Which FF games have you changed your opinions on?

[VeloZer0]

We always talk about which games we like or don't, but how about which games grow on you or decrease your opinion of them as time goes by.

[Fynn]

FFX. I used to love it as a kid. After replaying all the FFs as an adult, it held up the worst. It was just dumb. And yes, even X-2 was better. This one at least knew it was dumb.

[Forsaken Lover]

Final Fantasy IX. I no longer OMG worship it like I used to. It's a good game but if you have played it through once or twice, you've seen all there is to see.

[Pumpkin]

I enjoy XII more than I used to.

[Karifean]

I'm quite the opposite of White Wizard, I grew more appreciative of Final Fantasy X the more I played it. I used to like VII more, but now X has taken over as my favorite.

Also, I put X-2 on the same level as the rest ever since I played the "full" (International) version.

[Ayen]

I appreciate X-2 more now as a fun sequel whereas before it was a guilty pleasure and I enjoyed II a lot more the second time around than the first. Apart from that not much has changed, but I also haven't played a lot of the games in a long time. VIII held up pretty well my latest run through last January and I'm looking forward to how VII and IX hold up to me when I get to them.

[Laddy]

My opinion on XII was very low but it is now one of my favorites.

X see-saws a lot, as I love some aspects of it and hate others. I went from loving it, to despising it, to liking it again.

[Wolf Kanno]

There have been a couple:

FFII - Didn't care for it initially and then I decided to do an informative FAQ thread for the site and found the game to be terribly more complex than I had first thought. It made me appreciate the game much more.

FFVI - I initially hated it but falling in love with Secret of Mana made me reconsider and I gave the game a more fair try the second time and ended up loving it. :love:

FFVII - I found the game disappointing (and that opinion hasn't really changed), especially considering the hype. The fanbase largely made me learn to really hate it but over the years I've mellowed out and can appreciate some parts of it.

FFX - I originally found it "okay" but a second playthrough made me realize how utterly boring and awful the plot was, how dull the cast turned out to be, and how poorly implemented the game mechanics had been utilized. In fact every subsequent playthrough of the game has made me hate it more.

FFXIII - I intially found it meh, but further evaluation made me realize just how awful this "thing" was and how terrible almost every element of it was. It's the only FF where I honestly am baffled by people actually thinking it's better than terrible. I honestly don't feel it has any redeeming qualities.

[Shiny]

FF8 - I used to hate it because I didn't like a majority of the characters and the leveling system, but it's appeal has grown on me recenlty.

FF12 - Didn't like a majority of these characters either, or that my time was spent killing rats, but I will eventually get back to finishing this game so I can give a proper critique.

[Mercen-X]

Mercy's opinion is like rock. Is unchanging. (irony) Like this game. Do not like these games. Pay monthly to play online is idiot's game. Unchanging. Good opinion, bad opinion, unchanging.

[maybee]

Oh tons, almost the whole series

Final Fantasy I- Oh I don't want to play this creepy game, I bet the graphics are so old and dated, that the main characters is just a line and the monsters are a black dot, and there's no music, and the main villian is just a bigger black dot. D:

- Oh this game isn't too bad, the graphics are dated, but they're HUMAN ! And there's sound and it's pretty good ! And there's actually a storyline, not much if any, but it's something ! woooowwww !

* shoots 15 year old self in the foot *

Final Fantasy II- The battle system is terrible, the game is frustrating, the game is terrible

- Actually this game isn't so bad, and Minwu is amazing 8D

Final Fantasy VI- OMGFG troutTY GRAPHICS IT SUCKS, worst Final Fantasy, what was Square thinking ?

- The characters are amazing, the storyline is amazing, CELES, LOCKE, SETZER, the soundtrack ! This game is amazing and just wow !

* shoots 14 year old self in the foot *

Final Fantasy VII- Best Final Fantasy game ever created, Cloud is god, and nothing else can compare.

- eh, it's okay. The storyline is a bit of a mess, and Cloud is just smurfing insane. Characters are a bit ehhh.

Final Fantasy IX- This game is flipping strange and is a confusing mess, was Square on d r u g s ???

- This game is amazing, just everything, the characters, the soundtrack. Just beautiful.

