Board 8 > Anagram ranks anything Final Fantasy-related (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Terra vs Celes

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Edea as a villain.
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Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (it has FF characters)

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Xenogears (there's a poster of Tifa in somebody's room)

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_stingers_ posted...

Xenogears (there's a poster of Tifa in somebody's room)

There's also a Xenogears reference that didn't get properly translated in FFVII!

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Smash Ultimate Sephiroth reveal

He was brilliant... Perhaps too brilliant...
Aerith dies
Spheres
8-Bit Theater: The best webcomic. It's not very good early on, but it quickly picks up. This was one of my favorite pieces of media when I was in high school. Some of the very long-burning chekov's guns were incredible. All four main characters are wonderful, though White Mage is a little boring.

This is the way
Desperation Attacks: Call them limit breaks, overdrives, or whatever, but they're one of the best ideas in the series. Sure, they're never balanced well at all. FFX's sphere grid means the only functional difference between characters is their overdrives and Yuna's summoning. And boy oh boy, FFIX, was it really too much to ask that trances be saved for when you want to use them? But that aside, these are conceptually among the strongest ideas the series has to offer, and they're usually very cool visually.
Chocobos
Kilika Sending Scene: One of the best, most somber scenes in the series. It's weird, because this entire idea of sending could be cut from the game without affecting that much, but this scene is so memorable that it would change the entire tone of the first half of the game. It's stuff like this that makes FFX the last good game in the series, yeah, I said it.
Suplexing a Train
Unique Game Logos
Yuna's Character Growth
Final Fantasy I
Aerith vs Tifa
Bravely Default
FFT's Original Translation
Weather-themed Names
Official Dressphere Spelling
Job Systems
Stay Away From the Summoner Lady

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Card Games
Final Bosses
Tidus being an awkward fool
Edea: I really like Edea's design as a villain, she's better than Ultimecia. And the idea of a superpowerful sorceress once having been someone unimportant is also pretty good. The first half of FFVIII feels very different from the second, and having a villain who's like a scheming manipulator instead of just a superwizard is part of that. So, yeah, she'd make a good villain. Too bad she's not one.
Same Orphanage: People rag on this a lot, and it is incredibly silly, but I think it's kind of fun. It's obviously an insane, preposterous twist, but I like silly schlock. Final Fantasy is not where I go to for completely serious fantasy stories, anyway. And you compare this to something like FFXIII, where the only memorable moment is garbage like "moms are tough," and it's honestly fine.
Xenogears: I can't believe Xenogears was meant to be the first part of an entire series the guy plotted out ahead of time. It's like when I read about how Shenmue was meant to be a nine part series, and how the first two games have no plot progression at all. That's Xenogears, except it's not even a game. It's half a game. And not only that, it's half a game assembled out of ideas stolen from NGE. This is the ultimate manifestation of 90s anime and JRPGs, to the point of practically being a parody. Misunderstood Christian themes and symbolism? Check. Post-apocalyptic world with giant robots? Check. Incompetent translation? Check. Prettyboys with swords? Check. Amnesia? You'd better believe that's a check. I know that there are people who are ride or die for Xenogears, but to me, this is a game mainly notable for its failure to live up to its ambitions. I look at this monstrosity that's like 60 hours long, and realize that if it was finished, it would have been 100 hours long, and then ask what the director was even thinking? A game with this kind of scope and ambition simply could not be made today, and I appreciate that, but it's also emblematic of its time's excesses. This is like the JRPG version of all those Sonic the Hedgehog knockoffs of the mid-90s, except it's just one game instead of an entire genre. I haven't even talked about Id, "My father? You mean my dad?", or any of the other insane nonsense the game has to offer. There's so much in this game, honestly TOO much, and I respect that they tried, and I think the battle combo system is kind of neat, but that's about the extent of what I can say in its favor.
SMFFFC

Whatever
Final Fantasy Dissidia 1
Gabranth
Summon Monsters
Terra vs Celes: In what terms? They aren't romantic rivals. The only rivalry they have is who's the main character of FFVI. Count me squarely in the Terra camp. Celes people are insane.
Costa del Sol condo
Mario Hoops 3-on-3: Never played it. I have seen people cite this as reason why female white mages in FFI are canon, though.
Final Fantasy XIV
FFVII CPR Minigame
Smash Ultimate Sephiroth Reveal: I'll level with you, when Sephiroth said "Time to bring despair to Smash," all I thought of was Danganronpa. Anyway, yes, I thought the same thing as B8, which is that all we're missing now is Crono, who will surely never be playable in Smash.

