/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10911858
IX because before XII every mainline FF game improved on the ones that came before it

>>10911863
XII is a great game stfu

IX becuase it doesn't shit the bed half way through and make you re-recruit your characters, or have a party-splitting final dungeon

>>10911858
VI but IX is close.

>>10912008
It's the other way around

>>10911858
I love both equally

XI because everything SquareSoft produced before VII was irrelevant.

>>10911863
True. XII didn't improve upon its predecessors. It obsoleted them.

>>10912052
You are lying

>>10912009
I prefer 6 but wouldn't argue with someone who preferred 9. I like them both a lot.

>>10911858
>... nice.

6 is better.
Better story.
Better characters.
Better battles.
Better customizing.
Better music.
Better presentation.
....
No contest.

>>10911858
IX because it has better music, better setting, better characters and a nice superboss (ozma)
>>10911895
>re-recruit your characters
>party-splitting final dungeon
these are the best things about VI though. it's a shame that by the time you gather all your party members you're too overleveled for the final dungeon.

>>10912285
>better setting...
on paper.. maybe .. in game? no. lifeless.
>super boss ozma...
meh.. what you get for winning? nothin..
What you get from Tower of Magi?
ULTIMA!!

>>10911858
Ff9 is trash. It's worse than ff4. It's on par with ff10

>>10912334
>lifeless
IX world is pretty and magical due to its pre-rendered backgrounds. no ff game comes close to this. so good.

>>10912365
What's the best game in the series then?

>>10911858
so how many more of these threads are you planning on spamming /vr/ with?

>>10912396
1. Ff7
2. Ff6
3. Ff8/10
4. Ff4/ff9

Ff5 own category because it's all gameplay useless story but great game. Anything after 0 is not a final fantasy game

>>10912429
You really consider 7 better than 6?

>>10912440
id agree.
I like 6 better then 7, but 7 was so popular even normies were playing it! While that doesnt sound all that strange now, at the time only super nerds played RPGs .. The fact that it broke out of that mould is almost unbelievable!

>>10912440
Oh 7 is a master piece of pacing and character writing. Just great from start to finish, 6 I understand why people like but it's not even close.

>>10912440
I actually do. When I replayed ff6 I was actually kind of underwhelmed. The self enclosed character arc pieces are great but the over encompassing story is a little broken and basic. And of course character bloat to some degree. Limited battle system compared to materia system, with materia problem being that all the interesting combo materials only get unlocked at the end. Ff7 music slightly better.

>>10912960
Ff6 godtier scenes are opera house and suicide beach. But ff7 is comparable with golden saucer, exploring cloud past, and teen cloud promise. Ff7 is one of the games that actually lives up to and stands up to its hype, something that absolutely disappeared in gaming until like...bg3.

>>10912087
6 didn't have this cute latina-coded cock-tease.

>>10911858
Both games are great and this is obviously a thread designed to shit on 9 because 6 is universally more popular. Fuck you, OP. You stupid faggot.

>>10912440
7 is better than 6 in almost every way, people just like to pretend otherwise because 7 already has been criticized to death due to its popularity

>>10912440
I 100% do. 6's writing takes a downturn hard at World of Ruin

>>10911858
VI
> better OST
> 20 hours instead of 4 hours
> better cast
> quicker loading / battles
IX
> great OST
> cast is meh
> SD character styles doesn't work as well in 3D
> game is way too long
> plot makes no sense
> too many annoying mini games

>>10913175
>cast is meh
Retard

>>10911895
That's the best part of 6
>>10911858
>GAMEPLAY
9's progression is better, such that 7R actually took notes from it and made you learn spells from mastering the associated weapon. Each party member is also unique, and there's real decision-making when picking a team and assigning SP. 9 also has Tetra Master, which is awesome.

Meanwhile in 6land every single party member is simultaneously a Black Mage, White Mage, Latino Mage, et cetera. There is no actual roleplaying involved because everyone just becomes an omnipotent god without the use of any exploits.
>STORY
Celes and Kefka are great, and the opening act of the World of Ruin is absolutely incredible. Unfortunately, I don't have much to say about the rest of 6's story. It's not that 6 has a bad story – nothing here really offends me – it's just that it doesn't really say much because it's a simpler story than 7-onwards and has to divide what little substance the story has across 15 different party members.

