yeah, well maybe i WILL start a geek war!

[jpmeyer]

(In order to keep the other thread clean, of course)

[Jebus]

I never got a chance to fully play VII. :/

That also makes me aprehensive to watch Advent Children.

Maybe if I can tear myself away from WoW long enough, I'll knock VII out and and watch Advent Children and be happy.

[Bram]

I never played any Final Fantasy game. Sometimes in a moment of wekaness I wonder what all the fuss is about, but not regularly. W/e.

[Demonic Attorney]

...in that case, I guess I'll have to join the battle!  Here goes:  (Spoilers Ahead)

Final Fantasy VI (FF6) and Final Fantasy VII (FF7) are undoubtedly both excellent games, and I have played both to completion probably over a dozen times.  Both games have magnificent storylines, which to me are the thing that make a game good, not advanced 3-D rendered graphics or a porn vignette available through a third party software code.  There's respectable arguments in favor of either title being a personal favorite, but for me FF7 narrowly beats out FF6. 

FF6's storyline, while good, can't match FF7's, especially if you explore all the areas of the game in Disc 1.  The visit to Gongaga Village in particular, with Aeris and Tifa in tow, helps a great deal in building the interpersonal tension between their characters and Cloud, as well as contributing to the attention-grabbing mysteriousness of Cloud's past.  Of course, all this culminates in the North Crater where Cloud is revealed to have been another Sephiroth clone all along, and his maddening hatred of Sephiroth was really just a delusion produced by Jenova to drive him to the Reunion.  I've heard it said once, that the endings to truly good stories should come as a complete shock at first, but then seem obvious in light of earlier details.  This definitely was the case in FF7, given Cloud's eerie similarity to a man he couldn't seem to remember, the holes in his memory, and the growing insanity in his unconscious mind, that Sephiroth could somehow manipulate. 

Yes, I am aware that in the final outcome, Cloud wasn't really a clone, but actually another SOLDIER candidate infused with Jenova.  And I think the game's writers took the cheap and easy way out in resolving that plot line how they did.  Nevertheless, when you look on the character of Cloud Strife as he starts the game, and all the twists and turns his character must travel through in order to get to the end, you can't help but realize that a lot of work went into creating his background and story.  At least I couldn't help but think so.

For another thing, the soundtrack to this game was without a doubt the best I have ever heard, hands down.  Uematsu may not be a Bach or a Mozart by any means, but the skill and dedication he invested in the game's music really shows, particularly with Anxious Hearts, Aeris' Death, and On That Day, Five Years Ago.

Additionally, I appreciated the literary allusions present in some of the names and places.  Nibelheim (hell), Midgar (subterranean abode of the damned), etc. all showed me that the creators of the game really went the extra mile in making their product meaningful; something I wish they'd continue to do nowadays instead of mass-marketing inferior versions on a quicker timetable. 

Lastly, because I probably look like enough of a nerd already with all that I've said about a video game, the ending to this game was absolutely masterful, although the presence of the Advent Children sequel kind of compromises that.  In the last few plot threads of the game, when you bring Bugenhagen to the Ancient City and he explains to you about Holy, and the Planet's ability to save itself from Meteor, he says that when Holy summoned, "All that is bad will disappear.  I wonder which we humans are?"  Juxtapose that with the final scene of the game, after the credits roll.  Red XIII, possessed of uncanny longevity, looks down from the bluffs of Cosmo Canyon with his three children, and sees the ruined, overgrown remains of Midgar.  Not a human being is to be seen, the laughter of children echoes in the background as the screen fades to black and the logo of the game appears.

What does this mean?  Was it the Mako-draining machines of Midgar that were bad for the Planet, and Holy's wrath simply destroyed them and put humanity back in touch with its primal harmony with nature?  Was the laughter of children audible as the screen fades away a sign of the next generations of humanity's rebirth into a new relationship with the Planet and the Lifestream?  Or does the destroyed and overgrown Midgar represent nature's vengeance on humanity for almost destroying the very Planet that gave them life?  Was it humans themselves that were bad for the Planet, as Bugenahgen mused earlier on?  Was the laughter was heard the laughter of Red XIII's children at the folly of humanity?  Or was it an ironic device, showing the listener that human innocence and rebirth are just that-- an echo, an ephemeral memory soon to fade from history?  The audience's perceptions of human nature ultimately determine their interpretations of this ending, and I've asked many people I know who've played the game how they see it, and have gotten some telling responses that reflect their views of human nature, at least as it existed within the world of FF7. 

FF6's ending was not nearly this good, and while it is a superior game in some respects (no insipid chocobo breeding side quests that have nothing to do with any of the aspects of an RPG, no stupidly broken summon spell that kills anything in the game), for my purposes, for what I look for in an RPG, FF7 has held the title of favorite since 1997, and will probably continue to do so for many more years.

And with that, I fire the first salvo in the geek war.

[Azhrei]

The correct answer is Final Fantasy. 8-bit 4 Life.

[jpmeyer]

Alright, who added "I never played either?"  How are you supposed to have a geek war when there is that option?

