Customizable or Fixed?

[robfinalfantasy]

What do you like more? The customizable character games (2,3,5,7,8,10,T) or the fixed character games (1,4,6,9)? In the fixed games only certain characters could have certain commands (i.e. jump) while in the customizable games any character could have any command (i.e. steal).

[PhoenixAsh]

I like customisation, but it's cool for characters to start off with unique abilities, or have a particular strength.

IX is probably my least favourate system so far. Not only did you have no choice whatsoever as to what your characters learned, you didn't even get to decide when they learnt it. It wasn't so that you could work hard and be really strong, or get good abilities early, you got them when you were told, with no challenge.

I reckon VII had the best system so far. In no other game could you spend as long planning your strategy before a battle. No other game allowed you to be as creative in your approach either.

[Dalkaen]

PhoenixAsh, in FFT, you could spend much longer planning your strategy. You had jobs, reaction abilities, secondary abilities, move abilities, and counter abilities to consider, not to mention the Brave and Faith of your characters. Of course, its a Tactics game, and that's to be expected.

In an RPG such as FFVII is, I don't like customizable. I feel it takes away from the character's battle personality. FFVIII had this problem as well, but to a lesser extent. I liked the junction system.

I do, however, like to rename my characters.

[Cz]

I don't like full character customization, because it makes every character the same, which makes battles a very simple, everyone-cast-ultima-four-times-a-turn affair. However, I don't like a really strict system like IX's.

I'd say the best system was FFVI, which gave everyone the ability to learn each spell, but also gave them unique moves to distinguish them from each other.

[crono_logical]

The custom ones of FF3/5/T were my favourite, but it really depends how they do the customisation - I thought FF7's was rather boring especially since dunking the materia on randomly was still good enough if you don't bother go do side quests such as the weapons. FF8s wasn't bad, although could take quite a while playing around with what each character had to try and optimise everything, I found.

As for the fixed ones, I'd say FF1/9 were the best, since they were more fixed as it were and forced you to use those skills more than say in FF6, where you could end up with everyone learning the same thing.

[Magai]

Customizability is always good, FF9 may be my favorite but since it brung back the past FF(Fixed) system it kinda disappointed me, I would have like to seee like steiner stealing oh well, My favorite Custom system would be FF8's it's soo customizable, you can make the weakest person in FF8 the strongest you mess around with like all their stats to really fluck up enemies.

[Flying Mullet]

Fixed.

I like it when each character has a specific role, whether it be speedy, high physical attacks, magic user, etc... Even when I play Final Fantasy VI, where you could make everyone a god by giving everyone over 100 of each stat, I prefer to keep each player in a specific "job ability". Cyan and Sabin are usually hard hitters, Celes and Terra are magic users, and Edgar and Locke are speedier. I like doing this as characters like Sabin and Cyan can do 80,000 damage with a Genji Glove and an Offering, oh yeah! :rock:

[m4tt]

Fixed.

FFX got really boring once Tidus could cause 99,999 damage with Holy. :rolleyes2

[Ki Ki]

Fixed is quool...
So then not ALL the characters have the same abilities!
How boring....
Everybody shouldn't be the same....no,no... :o

[Psychotic]

Both are pretty good really.

[§håd0w]

fixed. cuz it makes u work with every one rather than just 3 set people and have them learn everything

[robfinalfantasy]

I personally prefer fixed over customizable. A customizable game allows the player to make battles easier. Having a party cast four consecutive Ultimas is not all that fun. I like having weaker characters like White Mages. Everyone is basically a specialist. One person has White Magic while another person has a fast speed. It gives the game variety. A great example of a fixed game was Final Fantasy IV. Not all the time did you have a character who was able to cast White Magic or steal items from an enemy. It makes you depend on that character in particular and therefore gives every character some type of importance. Fixed basically tells you "Here, now let's see what you can do it". You're given something and expected to achieve your goal with what you are given.

[BG-57]

I like customizable games. I think FFT perfected that to a tee, although I loved FFV's Blue Mage class. I don't mind some characters with unique abilities as long as I can alter some of my characters abilities if I want to (like Junctioning or Materia).

Bear in mind that even in customizable games, you have limited choices early on, more options later. So you always have limitations apply to your characters. But I prefer less limits to more limits.

[Zild]

Originally posted by masamune1287
fixed. cuz it makes u work with every one rather than just 3 set people and have them learn everything

The man has a point...

Personally, I think that would make me edge more towards fixed.

