Why Final Fantasy VI is the best game in the Final Fantasy series.... (spoilers)

Role playing.... Hmm.... It depends what you mean by roleplaying i suppose. I mean even alot of the core of those had alternatives that included pre determined paths..... To me choices usually have a negative impact on immersion.

_Tobli_

[QUOTE="calvinsora"]

[QUOTE="texasgoldrush"] The reason why VII is hammered and rightfully so, is because it is overhyped and it is not as good as people say it is. There is actually things VII does right....art style is pretty good (not my favorite as VIII, X, XII, and especially IX's are better). The corporate and environmental themes are good. The things that VII fails at is its story and characters, except for some (Tifa for example). The only real moment was Aeris's death...if it wasn't for that moment, the game would not be the same. But it isn't the only FF game to kill playable characters....II, IV, V, VI all did as well. The difference was that Aeris's death was cinematic. The story is great from the beginning until you get out of Midgar.....it just falls apart after that. Way too many metaphysical and spiritual concepts.....unlike the more humanistic VI. The later games also have this problem as well.......VIII, IX, X, and Xii's story are pretty much messes, but are saved by its characters. Sadly, VII's character cast is lackluster. Tifa is great as a best friend role and Aeris was good as a romantic interest. Cid's dreams were also convincing and Red XIII was unique. But the other cast members are not as good. Cloud is not a very good protagonist....he isn't bad.....but other FF leads are better...Cecil, Terra, Celes, Squall, Zidane, Yuna, to name a few. He just doesn't carry the game well. Barrett is also terrible, a great idea of a character, poor execution. Sephiroth is the most overrated villain ever. His motives are strange and not very believable, he lacks the threat of say Kefka or Kuja. I just find that the qualities to make Sephiroth more likeable are unconvincing. Is VII a bad game? Absolutely not, it had some greatness to it that does deserve to be praised. Is it the best game ever? NO.....Is it the best Final Fantasy ever? Nope

VII has to be compared to because of its commercial popularity, but it doesn't make it the best critically. And there are many many VII fanboys....much more than VI. Hell, there are too many X fanboys and I can hammer that game as well...maybe not as hard as VII.

A notice in my original post I don't bash VII really except for calling it overrated once, I make the case why VI is the best.......

texasgoldrush

If someone enjoys FFVII more than the other FF's, then that is fact for them. You can't say a game is overrated if a person's opinion of a game is truly what they think of it. If someone says it is their favorite game, then it is. Simple as that. You can't say that the game is overrated simply because you don't like it as muchas the other FF's. For instance, I really like FFX's story, and even more FFXII's story. It's well-constructed and political, but the point is, that it is my opinion. In the same way, FFX is my favorite, FFVII is my cousin's favourite and FFVI is your favourite. Bashing other games by saying their are inferior in your opinion is exactly the same thingother "fanboys" do. Also, even though I don't prefer FFVII much, Sephiroth is my favorite villain of all time. By saying Sephiroth is overrated, are you saying I'm wrong in my opinion? It just doesn't work that way. Sorry if I'm coming off rude, I don't mean it that way. Just stating my opinions.

To sum it up, to each his own.

Overrated does not equal suck either.......I think Sephiroth is overrated, but he is better than most video game villains. But against say Kefka, or Kuja....no way.

The point of the post was not to say you yourself were wrong in your opinion. The point of it was, that stating it as fact is going a little overboard. There are people who consider FFVII the best game ever. I myself don't agree to this, but if someone enjoys the game the most, that is how they feel. I have also heard of people who say that FFVI is overrated (some time ago, I admit). That is just opinion and luckily, there are many, varied opinions. Of course, overrated doesn't mean it sucks, but your saying it's overrated simply based on your opinion on the game. When a game is called "the best", it is natural for it to be bashed in some way.

Kefka is an awesome villain, I agree. But I feel Sephiroth is vastly superior to Kuja. My opinion, naturally.

So running a linear FF game that is a cookie-cutter every time you "start new game" = immersion? I think not.

topsemag55

I think it is a bit weird how you represented the issue here.