9's story is so charming and epic at the same time. I love the cast, I love the world, and I love the crazy developments that happen. This game will attach itself to you.
>MUSIC
Aside from a few standout songs (Devil's Lab and Dancing Mad are my favs), 6 is on the weaker end of Final Fantasy soundtracks. While Dancing Mad is a masterpiece, it's also one song, and a lot of this lineup is just forgettable.

9 is definitely in the stronger end of FF scores: the music is extremely memorable and covers a wide range of moods. Uematsu says this is his best FF soundtrack and I can almost agree (7 edges out for me).

>>10913223
> 6 is on the weaker end of Final Fantasy soundtracks.
6 soundtrack is top-tier except for one track and it's a big one: the regular battle theme. Fix that and it would be on par with IX. Also I don't like the Veldt theme very much.
>a lot of this lineup is just forgettable.
Or you just have a bad memory. Every single character theme is excellent. Locke, Celes, Terra, Relm, Cyan, Gau, Setzer, and Shadow's themes are all especially good. There's lots of great location music (Narshe, all the towns, not to mention the whole opera sequence). All the boss battle music is great, the AtmaWeapon battle is one of the best in the series.

All that said, I still think IX's soundtrack is better.

>>10911858
Both are flawed. Between the two I vastly prefer VI, even with its busted and unbalanced mechanics. IX seems like it should be better on paper but somehow manages to overdo every good idea to the point of killing the magic.

>>10911858
>Which one is the better game
VI
>and why?
No 3d

>Celes leotard vs Garnet body suit
Pretty hard choice honestly. For the games themselves, I like both for different reasons
>>10911895
It's optional. You don't even need to re-recruit Terra to beat

>>10911858
>Which one is the better game, and why?
6 easily:
Mainly because, it's not a slow piece of shit of a game.
But mostly because 9 is all around terrible except for some of the music and maybe 2 or 3 characters.

>>10913551
this is why zoomer opinions don't matter. you all have adhd and will watch tiktok if a battle animation lasts longer than 3 seconds

>>10913007
How is Garnet latina-coded? She looks and behaves stereotypically japanese.

(not so) thinly veiled nintendo vs sony thread

I'm just now noticing it's three trilogies, and they follow similar patterns.
>Famicom trilogy: FF1, FF2, FF3
>Super Famicom trilogy: FF4, FF5, FF6
>Playstation trilogy: FF7, FF8, FF9
>First game in trilogy isn't exactly impressive for the hardware, doesn't try anything too crazy, even has some major bugs in the final release(FF1's various issues, FF4's door glitch, FF7's w-item glitch)
>Second game in trilogy is a bit experimental(FF2's stat growth system, FF5's almost non-existent story, FF8's draw feature)
>Third game is heavily polished and trying to look as pretty as possible given the hardware
I guess it would have been a bit more obvious if I grew up with access to all the games and not just three of the first six.

>>10911858

I consider 9 to be one of the lamest FF games. You're comparing crap to one of the best in the series

>>10914429
>I consider 9 to be one of the lamest FF games.
I bet you think 8 is a master piece as well.

>>10911858
6 because all the ones after that are gay.

>>10913562
>this is why zoomer opinions don't matter. you all have adhd and will watch tiktok if a battle animation lasts longer than 3 seconds
jokes on you, you fucking retard. I played ff9 on release along side chrono cross, vagrant story and legend of mana. Every single magazine promoting the shitty FF as a callback to the classic era, it never held any candle to the imagination that the classic games had and worst of all, most of the characters were insulting in nature when coupled with the horrid ugly and awful character design.
I would go even deeper on how much this game sucks, but I can't bother to find archives of posts from the good old VGM piracy site and tranny-owned FFShrine forum.

The slowness of FF9 makes my skin crawl, it's amazing to see that Square released a game with so little room to optimize it's performance, that they might as well pushed it's release towards the PS2, Sakaguchi was smelling his farts to much those days.

FF9 mark the end of an era of wonderful experimentation of the PS1 days of Square.

>>10913562
>zoomers in a thread about SNES vs PSX
IX is bloated and tedious. It's boring because of the slowness and attention span totally irrelevant. In fact I could demonstrate my superior attention span by going into laborious detail about everything wrong with IX and I guarantee you would be too impatient to read it.