I liked the way in 10 you had to use piercing on some enemie, magic on others, speed on others, etc... and I do partly think it a shame that this changed (or will change, since I've still not played it enough...) as you levelled your party up.

However, I think my favourite system still has to be the materia system of 7. Maybe it's because it was my first, maybe it's because of the nice shiny meteria... But you are right, although people still had strengths depending on their magic and strength levels, etc, that was very diluted when you really began to level up.

Customisation is good, but not too much... again, I think 10 did okay here (though it could have done better) in that everybody had very unique overdrives. Okay, I guess most of them did this to some extent, but I just prefered it in 10.

As for customizeable names, I was going to start a thread on this one... In 7, you could choose everybody's names - fair enough, if you want. I always sick to the original names though. In 8, you had some choice - but not over other SeeD members, I recall.

But what happened in ten?! You could only change Tidus' name. This was, I presume, so that they could make the FMV work nicely. Still, I think they should have gone the whole way and not let you change Tidus' name... remember in the Blitzball game when the commentator says "Where's that player going?" WTF?!

I think customizeable names are a nice addition, tho not an important one, in games where it works - ie, where the speech appears written rather than spoken, rather than an aduio track played. But if you have to screw up the audio like they did in 10, it's not worth it... The thought occurs that they rarely needed to refer to Tidus by name... perhaps in the Japanese version, the Blitzball game comment was spoken in a way that didn't sound so stupid. Although if you ask me, this would have been possible in English too... "Hey, where's HE going?" or even "Hey, isn't that the Auroch's new player! Where's he going?"

They would have worked...

Again, customizeable summon/aeon/eidelon names are fine, if they don't screw up with the soundtrack. Changing the names really doesn't matter to me, so I'd rather they left out that opportunity than make the game sound bad in places...

Actually, going back to the subject of weapons, surely 10 still did have some uniqueness to the characters towards the end? SLIGHTEverybody's best weapon had different abilties, making for example Tidus counter-attack all the time, whilst Lulu I believe could cast magic for 1MP? Okay, there did seem to be some weird abilities thrown in there... didn't Yuna have break damage limit? When was she ever going to be used on the attack?! I'm sure that this break damage limit wasn't transferred to her Aeons...

So yeah, I think 10 has the semi-customizeable (where was that option?!) setup I'd prefer...

[§håd0w]

the materia system was by far the best, even though it touched on customizable, i liked it better than anything else

[robfinalfantasy]

Originally posted by Zild
So yeah, I think 10 has the semi-customizeable (where was that option?!) setup I'd prefer... However the fact remains that in FFX all characters can learn all abilities on the Sphere Grid which means it falls under the category of customizable.

[Mo-Nercy]

Fixed. It's just always seemed more strategic that way because you have special characters for every task and need. Sure, you could do that with Customisable but they always just end up being Semi-attacking Red mages anyway.

[i90east]

Fixed. In FFVI I loved the way each character's ability went along with their personality in a way that was so perfect. In the Japanese version of the game each character had their very own job class. This carried into the US version, just without the job class names. I liked this system a lot. Each character was very unique and yet you had quite a bit of freedom to adjust stats and spells learned. Since access to magic was very limited until half way through the game, this allowed you to rely solely on the unique character abilities. These abilities arn't fixed either, they keep growing throughout the game, making them useful from the beginning to the end.

Customizable usually translates into characters not having any unique abilities at all, except for those cheesy limit break things.

[Sefie1999AD]

Even though FF5 had my favorite battle system, I still prefer the system of fixed character classes. That gives them more individuality, and IMHO, it was best used in FF9, FF4 and SD3. I don't like having a big group where everyone is a clone of each other like in *cough* FF8 *cough*.

By the way...


What do you like more? The customizable character games (2,3,5,7,8,10,T) or the fixed character games (1,2,4,6,9)?

How can FF2 be in both of the types?

[robfinalfantasy]

Originally posted by Sephiroth1999AD
How can FF2 be in both of the types? My mistake. I took it off. Thanks for pointing it out. I think we both know what type FF2 is though. :p

As for people hating the customizable types, I like them, but would choose fixed over it any day. Every character has a signature command/weapon/etc. that makes him/her special. With the more recent customizable titles (7,8,10) the characters only have a signature limit break which is not really enough to make them unique as those cannot be used as often as, let's say, a command.

Note: Of course they all have their own weapons, but nothing really makes their weapons stand out in any way.

[i90east]

XII is due to be fixed. If XII is fixed and includes a world map, that's a promising sign.

[robfinalfantasy]

Yeah. Sometimes I get tired of customizable characters. :mad2: