The Lessons Not Learned.

[Midareyukki]

Depends. Did you like 13 or X-2? I might judge a little bit then even though you're a real chill dude.

I like them. Generally speaking.

I liked FNC, I'm the kind of guy who feels Type-0 was dropped too quickly and damned too harshly. I liked 13 and its world. I understand why people had such an issue with the game's story being mostly told in Analects and the linearity of the gameplay. But to me, those were fine. The linearity was justified, even if a little overdone: not only are they running away all the time in Cocoon, they're also in a technological world thar likely doesn't have that many open-ended paths when security is that tight. And as for the plot, all you need to know is told to you, and you can sort of tell what some stuff is through context. Consider this: if I liked the FF12 Bestiary, the Analects really didn't bother me. It's part of why I like Bozja and the Variant Dungeon. You go through the adventure yourself, but if you want more, you can look it up.

As for 10-2... Even if it is too goofy and causes whiplash, I kinda didn't really mind it? I understood why they went for that sort of mood, even if I prefer 10 itself over the sequel. I know so much is different from 10, but it just didn't feel like it NEEDED to be. 10 was gloomy and mournful, whereas in 10-2 the reasons for why that was are gone, and people clearly became more indulgent. So it made sense, since breaking 10's depresso-espresso spiral was 10's whole point. But I did mind one thing: not all of the humour was my taste, especially the really cringeworthy dialogue. Even if I enjoyed the gameplay and the story was alright, the writing was... disasterrific. Besides that, I like how some stuff are explored from the past game too, especially some Ronso who obviously don't like the Guado after Seymour Thanosed them. I need to replay it, actually. I only learned that you can end up making Garik kill all the Ronso in these forums ^^; I never saw that.

i thought garik would just ignore me getting stuff wrong lol... What? :| That happens in FF14 all the time, don't @ me!

Also helps that I liked Koda Kumi as a kid xD

You mean as far as a small handful of contrarian zealots are concerned.

o,o;; FF12 isn't that popular in the community, by far. A lot of people criticised it back in the day, from its "boring and political" tone to Vaan being annoying. A meme in 2010 was that they thought 12 was the worst until 13 came out.

[VictorSpoils]

o,o;; FF12 isn't that popular in the community, by far. A lot of people criticised it back in the day, from its "boring and political" tone to Vaan being annoying. A meme in 2010 was that they thought 12 was the worst until 13 came out.

It's a pretty big community and 12 is one of the most popular ones. The fault would be on these hypothetical people for finding quality boring and an easygoing character annoying.

[Midareyukki]

hypothetical people

I hypothesize you weren't around online as much during 2006 to 2012.

[VictorSpoils]

I hypothesize you weren't around online as much during 2006 to 2012.

That's generally the impression given when an FF9 fan tries to claim it was more popular than FF8 or 10.

[Midareyukki]

That's generally the impression given when an FF9 fan tries to claim it was more popular than FF8 or 10.

Where have you gotten this from? The conversation is about FF12. You know? Vaan, super political story, Fran fanservice, all those things people hammered for quite a while a decade ago?

Also, isn't FF8 also considered unpopular due to its gameplay and confusing plot past CD1?

FF9 does have its detractors, but it's generally received well for having returned to FF's roots both in setting and gameplay, especially after FF8 showing up with its weird junction system.

Whether FF10 surpasses 9, I can't say, both are generally favoured over most FF games as far as I've seen.

[VictorSpoils]

Where have you gotten this from? The conversation is about FF12. You know? Vaan, super political story, Fran fanservice, all those things people hammered for quite a while a decade ago?

Also, isn't FF8 also considered unpopular due to its gameplay and confusing plot past CD1?

FF9 does have its detractors, but it's generally received well for having returned to FF's roots both in setting and gameplay, especially after FF8 showing up with its weird junction system.

Whether FF10 surpasses 9, I can't say, both are generally favoured over most FF games as far as I've seen.

I'm familiar with this gimmick. It's alright if those are your opinions, but it should be worded that way. No point in trying to play arbiter for an entire fanbase, especially when it's this off-base.

[Midareyukki]

I'm familiar with this gimmick. It's alright if those are your opinions, but it should be worded that way. No point in trying to play arbiter for an entire fanbase, especially when it's this off-base.

Yeah, I'm not even going to bother with you. This is all stuff you can find quite easily going through old forums. Call it a gimmick, call it whatever you want. I'm not going to entertain this bull any further.

[vanaii]

Where have you gotten this from? The conversation is about FF12. You know? Vaan, super political story, Fran fanservice, all those things people hammered for quite a while a decade ago?

Also, isn't FF8 also considered unpopular due to its gameplay and confusing plot past CD1?

FF9 does have its detractors, but it's generally received well for having returned to FF's roots both in setting and gameplay, especially after FF8 showing up with its weird junction system.

Whether FF10 surpasses 9, I can't say, both are generally favoured over most FF games as far as I've seen.

All this tells me is Final Fantasy delights in deliberately failing any "what is Final Fantasy" purity test thrown at it.

[Midareyukki]

All this tells me is Final Fantasy delights in deliberately failing any "what is Final Fantasy" purity test thrown at it.

xD Oh but that isn't a flaw of the series imo. That's a flaw of the playerbase. People just expected future games to be the same as before, but FF almost never was that. Closest I can remember to two games being so similar were FF3 and FF5, with 5 expanding on the Job system. There isn't a singular grand unified version of what "Final Fantasy" is in terms of plot (you have comedy stories, depressing stories, invigorative stories, emotional stories, futuristic stories...), setting (medieval, cyberpunk, dieselpunk, steampunk, tribal, generic North Indian) or gameplay (ATB, CTB, RTB, ADB, Active X...). What tends to make a game part of the series tends to be certain tropes, certain characters and especially certain motifs. And it's up to each game to apply them as they see fit, even even omit them whenever unnecessary.

Heck, sometimes it's all about the label more than the game itself. That's how we ended up with FF Tactics xD it's such a clear reskin of the original Tactics Ogre, and while it reuses Cloud and some skills, most of it was pretty jarring given all the games released until then.

[Absimiliard]

That's generally the impression given when an FF9 fan tries to claim it was more popular than FF8 or 10.

Also, isn't FF8 also considered unpopular due to its gameplay and confusing plot past CD1?

FF8 was received well by critics and had high initial sales, but it lacked staying power. Much of its early success is noted to have been a direct result of Final Fantasy 7 having left such a good impression on players. The junction system was the aspect of the game to receive the most criticism. The handling of Guardian Forces (summons, for those who might read this and haven't played the game) wasn't overly well liked either. The game's a little more fondly remembered these days.

FF9 sold far less than Final Fantasy 8 both initially and overall, but much like FF8's success was due in large part to FF7, a portion of FF9's failure to move copies was attributed to the impression left by Final Fantasy 8. Much of FF9's criticisms were aimed at its weird discount junction system as well as how new skills (and summons) were learned. People didn't particularly like Trance at the time either. The few fans aware of it at the time also heavily disliked the fact getting the best weapon in the game (Excalibur II) required you to sacrifice pretty much everything else.