>>10914487
>horrid ugly and awful character design
Why does FF9's art style make a certain subsection of millennials go absolutely ballistic? The game is beautiful and that's a fact.

Overall 6 soundtrack is some of Uematsu's most canned, generic work, but Searching for Friends is an unforgettable theme and basically the game's theme song in my mind. Narshe theme also gets stuck in my head a lot.

As much as I thought the Esper grind was a little tedious, you do get good and easy AP spots eventually in WoR to make up for it, and nothing could be worse than 9's battle pacing. It's just too fucking slow man.

>>10913464
>Or you just have a bad memory
I have no trouble recalling the other games' superior soundtracks, whereas I could not even tell you what instruments were in Relm, Cyan, or Gau's themes.
>Narshe
Not interesting

>>10914487
Opinions are opinions. I played it on release as well, expected to hate the game given Zidane looks like fruity monkey waiter, Garnet like chibi Rinoa and the Buzz Lightyear in tin foil with mascara. But the characters themselves were awesome and in the end it's one of my favorites in the series.

>>10912945
>>10913018
That's fair, I think I was partly over hyped for 7. I bought the soundtrack the summer before it came out and listened to it constantly and was pouring over art books. It's still a good game, but never could have matched my expectations and having replayed them since, I still like 6 more.

>>10914567
>Why does FF9's art style make a certain subsection of millennials go absolutely ballistic?
gee I fucking wonder
>The game is beautiful and that's a fact.
backgrounds and prerenders, maybe. but they're mostly not very interesting or memorable, except maybe the Memoria dungeon at the end of the game.
But overall the setpieces never were as interesting like FF7 or 8 managed to accomplish

>>10914567
Because so many of the characters are ugly. The style is beautiful when taken at a glance but most of the main players are unlikable freaks.

It's a fantasy game. So players want to play an fearsome and honorable knight with cool armor and swords but instead you get a pathetic loser in command of an absolute embarrassment order of knights shown up in every way by the female counterpart led by Beatrix. My 4-year-old loves Steiner because Steiner's such a buffoon. "Look I'm shaking my arms mad like Steiner!" Toddlers love that shit. And if you thought Steiner was pathetic and annoying, wait until you meet Quina and Amarant. Freya is a boring mope. Plus, dragoons in other games looked like Knights in armor with dragon themes. Freya wears this weird raincoat-looking thing and oh yeah, is a giant rat.

Shouldn't be fucking hard to figure out why FF9's character design choices turned people off. Either you went full reddit and embraced all the nonsense for its quirky novelty or you didn't.

And incidentally, playing this with kids gets really fucking boring sooner than later. They loved Steiner's antics. They love Vivi.
They didn't so much love the most of the lengthy dialog scenes in Lindblum and it's hard to get through any decent amount of content in the 30-45 minute chunks of time we play. The 4yo literally asked to play FF1 (NES version) instead because driving the ship around and getting on and off at different parts of the world and going to different towns is more fun for him than trudging through pre-rendered backgrounds and listening to me read dialog.

>>10914639

>>10914620
You have bad memory and shit taste. Don't try to comment on music anymore.

>>10914652
Why does my bad memory not apply to the other FF games?

>>10912440
I mildly prefer playing 6, personally, but any reasonable attempt to be objective and I have to give the edge to 7.
In general, ranking Final Fantasy games gets really stupid since they're all pretty good in their own ways.

>>10914659
Bias maybe. I don't know. That's a you problem.

>>10914662
8 has an amazing soundtrack, and I can't be biased in 8's favor when I don't even like that game

>>10914647
anon if your kids cannot even follow a fairy tale (that's what ff9 is) you have bigger worries than whining about fucking videogames

>>10914661
Interesting, I wouldn't agree. Gameplay wise I think 6 is quite a bit better with it's larger selection of characters all of whom can both be customized via espers but also all have their own unique ability which are more in depth than limit breaks. The other things, graphics, music and story I think could go either way. To me I slightly prefer 6's soundtrack and think it's graphics hold up better these years later, but I could certainly see someone else thinking opposite.

