Most underrated Final Fantasy?

[arcanedude34]

Not counting the numbered entries. I'll give it to Tactics Advance cause it also gets nailed with the kitty moniker despite having a fairly mature story (with kids!). Its not as solid or as balanced as Tactics but its a better game than the haters give it credit for.

And don't forget the people who completely missed the point of the game and pegged Marche as the bad guy.

I will argue until the day I die that Marche was the bad guy. That doesn't stop me from loving the game however.

[Skyblade]

Not counting the numbered entries. I'll give it to Tactics Advance cause it also gets nailed with the kitty moniker despite having a fairly mature story (with kids!). Its not as solid or as balanced as Tactics but its a better game than the haters give it credit for.

And don't forget the people who completely missed the point of the game and pegged Marche as the bad guy.

Marche is the bad guy.

Read on.

And Wolf, FFTA is so much more balanced than FFT was. FFT had the most terrible unbalanced and broken battle system of almost any tactical RPG I've ever played.

[Forsaken Lover]

Final Fantasy X-2. Probably THE most hated game in the series and it has the best battle system to date.

It also gave you a greater role in playing the game. Much more than any other FF ever has.

[Wolf Kanno]

And Wolf, FFTA is so much more balanced than FFT was. FFT had the most terrible unbalanced and broken battle system of almost any tactical RPG I've ever played.

I couldn't disagree with you more.

[Karifean]

Final Fantasy X-2. Probably THE most hated game in the series and it has the best battle system to date.

It also gave you a greater role in playing the game. Much more than any other FF ever has.

I second that.

[black orb]

>>> FF2..

[arcanedude34]

And Wolf, FFTA is so much more balanced than FFT was. FFT had the most terrible unbalanced and broken battle system of almost any tactical RPG I've ever played.

I couldn't disagree with you more.

Tactics is far and away the most unbalanced game in the FF series. The rift between player and enemy strength is the only thing that keeps me from putting the game in my top five. I hate having to spend an hour retrying every battle.

[VeloZer0]

The rift between player and enemy strength is the only thing that keeps me from putting the game in my top five.

Though we probably shouldn't turn this into a giant FFT debate, I am somewhat confused by this statement. FFT is one of the few FF titles where the party and the enemies play by the same rules. Can you elaborate?

[arcanedude34]

The rift between player and enemy strength is the only thing that keeps me from putting the game in my top five.

Though we probably shouldn't turn this into a giant FFT debate, I am somewhat confused by this statement. FFT is one of the few FF titles where the party and the enemies play by the same rules. Can you elaborate?

Off the top of my head, the enemy nearly always has several more troops than you can ever have on a playing field, they tend to have higher levels and more abilities in jobs you should barely have access to, there's NO semblance of balance between jobs (who the hell is ever going to use all or even half the jobs in the game when so many are just terrible?)

[qwertysaur]

Gotta go with V

[Bolivar]

IDK if Tactics is underrated because the people who have played it recognize it as challenging, but probably one of the best RPG's ever made. Underappreciated, as in not talked about by enough gamers/RPG fans, is probably more accurate.

That said, I only believe the game is unbalanced in that towards the end, it's not about Tactics anymore. It's about the luck of me getting in those first few devastating blows before the enemies get their turns and get in their first few devastating blows and win.

Devastating Blows FTW.

[LowCaloriePie]

Final Fantasy II. I found the leveling system to be brilliant for its time.

[Wolf Kanno]

Off the top of my head, the enemy nearly always has several more troops than you can ever have on a playing field

Most SRPGs tend to let the player be outnumbered. In FFT its usually only by two or three and with a proper party its rarely a big deal. The difference between leveling in FFT and FFTA series is that FFTA is completely mission based so you get all your random leveling through the missions you undertake whereas its easy to actually avoid random encounters in FFT and be underleveled for the story battles.

You are still grinding in both games but FFTA series hides it behind you redoing the same missions over and over again whereas FFT makes you do more traditional RPG random battles. Where I feel FFT is better than FFTA is that its possible to maximize these encounters to get major benefits for your party whereas FFTA feels it has to mediate all XP and JP for every encounter meaning that you are better off just using overly abusive abilites that litter the title, to end battles as quickly as possible, so you can get to the next mission. It makes battles very tedious in my opinion and even with the laws, its very easy to get past them or flat out ignore them.

they tend to have higher levels and more abilities in jobs you should barely have access to,

Depends how much you level. Yes, for the first couple of battles before RE zones open up but once you can get into random battles you can easily level and enjoy better benefits. In my current file, I've had Ninja and Samurai unlocked since Chapter 1 and the only thing that is keeping me from using them was waiting for the class specific weapons to unlock in shops. I'm usually on par with enemies or more powerful than them, but then again, I like the battle system and love getting into random battles.

I also like the fact that the computer does keep the classes somewhat in good order (though I feel it could be better) as even some of the final story missions can be tough if you don't pay attention. Which is better than TA where enemy encounters don't really improve after the halfway point of the story. Outside of the optional dungeon in TA2, nothing in that game can touch me and all mission battles are terribly tedious, the same happens with TA1. The computer is just weak compared to you.

there's NO semblance of balance between jobs (who the hell is ever going to use all or even half the jobs in the game when so many are just terrible?)

