Controversial opinions about Final Fantasy

[Mirage]

I can't think of a way to build Aeris to be as good a physical fighter as more or less anyone else in the game. She has low HP, doesn't do full damage from back row, has low strength, has no directly offensive limit breaks. Anything you can put on Aeris to make her a better fighter, you could instead put on anyone else and get an even better result.

I'm very interested in hearing how she can be made into a good fighter. If she's not going to use magic, you'd be better off with just about anyone else instead of her, which makes her a mage/support character, not a balanced all-purpose character.

[Karifean]

I consider V, VI, VIII, IX, X-2 and XII to be all on a very similar level of enjoyability.

[metagloria]

I actually loved Yuna's voice acting

I loved Yuna's voice acting...in X-2. In X, she was just a breathy, pitiful mess.

[Pike]

Well, I think most people know my controversial opinion, but here we go

The only things I liked about FFXII were the Ivalice character design (bunny moogles! ) and the music. I couldn't stand anything else. Characters and story were thoroughly forgettable, in fact I can't remember any of the details on them whatsoever. The combat system drove me up a wall. The entire world seemed muddy and dull. Whatever FFXII's character advancement grid thing was called (I forgot the name, much like I forgot everything else in that game) felt like an obnoxious and confusing sphere grid rip-off. I hated the entire game so much that it turned me off of the Final Fantasy series for many, many years, and I also left EoFF for many years (the idea was "Why hang out at a Final Fantasy site if Final Fantasy is terrible now?")

I don't know what everyone else saw in it that I didn't. I didn't even have the excuse of having been too young to understand it because I was in my mid-20s when it came out.

Sorry guys.

[Madame Adequate]

I like how each game has tried new things, but I really wish they had revisited II's character advancement along the way, as they did with III's Job System evolution. I mean, III did it pretty well, but V polished it to near-perfection. So I reckon in a similar vein, another shot at II's style would have really been something. I still love II's advancement even though it's unbalanced and open to abuse.

The main reason why FF never really followed up on it was because the SaGa franchise did instead. Makes sense, when you realize the mastermind behind II's advancement system went off to create the SaGa franchise for Square.

Yeah, sadly the SaGa franchise is hot dogtrout

[Pumpkin]

I think VIII is better than VI, no contest

[Pike]

I don't remember enough of VIII to have an opinion on it. Same with IX really. Those two games blur together to me in a sort of post-VII, pre-X muddled mess.

[Madame Adequate]

Okay, time for ~~opinions~~

IX was and remains a clattering disappointment. It is not a bad game as such, but it is so utterly lacking in daring and imagination (in gameplay) that it winds up being tremendously uninteresting. It tries to capture the magic of the old pre-32 bit games, but it totally fails, both because it doesn't understand what it was that made them magical or that making a sincere attempt and falling short is much more commendable than playing it entirely safe and doing so competently. This is why I credit XII much higher than IX even though I think IX is a more solid game and I still don't like XII one bit. Much of the charm of the earlier games is that they always butted up against the limits of what they were trying to achieve, and succeeded anyway. IX plays it so safe in every respect except aesthetics that it can't even fail - it doesn't make the attempt in the first place.

Also, the characters I like - Freya, Quina, and Beatrix, mainly - are given very little screen time outside a couple of specific points, whilst ones I either don't care about - Vivi, Garnet - or those I actively dislike - Zidane, Eiko, every single villain - get a lot more. The only one who I both like and gets plenty of time is Steiner.

The villains are all trout. Every single one. When the old NES and SNES games were made, a villain who wanted to destroy everything just because he was a twat or couldn't handle some bit of news about their origins was good, but by the time IX rolled around things were a lot more sophisticated, and Sephiroth was probably the last villain who got away with that.

[Egami]

IX was and remains a clattering disappointment. It is not a bad game as such, but it is so utterly lacking in daring and imagination (in gameplay) that it winds up being tremendously uninteresting. It tries to capture the magic of the old pre-32 bit games, but it totally fails, both because it doesn't understand what it was that made them magical or that making a sincere attempt and falling short is much more commendable than playing it entirely safe and doing so competently.

Well put, couldn't agree more with this. I too find IX rather forgettable and while I don't think it is really a bad game, it is a FF title I never seem to have it in me to play again like i do with several other FF titles.

[Lazerface]

What i don't get was the overhype on FFVII. i liked the game but I honestly thought it was a bit overrated on the story. i liked the story but it was nothing new that i've seen. Feels like the typical best friend worst enemy story. In comparison to IV and VI it isn't the best between those three with VI being the best.

What i don't get is the love for FFIII, tough yeah. But it was bland, the only thing appealing about it was it's difficulty and gameplay. It's basically a beta FFV. And FFV was way better even if it's story was simple, it featured far better character development than anything FFIII could make, and it at least set the standards for Final Fantasy game difficulties not being too hard or too easy.

