Underrated and Overrated Video Games

[tex]

I was singing the game's praises since it came out.

@Fabricant451

But why. I could understand not thinking it's the worst of the worst, but WHY?

[Fabricant451]

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>

But why.

@tex

Because it is a good game. Why else does anyone praise a game other than weird people who go like "Yeah but it at least tried"

[tex]

Because it is a good game.

@Fabricant451

But why how!?

[Fabricant451]

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>

But why how!?

@tex

How much time do you want me to spend answering this question.

Because I'll unload an essay on you.

[tex]

@Fabricant451

I'd prefer a concise pros/cons list tbh. Gimme like... Idk, either 3-5 reasons as to why it doesn't suck. Feel free to expand.

[Fabricant451]

@Fabricant451

I'd prefer a concise pros/cons list tbh. Gimme like... Idk, either 3-5 reasons as to why it doesn't suck. Feel free to expand.

@tex

1: The score to the game is one of the franchise's best and up there with the best of Uematsu's work. Hamauzu wasn't afraid to try new styles and genres for the compositions and this is especially apparent in the sequels (but those are bad games). The constant leitmotif being reworked and remixed into various overworld maps and character themes is well done - and usually that sort of thing is reserved specifically for the romance theme or the world map and not baked into poppy ballads as characters wander around a vibrant plain. 'Good music' is nothing new for the series but considering how experimental and ultimately cohesive the score for the entire trilogy is it's worthy of note.

2: The combat system is tactical while being fast paced and tooled around individual playstyles. Though every character can eventually get every role, characters are unique and make for better roles than others. This makes it way more viable to use whichever character you want and still be able to clear the game which is just good game design and there's even a 'best' party for the min/max crowd. The crux of the combat being to find ways to ultimately breakthrough an enemy's defenses and hit them like a truck is incredibly satisfying especially against the bigger enemies and the series staples like a Behemoth. Knowing how and when to interrupt and boost your attack without waiting for the bar to fill as well as being able to swap class setups on the fly makes for a satisfying and constant gameplay loop that is tactical and turn based without having the slower pace of both.

3: The story is, up until around chapter 11/12, a significant and nice change of pace from the norm of a Final Fantasy game. The Final Fantasy games have always centered around saving the world from some calamity and the characters are united in this goal regardless of their own personal histories. It always boils down to friendship and love and the same standard tools of the genre trade. It is because the back quarter of the game devolves into this that the game ultimately suffers from it since before the game turns into "let's be friends and kill God through the power of friendship and lesbians" it is very much a journey of personal stakes. The game is built around three central narratives that eventually culminate in the 'twist' that the deities are actually super bad people harvesting humans for nefarious purposes, sure, but up til then it's the story of Lightning/Hope and their parallel journey of how ultimately empty their single minded obsession is, Snow and his unceasing optimism and general naivety being the catalyst for so many pointless deaths, and Sazh doing whatever it takes to save his son from ultimately the same fate as him. They aren't united by a common goal until they're forced to by literally the antagonist telling them to be and this leads to a game's narrative working in collaboration with its own gameplay systems. There's a reason the subtitle for the game is 'the battle within begins' because the character development is much more personal and introspective rather than being based around big events and characters sitting around and talking about them. Each character is fundamentally flawed and spends the first three quarters of the game learning from their respective travel partners and the experience of the journey that ultimately leads them to Pulse where they have to bond or else they'll die.

4: My Hands is the second best theme of love in the franchise and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

5: The game has a wonderfully happy ending that wasn't at all ruined and undermined by the sequels that are shit games.

[tex]

1: 'Good Music'
4: 'Good Music'

Yeah, agreed.

The combat system is tactical while being fast paced and tooled around individual playstyles.

It's not, but I'd like you to explain why you think it is in more detail.

Though every character can eventually get every role, characters are unique and make for better roles than others.

They're not. I mean, you pretty much invalidate this statement in your next sentence.

This makes it way more viable to use whichever character you want and still be able to clear the game which is just good game design.

Explain how this is good game design.

The crux of the combat being to find ways to ultimately breakthrough an enemy's defenses and hit them like a truck is incredibly satisfying especially against the bigger enemies and the series staples like a Behemoth. Knowing how and when to interrupt and boost your attack without waiting for the bar to fill as well as being able to swap class setups on the fly makes for a satisfying and constant gameplay loop that is tactical and turn based without having the slower pace of both.