>>10914651
if you are gonna try and catch me with the absolutely kino pixelated ff7's field models that look gorgeous on CRT TV, at least be a man and find a ps1 version without the ugly fucking line they put for a mouth in the inferior PC ports.
>>10914647
>the main players are unlikable freaks.
Yup

>>10913617
ya dun fell for it

>>10914567
>Why does FF9's art style make a certain subsection of millennials go absolutely ballistic?
There's a huge swathe of FF fans who only got on board with FF7. To them, that was the defining look and feel of Final Fantasy. After FF8 doubled down on the realism, FF9 really offended their delicate sensibilities. You honestly have no idea how many American males have masculinity complexes that extend all the way to the media they enjoy. Although I'm sure you'd remember if you were alive for the great "Cel-da" debacle surrounding Wind Waker. Lmao, the tears were honestly delicious, and they only get tastier, given that Wind Waker turned out to be one of the most timelessly beautiful games of its era.

>>10914934
This. I have one friend who is a huge fan of 7 and 8, but if you bring up 9, he just starts going on a schizo rant about Zidane having a tail. Like that's literally all he knows about the game, I think.

>>10913639
1 and 4 are much closer to 9 than to 7
Same for 3 with 5 instead of 6, also 6 with 7 instead of 9
You might as well chalk up the "trilogy" similarities to similarities between the console life cycles for each generation (first attempts at games > deliberately experimental games > polished games now that limitations are more well known)

>>10914945
>>10914934
this is revisionist BS. And basically parroting the stupidity of what game magazines at the time published.
Still ignoring the fact that 9s art direction is divisive above all and ignoring the fact that there's plenty of guys out there that like the classic look and feel of high fantasy or sword and sorcery that FF1-5 had that do hate how 9 looks.
Also:
>American males have masculinity complexes
What in the ESL is this shit lmao.

>>10914984
Not him but I totally knew people who had a terrible reaction to 9's aesthetic and refused to ever play it.

>>10915164
>Not him but I totally knew people who had a terrible reaction to 9's aesthetic and refused to ever play it.
Doesn't refute my point that it still ignores:
>Divisive Aesthetic
>Classic fans hated 9's look regardless of so-called 'callback' to classic era.

>>10914758
>Gameplay wise I think 6 is quite a bit better
I disagree. I get that there are advantages, like I said I tend to enjoy 6 more because the simpler, gameplay-focused SNES-style format appeals to me. I also like the pre-Chrono Trigger mindset that weapons are just tools that any qualified character can use, vs every character having their own personal set of weapons.

HOWEVER
6 has serious gameplay flaws.

1. The class and stat system is just a mess. Magic power is way too important, none of the other stats really matter much. Vigor is noticeable but magic is a better stat to raise on almost everyone. The esper-based manner of boosting stats is cumbersome. Characters all have roughly identical HP and Mana pools, undermining the class system in a manner that doesn't apply to 7. Why should Sabin have as much mana as Strago? Specific abilities are wildly unbalanced and more than just typical Final Fantasy imbalance. The standard "Fight" command is inferior to (free) special moves on key martial characters for most of the game, making weapons kind of a joke (what does Sabin's claw matter has when he only uses blitzes anyway?). Defense-piercing abilities tend to be overpowered with few tradeoffs or downsides. Magic on everyone blurs the class distinctiveness. Level counts for a lot also and it's very hard to avoid becoming overpowered before the end.

2. Questionable itemization in the WoR, even discounting broken evade stat. The elemental shields alone trivialize several bosses.

3. Many RNG-heavy abilities and loss of control (Dance, Rage, Umaro, and Slots as well as auto-targeting abilities Blitz, SwdTech, Sketch, the Colosseum minigame) in a game that's supposed to be be about making decisions.

>>10914984
>asically parroting the stupidity of what game magazines at the time published.
Exactly lol. "Return to classic Final Fantasy" was clearly the PR rhetoric being fed to journalists.

>>10911858
6 has slightly more soul

>>10914663
Again, whatever your exact problem is I cannot say, but there's no objective evidence in the music whatsoever that would explain why you fail to remember the tracks.

>>10914717
>has to invent strawman to fling mindless insults
You can't even seem to read simple English so I'd say you have bigger problems. The issue from a 4 year old's perspective is that Lindblum gets boring. There's lots of blathering exposition eg between Cid and Garnet with nothing actually happening.

