Final Fantasy means different things to different people. To some people, it'll never be anything more than a collection of effete men with unlikely hairstyles. It's best not to talk to these people, as the whole "androgynous hair" observation sailed past cliché and into "nice day, isn't it?" levels of face-clawing mundanity long ago.
To others, it's a brilliant combination of semi-impenetrable systems that slowly become second nature, stories that are too massive to make sense but pull on your emotion strings anyway, and ending the game approximately a thousand times stronger than you started it. We've all got favourite bits from different games. But If we put those bits together, would we have the perfect game? Or some patchwork Frankenstein that would attract a mob of angry torch-wielding fans?
As much as I loved the older games, I don't want to go back to the psychologically crippling and time-wasting random encounters of FFVII. (Yes, you could get a No-Encounter materia, but then you just ended up fretting about all the experience you were mission out on.) But I'm not sure I'm entirely down with the auto-pilot of the Paradigm Shift, either. I've lost count of the number of battles I've five-starred without pressing anything more than the A button, and the illusion of playing a game at all wears thin when you're returning to old areas filled with underpowered but relentless enemies.
For my ultimate Final Fantasy, I'll be bringing back the Gambit System of FFXII. No battle summaries, no battle screens, no break from the world.
VILLAIN - FFVI's KEFKA PALAZZO
No explanation required. Better than Sephiroth.
LEVELLING UP - FFX's SPHERE GRID
Levelling up can be an anti-climax. In FFXIII-2, you've got 99 levels in each role to acquire, but by the time you're less than half-way there, chances are you'll have learned all the abilities and it's shallow number-raising.
Bring back the Sphere Grid from FFX. The Sphere Grid gave character development the appearance of a game, and gave you the chance to look ahead, plan far in advance, and check out those distant abilities that you really wanted. Hastega? Phwoar, I'll have that. Pilfer Gil? Well, it's on the way I suppose. A clever touch was that all characters shared the Sphere Grid, with potential access to all the same powers, and only their starting locations on that grid setting their class. As you progressed, they'd start bleeding into each others roles - if only to grab the extra HP and stat boosts that were in there. Give us this - or FFXII's Licence Grid, at a push.
In FFVIII, you could return to your desk at school, and take a number of quizzes to get a promotion, and earn more money. It was a good system that ensured you'd understood the slightly off-kilter game mechanics. There's also a quiz game in the newest game. It's in Academia, once you've created an alternate future. It's bat-shit. I lost an hour to the seemingly endless cycle of leftfield questions, taking notes of questions I'd got right - mainly by partially informed guesswork. I gave up when, after that hour, no question had repeated.
That's not fun - how come nothing as amazing as Triple Triad has been attempted since FFVIII? A completely optional, but fun enough to make you want to play, trading card game. You could get cards from combat, and you could refine rarer cards into useful items and magic. Cards were a reason to care more about every aspect of the game. Compare this to the slot machines in FFXIII-2's Serendipity - they're actually as much fun as playing a fruit machine from the 1960s. You're looking at spinning reels. It's like getting slapped in the face by your hopes.
9 comments so far...
bedlum69 on 8 Feb '12 said:
Bring back the turn based style of fighting ( or at least as an option) and the ability to use the whole team instead of just one. Oh and proper FF music without singing in it.
msbhvn on 8 Feb '12 said:
Can't agree with bringing back turn based combat, which eliminated any chance of reacting to your enemies' strategies, but the endless compromises haven't been any better.
Never played FFXII, but its Gambit system was the basis for the combat in Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii and I just don't understand what to do at all in that game. You're relying on AI companions to follow up on your attacks and they tend to just stand there shouting instead while you get slaughtered.
The trouble with FF is that the devs have been overreacting to fan criticism since FFVIII, and instead of refining the combat system with each release, they chuck it out and try to reinvent the wheel, pleasing no one.
The "proper FF music" was by composer Nobuo Uematsu who left Square Enix years ago, that's why it's not as good now.
terry cheyne on 8 Feb '12 said:
sorry but are you brain dead VILLAIN - FFVI's KEFKA PALAZZO
No explanation required. Better than Sephiroth.
i mean come on ronald mcdonald is more scary than kefka
ronald mcdonald came to my local and in 5 seconds every child was crying
kefka couldn't scare an oglop and runs around like man in drag
sephiroth speared Aeris in the back with his sword and made millions cry
destroyed a town in an act off insainity , carrys his mothers severed head around and takes advantage of clouds mental illness now that's a villain
kefka is a pussy compaired to sephiroth
agree with the rest
Maverick_McCool on 8 Feb '12 said:
Hmm a FF mash up , I'm in.......I'll probably get some stick , but what the hell.
I'd have to go with the FFX combat if any , switching in different characters for different enemies and controlling your Aeons was cool and needs to return , except the aeons you use are the summons from FFVIII as they are by far the coolest design (Diablo anyone?) , keep the sphere grid as well and mix it with the materia for weapon upgrades and special abilities.Ditch random encounters in favour of a more FFXII / FFXIII vibe and we are all set.