Dilly dally shilly shally
Argath's Name Change
Renaming Characters
Final Fantasy III: I said before that FFII has the worst gameplay in the series, but III isn't far behind. Far ahead? It's almost as bad, is what I'm saying. The level-up system is back to normal, and it has the brand-new job system and everything that makes FFI work. But where FFII is so bad because it's unplayable, and BDII is so bad because it makes no attempt to improve upon the foundations of its predecessors, FFIII is so bad simply because it's bad. FFII, you can at least say "oh, it has so much ambition," but FFIII? Its only redeeming quality is inventing the job system. Everything else about it is complete ass, including the jobs and the way they're implemented in the game. It also inexplicably takes a step backward in the complexity of the story. Even when they made the DS version and made the characters into characters, they're still the most barebones adventurers possible. There are times in this game when you have to like shrink yourself and go into mouse holes and it's just terrible. This is also the only game in the series I would say is actually made redundant by another. There is zero reason to ever touch this game when FFV does literally everything better. If you're thinking "well, I want to play it because it invented some FF staples," just don't. The Star Wars Christmas Special invented Boba Fett, but that doesn't mean you should watch it.
FFXVI Trailer
Final Fantasy II
Prerendered Cutscenes: Another invention of FFVII, and maybe the one that did the most damage to the series. I feel like FF was at its best when it was just pumping out games every year or two in the 90s. At some point after FFX, they decided they wanted FF to be this premiere series where every game is super polished and beautiful, and I just don't care. As long as it's presentable, I'm fine with it, so I think this did more harm than good.
Crazy Chocobo: I had to look this up, I'd never heard it before. I think I... hate it? The regular Chocobo song would do better.
Shelinda
Characters with names three letters or less
Materia (Dissidia NT): I had to look this up. Do you mean this goddess character? This is the dumbest design for a character I've ever seen. I'm fine with her being a hot blonde woman, that's fine, but her dress is like made out of those white square things you wrap stuff in and has a steampunk aesthetic? Is she wearing a flowerpot on her head? And she has sci-fi wings on her back. This is the stupidest character, I refuse to even read her backstory. And her enemy is named Spiritus, who's just a black version of Jecht. Wait a second, does she have high heels where the heels are gears stuck in place? Shut up.

Hundreds of voices screaming in unison
Lightning Dodging

Unranked
Chocobo Designs: I don't know what this means. Chocobos always look basically the same. I'm not counting this separately from just the normal chocobo ranking.

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This guy are sick

Yeah, about Dissidia NT Materias design, I remember someone saying that she is wearing a Laundry Basket

Ondore's Lies
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Frontier Village Dali (the song)

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The Laughing Scene

Final Fantasy IV

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Hot dogs

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handsomeboy2012 posted...
Yeah, about Dissidia NT Materias design, I remember someone saying that she is wearing a Laundry Basket
Argh a LAUNDRY basket, that's what I was thinking of.

He was brilliant... Perhaps too brilliant...
Aerith dies
Spheres
8-Bit Theater

This is the way
Desperation Attacks
Chocobos
Kilika Sending Scene
Suplexing a Train
Unique Game Logos
Final Fantasy IV: This is THE JRPG. I've played it like three times over three releases, and it's still the JRPG. It's not the best, it's not even the most interesting, but it's still the JRPG, and always will be. What's weird is that because it's so old, it bucks a lot of trends we associate with JRPGs. No nonsense religious allegories, no 'will they or won't they' with the male and female leads, and the hero starts off as an already established soldier. I could talk about how good the Cecil vs Dark Cecil scene is, but one thing I want to zero in on is how this game can just throw stuff at you with no buildup, but it still works. One moment, you're in a medieval castle, then next moment you're being told about four MORE crystals but they're all dark crystals because Square didn't want to have to invent four extra elements, then a ninja just joins you and he has nothing to do with anything, then you're going to the moon on a whale spaceship, and there is never a moment where you pause and say "well, that was an odd progression."
Yuna's Character Growth
Final Fantasy I
Aerith vs Tifa
Bravely Default
FFT's Original Translation
Weather-themed Names
Official Dressphere Spelling
Job Systems
Stay Away From the Summoner Lady

