What is a Final Fantasy game to you?

[Synapse]

-Story Line -Fantasy, depth, mysterious,and adventures
-Environment, Land Marks, Flora, Fauna
-Battle Animation, Weapon Skills, Summons
-Airships, Boats, Chocobos and the perils involved with them

[Malakhim]

Final Fantasy is a lot of things to me, and each game has different ways of achieving them, which is why I like every Final Fantasy game for different reasons. I liked FFVIII and FFX-2 for their themes of love/romance and change/closure respectively, and I love FFXII for being a huge war epic(which admittedly has way too much Star Wars going on in it), I love FFVI for being an all around complete(and amazing) package, and I love FFXIII for being an amazingly gorgeous world with epic music and a blazing fast battle system.

All and all, Final Fantasy is an RPG series that I'm (usually)sure to enjoy, with an aesthetic that I can't say I can find anywhere else, compelling themes and characters(usually) and interesting takes on RPG combat.

The base of what FFXIV is satisfies most of those qualities, and I'm sure that once it's allowed the time to gestate as it SHOULD have had, it'll really knock my socks off. It already far surpasses FFXI at the base level by far for me.

[Lorthethf]

- Character build up/history/relation
- Story (you feel part of the world and care for it. When the story ends, it sucks because it has ended)
- The World and its mysteries. I loved the fact that you fly around the world finding the secrets of the world that is not on the map (FFVIII, the island you fight Ultima at, IX where you get Zidanes ultimate weapon, etc)
- The bosses
- Working together with your team to take down enemies/bosses and not being able to do it alone.

[Shikyo]

Well now that ff has 2 different types of games online and off, for online i would say...
1. Community
2. Beautiful world full of lore
3. Trademark ff Classes/Monsters (pld,whm,blm,drg./odin,bahamut,shiva,marbol ect)
4. Tons of content/massive highly rewarded battles that leave you and your friends with a ginuwine feeling of accomplishment
5. fun and addicting, at working thinking about strategy for keeping xmob from killing your healer >.>
Basically everything ffxi is and ffxiv is not..... get mad if u want, grab the ffxi-2 jabbing stick, but this game has the name final fantasy and has none of the beloved trade marks that the fans of the said title have come to know and love.... i can say this for sure if this game were a upgraded top notch ffxi with improvements and a new world ppl that played xi would love it and ppl that love ff in general would as well and we wouldnt be talking about what needs to be added to actually make this game deserving of the FF name.... now you may comince with your attack...

For offline ff game undoubtedly its the story

[Kilta_Firelotus]

love triangles, love themes, death of those close to the characters.
Must include an epic death scene of a character importent to the story.
Fight for what is rightm and battle the wrong do-ers
Airship, chocobo team mate, (trains.... )
deep story line that hits all emotions.
Powerful characters that you remember for years to come.

[Evangela]

I think... FF5 is the best chapter to explain "what is Final Fantasy?"

the system, game play, theme, story, world, bgm, weapon, vehicles, monster, jobs, abilities, summons, costumes.... everything of FF5 is Final Fantasy

so the dev team should look at FF5 and put some (or many) thing to XIV


but the worst thing for Final Fantasy is "too much machines" do not put them to the game too much. this is one of the reason why I didn't have FF7 as my most favorite and XIII is just another VII wannabe and a machine failure


...., I can't speak english better than this. please forgive me if you don't understand what I said

[Vendeen]

For me, Final Fantasy is always about the story. I have been playing Final Fantasy a long time. I was hook for the very first title I played. which was the original FF for the NES. If any of you remember that one, the game play and graphics left MUCH to be desired lol. However the story for me was the catch. Over the years The story's kept me coming back for more. I have purchased whole consoles just for the chance to play a Final Fantasy title, even the computer I am typing this on was purchased with the expressed intent on playing FF XIV. OK perhaps I'm a bit of a nut >.>;... Anyways My point is, I have always loved the way Final Fantasy could immerse me in its vast story line. As for FF XIV, it remains to be seen for me, but I do have faith that it will come through because Final Fantasy has never let me down... except FFX2... that was just kinda weird for me... But I still played it to the end! xD

[Mishakai]

For me it was a story that kept you wanting to play. I haven't played all the FF games, but I remember grabbing VII and losing a week or so of my life to that game from the moment I started playing. It just grabbed me that hard and didn't let go.

My next FF was XI, and while that was different, since it was an MMO; and my first MMO at that. I'd have to say the sense of feeling like I am in a real world, with danger lurking around the corner, and pretty harsh consequences when I screwed up, is what got me hooked. That was within the first 15 levels of starting. Then I got into my first party, and was just blown away by cooperative MMO play. Then I got into the XI storyline...

Some of that I know I will never experience again (the new to MMO stuff)... and I'm glad that I experienced those in FFXI. The rest, I'd love to experience in XIV.

Unfortunately, XIV has none of this for me. It looks like a Final Fantasy game, but it doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy game.

[Nephera]

I like each game for different reasons really. 6 had a nice story and a huge cast, 7 had a rather serious tone throughout even if the dialog was corny at times and the materia system was fun to play with, 12 had a lot of extra things to do and a fairly memorable cast (except for van who really took a back seat to everyone else), tactics had awesome mechanics (but the story had so much stuff going on it was a little difficult to follow)(also the zodiac system was convoluted and held a lot of characters back).

and all of them had fairly impressive visuals at the time and charming art styles

but

simple character design

I disagree

Final fantasy characters have typically been highly decorated and accessorized from head to toe.

[Rhomagus]

Final fantasy characters have typically been highly decorated and accessorized from head to toe.

As simple as the sprites were in the first couple of Final Fantasy games this is absolutely true. Even then, if you look at Amano's character designs you can tell that the only reason the characters looked the way they did was because of the technical limitations at the time.

I would actually love to see a remake of the old Final Fantasy games or even a new game with watercolor palette effects ala SFIV or Unlimited Saga and a 1:1 recreation of Amano's original designs.

Final Fantasy, as other posters have already said, has been about the story for me. Mix in some of the running themes like Cid, airships, chocobos, moogles, and I can technically define it as a Final Fantasy game. Even if the battle system is meh, as long as the story is good enough to be involved in I'll see it through to the end.