Don't understand Final Fantasy combat

Recently picked this 4 of these games very cheap on on steam. However: I don't understand it. It's not that the combat system is complicated, you just tell the person to do something and she does it.

Does this get some form of significant depth later on? Barely through the opening section and this is becoming repetitive, bordering on tedious.

Nope. Besides the odd things to make it seem like it gets deeper it doesn't. Don't forget that these games are made with children in mind, so they will never be all that complicated or take any sort of mental prowess to figure out.

@ribstaylor1:

Hmmmmm ? Final Fantasy is made with children in mind ?

@Lulu_Lulu: Umm every final fantasy screams 12yr boy/girls fantasy. Hell I was like 9-12 when I played 7, 8,9 and 10. Yes there is concepts present such a young child might not understand, but overall the games characters and story tend to fall more along the lines of 10-16 which is often the age kids tend to find anime appealing. Which is why most the tropes and characters you could take right out of any of the anime's I watched as a child. I can't be the only one that see's how child oriented the final fantasy series is?

@ribstaylor1:

Oh....

I didn't pay that much attention to it... the atrocious gameplay was what bothered me.

You'd have to specify the game to get a proper answer. They nearly always get more depth though yes, and being forced to employ more careful strategies in the harder fights is what makes it more interesting.

In general, the older final fantasy battle systems start out fairly simple so you get to understand the basics. They then layer more and more different systems on top of the base as you can proceed through the game.

It's just a completely different form of entertainment from real-time action. And if you've had your attention trained by real-time action, it can be a bit of a shock at first. I remember recoiling in the same way when I first played a Final Fantasy. The best explanation you'll probably get is that it's just a fundamentally different kind of entertainment. But there is entertainment there. It just takes a while to see it.

I don't like the male character designs either; they look too effeminate. One of them them has blue hair.

That's just the general design of the FF games, and anime in general which is where it originally came from.

Combat in most FF games is turn based, except some of them and the MMOs.

You may want to stay away from everything Japanese then!

@ribstaylor1: If that is your argument against Final Fantasy...than you may want to steer clear of pretty much any JRPG in existence.

In my opinion the "depth" for the combat system comes into play later in the game as fights get much tougher than what your playing at the earliest points in the game. Also, I wouldn't say I play Final Fantasy games for the combat, its more about following the story.

I feel like it has less to do with your age and more to do with whether or not you enjoy the JRPG style of game.

You should've started with FF6.

Perhaps the older titles will be more charming: it appears to be top down people with bobble heads. I really enjoyed the YS series; that was great and very difficult. In some respects: similar to dark souls. These newer ones seem to be mostly style and no substance. Frankly: I'm bemused as to why some people have proclaimed Final Fantasy 7 as one of the best RPG's ever (some proclaiming it is). Compared to western games at the time like Baldurs Gate: it's trash.

You still haven't told us which FF game you are complaining about. If you're talking about X/X2 or earlier then yes, the combat system does get deeper as you go. If you're talking about 13 and up, no it does not.

-Byshop

I still would say that FF7 is my favorite RPG, but it is important to consider that it was the first RPG I completed. In my case FF7 came out at the perfect time, when I was old enough to really get into and appreciate the story...oh and the 3D visuals just blew my mind at the time.

Basically, if FF7 wasn't the first RPG I played entirely through than I may not consider it my favorite. I guess its all a matter of opinion though because personally I cannot stand the Baldurs Gate games.

lolwut....?

FF games are not made with children in mind. there is absolutely no chance a child would understand any of the stories.

you sir... are just flat out wrong. FF7 is trash? lol. opinion immediately disregarded.

just stay away from JRPGs. clearly not your thing. there is nothing wrong with them, your opinion just sucks. a good game is a good game, whether you are in to that type of game or not.

calling a good game "trash" just makes you look like an idiot.

FF7 was probably one of the best Final Fantasy games of the whole series, and one of the best RPGs of it's time. I still regard Baldurs as the best, but FF7 was great too.

I'd say that's good advice, except thankfully not all the Japanese have the stylistic sense of a 12 year old girl.

I arrived to this same conclusion after playing FFX when I was a kid. As complete packages, all the Final Fantasy games I've played are dross. There are redeemable elements completely surrounded by annoying, dumb things. It's as if all the effort went into the now-dated presentation and Japanese-niche style of storytelling. Really, the stories in all of these games are lame and sleep-inducing if you're not a weeaboo or someone who's super into stereotypical Japanese cheese.