[Jacob Orlove]

Alright, who added "I never played either?"  How are you supposed to have a geek war when there is that option?

Oddly enough, it wasn't me.

[Jebus]

So apparenlty FF7 doesn't work too well on a modern PC.

So much for that.

Maybe I'll find a PSX copy and play it on ye old PS2.

[Demonic Attorney]

So apparenlty FF7 doesn't work too well on a modern PC. Razz

So much for that.

Maybe I'll find a PSX copy and play it on ye old PS2.

http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread21275-1.html

[Machinus]

I thought the choco breeding was really fun.

When the game was popular right after it came out, it didn't "count" if you beat Sephiroth with KoTR. So we knew it was cheap then, but it is still a cool thing to have in the game. Besides, the real point of the game is to beat Ruby Weapon, so I didn't care that much about such a cheap summon.

[Matt]

Alright, who added "I never played either?"  How are you supposed to have a geek war when there is that option?

Tee hee!

[Godot]

In my opinion neither FFVI nor FFVII come anywhere close to FFIV.  I've only ever bothered to play through FFVI and FFVII once apiece, whereas I'll still go back and play FFIV for the twenty-something odd time.  No other game in the series made me care as much about the characters as FFIV, and it has enough little things going on that I still occaisionally find something new--I still ahvent managed to get the pink tail 

[Jebus]

http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread21275-1.html

I went through all that stuff.

It runs, but I have two major issues.

1.  The movies are played upside down.  I found a patch to correct this, but it did not work.

2.  No backgrounds.  It's very hard to play when you can only see the 3d rendered models and none of the pre-rendered backgrounds display.  I might try again in software mode, but I'm not certain that will fix this.

[The Atog Lord]

Final Fantasy II (IV in japan). I won't bother arguing why it is the best, because I can't really explain to anyone else why I find something beautiful or amazing. Wonder can't really be argued.

[Kowal]

If you voted for 7, you are uncultured swine.  That or DA, who is good enough to explain why he favors FF7, though his love is misplaced.  I will excuse your mistake this time, sir.

[rvs]

Alright, who added "I never played either?"  How are you supposed to have a geek war when there is that option?

*Looks at Bram inconspiciously (sp?)

[Bram]

Nope, wasn't me. I never add poll options without posting about it. Besides, Matt already copped to it

[Magi]

It's hard to compare the two as they are both excellent games.

I'm a huge fan of both. Aeris(ff7) is my favorite RPG character of all time (hence avatar). Magimaster(ff3) is where I got my name from (if anyone remembers the old handle), simply because I thought he was (and still is in my books) one of the coolest bosses ever.

If I had to choose between the two, I would probably choose 7. It's just "cooler". Yea.

But niether is my favorite. For me that title belongs to FF Tactics. Therefore I won't add my vote.

[dandan]

I like you guys. You make me less of a geek in comparison.

[Roxas]

But niether is my favorite. For me that title belongs to FF Tactics. Therefore I won't add my vote.

It would be pretty pointless to make FFT a choice, because it is in its own category of greatness (StarCraft is the only other member of this category) and can't really be compared to anything else in the FF series (actually, any game period).

In any case, between the two here, VI has my vote.

[ELD]

Sorry to chime in, but FFII is clearly the best FF game.  This should be obvious to anyone who is brilliant.  FFVII can be crushed by a sleep deprived mentally challenged spider monkey.  There is no challenge to the game whatsoever.  None.  After beating the game I felt a void.  The cold feeling was the realization that I had spent 20 hours of my life for nothing. 

In closing, Dragon Warrior 3 is the best RPG ever.

[Kowal]

Dragon Warrior 3 is the best RPG ever

I would say QFT, but I don't agree 100%.  I'll settle for "QFNT"  (quoted for near truth)

[dandan]

Would it be uncool to say that I liked HMMII? And Civ (Civ2 is better but Civ is the original and amazed more for being so unlike anything else)

[jpmeyer]

But those aren't RPGs...

[Matt]

Earthbound!

[TracerBullet]

n00bs.



All of the people who voted FF VII clearly don't understand the genius that is FF III.


18 characters.  Each with their own story.  Each with their own purpose.  Each with their own strengths and weaknesses.  Each of them human.



That's the beauty.  The beauty of FF III is trying to understand Gau, or why Clyde became Shadow.  The added ability to discover these characters in the second world is simply genius.  Only four characters are mandatory.  The other 12 are for your finding.

The thing that people often forget is that Final Fantasy III was one of the best looking games of its time.  The graphics were top of the line when they came out, and even going back now, one has to appreciate the glory of the micro rendered environments. 

The Nobuo Uematsu comment was spot on.  I heard him perform with the LA Phil (his favorite of the FF compositions) about a year ago.  Simply brilliant.  That being said, while VII's music is genius, III didn't have the luxury of being rendered in .wav format. 


On the Dragon Warrior (Quest) III comment, I almost want to agree with you.  Almost.  The thing that's so fundementally different about DW is that those games are HARD.  Anybody can pick up Final Fantasy III and find something they like.  Dragon Warrior is damned hard for me even today, a seasoned veteran of all forms of RPGs.