I disagree. FF XIII's fights never gave me an issue, nor did they evoke any thought, nor were they fun. Once I discovered the dominant strategy, which took all of maybe two seconds after gaining access to paradigm shift, the fights immediately became a grind. Here's my EXTREMELY ACCURATE recap of how combat went up until I stopped playing, which was roughly 2/3rds of the way through, around the the time that you get access to the free-roaming section.

Step 1: Mash A
Step 2: Is it working?
If no > Step 2a: Switch stances and then return to step 1.
If yes > Repeat step 1 until it stops working.

This is not an interesting or engaging feedback loop. It's genre confusion at its finest, and marks the point where Final fantasy completely abandoned the core principals of its combat system. The game was about as mechanically complex as a spinning top. Even my father, who was well into his fourties and couldn't handle any sort of strategy game at the time, was able to breeze through XIII almost as easily as I could. The game being 'easy' is not a criticism, but there's nothing satisfying about watching 30 second cut-scenes, mashing A, and going through pseudo-epic boss-fights that don't have many - if any - unique mechanics to set them apart from one another. If games like FFVI, FFXII, and FFXIV were the best combat experiences the series had to offer, FFXIII is at the bottom, not accounting for the very first entries in the series.

The entire game is a slog of the exact same combat routine, recycled over and over, which is not all that different from other games in the series. The key difference between XIII's combat, and the slower paced combat of other games, is how automated everything is. You don't make choices as much as you sit back and revel in your ability to mash A while things explode in front of you. The amount of decisions made are minimal, and by extension, the game fails to be engaging.

The paradigm system is a terrible malformation of the gambit system introduced in FF XII, a game with a more polished battle system where you actually have control over the automated actions that your party members take.

FFXIII's Combat plays itself, and that's not a good thing.

The story is, up until around chapter 11/12, a significant and nice change of pace from the norm of a Final Fantasy game. The Final Fantasy games have always centered around saving the world from some calamity and the characters are united in this goal regardless of their own personal histories. It always boils down to friendship and love and the same standard tools of the genre trade. It is because the back quarter of the game devolves into this that the game ultimately suffers from it since before the game turns into "let's be friends and kill God through the power of friendship and lesbians" it is very much a journey of personal stakes. The game is built around three central narratives that eventually culminate in the 'twist' that the deities are actually super bad people harvesting humans for nefarious purposes, sure, but up til then it's the story of Lightning/Hope and their parallel journey of how ultimately empty their single minded obsession is, Snow and his unceasing optimism and general naivety being the catalyst for so many pointless deaths, and Sazh doing whatever it takes to save his son from ultimately the same fate as him. They aren't united by a common goal until they're forced to by literally the antagonist telling them to be and this leads to a game's narrative working in collaboration with its own gameplay systems. There's a reason the subtitle for the game is 'the battle within begins' because the character development is much more personal and introspective rather than being based around big events and characters sitting around and talking about them. Each character is fundamentally flawed and spends the first three quarters of the game learning from their respective travel partners and the experience of the journey that ultimately leads them to Pulse where they have to bond or else they'll die.

So basically:

"The story is good because it's different"
"The story being forced is great, because the game play is also being forced"

I... Disagree immensely.

5: The game has a wonderfully happy ending that wasn't at all ruined and undermined by the sequels that are shit games.

I don't know what the ending is, but based on your approach to the story, I'd likely be one to disagree. But Final fantasy has always been pretty good at tying up its games with satisfying endings.

---

Narrative is bad, gameplay is bad, characters are bad, everything is contrived garbage to that point that I could probably argue FF XII's story to be better, even if that game's characters are just as terrible.

[Dolerman]

4: My Hands is the second best theme of love in the franchise and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

@Fabricant451

Arieth's theme would like a word with you.

[Fabricant451]

It's not, but I'd like you to explain why you think it is in more detail.

@tex

How about you explain something instead of just saying "no you".

They're not. I mean, you pretty much invalidate this statement in your next sentence.

They are and no I don't.

Explain how this is good game design.

How is it not game design to literally design a game where any combination of characters can see a player of any skill level through to the end? That's basics of good game design.

I disagree. FF XIII's fights never gave me an issue, nor did they evoke any thought, nor were they fun. Once I discovered the dominant strategy, which took all of maybe two seconds after gaining access to paradigm shift, the fights immediately became a grind. Here's my EXTREMELY ACCURATE recap of how combat went up until I stopped playing, which was roughly 2/3rds of the way through, around the the time that you get access to the free-roaming section.