Just my opinion, letting you know you're not alone if you think Final Fantasy is overrated.

FF7 wasnt even my first JRPG and i still consider it the best JRPG of all time.

Xenogears, Grandia, Grandia 2, Lunar Silver Star Story, and Star Ocean The Second Story are close follow ups..... but nothing beats the complexity and emotion of FF7

That's nice.

Not sure why you where expecting ultra complexity out of JRPG. Neither is complexity always considered a good thing. I can think of a number of WRPGs that are just of depth-less. Dragon Age Inquisition for instance, high dragons can be a obliterated with nothing but button mashing and whaling away at it with my 2 handed sword on nightmare difficulty no tactical pause required. Game is as casual as it gets. FFXIII's combat for instance requires at least some thought process in it's paradigm shifting system, blindly spamming auto battle will utterly destroy you in the later parts of the game.

If an RPG features twitch action combat: simplicity is fine. It's turn based with party members, yes, complexity and depth is wanted, otherwise might as well not be playing it at all.

I call bullshit. High Dragons are the hardest fights in the game, you can't just wack them to death like a normal mob.

When he says he can think of a number of WRPG's that are depth-less, he is referring to modern RPG's designed for consoles, in which case I would agree. And why I generally don't play them.

not true. again, your opinion is shit.

The older FFs have relatively more tactical depth. Although FF has always depended on it's story and graphics to carry it.

FF XIII is the worst entry to start at imo, it's boring and too simplified for my taste.

@uninspiredcup: Out of the FF games, I'd go for Tactics with the 1.3 mod, Cup.

Funny, I recall you being the only person in a few threads calling good games trash. Thanks for coming full circle.

I agree OP, I just don't get FF at all and see zero value in any of the games. Just not my cup of tea.

Nope, entire party is level 20 decked out in tier 3 armor/weapons all hand crafted with tier 3 materials, reaver class doing 4-5k per hit at low health and with the devour ability being able to heal you + extra heal bonus on gear. My Inquisitor pretty much cannot die. You're pretty much set to cheese the game after you achieve fairly good gear. FF7's optional bosses proved more difficult at level 100 and the best gear.

FF7 is trash. Overrated piece of garbage.

nah, you are wrong

For most of the part, Combat in Final Fantasy is extremely poor.

The only exception to the rule are 5, 10 and Tactics.

Only 1, 2, 3 and 10 were turn based. Of the mainlines.

Final Fantasy 7 had a good thing going for it in the first 5 or 6 hours or so. But once you left the first town and the game became about this bloated chasing sephiroth that got nowhere for nearly an entire cd.

I would hardly call the story complex, or even good for that matter. The only FF stories that are somewhat complex are 12 and Tactics, no matter how enjoyable of a fantasy adventure as 4 was.

No, I meant the turn based combat like FF7. Where you had 3 heroes on one side and the enemy on the other. It was a mix of turn based and real time.

Is that what you mean?

I couldn't agree more. I "somewhat" enjoyed the SNES games but once they jumped to the Playstation I really lost interest in the series.

Battles in FF7 flow in real time.

The games use menu based real time combat (ATB).

And the best ones had groups of 4 or 5.

@cyloninside: They certainly are. To think other wise is to give these games and the writers far to much undiserved credit. The stories were good when I was a child but I've grown up and final fantasy never grew with me.

The others are still turn based. Just cos they had timing gauges or whatnot didn't stop them being turnbased. It just means you could change which turns came first. It was still each character or enemy ultimately taking turns to perform an action though, as opposed to realtime battles where everyone is constantly doing things at the same time.

^^^ didnt understand the story for FF7.

it is easily one of the most nuanced and grand stories ever told in a JRPG. only the likes of Xenogears, tactics, grandia 2, and maybe star ocean the second story come even close.

How exactly is it good?

The death of a certain party member? Whoopiedoo, FF4 did that ages ago, and wasnt as facepalm worthy about it or didnt try to make a huge deal about it. Shin Megami Tensei actually made you kill your own party members, rather than having them killed in the most hamfisted way possible. Games like Fire Emblem 4 and Chrono Trigger went further and actually killed the protagonist. Far more ballsy than what FF7 did.

Politics? Very little of it. And was completely overshadowed by chasing sephiroth.

Villain? Nothing special here. I want to be a god and rule the world with my mother, is a pretty lame motivation. Better JRPG villains have existed both before and after, both inside and outside Final Fantasy. Including Kefka, who unlike Sephiroth actually succeeded with his goal.

