Game With The Most Useful/Useless Magic

[Forsaken Lover]

Which Final Fantasy game used its magic system the best?

In which game was casting magic a waste of time?

I think the Most Useless winner is clearly VIII. Not only can you do more damage more quickly with Physical Attacks, actually using spells will only screw you over and lower your stats. You are encouraged therefore to always keep a supply of 100 of them and thus you can't actually use them in battle.

Oh frick, I put this in the wrong forum.

[Wolf Kanno]

VIII has the worst magic system because it's tied directly into you stats and even with a high MAG stat, offensive magic does pathetic damage compared to melee. VI probably has the best magic system because it's overpowered enough to actually be useful unlike every other FF where eventually melee always proves to be the best offensive choice.

[NeoCracker]

YEah, I know in VIII using your magic doesn't really effect much if you don't use to much of it, but still. Your better off just spamming attacks, our abusing the smurf out of Aura.

But regular attacks are so far and beyond the use of magic attacks as a result of using them FF VIII takes the cake for worst.

...And I think I may get stabbed for this, but FF X actually did a good job keeping a variety of spells useful as well. Your haste magic was useful, offensive magic comes in handy a lot more often, it's hampered more by the ridiculous ease of the game then the system itself.

[Wolf Kanno]

That's true, if Lulu could actually multi-target her spells without her overdrive, she could solo most of the game as long as you added the Pierce skill to one of her weapons to deal with Heavys.

Vivi wasn't too bad in IX either, largely because his focus skill made up for any short-comings in the damage algorithms.

[Formalhaut]

Supportive magic has always been somewhat useful, even in games where offensive magic is loses out to physical attacks. FFXII is a prime example. Green, Time and White magick are always useful, whilst Black magick and some Arcane magick is incredibly ineffectual because of the battle system's priority usage. Scathe should be very powerful, however, as it's one of the lowest priorities, you may have to wait awhile to actually use it.

FFX is a great example of magic being useful. Lulu was, with Auron, my most damaging team member. She almost single handedly fought off Seymour on many occasions. Even her Overdrive isn't half bad. She does suck offensively, but that doesn't matter when you're just wiping enemies clean with her superior magic.

[Ayen]

So far I found VII to be the most useful of the entries I've replayed. Being able to hit multiple targets at once is nice.

[Skyblade]

Meltdown is incredibly useful until you get Doomtrain. It makes your absurdly powerful physical attacks even more so.

Aura is useful whenever.

The other spells are awesome...at Junctioning to stats.

[Jiro]

Magic in the traditional sense is not that great in this game. Some spells can be neat, but yeah, less effective. But the game is nigh impossible without it junctioned.