I mean think about Mass Effect for a moment. The main base of that game is as rigid as any jrpg. Oooh, you can say something nauughty or nice, and a few party choices.. Come on! It's not a big deal . To me jrpg's seem to be a better way to properly present the vision developers have for a great story.

The point of the post was not to say you yourself were wrong in your opinion. The point of it was, that stating it as fact is going a little overboard. There are people who consider FFVII the best game ever. I myself don't agree to this, but if someone enjoys the game the most, that is how they feel. I have also heard of people who say that FFVI is overrated (some time ago, I admit). That is just opinion and luckily, there are many, varied opinions. Of course, overrated doesn't mean it sucks, but your saying it's overrated simply based on your opinion on the game. When a game is called "the best", it is natural for it to be bashed in some way.

Kefka is an awesome villain, I agree. But I feel Sephiroth is vastly superior to Kuja. My opinion, naturally.

calvinsora

Thank you! I totally agree! Thing is, we all have our beliefs, and if someone happens to have a difference of opinion, we have a tendency to tell them how wrong they are for thinking differently, which is what all this is really. People are free to believe what they want to believe, as long as they don't try to make me share their viewpoints in the process. When you boil it all down, anything can be considered overrated. Its all just a matter of having different sets of expectations and if said expectations are met. Its not an objective fact that FFVI's story is superior, since there will always be people who will disagree with that point of contention. Same thing goes with FFVII. Neither side is any more right than the other.

[QUOTE="topsemag55"]So running a linear FF game that is a cookie-cutter every time you "start new game" = immersion? I think not.

I think it is a bit weird how you represented the issue here.

I mean think about Mass Effect for a moment. The main base of that game is as rigid as any jrpg. Oooh, you can say something nauughty or nice, and a few party choices.. Come on! It's not a big deal . To me jrpg's seem to be a better way to properly present the vision developers have for a great story.

[QUOTE="ChrisSpartan117"]

[QUOTE="stike22"]Haha, no worries I understand. They do tend to bash 7 a lot but at end of the day 7 touched a hell of a lot more people then 6 did, nothing they say can change that. Besides there is no reason to bash 7 it was one of the greatest JRPGs ever made as well as a definite one of the best FFs if 7 was bad, 6 must be worse...and that goes for most of the FFs as well for that matter.stike22

[QUOTE="stike22"][QUOTE="ChrisSpartan117"]Actually, 7's popularity had nothing to do with its content. It had to do with Sony going all out with the advertising. They saw the game and realized it could be used as a weapon against the Nintendo 64, so they did everything they could to hype the game up, and I mean everything.

ChrisSpartan117

then they moved to sony....

[QUOTE="i-rock-socks"][QUOTE="BladesOfAthena"]

They're not?

BladesOfAthena

Well not everyone thinks like you. Believe it or not, there have been countless arguments between both sides as to which is the better game. Heck, there are even a few in this thread who have expressed disagreement with the OP.

Someone is a level 75 necroposter...

[QUOTE="BladesOfAthena"]

[QUOTE="i-rock-socks"] indeed they arent as a matter a fact FF6 is my fav FF, but i also love FF7 and have nothing but good things to say about iti-rock-socks

Well not everyone thinks like you. Believe it or not, there have been countless arguments between both sides as to which is the better game. Heck, there are even a few in this thread who have expressed disagreement with the OP.

Umm, what? I'm not the one trying to claim my favorite FF is superior to the rest.

And you're absolutely right, it is asinine, which was pretty much my point the entire time.