The cast sharing lead roles aka FFVI , a mix of a bunch of FF's starring - FFIV's Yang and Rydia , Vincent , Barret and Red from FFVII , Seifer and Irvine from VIII , FFIX's Amarant , and Auron , Lulu and Wakka from FFX. Yes Wakka dammit , the guy is a beast!
Leading the bad guy front I'd have to go with Kefka over Sephiroth for pure evilness , but Sephiroth over Kefka for the cool badass look , so I'm gonna choose both of the leading an army of Black Waltzes in order to bring back some ancient evil time compressing world eating plot twist from outer space with the aid of the FF universes darkest evilest force..............
VANILLE!!!!
'Cos she needs a beating soooo bad!
There you go the greatest FF never made in a couple of paragraphs , I'll take that job whenever you're ready Square.
SidTheSloth on 8 Feb '12 said:
With you all the way with Diablo, he was badass! Thought a lot of them were on 8 to be honest (carbuncle/siren aside). Bahamut & Quetzacotl were awesome too!
Reckon you should include Zidane & Steiner for some comedy relief too - agree with Ed here in that FF9 is massivley underrated!
If they take you up on your offer and make the game can we have day 1 dlc or something with Hope as Vanilles counterpart? I hate them both equally and pray for the day they are included as bonus characters in SC/SF/Tekken/etc - revenge will be mine!!
Johnbhoy69 on 9 Feb '12 said:
I love how fast the combat system is in Final Fantasy 13 & 13-2 but hate that its so robotic and doesnt require any real input apart from repeating your last actions or paradigm shift to heal/Buff...I loved the combat system from 10 where you could cancel the attack of enemies, switch out characters mid battle and got to control the Summons, would love to see this brought back, also would love to see the Aeons, Eidolons taking a more prominent role in the story. Maybe not as much as 10 though.
The battles need to be more interatcive...the QTE system in 13-2 isnt great...and seems like more of a last minute addition, something along the lines of squalls Gunblade trigger would be a lot better, having unique button inputs for each characters weapon. Nearly fall asleep whilst battling in 13/13-2, Switched the cursor from starting on auto battle to actions to make me feel like im actually in control.
We really need limit break gauges back, Remember where having them finally charge in the midst of a boss battle change really change the outcome.
I remember Playing Skies of arcadia and whittling away at a boss character only for him/her to unless a devasting attack that wipes out everyones' HP...except the game didnt end,this was part of the story to show how strong the boss character is...something like this would be quite refreshing in the Final Fantasy series...thinking you about to triumph over a boss only to get your ass handed to you.
The crystarium is awful...very boring watching it slowly move around from orb to orb...boring as fook...a bit more control over the abilities your characters learn is definately needed...The materia system kind of annoyed me, I think when a character levels up along with stats automatically rising there should be additonal points that you can distrubute to make your characters more individual.
Im still holding out hope for serendipitys DLC, really want some decent mini games, not the card game though unless its triple triad. Something like the Bike Escape from Midgar except along the futuristic streets on Cocoon would be very very cool or the monster collecting from 10, splicing together monster to make new super powerful beasts.
There needs to be a main Antagonist who is literally the incarnation of evil itself...someone you really want to hate who stalks you throughout the entire game. The Sephiroth/Cloud rivalry is pretty played out, still awesome though
Maverick_McCool on 9 Feb '12 said:
No worries Sir Sid of Sloth , Hope will be included as an optional boss with tons of HP and a really crappy attack so you can pound on him for a good hour or so....
And your idea of a Street Fighter vs Hope & Vanille is excellent , here's to Capcom hiring you by Friday!
Oh , and you can have Zidane as well , in fact I feel a little ashamed for forgetting the little monkey , and I'll throw in Steiner as well but only if Vivi can come along for sword enchanting purposes.
HighTower90 on 15 Feb '12 said:
Well Summons need to have some kind of development aspect, it always helps make them interesting.
Turn-based isn't dead, like the other blog reads, FFX's one would work quite well, just has to be challenging enough if you're allowed to constantly switch party members, would also need to be a bit more fast-paced and engaging.
For villains personally I like the idea of having multiple superbosses, like Organisation XIII but a smaller amount to be useful, so maybe a Kefka-esque leader with Sephiroth and Exdeath-like lieutenants.
Anyway, I was thinking of a new party system, so instead of having you slowly walk through and gradually meet your party members, mine was based on a sort of Character Editor, so say you start off at an Academy with all these other students and experts, all of them are potential party members, but you have to make the right conversational choices/ be in ther ight place at the right time in order to convince them to join, so you might get the full group, say 6, with one of the Academy's best, or get one little assistant. They'd all have sort of personality presets or you could design your own characters with the editors, so conversations throughout the game would have to be provided for these personalities.
Anyway, yeah, good ideas so far
michaelhill2110 on 16 Feb '12 said:
sphear grid leveling from 10, materea from 7,
2 diferent teams with 2 diferent fighting styles:
team angst; vincent valentine (7), squall (8), Auron (10), shadow(6) *insert other angsty characters from other games in here*
team prepy; yufe(7), selfe(8), riku(10), vanele(13) *insert other anoyingly upbeat characters here*
villans: spheroth beats all anyone who says otherwise will be forced to mate with genova.
world... pulse mixed with.... will take sudgestions.
and triple triad is a must