Old School Versus New School

[The Captain]

Seems that Locke is getting a lot of love around these parts right now, and for good reason. He was easily my favorite character of any "Old School" final fantasy, especially for that grand heroic music. However, it really made me wonder:

What is it about the "Old School" characters that seems to make them more popular then most of the "New School" characters? Is it because they came first? Or something else?

Or do you disagree and think the "New School" characters are superior?

For the purposes of this debate:
Old School: FFI-VI, and all games that came out during this time that aren't from the actual series
New School: FFVII and beyond.

Take care all.

[Kirobaito]

Actually, some of the people that say that they like the oldskewl FFs and their characters are saying that simply because they want to be oldskewl as well. If that makes sense. They think it makes them look cool, or something like that.

I like both equally, actually. I think each game is its own, not "oldskewl" over "newskewl", or vice versa.

[Del Murder]

I like the older games better because I played them first and they are just better games.

[eestlinc]

Old School FF games just did everything better.

[Snowman]

actually i disagree. the older FF's just didnt hold me. i could never get into suikoden despite my mate pushing because it just.....well it didnt flow and the graphics were naff. that said when i first read teh instruction book for ...what FF was it, the one with teh dark knight as the main character i was captures by him..he sounded cool.

i loved teh cubed look for FF7, with the square hands and chunky faces. it was a cute style they should have kept in the later final fantasys. but generally i prefer the later FF's

[escobert]

I like the old school games better but VII is my all time favorite game ever.

[HOOTERS]

I like Quina

[DocFrance]

They've all got their merits, but I think that the N-Generation FF's are much better in general.

[Snowman]

why?

[escobert]

The fact that all the characters don't look and act liek girls is one good reason. I'm sick of these little brats who cry about everything.

[DJZen]

Actually, that chunky look of FFVII is derived from the look of the battle sprites. That style has been in place since FFI. I personally feel that when they made FF games for NES they had less to work with so they had to work harder to get things to happen and wound up with an awesome product. The richness in poverty, if you will. They had to go with the best ideas and anything shakey would have to be dropped. When you're working with bare bones ideas only, you tend to make those really solid. Now that the same memory constraints don't apply, they throw in any old thing they feel like. Also, the series has REALLY changed from the days of its D&D roots. It used to be pure swords, sorcery and dungeon crawls. Now we have weird things like slot machines, gunblades and giant earth killing robots. It's true that FFI had robots too, but they're a lot more ubiquitous in modern FFs, and the setting is more modern. It makes sword slinging less believable. I guess I'll have to get FFXII when it comes out, it seems a little more in the vein of FF games I like.

[Mr. Graves]

I liked the old-school games more for the fact that they had great gameplay. FF5 is possibly my most favorite Final Fantasy, and for good reason. The gameplay was highly deep, and it was never boring, even when you were just going around a certain cave to build job levels. FF4 is a great game, as is FF1. Almost all of the old-school FFs had that special quality to 'em, and when you completed them, you felt as if you've accomplished something.

Now, new-school games are alright, and I thoroghly enjoyed FFs 7 and 8. I mostly enjoyed FF8 because it was highly different at the time than the other FFs, and it still remained fairly challenging. FF9 disappointed me because it was too easy, and I felt that the gameplay had lots of flaws. FF10 was also disappointed me because of it being 75% movie and about 25% video game. FF10-2 was much better gameplay-wise, but not as great as the old-school games. I have less faith in FF11, because to me it charters on unfamiliar terrority, that of the MMORPG. FF12 looks great, but whether the game itself will be good is something that remains to be seen. About the only new-school game that's truly challenging on a massively hard level was the first FFTactics.

Old-school wins in the end because they never disappoint, and always deliver a solid RPG game.

[Boromakus]

The fact that all the characters don't look and act liek girls is one good reason. I'm sick of these little brats who cry about everything.

BERT is so far my favorite member.

I like Old School games because the characters had PERSONALITY instead of pop music and manicured, fragile bodies.

[eestlinc]

actually i disagree. the older FF's just didnt hold me. i could never get into suikoden despite my mate pushing because it just.....well it didnt flow and the graphics were naff.

Suikoden isn't a FF game though.

[Sephex]

I like more of the old school characters because I felt most of those games were better. The only new school people I like as much as the old school people are the ones from VII because they evoked the same warm feeling from me as the older FF characters.