Final Fantasy is a video game series from the role playing genre that has been entertaining gamers for years. With Final Fantasy XIII on the market and being featured in special sets from Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (The Xbox offers a better set–unless you live in Japan where the PS3 has an awesome white console with an image of the main character from the game on the top side).

I’m going to focus on the main Final Fantasy games and not go off the number count to the spin-offs or side games (except X-2.) I’m also going to start with…

Final Fantasy III (SNES) or VI (PS)

I remember it like it was yesterday…Final Fantasy III for the Super Nintendo was amazing for its time. It featured many playable characters, a very long and epic story, fantastic and memorable music and the much talked about half-hour ending.

Final Fantasy III featured a great pool of characters including Celes, Cyan, Terra, Edgar and Sabin. One of the best features that the game had was that you could name the characters as you wished, (within the amount of spaces available though). If you didn’t like what you named them you could get a rename card later in the game and change it.

My favorite memory of the final battle with Kefka was weeding out the weaker characters and as a few died off others would take their place. The remaining group was Celes, Cyan, Edgar and Terra–then in the end Celes stood alone with two swords in hand and Kefka shook away and all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the ending.

Grade: A+

 

Final Fantasy VII is known as being the most popular. Between the spin-offs of the lamer characters such as Zack and Vincent and the low-grade CG movie that they kept delaying in an attempt to make it sell (and it did).

The game itself is more of the focus though, besides the fact that one of the main characters that YOU use is actually killed off, there are great CG animation cut-scenes though-out the game.

The cool areas that you play through and the awesome characters that you either use or meet in the game (I always liked Reno) make it one of the more interesting stories. The music is well done and is quite memorable.

The ending however is cheap, it moves too fast and makes little sense considering that you just fought for your life. For them to make it out that the world was coming to an end as soon as you win is a no-no. Negative endings in a game as long as this are never a good idea.

Just a recommendation, when you get to the end and go up against the “One Winged Angel” Sephiroth, DON’T use Vincent, he is worthless and I simply kept him dead throughout the battle while Cloud and Tifa fought it out–it’s amazing that I won. The second time around I used Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie. Much better choice.

Grade: B+

 

 

Final Fantasy VIII continued with the futuristic theme of part 7. This one began with Squall and Seifer fighting it out to some kick-ass sweeping score and finishing with mirrored scars on their foreheads. One of my favorite aspects of the game was that the main character was actually tough and didn’t whine. Squall got stuck with a group that simply cramped his style. With Zell the clown and Selphie the happy-go-lucky dork and Quistis the wannabe mother always trying to get him to open up to them, I’m surprised they didn’t do a dream sequence where he butchered them and joined up with Seifer, Fujin and Raijin and went on a killing spree to take over the world with the Witch Edea! (I love the characters though–well, most of them).

This game had a great side story where you played out a few scenes under the guise of 3 other characters who have a lot to do with the story. The main attraction however, is the side game which is a card game called Triple Triad. You go around challenging people to the game and win cards in the process when you win. The game is fun and it existed in Japan, I was able to get a decent amount of cards including 4 foils. This was about 10 years ago so it’s quite hard to find them now–check ebay, but I’m not promising.

The ending is OK, but could have been much better, they try to push in very realistic CG but there isn’t much picture to it. It’s a tough game to get through sometimes, but it offers a new battle system where you draw magic from opponents and gain status that way instead of fighting a million battles–you have to anyway…

Grade: A

Final Fantasy IX…Moving on…OK, here’s the short, you play a wimpy bunch of humanoid animals who “pose” as pirates–or something… The gameplay could be a lot better, the characters are a joke and the ending is what it is…I’m actually going to say that I’m sorry if YOU liked this game, but I wanted to Frisbee the disks–so I gave the game to someone and that is that.

Grade: F-

 

 

Final Fantasy X–How many of you went out and dropped $300.00 for a Playstation2 just to have this game? FFX was the birth of true CG animation using actors that you could tell were actually people. The story was decent but could have been a little better. The side game of Blitz Ball was a bitch and a half to get used to and the final battles were ball-busting…Well, the very last fight against the Fabergé Egg where you had to reflect everything off of your characters just to cause damage.

The ending was ok, but losing the main character Tidus–story or not, just didn’t seem right. All in all, the game was cool.

Grade: A-

 

 

Final Fantasy X-2 was the spin-off of FFX; using two of the main female characters from part 10 and adding a new character (also female). This game was interesting for it’s battle system, experience gain and equipment set-up. It also took a lot of slack–but hey, I think we all know it was a fluff game that featured a teen soap opera storyline and 1 of 3 weak endings. Fights in the game were of course old fashioned; however, they featured some talking which is pretty cool in itself. I feel that this game was a little more alive than the previous games because of the voice-overs and the fact that you could fall off of platforms and jump.

The graphics are great and the music is wonderful, the story needs a little help, but other than that, it’s a great game. FFX-2 was a fun game, I think that is what makes it most memorable.

Grade: A-

Final Fantasy XI was made more for online play, it was not much to care about due to the characters being standard and the game play as you made it. You are more prone to worrying about the online players than the monsters within the game.

The set came with a hard drive but not much press surrounded this game. I won’t even rate it.

Final Fantasy XII is the current best of the series. The graphics alone are beautiful with full 360 degree rotation and amazing details within the worlds of play.

The play control is just as well perfect unless you have to push a little cactaur and your analog stick won’t balance out the way you are pushing!

The music is great but I feel some of the other games had more memorable music than this one.

The fights are one of the best new concepts that this game offers, you can actually see what you are going to fight and the battle itself is live, you can use automatic commands to each character or input the commands manually, no more line fighting!

FFXII features a ton of CG cut-scenes and great voice overs where the lips move when the character talks–unlike FFX-2. The story itself is decent, but as much as the creators love Star Wars–it seems they are starting to take too much from it, causing Final Fantasy to lose its fantasy.

The characters that YOU use are pretty decent though, with 6 available you can choose a few good teams–or use your favorites and let the others stay on stand-by in case you have a couple killed off.

The end of the game is not too difficult if the characters are built up to be tough. I filled their “boards” to the max and gave them the best equipment that I had access to. One character even had the classic Ragnarok sword and I went for broke. My personal preference was Ashe, Basch and Penello–they did well and no one died. After the win, you sit back to a nice 24 minute ending and that’s another Final Fantasy under your belt.

Grade: A

 

 

My personal opinion on Final Fantasy XIII at this stage is that it has beautiful graphics but the characters need to be renamed–theme or not, “Lightning” for your main female character is just not impressive. (Shouldn’t the main character be someone named Cid???  They can call her Syd(ney).

Anyhow, Final Fantasy has lived through a very long run where most of the games are just awesome and I highly recommend them to people who like role playing games.

On a side note, I highly recommend Chrono Cross for PSOne, it’s a wonderful game, has a ton of playable characters, the music is awesome and the graphics for it being a PSOne game are excellent. I always referred to Chrono Cross as Final Fantasy 9…

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