World Buliding? Very minimalistic, the only interesting place in the entire game, was hardly explored.

Storywise FF7 had a good thing going for it early on, but they dropped all that when they chose to focus on Sephiroth.

Here is a list of JRPGs with better stories than FF7

• FF4
• FF6
• FFT
• FF12
• Fire Emblem 4
• Fire Emblem 5
• Chrono Trigger
• Chrono Cross
• Suikoden 2
• Ogre Battle
• Tactics Ogre
• Shin Megami Tensei
• Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 Duology
• Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
• Mother 3
• Xenogears
• The Last Story
• Valkyrie Profile
• Live a live
• Saga Frontier
• Valkyria Chronicles

And that is just on the top of my head.

Turn based meant the game's timekeeping system flowed in turns.

FF7's did not. Do not mix up menu based combat and turn based, one is a timekeeping system, the other is related to positioning.

Fire Emblem Awakening is a turn based game, FF is not.

FF12's gambit system is arguably the best combat system in a JRPG, ever. Why they decided to get away from it I'll never know. Probably for the same reasons DA:I got rid of all the AI options as well.

The Gambit system was brilliant. But as brilliant as it was, it did not make up for the character system in the vanilla version which made everyone the master of everything. Likewise, it was real time and RPG and real time don't mix very well.

Final Fantasy V had excellent bosses and so did Final Fantasy X.

It was interesting and new, and I would say that it's better than the realtime combat systems that came after it in FF13 and onwards, but I agree that I honestly prefer turn-based combat in terms of strategy.

First we had The Last Remnant where you didn't control the actions of individuals and menu options were sometimes context sensitive. That was the beginning of Square taking control out of the hands of the player. Next was FF12 where you could only directly control one character. Now we have FF13 where you just watch combat and occasionally tell your characters to switch from "attack" to "heal".

-Byshop

As someone who has played (started around 1996-7) FF1 to FF10 and finished all apart from FF2 (and I am in the middle of FF3), I too consider FF7 the best, with FF6 very close to it.

FF6 had a great story, equal to FF7 but Kefka (nowhere near as Sephiroth) was acting like a clown. I will not say any spoilers, but I expected more.

@Byshop: Yeah I was heavily dissapointed from Last Remnant's battle system. It had a wonderful story and if it was like old FF's, it would be a best seller... (I bought it though from amazon :P)

+1. I still remember the boss that was killing characters and then he was trying to devour them. If I say how I killed him the first time everyone will laugh...

I played "Realm Reborn" before touching the single player titles. Wonderful idea's. Particularly liked that crafting was actually a class: with armor, quests and skills.

What the hell's the difference? Whether it flowed in turns or not, you still ended up ultimately taking turns to perform a particular action. As far as I can tell, the only difference that creates is that it pauses the timer whilst you're deciding what move to make. That's the only difference.

There are actually a few points in the "real-time" battle systems you mention where time stopped flowing. In FF9 for example, time kept flowing whilst you were deciding which action to take. However, it stopped flowing whilst you were on the magic and item menus. So does that make it more "turn-based" then?

I have always enjoyed the combat, I felt like it was more strategy than turned based.... The trash stuff is just hit X, X,X,X to get through it..

It makes it as turn based as Baldur's Gate. In other words, it makes it set in real time. Just because there is the option to temporarily stop the timekeeping system. doesn't change the fact that battles take place in real time.

Lets say this, if I fell asleep while playing Fire Emblem Awakening, I when I woke up afterwards my 3DS would either shut down due to being out of power or the game would be in the exact same state when I left it. No matter what I was doing. If I fell asleep while playing Final Fantasy 9, my party would have been wiped, unless I managed to pause the game before falling asleep.

Turn based and Realtime refer only to timekeeping systems, nothing else. Think of it like this, if you cannot (theoretically) play the game by mail, chances are, the game is not turn based.

It reminds me of The Secret World in a way. I can see why they cancelled it. It didn't look fleshed out.

Well Last Remnant just switched from individuals to squad-based combat (if you want, think of each squad as an individual as per usual FF style, and customization of individuals is largely based around squad composition). I don't think that per se was Square taking control out of the hands of the player rather the style was different. TLR overall had a great battle system. It definitely had its flaws though (the game could be pretty unbalanced).

I think 12 had the best battle system of Final Fantasy partly because of the move away from the battle screen. 13 was a big step back, took a lot of control away while reinstating the battle screen.