Final Fantasy X- This game is amazing, second best after Final Fantasy VII and OMGFH GRAPHICS

- This game is made of cheese, it's alright, a bit eeeehh, but all that cheese, all that cheese.

[Pumpkin]

This is something I find amusing. I technically played VIII first but I was like 4 and didn't know how to play games and could barely do anything.

A few years later I got VII, VIII, IX, and X all at once. The order I played them in was IX, VIII, X, VII and that is actually the order I would rank them from which I like most to least. My opinions on them have barely changed since I was 9.

I played IX first because something about it just grabbed me. I played it and I loved it and it is pretty much responsible for my love of RPG's. I play them in the hopes that one will come close to giving me the same feels as IX did. As I grow older, I only love it more and I can now appreciate more of its story and also some of the throwbacks now that I have played most of the FF games.

I picked VIII second because something about Rinoa has always been appealing to me. 9 year old shion decided she was my favorite character ever, despite never having seen her in the actual game. When I tried playing when I was 4, one of the big issues was that I wanted to play disc 3 before anything else because it had a picture of Rinoa on it. My little brain couldn't comprehend her being on the other discs and having to play them in order. As I've grown, I appreciate her character less, but I still love the story and characters and it has the most memorable world for me.

I played X next and I enjoyed it. Not as much as the others, but it still kept me interested. My overall opinion on the game is still the same now, solid game but not the best. Some individual stuff has changed, I used to dislike Kimahri and he is now my favorite character and I can appreciate Yuna a lot more, but overall my opinion hasn't much changed.

And then we come to VII. The game never grabbed me as much, even before playing. the other 3 I was excited about, pumped up to play. This one was like "Oh yeah, I haven't tried this one yet." I always liked female characters when I was young and I was excited about Tifa and Aeris and Yuffie. I was immediately disappointed with Aeris and my distaste for her has only grown. Plus, young Ashton was not good at sidequesting yet and finding out that Yuffie was miss-able was pretty disappointing. The excitement I had for the other games, where I couldn't wait to play them, was just not there for VII. I have tried playing that game many times and other than last year, I could barely get past disc 1, including the first time I played. I finally finished the game not long ago and my opinion is still "eh."

[Loony BoB]

Y'no, I can't think of any FF that I've really had a notable change of opinion on. But then, I can't think of many games I feel that way about, either. I don't replay games all that often, mind you, which could have something to do with it. I've replayed FFV, FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII, FFX (to some extent) and FFXII (and re-watched as Danielle played FFXIII and FFXIII-2). My opinion probably changed the most for FFXII, if only because I understood what was going on a bit better the second time around.

[black orb]

I can't think of any FF that I've really had a notable change of opinion on.
>>> Same here..:luca:

[NeoCracker]

There was a while there in my youth I prefered FF IV to FF VI, though that changed by the time the PS1 came out. :p

I also originally hated Laguna more then Squall in FF VIII, though while I hate them both still I find myself more hateful of Squall.

[Slothy]

FFXIII - I intially found it meh, but further evaluation made me realize just how awful this "thing" was and how terrible almost every element of it was. It's the only FF where I honestly am baffled by people actually thinking it's better than terrible. I honestly don't feel it has any redeeming qualities.

Now, now. The battle theme was decent and Sazh had his moments as the only character that wasn't completely stupid and insane.

I'd say I agree with you on FFX though. It's probably the game where my opinion has changed the most over time. When I first played it I thought it was decent, but it really doesn't hold up. The characters aren't very interesting, the plot is pretty stupid even for an FF title, and the battle system could have been better than it is.

[Wolf Kanno]

FFXIII - I intially found it meh, but further evaluation made me realize just how awful this "thing" was and how terrible almost every element of it was. It's the only FF where I honestly am baffled by people actually thinking it's better than terrible. I honestly don't feel it has any redeeming qualities.

Now, now. The battle theme was decent and Sazh had his moments as the only character that wasn't completely stupid and insane.

The battle gets repetitive after you hear it so many times, I usually faze it out pretty quickly which is why I've never been fond of regular battle themes in the series. Sahz is a good character, but his story and characterization isn't so good that it would convince me to slog through the rest of the shallow cast of caricatures that XIII calls a cast. So I would stand by my stance that it doesn't have any redeemable features to make me play it.