The person who didn't even play the whole game or experience the full bredth of the combat system is going to sit here and try to say they know how good the combat system is.

This is not an interesting or engaging feedback loop. It's genre confusion at its finest, and marks the point where Final fantasy completely abandoned the core principals of its combat system.

No, that was Final Fantasy 2. And then again in Final Fantasy 3. And then even again in Final Fantasy 8 and 12 and

The game was about as mechanically complex as a spinning top. Even my father, who was well into his fourties and couldn't handle any sort of strategy game at the time, was able to breeze through XIII almost as easily as I could. The game being 'easy' is not a criticism, but there's nothing satisfying about watching 30 second cut-scenes, mashing A, and going through pseudo-epic boss-fights that don't have many - if any - unique mechanics to set them apart from one another.

Says the one who didn't even make it to the end of the game. If you think the boss of, say, the Sunleth Waterscape and the boss of the Gapra Whitewood (both of which you would have experienced) don't have unique mechanics then you're just flatout lying and wrong. Use as much anecdotal evidence as you want, if you just mash A then it's not my fault you don't get anything out of the combat and if all you care about is being as slow and ineffective as possible then mashing A is core to the Final Fantasy experience.

If games like FFVI, FFXII, and FFXIV were the best combat experiences the series had to offer, FFXIII is at the bottom, not accounting for the very first entries in the series.

The best combat experience the series had to offer was 10-2. 6 wasn't even a good combat system.

The entire game is a slog of the exact same combat routine, recycled over and over, which is not all that different from other games in the series. The key difference between XIII's combat, and the slower paced combat of other games, is how automated everything is. You don't make choices as much as you sit back and revel in your ability to mash A while things explode in front of you. The amount of decisions made are minimal, and by extension, the game fails to be engaging.

Yeah, the other games in the series all had the stagger mechanic and attack boosting and maintaining stagger chains and even air juggles. I forgot about that in FF 7.

The paradigm system is a terrible malformation of the gambit system introduced in FF XII, a game with a more polished battle system where you actually have control over the automated actions that your party members take.

No it isn't. FF12's system was nothing like paradigms. FF12 didn't even have a good system until they turned it into a job system. You're not turning Vaan into a black mage at the push of a button, you're unlocking the ability to buy things to program Vaan into following the simple notion of "weak to fire use fire on thing."

FFXIII's Combat plays itself, and that's not a good thing.

Far less so than FF12 where some of the best methods of getting through things is having absolutely no player input.

If all you did was hit auto battle then congratulations, you played on baby mode for babies instead of experiencing the quicker pace the game is built around. There's a reason battles are graded. Every target time can be improved upon by a considerable amount if you actually bother to use your paradigms and attack boosts in a decisive manner.

So basically:

If you're gonna be a reductive ass about it and not even attempt to discuss it then why did you even ask me to give my reasoning.

I... Disagree immensely.

Really? That wasn't clear.

I don't know what the ending is, but based on your approach to the story, I'd likely be one to disagree. But Final fantasy has always been pretty good at tying up its games with satisfying endings.

The ending is that Fang and Vanille form Ragnarok and turn to crystal in order to save Cocoon from crashing into Pulse, thus fulfilling the Focus of the party and thwarting the plot of Barthandelus of causing a cataclysmic event in order to summon their Maker by offering a massive human sacrifice. Serah and Dajh are freed from their stasis and everyone is happy and reunited and Cocoon realizes that their reliance on the fal'Cie was in fact a Bad Thing. The heroes have successfully slapped the notion of fate in the face by literally killing their God. The sequel then immediately undermines this by making it so that everything in the game was actually because of the goddess Etro meddling in human affairs because she takes pity on them and her good meaning actually winds up just getting a bunch of people killed anyway.

I was making the point that the sequels took the themes of the first game and shot them in the face.

Narrative is bad, gameplay is bad, characters are bad, everything is contrived garbage to that point that I could probably argue FF XII's story to be better, even if that game's characters are just as terrible.

The only argument towards this you've come close to making is the gameplay. I gave you three valid reasons why I like the game. You don't like it. Nothing I say will change that and it's clear you're not interested in actually discussing it since "no thing bad" is easier.

[Fabricant451]

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>

Arieth's theme would like a word with you.

@Dynamo Frokane

Aerith's theme isn't even as good as the theme it's ripping off.