Well me for starters and I must say that with the proper preparation I've found that all the classes are extremely useful as long as you know what you are doing. Certainty some classes are more useful than other but I feel this is less about the class being broken as much as its that the class requires less work and effort to bring out their full potential. With a proper set up, you can actually beat every applicable battle with just using the same party and with the right equipment, you may not even need sub classes or abilites outside of the classes theoretically.

In TA's case, the classes are completely unbalanced. Soldier is completely useless, Gadgeteer is completely unpredictable and makes the class useless and other classes like Beastmaster are only useful for helping make good classes (Blue Mage) useful. You can ignore the Nu Muo, Moogles, Bangaa, Seeq, and Gria and easily beat the game. I can solo missions with a two party set-up using an Illusionist and a Paladin with Fighter skills.

Most of the Humes classes are horribly overpowered and they are easily the best melee characters in the game simply because they get Duel Wield which allows them to out-damage anything the Bangaa could throw at the enemy not to mention the time spent learning the skill as a Ninja means your Hume will get two turns for every one the Bangaa gets unless you leave the Bangaa as a White Monk until the game ends. The Seer Class is just cheap as well.

Viera are faster than the Nu Muo, more durable and better at magic than the Moogles and can actually hold their own with melee. A summoner with with proper equips can just nuke chunks of the map and restore their own health.

TA2 tries to balance how broken mages are by creating the silly 0MP rule which cripples the Nu Muo who were already on thin ice compared to how more useful Viera and Moogles are in terms of speed and durability. Throw in that the game gives the Viera an ability that lets them use their HP for MP and you have a race that ends up being the best mage class cause they get both the summoner abilites and the Elementalist.

The Humes and Viera are incredibly overpowered and though its possible to make some good classes from the other races, they are still not nearly as effective as a Hume/Viera team. Moogles are mostly jokes except for the Gunner/Fusiler class, they can be made pretty good but it requires leveling them in the proper classes and learning the right abilites and even then I still feel your better using a HUME/Viera blitzkrieg team. Nu Muo and Bangaa are terribly slow and support abilites allow the second string races Hume/Viera to chump them both in terms of Physical and Magic power so once again their mostly there to play with rather than being practical or useful. Seeq are only useful cause TA2 decided to make Thieves a nearly useless class and the Gria are actually fairly decent but incredible limited in their classes.

Throw in all the stuff that had to be nerfed between TA2 and TA1 (Hunter, Ninja, Paladin, Assassin etc...) that gets thrown out the window by introducing classes like Parivir, Seer, Green Mage, and Spellblade and its like they basically shot themselves in the foot in terms of balancing, not to mention Paladins, Ninjas, Elemetalists, Summoner, and Fighter are still horribly overpowered classes whose "nerfing' was the equivalent of a gentle slap on the wrist. I only die in TA2 when I'm in Bel Tor and fighting things 40 levels higher than me and even then, I can still hold my own for awhile. How is that balanced?

What TA series passes as balanced has more to do with the games terrible ability system. It worked in FFIX cause the game was meticulously balanced for the player to acquire certain equips at certain points whereas TA gives you equips haphazardly. What makes Paladin and Ninja somewhat balanced is that you may be playing for a good 10, 20, maybe even 30 hours before the game will finally give you the rest of their equipment that gives their abilites. In TA1, I was 20 hours past finishing the game before I got the item that taught Firaga... seriously, what the smurf? This also happens with crappy abilites even, or abilites that would have been useful hours ago but are now irrelevant cause the game dropped items with better abilites that trump those old skills.

TA2 does a bit of a better job but I still found myself waiting hours before I had the chance to learn new skills for some of my classes. I've mastered Master Monk in TA2 but I have never mastered White Monk in either TA title cause I'm still trying to gather the materials or wait for the random drop of their final weapon.

So yeah... I'd say FFT is more balanced than TA simply cause TA's rules for "balance" is to make everything broken. It works in GG but not in a SRPG. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the TA series but god do they piss me off how they screw up their mechanics.

[Slothy]

there's NO semblance of balance between jobs (who the hell is ever going to use all or even half the jobs in the game when so many are just terrible?)

I think WK talked about all of these points in quite a bit of depth, but I feel the need to say something about this one that he didn't. Even if we assume you're correct that half the jobs are terrible (they're not though. Everything has it's useful skills and abilities, but for the sake of argument we'll run with it) it doesn't mean the game is unbalanced. If there were one or two strategic options that so completely dominated the others that you'd have to be an idiot to use anything else then it would be unbalanced. But given how many classes are very useful and could easily be used on their own in multiple combinations to beat any fight in the game, the game isn't unbalanced. It would be like saying a fighting game is unbalanced because there are one or two characters out of twenty that will never win a tournament ever. If you still have eighteen well balanced characters that stand a decent chance in any given fight then you're doing pretty well.

Some useless options don't unbalance a game. One or two options that are far and away the best choices does make an unbalanced game though.

[Loony BoB]

V & VIII for me. Well, I say VIII, but only because so many people slate it when I think it was actually quite enjoyable.