[Forsaken Lover]

Snow was a sexy, sexy man.

That's a plus for XIII.

[Wolf Kanno]

Snow's a male bimbo that talks like a parrot :p

[Rez09]

My opinion on most of the earlier franchise has been relatively static, but starting with FF7 my opinions have shifted around fairly heavily.

When FF7 launched, it made me want a PS1, and for the longest time it was my favorite game in the franchise. Somewhere along the way my opinion shifted, however, and I became fairly certain the game was an overrated piece of crap. A few years ago, I reassessed the game again and now find it to be one of the strongest entries in the series.

Conversely, I was pretty quick to lambast FF8 when it came out. I hated the story and virtually all of the mechanics, but, playing it recently, I found myself enjoying the customization the game presents and think well enough of the game now. The story is still bunk, though. ._.

FFX, and I'm far from alone here it seems, I adored when it came out. However, after getting ahold of International a few years back and attempting to play through it again, I felt the game was far too restrictive and simply drug me along by the ear. This was especially compounded by my inability to tolerate either Yuna OR Tidus, both of whom, to my unfortunate realization, receive a lot of camera time. Overall, my opinion of the game is a LOT lower now than it was originally, and it is (easily) one of my least favorite entries in the franchise.

FFXII. My undying hatred of MMORPG-ish games cannot be understated, and that's always how this game felt to me. I was actually given a copy not too long after it came out and threw it into my closet somewhere after playing it for about an hour. Years later, a friend of mine got me to play it again, and to give it a fair shot, and I actually think pretty highly of the game now. I still don't especially enjoy how combat is dealt with, and I utterly HAAAAATE semi-random loot treasure boxes, but I love most other elements in the game.

FFXIII was the last one I had a major shift on, and it was actually for the better. I originally couldn't stand anything about the title, from the characters to the combat, but my opinion has largely cooled since the game's release. I don't mind Lightning as much as I did initially, and I like Sazh as well, but probably the biggest change was my outlook on the combat system. I don't think it is especially good, but I find it interesting enough; it is certainly unconventional.

[Pete for President]

Not many changing opinions here.

FFX is still the best one imo. Tactics is up there too. VII is good but confusing. FFIX really good, but with a tad bit of filler. XII has it's moments but combat is easily cheesed and not very engaging. XIII... never bothered to replay it. I guess the music is still nice.

[Bolivar]

Final Fantasy XII is obviously the forerunner here, with it initially turning me off for its lack of design and feel that usually accompanies Final Fantasy games. Once I replayed it and judged the game on its own merits, it stands as one of my favorite games of all time. There's so much content and its all designed brilliantly. Even the story redeemed itself when I played it straight through on one playthrough, finding the pacing to be just right.

Final Fantasy VIII also saved face over time. I never finished my first playthrough and always considered it to be a black sheep sandwiched between two masterpieces. Years later I appreciated how unique its setting and art design is and I find myself longing to play it when I'm on other FFs.

Final Fantasy IX lowered only slightly in my estimation. When I beat it, I felt it was a stronger game than Final Fantasy VII and probably the greatest game I ever played. I still feel it's the overall most well-rounded game but it didn't take as many risks as its PlayStation brethren, so I knock it down just a tad now in my rankings.

Final Fantasy IV has slid lower to me. I mentioned this in the ranking thread, but this was one of my favorite entries due to how genre-defining it was for its time and the art and music still hold strong. But the entirety of the gameplay holds it back. You easily get enough money to stock up multiple max stacks of potions, allowing you to just hold down the A button to get through most dungeons. On the PSP version they even had an auto function to do this quickly. It still has a special place to me but as a *game* I can't put it on the same pedestal anymore.

[Wolf Kanno]

Final Fantasy IV has slid lower to me. I mentioned this in the ranking thread, but this was one of my favorite entries due to how genre-defining it was for its time and the art and music still hold strong. But the entirety of the gameplay holds it back. You easily get enough money to stock up multiple max stacks of potions, allowing you to just hold down the A button to get through most dungeons. On the PSP version they even had an auto function to do this quickly. It still has a special place to me but as a *game* I can't put it on the same pedestal anymore.

