It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times...

[Wolf Kanno]

With regards to the article Wolf Kanno was talking about earlier; I do agree that there are too many FF spin-offs and sequels at the expense of original IP's lately, however I don't personally find this detrimental to the main FF series itself. If I saw the main series as dropping in quality I may feel differently, but as FFXII only confirmed my belief that the main series is as strong as ever I find it easy to ignore the superfluous entries, choosing instead to focus on the main series which still sees a great deal of innovation and originality within the RPG genre.

I do long for a return to the old days when Square put out more original titles however. The SNES and to a greater extent the PSX had more original titles than FF's, many of which are classics everyone should play. With the announcement of The Last Remnant, I hope we may be seeing the first of a number of original titles though we'll have to wait and see. Despite me not even having much interest in the title itself, the simple fact that Square is releasing a brand new title was almost enough to make me jump for joy.

I completely agree, many of my favorite PSX games by Square are not even Final Fantasys and I do miss the golden days of 98 and 99 where I had a flood of original titles or non FF sequels to look forward too. Granted the Mana and Saga series have both been getting some decent attention lately and it's nice to see Parasite Eve and Star Ocean are getting some love as well but the overall ratio of original IPs to sequesl is starting to get a little out of hand.

FFTA (my first FF) is another (underappreciated) gem, with FFT being a good game but nothing special (doesn't get close to FFTA).

This is blasphemy!!! I could write pages upon pages why this is a terrible statement (okay, maybe a few paragraphs ) but I guess to each his own and it's not completely un-understandable why you would feel this way.

But damn Elpizo you got some weird ass opinions.

You can thank the fans for my 'weird' opinions. I suffered the same with VI, VII and X. Those games have many fans and fanboys who scream all over the place how great it is. I guess I was a bit naïve when I thought that at least some of their excitement would mean that those games would indeed be spectacular. Turns out none of them are. Good games (except VI, I hate hate hate hate hate that damn game) but nothing special or even great.

Same with Tactics. FFTA gets so much hate (I played it before I knew of the hate) so I didn't understand it. Such a good game, it really got me into FF. Everybody saying Tactics is better and TA a disgrace to Tactics. So naïve me plays Tactics expecting something mindblowing and again, I get nothing special. Tactics is a good game, better than some mainstream FFs (VI, VII and X, to be precise) but it's nothing so incredibly special that it justifies all the childish hate against FFTA.

And in the end, I grew to love all those FFs that are most of the time glared upon by the fans. Like III, V, VIII or IX and recently XII. Mostly III and V though. III DS will never get the respect it deserves, I know that and V's even worse. Always pushed into IV and VI's shadow. I can understand IV a bit, but VI??? V not a good story? What kind of nonsense is that?

Well, I could go on, but I guess you get the idea. Maybe if the fans hadn't made me expect VI, VII, Tactics and X to be great games, I wouldn't have such 'weird ass' opinions. But well, I guess I was a tad too naïve. I learned something from it, though. If a FF game has an army of fans that scream that it's a great, legendary game, it's probably either a good or average FF (or worse, in VI's case). If a FF game gets much hate, I'll probably like it.

Though I may never agree with you concerning VI and Tactics (my personal favorites) I do agree that III, V , and TA do not ever get the credit they deserve. I'm one of the few people who played Tactics thought it was godly and then played TA and thought it was damn good as well. I prefer Tactics dark political overtones but I feel TA did a magnificent job and I commend it for trying something different considering it's a follow up to a cult classic. V and III were some of the last FF's I've played and I must say I truly enjoy both of them.

I can also sympathize with your story of being told a game is going to be wonderful and feeling rather disappointed and the obnoxious fans who act like it's the end all be all... It happened with VII for me. But I got over my issues with VII cause though I feel the game is flawed, I don't feel it's really terrible. I just dislike the unreasonable fan base...