And lastly what I don't get is the hate between FFVI fans and FFVII fans. While FFVI had the best story, it's gameplay was a bit lacking it didn't do anything special compared to its predecessor, FFVII had better gameplay which I've covered. If anything I don't get the arguments and debate between the fans of the two games. Personally i liked FFVI better simply because of 3 things- Kefka, the story, and special abilities. I liked FFVII because of 5 things- The gameplay, Tifa (pffft obvious), this guy are sick, Sephiroth, and the graphics. Why do they argue till this day? They've been arguing since 1997 and i think they should just settle and not bother killing each other over it.

[Mirage]

I actually loved Yuna's voice acting

I loved Yuna's voice acting...in X-2. In X, she was just a breathy, pitiful mess.

yeah, idk how much of that was her fault or the director's fault

[Carl the Llama]

I can't think of a way to build Aeris to be as good a physical fighter as more or less anyone else in the game. She has low HP, doesn't do full damage from back row, has low strength, has no directly offensive limit breaks. Anything you can put on Aeris to make her a better fighter, you could instead put on anyone else and get an even better result.

I'm very interested in hearing how she can be made into a good fighter. If she's not going to use magic, you'd be better off with just about anyone else instead of her, which makes her a mage/support character, not a balanced all-purpose character.

First off you steal the Striking staff from Eligor in the train graveyard, it has 0=0 0 0 materia slots and an attack of 32 (completely unrivaled until you steal the Hardedge in the Shinra Tower which has the same attack) This weapon can also be bought in Gongaga, but you can replace it in the Gold Saucer with the Umbrella, which has an attack of 58, then, if you fancy a challenge on the demons gate, you can equip her with the princess guard and kill off 1 or 2 other characters and her attack power doubles or triples. As for low HP? Make her status Sadness and she takes 30% less damage, or give her the long range materia, or live dangerously and put her in fury status and give her the cover materia and abuse her Fury Brand limit, any way you look at it, Aerith enables an extra limit from Cloud and your second which is more then enough warrant her use even if you don't like her.

Any argument you can come up with as a reason to not use her can be countered by Fury Brand.

I should also mention that I assume you are talking about boss fights, because standard fights are over to quickly for there to be any risk or reason to use strategy.

[Snap Jumper]

I think my only really unpopular opinion about the series is that FFX isn't that good, it was really mediocre and I felt it tried too hard to be some PS2 tech demo.

I don't think it's mediocre, it's just plain bad. The lengthy, unskippable cutscenes completely ruin the flow of the game. The sphere grid is unnecessarily complicated. The characters are annoying, particularly Auron, who seems to think he knows everything and should tell everyone else what to do. Then there's Wakka, Tidus, and Lulu who aren't much better. Then there is the need to rotate everyone into a battle to get everyone experience. The final boss is really difficult, which, by itself, isn't a bad thing, but when it's coupled with having to go through getting those 10 crystals every time you want to try fighting it again, it gets really annoying. And that's just some of the reasons why, to me, FFX is, by far, the worst of the numbered series.

[Bolivar]

I like what Pike said on the first page about there not really being any unpopular Final Fantasy opinions, as the fanbase is pretty diverse. For example, I always assumed I was the only person on the planet who actually enjoyed FFV more than FFVI but it turns out that's actually a pretty common theme among people who played both games as adults.

I think has time has passed, FFVIII really deserves to be at the upper echelon of the series. I think it earned some credit for running with the FFVII formula and taking some big risks with it, even if not all of them paid off at the time. I know we were all teenagers and at that age, romance stories were gross but I think it was pretty ballsy for them to make a story about Squall coming out of his shell and Rinoa coming to terms with the real world, and them helping each other to do so together. The pre-rendered backgrounds and music have both aged pretty well, too.

Lastly, while I agree FFVIII is easy to break, I don't think it breaks itself. I play the game just running through the story, drawing only a little here and there, and spend most of my early time with GFs unlocking their stat bonuses, not the refinement abilities. I know some people claim that you still accumulate enough high level spells early on to break the game but I've played it this way several times and I really think they are exaggerating.

[Forsaken Lover]

You don't have to break FFVIII to make it easy. I played a Pseudo-Class Challenge Run, the only challenge run I've ever done in an RPG, where Squall was a Warrior (only could Junction to HP, Str and Def) while the other two were mages (only can junction to Mag and Spr) with one being for Attack Spells and the other a mix of Status Spells and Healing.

The game was still boring and I dropped it because there was no challenge in my challenge run. My first and only challenge run and I had to abandon it because it was too easy. I had even increased all my levels to 100 to make sure everything was as strong as it could be, and the game was still no fun.

I had to go out and find a mod to make it a challenge. Now, granted, with this mod, Ultimecia is my favorite FF boss. Over an hour struggle taking down 2,000,000 HP was very awesome.

But this just shows what we all know about FFVIII all along. It had all the tools for the job and yet it couldn't get that job done. The Junction System had potential but they screwed it up. The characters had potential but they screwed them up. The world had potential but they screwed it up.

FFVIII is not completely devoid of merits but, where I'm at, it is the worst FF by far. FFXIII had a better cast and the only reason I haven't replayed it more than VIII is because I hate XIII's gameplay.