest VIII that forging weapons can be a lot of fun, and gaining magic from enemies is another good idea that I think could be made into something not boring.

FF10-2: The battle system... That's about it.

FF13: The battle system. Oh, and Fang and Sazh are pretty cool.

Crisis Core: Unlike other Compilation titles, the "game" itself was a lot of fun. Too bad it was ruined by an atrocious villain and Square finding the need to reinvent things that happened in the original game (none for the better).

Dirge of Cerberus: Okay, there really was not a single thing that I liked about this game. Sorry, I tried to think of something, I really did.