Ah... perfect topic...
I've played FF 1-3 US, FFV Jp, little of FFVII US, watched a little of FFVIII + X, and played through half of IX (and continuing). While I can say I enjoyed some of the games at one point or other, playing FFIX really opened my eyes to what I hate about Final Fantasy. Not that IX is a horrible game. I don't believe so. But it's built upon a horrible engine. And it's the only recent FF I've played this much, so it allowed me to analyze.
Problems with FF 7 and on:
1) Viewpoints.
In FF 1-6, there was 2d technology, so the best you could get is an overhead perspective like Zelda. In FF7+, no more. Instead, Square tried for the cinematic approach, where each "screen" has a different static viewpoint. What this means is:
a. Less exploration. Whereas in 2d RPGs, exploration is done by clever dungeon design, FF7+'s dramatic viewpoints only give you so many places to go. The whole focus is now shifted on what you can or cannot see, as opposed to where you can go. In fact, FF7+'s exploration is many times limited to what you can't see on screen (ie the view obscures something and you go behind that something and press X-button... ooh! a chest!), which IMO is a lame way to promote exploration within the new viewpoints.
b. View shifting. Am I the only one bothered by the constant view shifts? This isn't Resident Evil here. FFX fixes one problem by allowing you to continue holding the same direction on the D-pad to go where you need to go, once the shift happens. But still, I find it irritating and disorienting to have the view shift on me 3x within walking a few steps.
c. Interaction? What pisses me off more about the views is, you have no clue if you can interact with the backgrounds. You see a building with doors. Is that a real building with a door you can walk through, or is it just part of the decorational background? Well, you've got no choice but to walk there and see. There's no intuitiveness about it. Sometimes you'll be able to walk thru the door, and other times you'll be hitting a "wall".
d. Speaking of backgrounds, they are often rather beautiful. FFIX's backgrounds are mostly handdrawn and look great. And then you look at the foreground characters, Zidane, Eiko, etc and they're pixellated blobs. I didn't even know what Eiko was supposed to look like until an hour and a half later when they showed her in a FMV clip.
2) Loading and such.
Yes, obviously we're not dealing with carts here, but load time and impatience is an issue. This isn't a complaint exclusive to FF, mind you, but one thing about FF is they haven't implemented a skip system for spells and summons yet.
3) The big strike against recent FFs is they're based upon a crappy engine. I mean, I love what they did in FFX with the sphere board system. That's a huge step in the right direction. But the game is built upon a flawed engine.
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Problems with FF I-X engine
The core issue here is that "Final Fantasy is not fun." You can say all these things about story and presentation, all you want. But the game itself is not fun to play. Square has done little in the last 15 years to change this.
Random battles suck. FF has that.
Random battles suck more because of load time. FF has that.
Random battles suck even more because of a horribly dull battle system. FF has that.
And what's worse is that just like FFs of old, they for you to play more of them because you can't progress without you having to sit there and just walk back 'n forth to level. FF HAS THAT!!!
Why is it that almost every other company has put significant effort into making battles enjoyable, but Square does not? Panzer Dragoon Saga has you carefully consider position, and the cost of moving your unit is that your option of attacking is delayed a bit. The Lunars are like SRPGs without the grid. The Grandias also have you consider timing, where what you do affects the enemy. The Growlansers have a similar system, except you can change your command at any moment. The Tales series has more of a real-time combat system, etc etc.
Why is it that Square still has the standard Fight, Defend, Item, Run menu? Heck, they don't even have an automatic attack command that most other standard engines employ now. Like the only thing they've added in the last 10 years is the ability to swap characters in FFX. But like jamming on the X-button to attack attack attack is fun...
And on the subject of random battles, why does it even exist anymore? Is it fun to get pelted with enemies every few steps as you're going from Point A to Point B? It's kind of funny how Square created Chrono Trigger and that totally changed the RPG world, and became an instant classic. Then as they continued making their FFs, they didn't do a darn thing. It's like "Oh yeah, we encourage you to play and to explore, but we'll punish you by making you fight needless and dull battles every five seconds."
How the heck is this series fun? This was fine back in the NES days, and maybe even a little tolerable during the SNES days. But now, in 2002, how on earth can you stand playing a 15-year old game with prettier graphics?
RPGs, to me, are composed of three elements:
1. Story
2. Exploration
3. Battles
Final Fantasy I-VI may have done 1&2 right. FFVII-X only have 1. Yeah, maybe the FFs do have good stories (up to debate). But I don't see how anyone can say they're good games. Just crappy games with good stories in that case.
Thing is, maybe the reason Square doesn't make their games fun is because they don't have to. The fanboys will eat it up anyway.
