Final Fantasy Series

OverclockN'

OverclockN'

Well-known member
I've been wanting to play a bunch of these, having really only played Final Fantasy VI (III on SNES), Final Fantasy VII (but never finished), and Final Fantasy XII or XIII (have them both, but pretty sure I only played one of them).

What's the best way to play them these days? Original console? PC? I see on Steam that a lot of them are questionable remakes where they tried to make the earlier ones 3d. It doesn't look that great at all. Anyone played any of those?

What about Final Fantasy VII? Best to just bust out the old Playstation and get down with the original?
 
It's hard to say. For me, there is a lot of nostalgia in these games. So I can be content to play the original NES versions.

Part of it is how much you can deal with the clunkiness of some of the older games.

I think a lot of people would say you can skip FF1 and FF2. For me FF1 is huge on nostalgia so I love the original NES version.

FF1 - the game is very simplistic. The PSP remake looks pretty good, but they really dumbed down an already simplistic game. The NES version was fairly punishing, and by changing the things they did in the modern remake, the game is just basically 'press OK to win'.

I think the best version of FF1 and FF2 was actually the Playstation version. It upgraded the graphics but I think it kept the gameplay the same.

FF3, the only official version would be the modern remake. There is a PC port of the DS version. So it looks terrible. But actually plays okay and balances out the classes. It's a lot easier than the NES version.

You can play translated ROMs of FF2 or FF3 for the NES. I liked the NES version of FF3 better than the PC port. FF2 for the NES was an unbalanced mess. So you're better of with one of the remakes.

FF4 the PC port is horrible (it's the DS port). It looks terrible, and the gameplay has been changed. Play the SNES version. Play the hard type version. Only play the sequel, The After Years, if you hate your life.

I haven't played much of the PC ports of FF5 or FF6. They aren't shitty 3D remakes, they look close to the spirit of the original version. I think they generally kept the gameplay the same. From what I read, the main complaint was the art style they used. So it probably doesn't matter which version you play.

FF7 - I had the original disc version of the PC port. I think the difference between the Playstation version was the PC had better graphics (basically early hardware acceleration to smooth out the textures), but the Playstation version had the better audio. But, I'm pretty sure now the best version is the PC version with some mods. I'm pretty sure there are upgraded textures and the Playstation version of the music.

FF8 - I think it's the same as FF7. PC version with mods. There is a Remaster for the PC, but I think I heard the fans didn't like it. Basically the Remaster looked worse than the mods.

FF9 - I don't know if there are any differences between the PC port on the Playstation version. I'd assume there are mods for the PC version similar to FF7 and FF8.
 
I think FF6 (3) is best played on SNES via emulation, real snes, or even the GBA (which actually might have the best version of it, very much the same as the SNES but with dialogue tweaks and stuff) From what i read the newer rereleases of it after the 16bit ones are actually based on the phone ports...which has terrible UI and "updated" sprites which look worse than the pixelated ones. There might be some dialogue translation improvements but i dont think you'll even notice where those occur...unles you kno where they occur.

With 7, 8 and 9 im not sure how the rereleases are. They might be OK. I know the original ones might be best emulated on PC. Something i read not too long ago was that the PC could actually read PSX discs......(havent tried so i dunno how true that is). The older graphics might be a hard to watch because the pixelation and low res 2d backgrounds might be alot more prominent than on TV's of yore.

The full 3d ones like 10 and up are probably best played via remasters. I mean, coudlnt hurt right?

Oh And FF7 remake that came out on PS4 not too long ago.....MIGHT be good, but i think it plays quite a bit different than the turn based style of the original.

I have 12 on the PS2...but the PS2 isnt hooked up so...i dont know if ill ever get to play that lol.
and 13...is trash. I didnt have fun with that one. The linearity was just way too prominent and felt very "corridor" like. I also hated some of the characters.....battle system was alright but i think you could only control one person...which...was also a suck about it.
 
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FF7 Remake is pretty awesome, but sadly in 3 parts, but the Remake in my opinion is a pretty damn good one.

FF15 I also liked. FIGHT MEH :yell:
 
They're wrong about ff13 though, the 360 version played on an xb1 is the best console version.

They replaced the cutscenes with higher quality ones and the game itself also runs at a higher resolution.
 
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SirBaron said:
FF7 Remake is pretty awesome, but sadly in 3 parts, but the Remake in my opinion is a pretty damn good one.

FF15 I also liked. FIGHT MEH :yell:
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Don’t need to fight you, already owned yourself pretty hard by saying you like FF15 :lol:
 
LangweileDich.net_Bilderparade_DCXVII_78.jpg
 
Tried to play FF7 and couldn’t look past the graphics.
Tried to play FF13 but damn that game got old so fast.
Tried to play FF15 and never quite got past the intro video.

I guess these games are not for me.
 
KAC said:
Tried to play FF7 and couldn’t look past the graphics.
Tried to play FF13 but damn that game got old so fast.
Tried to play FF15 and never quite got past the intro video.

I guess these games are not for me.
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I didnt think you were into RPG's....i thought you liked cockslapping people's mums in call of duty.
 
