Best FF title for a new player?

[eticket109]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

X is probably the best for a newer player. The learning curve on it is pretty gradual and as they progress in knowledge and skill there's a lot of sidequests and extra content to challenge them or keep them interested. The cutscenes in X are some of the most dynamic as well. I was cruising around youtube and clicked on the wedding/escape cs the other day and that alone made me want to go and pick up the game for like the third time.

III on the DS is another good choice as it helps guide the player along a bit and tosses in a decent storyline without getting too complex. It also gives a larger glimpse of the class system as a whole and let's players customize what and who they want to be.

I love IV and VI and think they are overall the best games in the series... but they aren't great introductions to a new player in my mind as the character options and story are more linear (IV much more then VI). VI is definitely the game I would recommend after they played one of the other two listed above.

[Feba]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

Balfree: I'm pretty sure FF6 is being remade for DS.

Personally, I'm shamefully playing it on an emulator.

And Callisto, I don't really have a friend in mind, I'm just looking for people's opinions on the subject. I'm kinda surprised to see it lean so heavily towards 10 and 6, I was kinda expecting 5 and 12.

[Mhurron]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

- 7 -

[eticket109]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

I was kinda expecting 5 and 12.

Granted, with gambits XII has some of the easiest gameplay in the series. However, it's not exactly the marquee story I would want to hang my hat on.

[Jonastb]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

Well, my first was FFIV, was II in US. I have since played JP1 and JP2, though didn't finish them. I am playing 3 on my daughters DS Light right now, and will get V and VI when my wife lets me. I have also played everyone since VII and think that IV was my favorite.

I like that each person has their own job that they grow into in IV. Rosa stays a WHM, Kain stays a DRG... Cecil changes from DRK to PLD, but that is storyline as opposed to customization. I believe this is great for a first timer where they don't have to make a lot of job decisions with their main

After that version, FF started allowing you to customize what your character becomes. And I am noticing they did this in III as well. characters.

[Feba]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

However, it's not exactly the marquee story I would want to hang my hat on.

Actually, of all the FF games I know the story of fairly well (5, 7, 10, 11, 12, admittedly not much), 12 is only second to 11 (and 11 is just plain epic compared to any offline game). I don't know yet if FF6 is better, but 12's story was very good.

It's also the best looking FF game currently out, fairly easy for the most part, and is a good introduction to the more active battle systems that the FF franchise seems to be moving towards.

5 was my second choice because, even though the storyline is very stereotypical and almost hilariously so, the battle and job systems seem very good and a good start for the rest of the series.

[Callisto]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

Balfree: I'm pretty sure FF6 is being remade for DS.

Personally, I'm shamefully playing it on an emulator.

And Callisto, I don't really have a friend in mind, I'm just looking for people's opinions on the subject. I'm kinda surprised to see it lean so heavily towards 10 and 6, I was kinda expecting 5 and 12.

I personally was basing mine more on the 'normalness for the series' part, and I think 12 is a pretty far stretch from that, despite it being a very good game. 4 was the perfect swords and dragons, chocobos and airships(BOATS W/ FUCKING HELICOPTER THINGIES, NOT STARWARS AIRSHIPS LIKE 10/12), epic story twists and classic FF abilities/monsters.

Difficulty is pretty relative as each game is for the most part easy to finish the story, but very difficult to pull of certain accolades, i.e. in FF4 while the main boss is challenging, getting the Adaman Armor or w/e from the tail that drops of the pink slimes is insane, I think I put at least 40 hours into that alone and never pulled it off, the butterfly thing for the blue dude's relic in FFX I never could pull off though I nearly 4-shotted the final boss, and for those who don't think FFX-2 sucked(c'mon the battle system was fucking awesome and you know it) the one Omega Weapon-type thing you fight if you do the musical island jumps near the end incorrectly was one of the craziest bosses I've ever faught in a FF game.

As far as 5, I think seeing the basis of the job system would be great to start, however the restriction to only select 1 subjob ability I always felt was extremely limiting, and like FFXI there are certain job combos that make the game very easy, while others are pretty useless.
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Add: I guess I actually should have put 9 as my #2, it was a hell of a throwback, good looking graphics that still hold up for a PS1 game, moderately difficult(hi2u Ozma), and contains almost every element that you'd consider represents FF as a series.

[rshermaniv]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

Only played 7 and 9-12 (x-2 was terrible)
.

X-2 shouldn't even be considered a Final Fantasy game. It blew hard!

[711rocks]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

VIII>VII
fuck all who oppose

[rshermaniv]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

And Callisto, I don't really have a friend in mind, I'm just looking for people's opinions on the subject. I'm kinda surprised to see it lean so heavily towards 10 and 6, I was kinda expecting 5 and 12.

12 Was too damn easy. You could setup the gambits to run and play the game for you. I beat the game WAY to fast... VII gets my vote hands down. The game play and storyline was incredible.

[Feba]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

12 Was too damn easy. You could setup the gambits to run and play the game for you.

That doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I mean, look at any other FF game. Leveling your character in that didn't amount to much more than walking around in a circle, spamming the A button for awhile, going back to down to rest at an inn, save, and repeat.

[Callisto]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

If anything it was nice to go get a sandwhich while my gambits farmed gil for me.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

People who knock on X-2 didn't really play it, much less do some of its rather insane optional boss fights. I think Absolute Virtue was based on Trema.

Also, you can't fault other FFs for having easy boss fights when FFVII - the fan's darling - had a final boss with shit for brains. Safer Sephiroth was aptly named - all you had to do to beat him was max your Haste + All Materia to overwrite his AoE Slows, he'd do nothing but re-apply slow if you used Haste. The only thing epic about the final fight was the music.

If they remake FFVII, cut out Super Nova from Sephy's move list, anything that lets me get up to take a piss and still isn't over when I'm done isn't something I consider an attack.

[Caspian]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

I never attempted it, but that Angra Mainyu fight just seemed stupid. Fighting one boss for what they claimed could take 30minutes to an hour in a single player game just strikes me as ludicrous. Ofcourse, when they added the "break hp, mp, dmg barrier" stuff, it really kinda became too much. (Crisis core is going to be the end of me). FF7 took time to break it completely, but atleast for me walking around in circles for an hour or two every once in a while in a game to reach lvl 99, then a little more after that to skill up materia wasn't that big of a deal. Then if you really wanted to break X, you had to get all the ultimate weapons, unlock all of them (I spent like 5 hours just running through the red balloons trying to beat that time) then go through and further max out all the sphere grid so you can beat whatever godly monstrosity the geneticist throws at you. I want to break the game, I just don't want to spend the next 6 months of my life doing it. (Especially when it got to the point where the best way to do it was tape the x button down and leave your ps2 on for days at a time).

How does this relate to the original topic? I guess it would depend on whether or not your friend was the obsessive compulsive type who wanted to beat everything all at once, or just wanted to play and beat the game.

[Malacite]

Re: Best FF title for a new player?

I should probably mention that FF7 was a first of sorts for me;

1st Playstation Game, RPG and FF title I ever played and haven't looked back since


EDIT: I WAS typing up my own critique of each game and reasons why you should try them but PC F'ed up on me so I'm gonna be lazy and post GT's retrospective. They did a pretty damn good job. Left out some details, but these should give anyone a good idea of what to expect ^^

Gametrailers.com - The Final Fantasy Retrospective: Reviews, Trailers, and Interviews