>>10911858
I can't put IX above others, because you have to literally play most of the prior games to fully appreciate it.

>>10911858
VI is better because of the story.
The opera scene knocks it out of the ballpark and makes VI one of the best RPG's of all time.

>>10915239
I hear what you're saying about 6, but part of the problem with 7 is that everything is so easy that it doesn't really matter. 6 is unbalanced, but at least you need to pay attention a little. Not that it's not also stupidly easy, but still. My first time through FF7 I had heard about Supernova and then remembered Sephiroth was supposed to be easier than Kefka so maybe I should go easy for a round or two but he died right away. On my next playthrough I had Cloud loaded up with cover and counter materia so he basically just blocked and auto killed everything
Then I forgot to unequip it before the last battle where finally seeing Supernova was most of the point, so the whole fight was my characters throwing megalixers at Sephiroth to keep him alive long enough.

There's a ton I love to death about FF7, but it's balance is not it's strong suit. Really though between 6 and 7 I like 6 better but it's the difference between an 8.8/10 and and 8.9/10 they're both so good.

>>10913639
Nah, that's pretty much nonsense.
1, 4, 6 and 9 feature character=class systems.
3, 5, and 7 all feature variants of the job system
2 and 8 don't fit in to either pattern. As for "first title on console" summaries:
>FF1
Great first attempt at making an RPG on a console. Very primitive, but nailed the feeling of adventuring and exploring while building and growing your characters and party in an epic world-saving plot. Was substantially polished compared to Dragon Quest.
>FF4
Major graphics and audio upgrade from previous entry. Easily the best-looking 16-bit RPG the year it was released, and still looks pretty good today. FF4 introduced ATB, a key, series-defining innovation. The class system is constrained in FF4 both to emphasize specific encounters and for synergy with the ATB system, but retains many of the mechanics from prior entries. ATB has major implications there as well, as speed and timing matters a great deal. Spells and abilities have different charge times, characters have different speed ratings, and everything is tuned to flow naturally.
>FF7
Adapts the 2D FF formula to 5th generation, mixing 3D sprites on pre-rendered 3D backgrounds for the field maps, and full 3D for everything else, with unprecedented production value. Exploits the vastly increased capacity of the CD format to dramatically expand the scope and detail of storytelling and spectacle, and to bolt on lots of bonus mechanics and minigames, ranging from simple timing gimmicks like the Dolphin jump to full-blown extra videogames like snowboarding, bike chase, submarine game and Fort Condor. (Subsequent PSX FFs would keep the gimmicky stuff, but dropped major side games in favor of Triple Triad and Tetra Master).
FF7 has one of the snappiest, most kinetic implementations of ATB in the classic series.

>>10915639
>but part of the problem with 7 is that everything is so easy that it doesn't really matter
6 is the same really. Whether Sephiroth is easier than Kefka is a silly question because Kefka is a joke already. The only real risk is an ultima counter (which I personally have never even seen him use).
>There's a ton I love to death about FF7, but it's balance is not it's strong suit.
No, but it's still better than 6. There's more to the game than the last battle or at some hyper-optimized godparty level. In FF7 if you build a physical character you get a physical character. If you build a spellcaster you get a spellcaster. If you build a hybrid you get a hybrid. Equipment choices are consistently meaningful, trading off stat boosts, attack power, materia slots and bonus protections. Crazy edge case builds aside, my main criticism with FF7 is that the system encourages bland, min/maxed hybrids a bit too much (eg as compared to the FF5 job system that forced you to pick a dominant and secondary class); and I find managing materia can be a chore sometimes. But that's also what people love about the game.

I would say that FF7 definitely succeeds at what it was aiming for. FF6 I'd say is only a partial success. They did manage to have a game with 14 unique playable characters, but it's messy.

>>10915497
I played most of the prior games and I found the callbacks to actually detract from the experience. It made the story feel more obligatory, like they were adding stuff for the sake of callbacks instead of because that was the best thing for the story.

>>10915310
so? when I was that age I was reading children's books. your kids are retarded. consider taking them to a doc instead of playing videogames.

>>10914934
>There's a huge swathe of FF fans who only got on board with FF7. To them, that was the defining look and feel of Final Fantasy

>>10913617
Jap girls are not that expressive.