As others have said you have a problem of discerning fact from opinion. You want to praise VI, fine. You don't like VII, fine. But don't act like your feelings are gospel. I don't feel the same way you do about Terra. I thought she was pretty bland. Her personality was pretty cliche as the shy, sweet, naive girl. When it came to VI I felt a lot of the times a lot of the characters didn't get explored as much as they should because of the fact that theres no central character. The main plot in the first half of the game is pretty generic and in the second half of the game is virtually non existant. I know the second half is supposed to be about the characters but aside from Celes and Cyan I don't really see the characters developed in a great way. Edgar is pretty much the same guy, Sabin is too. Setzer's whole character and the way he came into your party was rushed. The guy was going to kidnap a girl and take her with him all of a sudden you catch him in a trap because he has a flying ship and he becomes one of the good guys. Huh? Then they tried to make him sympathetic by talking about his friend from the past but it didn't really grab me because this guy is a sicko who just kidnaps women and becomes a good guy all of a sudden and there trying to throw me this sad story. Locke gets a potion to wake up his old girlfriend and all she tells him is that she's going to die anyway and to love someone else. It just seemed very generic to me. Gau's encounter with his father. Now maybe I missed something but how did they even guess that was his father. It seemed like they just met a guy and said it was your father and they were right. No real development. Then you find out that he was abandoned by his now I guess senile father but its handled in such a sudden way that theres no emotional impact for me. By the way Gau was an extremely annoying character. I like sublety in stories but Relm and Shadow's relationship would have benefitted if you got to see Shadow with Relm more and asking her questions like how are you doing in school or asked her about her mother. This would have kept the mystery and the guilt that Shadow had over leaving Relm but exploring there relationship in a manner that would have been more effective than the dream sequences.

I think as someone mentioned before a big problem I had with VI is that it puts so much focus on other characters and giving them equal time that although each character has a personal resolution at the end, the characters themselves aren't very well developed. The same way you feel like the execution was off in VII I feel the same way about VI. Its like they were begging me to feel sorry for some of these characters but because each of there stories seemed so rush I really couldn't make to much of an emotional connection with a lof of them. And because the game is so lacking in a main plot if I don't feel an emotional connection with a lot of the characters then theres really not that much I think is great about the actual story. I mean you mention how Cloud isn't very human and that it goes more metaphysical but I felt more of an emotional connection with Cloud because you see that he was an underdog all of his life and an outcast he set out to be a member of SOLDIER and redeem himself and failed and his hero whom he looked up to destroyed his whole town, he had trouble remembering who he was because of the experiments that were done to him and he has to figure out who his identity was. You see him start out as a mercenary who could care less about the planet, to someone who is bent on revenge. You see him breakdown and become a mess of himself after being confronted about his past and you see his guilt in helping Sephiroth summon Meteor. In just Cloud's one story you see such human emotions as shyness, wanting to become accepted, and jealousy of the other children when we see him as a kid. To being ashamed of himself after not becoming a member of SOLDIER and not wanting to reveal himself to Tifa out of shame when he's wearing the Shinra officer suit. Then you see him as a brash cocky mercenary at the start of the game, to a person hell bent on revenge later on, to a very insecure shell of himself later on, to finally becoming comfortable with who he is and displaying strong leadership skills.

This is all because VII had a main character and didn't have to share time with the other characters in the game.The main character's story pushed the main plot of the game and helped represent its main theme. VI shared its time with all its characters and in doing so most of the characters arcs seemed rushed to me. This wouldn't be such a problem if the game actually had a main plot to keep things interesting on the latter half of the game but instead the game relies on doing a fetch quest for all your characters again and forcing you to feel sorry for some characters who for the most part have stories that are so cut short that it didn't allow for me to really make an emotional connection to them. For a lot of the cast like Gau, Setzer, Relm, or Strago I'm supposed to care about them but I don't because there stories needed a little bit more meat. Just because everyone's personal conflict was resolved doesn't mean that there character was well developed.

So you see your opinion about VI and VII shouldnt be made as facts when the same things you dislike about VII I disliked about VI. Its one thing if you want to point out the flaws in a game or praise another one but if someone says "why are you saying VII is overrated when I can say the same thing about VI" and you reply "well people say its overrated because it deserves it because I didn't like this, that, and the third." Well I can say the same thing about VI because its all opinions.

IV & VII > VIII > X > VI> the rest. I Have enjoyed every final fantasy I have played (I-XII and excluding XI) and naturally some are better than others.

I've finished 1 - 12 (except XI... because you can't finish it)

and I thought FFVI sucked.

Esper system was broken, story had poor pacing, some characters were under-developed but the game kept shoving more at the players, music was so so, Kefka was uninteresting and unsatisfying main villian, etc.