Sasquach said:
I didnt think you were into RPG's....i thought you liked cockslapping people's mums in call of duty.
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He treats it like an RPG. Gives ur mum the old Roman war helmet = +1 courage. Jizzpellets right in the eyes = +1 accuracy. Etc. etc.
 
I do play RPGs and Action Adventure games with RPG elements. I don’t like the turn based combat repetitiveness of FF games though. The only turn based games I played and enjoyed are Divinity Original Sin and XCom. I also tried Divinity Original Sin 2 but have not found sufficient time to indulge in it for 100 hours :bleh:.
 
I never had a console until I bought a SNES in 1995...prior to that I had a Game Boy in 1992 and I played Final Fantasy I, II, & III and I really liked them.

Never played another Final Fantasy game until 7 on my original Playstation which I played the CRAP out of...probably put a couple hundred hours into it with all the grinding to master materia. Interestingly enough I never played another Final fantasy until now when I started playing FF15 which is different but I'm still enjoying at least a bit.

Currently playing FF7 on my Xbox thanks to it being on Game Pass and I gotta say that, yes, the graphics are dated for sure but one thing I LOVE about the new versions is the ability to activate a 3x speed "cheat" so that you can get through slower parts of the game faster and the ability to turn off random enemy encounters other than ones that are forced. There's also a cheat to refill your health/mp and limit meter but I keep that off. I haven't played the game since 1997/1998 and I remember so much and there's parts I completely forgot about. One thing that drives me crazy about the game as I play it now is that you are constantly forced to change the members on your team which means constantly managing your materia and it's a PITA. A lot of times you don't know when members are gonna change and sometimes you can't access the materia/armor/accessories that the character(s) leaving had so it messes with things.

As for people who complain about graphics and won't play games because of it I don't get that attitude. There are some gem games that were made in years past. By that mentality today's fancy effects are just tomorrow's trash. I would say I spend about 60% of my time playing new stuff and 40% playing classics and BC games. Thanks to the way Microsoft implements the BC games on the Xbox One X a lot of older games run at very high res and sometimes have better textures too...they look better than they ever did :cool:
 
Thanks for the suggestions, guys!

I'd like to play the very early 2d games in their original forms. I'm going to get the NES version soon and play that on the AVS Retro I have incoming. I think that'll be the first game I play on it. And I definitely want to play Final Fantasy II on the SNES as well.

So there is where I get a bit lost. I'd prefer not to play the PC remakes and stick with the originals, but FF3, FF4 and FF5 never made it stateside that I'm aware of. I plan on getting the Super NT, so I'll have the ability to play Super Famicom games. So there's my first question...is there a version of FF3/FF4/FF5 that I can buy and play in full English that is either NTSC or PAL? I've never purchased such a thing, so not sure how it works. I see English translated games available on EBay, but I would prefer the real thing.
I'll definitely play FF6 on SNES (even though I did buy the PC remake). It's my favorite FF game.

So then we get to the 3d games, FF7 and later. I'm torn on what to do with those. I'd like to play the originals, but not sure I want to tolerate the load times and stuff like that. Plus, as much as I like retro games, those early 3d ones are ROUGH. :lol: I may just collect all the games for the Playstation systems, but actually play them through on the PC. Maybe I'll look into mods that help with textures and the 3d models.
 
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OverclockN' said:
Thanks for the suggestions, guys!

I'd like to play the very early 2d games in their original forms. I'm going to get the NES version soon and play that on the AVS Retro I have incoming. I think that'll be the first game I play on it. And I definitely want to play Final Fantasy II on the SNES as well.

So there is where I get a bit lost. I'd prefer not to play the PC remakes and stick with the originals, but FF3, FF4 and FF5 never made it stateside that I'm aware of. I plan on getting the Super NT, so I'll have the ability to play Super Famicom games. So there's my first question...is there a version of FF3/FF4/FF5 that I can buy and play in full English that is either NTSC or PAL? I've never purchased such a thing, so not sure how it works. I see English translated games available on EBay, but I would prefer the real thing.
I'll definitely play FF6 on SNES (even though I did buy the PC remake). It's my favorite FF game.

So then we get to the 3d games, FF7 and later. I'm torn on what to do with those. I'd like to play the originals, but not sure I want to tolerate the load times and stuff like that. Plus, as much as I like retro games, those early 3d ones are ROUGH. :lol: I may just collect all the games for the Playstation systems, but actually play them through on the PC. Maybe I'll look into mods that help with textures and the 3d models.
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I think the original north american SNES Final Fantasy 2 is actually Final Fantasy 4, just like north american Final Fantasy 3 SNES is Final Fantasy 6. I dont know if 5 ever made it to north america in any way...maybe one of the anthology packs.
 
Sasquach said:
I think the original north american SNES Final Fantasy 2 is actually Final Fantasy 4, just like north american Final Fantasy 3 SNES is Final Fantasy 6. I dont know if 5 ever made it to north america in any way...maybe one of the anthology packs.
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I just learned about that last night, I had no idea. :lol:

So I think FF1-3 are on NES, and FF4-6 are SNES.

I'd want the originals of all the games, which is easy enough. But to actually PLAY them on the systems, I'd have to get fan translated Famicom games. They are supposedly pretty well done.
 
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