[tex]

How about you explain something instead of just saying "no you".
_{I'm not the one trying to explain why the game's good. I don't understand the argument you're trying to make. Instead of assuming that you're just rapid-firing vague ideas, I'm giving you a chance to expand on them further.}

"the full breadth of the combat system."
_{Watched my dad 100% the game. It doesn't change at all. Some of the post-game requires a little more attention, but the strategy remains the same. Cycle the same three paradigms, mash A.}

"If you're gonna be a reductive ass about it"
_{That was my genuine summary of the points you seemed to be trying to make. Is that not what you were trying to say?}

No, that was Final Fantasy 2. And then again in Final Fantasy 3. And then even again in Final Fantasy 8 and 12 and
_{...What? What?!}

The best combat experience the series had to offer was 10-2. 6 wasn't even a good combat system.
_{Oh my god.}

"Play the game better and you'll learn why it's good"
_{O h m y g o d.}

I apologize, but I just... I just can't continue this discussion. There's not much of an argument to be had on most of the points that you choose to bring up, as they're very opinionated, or what I'd perceive as just plain incorrect. I also think that 'you're playing the game wrong' is only a valid defense of a game when somebody goes out of their way to intentionally break it. This would in fact refer to strategies such as min-maxing, or something like being able to walk through Last of Us without partaking in a great deal of the combat; Speed running comes to mind, to be honest. The game boldly presents mashing A as a viable and encouraged 'strategy' that works. The focus is on paradigm shifts, which is a blatant simplification of what could have otherwise been a perfectly ok combat system.

At best, I can admit that the game is functionally ok at best. As far as the story itself goes, there's no changing either opinion on that. I could concede that the storytelling is maybe ok? But I think that the dialogue, pacing, exposition, characters, etc, are all completely terrible.

I mean, like the game if you want. I was mostly curious as to what your reasoning behind enjoying the game was, and why that may be. I think I understand your perspective a little better now, even if I don't share it.

[mickilennial]

I don't even think it's the worst Final Fantasty game. That belongs to 8 or 12 with emphasis on the latter option since it has the worst crew of characters in a Final Fantasy game in the 3D era.

[Fabricant451]

I don't even think it's the worst Final Fantasty game. That belongs to 8

@Inkarnate

Oh god twist the knife harder why don't you.

[tex]

Who could hate Captain not-the-main-character and his edgy parade of tropes though? 12's character's were pretty bad, but the focus was entirely centered around the feud between countries and the results therein. Unfortunately, it doesn't do a great job of using the main party to emphasize any of the story's focus. The major antagonist is not Vayne Solidor alone, but rather the combined forces of his country, which is why the secondary characters are so much more interesting than Vann the fuckboy and his miscreant gang of shitlords. Unfortunately, the game writes Vayne as some kind of godly force, and gives his character too much power when the entire story has been concerned with international politics on a wide scale from the point where you finally have the full party, going onward.

I still like it a lot despite how poorly the story was handled.

[mickilennial]

Who could hate Captain not-the-main-character and his edgy parade of tropes though? 12's character's were pretty bad, but the focus was entirely centered around the feud between countries and the results therein. Unfortunately, it doesn't do a great job of using the main party to emphasize any of the story's focus. The major antagonist is not Vayne Solidor alone, but rather the combined forces of his country, which is why the secondary characters are so much more interesting than Vann the fuckboy and his miscreant gang of shitlords. Unfortunately, the game writes Vayne as some kind of godly force, and gives his character too much power when the entire story has been concerned with international politics on a wide scale from the point where you finally have the full party, going onward.

I still like it a lot despite how poorly the story was handled.

@tex

I think I like all the Final Fantasy games in some capacity, though I always do like to say FF7 is overrated slosh. I'm one of those boring guys who has more fun with Crystal Chronicles, 9, 6, and 10. In that order. Don't @ me.

[Dolerman]

Ive said it once and I'll say it again, if we arent counting the spinoffs only half the final fantasy games are good.

1 2 3 5 8 12 13 15 range from mediocre to shit.

Yes ive changed my mind about 15, that game is an unfinished mess.

[mickilennial]

Yes ive changed my mind about 15, that game is an unfinished mess.

@Dynamo Frokane

STOP BEING FLIPPANT

[Fabricant451]

All of the games are good some are just more good than others. Even the bad ones like 9, 2, and 3 have merits.

[Dolerman]

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>
STOP BEING FLIPPANT

@Inkarnate

Id be happy to go into detail, but you already know what those details are.

[tex]

6 is the best entry and crystal chronicles is up there with it. Tactics too.