Play the real version then :p

[Bolivar]

I actually kind of want to. I wish the PSP version had the option.

[Wolf Kanno]

I thought you owned FF Chronicles on the PS1?

[Bolivar]

Nope - I played the GBA and PSP versions. I do have Origins - isn't that version a bit more difficult than the other ports?

[VeloZer0]

FF Origins? I thought we were talking about FF4? (and why can't I find that emoticon with a bunch of question marks above it's head?)

[Bolivar]

Thought I might as well ask about FFI since we're on the topic of difficulty differences across ports (thank you for your helpful reply :p)

[VeloZer0]

Well if I know what we are talking about I can be more constructive. :p

FFOrigins uses the same mechanics as the original. There are a couple minor tweaks that make it slightly easier, but it is by and large identical. The GBA and PSP versions are significantly easier, like making it a different game easier. (I would call it a much better balanced game, but unfortunately the challenge was one of the draws of the original and with that gone it just seems like going through the motions to beat them. It's a shame they didn't keep the mechanical changes and scale the game accordingly.)

[Wolf Kanno]

Origins isn't identical to the original FF on NES/Famicom because Origin fixes all of the game's bugs like how half of the Black Mage's spells didn't work, or how the game never incorporated the Intelligence stat meaning the Red Mage could do the same amount of damage/heal as the actual dedicated mages, and the critical hit weapon bug was fixed as well. Origins is basically how the game was meant to be. This largely results in the class finally being properly balanced whereas in the original, the Fighter, Ninja, and Red Mage gained huge advantages while the Black Mage became utterly worthless.

Chronicles is the closest thing you'll get beyond emulating to the original FFIV gameplay. Sadly the translation, though better than the SNES version, is still cruddy. IV is actually pretty brutal throughout the game unless you grind (or accidentally grind trying to get the game's various rare item drops) to high levels early. It is also the only version that keeps the "steal the Dark Matter from Zeromus to change Big Bang from near-total-party-kill to something manageable" strategy. I'm still irked that SE chose to release the PSP remake on PSN and skipped the Chronicles version. :mad:

[VeloZer0]

I have read in numerous places that FFO didn't fix the int bug, and when I ran through with a Red Mage and Black Mage they were both doing the same damage. Do you have a list of FFO mechanics changes handy? My two minutes of searching didn't turn one up.

[Wolf Kanno]

Oops, you're right, the Int. bug is still in the Origins version as well as the Critical hit bug though that looks like it's intentionally left in since it's in every version of the game. They did fix all the status spells and they fixed the specialty weapons that were suppose to do more damage against certain types of elements.

[Bolivar]

Look at you guys getting me all hyped up to play FF1 and 4! Well, probably just 1. I bought the PSONE Classic on a whim and while it looked like garbage on my Go at the time, it looks a whole lot better on the Vita. Maybe sooner rather than later, we'll see.

Wolf's right that FFIV chronicles is not on US PSN but it looks like they did release it in Japan in 2012 so perhaps there is hope. Sony doesn't seem otherwise afraid to release multiple versions on the Store and let gamers choose. Although I'm still pissed the "Complete Collection" doesn't have hard type, despite its name...

[Wolf Kanno]

Look at you guys getting me all hyped up to play FF1 and 4! Well, probably just 1. I bought the PSONE Classic on a whim and while it looked like garbage on my Go at the time, it looks a whole lot better on the Vita. Maybe sooner rather than later, we'll see.

Wolf's right that FFIV chronicles is not on US PSN but it looks like they did release it in Japan in 2012 so perhaps there is hope. Sony doesn't seem otherwise afraid to release multiple versions on the Store and let gamers choose. Although I'm still pissed the "Complete Collection" doesn't have hard type, despite its name...

Yeah, from what I can tell, with the exception of the DS version every new version of FFIV that's been released since Chronicles is based off of the GBA version. What's odd is that the Wiki says the GBA versions has "increased difficulty" but I actually found it easier than Chronicles. Maybe I should throw the Chronicles version back in the and see if it still holding up.

[Forsaken Lover]

By the time I'm done with it, I'll probably have played FFVIII longer than any other FF game.

So I guess it's a lot more fun than I used to give it credit.