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Card Games
Final Bosses
The Laughing Scene: I hated this when I was a teenager because I hated cringe stuff. I still hate cringe stuff, but you know what? As a grown-up, I'm able to appreciate irony a lot better, and this is one of the most memorable things in the game. So be it.
Tidus being an awkward fool
Edea
Ondore's Lies: FFXII isn't very good, and part of it is that the game is so self-serious. There are like two times in the entire game that have that FFVII comedic quality, and one of them is when Vaan runs around screaming the same two phrases for five minutes. I'm not even sure if that was intended to be as silly as it is.
Same Orphanage
This Guy Are Sick: But WHY are this guy sick? It's never explained.
Xenogears
SMFFFC

Whatever
Final Fantasy Dissidia 1
Gabranth
Frontier Village Dali (song): I listened to this just now, and it left no impression on me at all.
Summon Monsters
Terra vs Celes
Costa del Sol condo
Mario Hoops 3-on-3
Final Fantasy XIV
FFVII CPR Minigame
Smash Ultimate Sephiroth Reveal

Dilly dally shilly shally
Hot Dogs: I've heard that in Japanese, Zell is obsessed with bread or something? Neither bread nor hot dogs are particularly impressive. I have to believe this is some weird joke that doesn't translate well.
Argath's Name Change
Renaming Characters
Final Fantasy III
FFXVI Trailer
Final Fantasy II
Prerendered Cutscenes
Crazy Chocobo
Shelinda
Characters with names three letters or less
Materia (Dissidia NT)

Hundreds of voices screaming in unison
Lightning Dodging

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Tetra Master

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Irvines hat

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Final Fantasy V

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Crazy Chocobo is so ridiculous that I can't help but love it. Also composed by Shootie HG who did DMC3 and 4's music and he's a fun dude.

On topic...

Jokes and memes about Wakka being a racist, ie Grand Wizard Wakka/Wakka's Final Solution, etc

Giving Ramza a nose in Dissidia

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Nobuo Uematsu

The fact that X was the last good final fantasy

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This guy are sick because he's a Sephiroth clone

Nominate Zidane accidentally touching Dagger's butt

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The kid who wants to grow up to be a Blitzball

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Blue Mages.

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The Spirits Within

Torlovsk posted...

The Spirits Within

I don't care what anybody says, that's one of the best sci-fi films ever made.

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Thank you, I hate Materia and her dress too.

Feral Chaos

Leonhart4 posted...

This guy are sick because he's a Sephiroth clone

What?! This changes everything.

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They say he has a numbered tattoo, so that should've been the giveaway.

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The opera scene

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FF6 glitches

He was brilliant... Perhaps too brilliant...
Aerith dies
Spheres
Blue Magic: Easily one of the coolest gameplay concepts in the series. I'm not a completionist, but I usually try to max out blue magic when I can. It's just such a cool idea and the implementation is always awesome. It usually has much cooler spells than the generic damage and healing spells of black and white magic, too. I'll admit that blue mages don't have an iconic look to them like black, white, and red mages do, though. Of note, though: blue mages as characters are not the best? Quistis is fine, but Strago is just whatever, Kimahri is pointless and should have died against Seymour in Bevelle, and Quina is Quina. There's never been a really good blue mage character, which is odd.
8-Bit Theater
Nobuo Uematsu: Remember that old Newgrounds video about Final Fantasy, with a line of "and music by Nobuo?" Dude's the John Williams of JRPGs.

This is the way
Desperation Attacks
Chocobos
Opera Scene: See, this is one of the things that really sets FF apart. No other game from that era would just pause the plot and have a scene where one of the leads is just in an opera, and it's not particularly important to the story, and nothing really comes from it, but it somehow stands out in your mind, gives Celes a moment to shine, and helps set the tone. No wonder it gets referenced a lot.
Kilika Sending Scene
Suplexing a Train
Unique Game Logos
Final Fantasy IV
Yuna's Character Growth
Final Fantasy I
Aerith vs Tifa
Bravely Default
FFT's Original Translation
Final Fantasy V: Fun fact, this is actually my first Final Fantasy. I don't remember why, but I downloaded this off a rom site a million years ago instead of the more popular FFII or FFIII (which are IV and VI, yes). That was the old fan translation with a different name for Krile. Anyway, point is, I don't fault the official translation changing the main character's name away from Butz. In terms of story, FFV has a very barebones on, much weaker than FFIV's or FFII, but much more of one than FFI's or FFIII's. I think that until this point, the series was having trouble establishing its identity. FFIV nailed down the gameplay we now know, and FFV was the last gasp of a plot-light story and characters. This is the first true implementation of the job system, in the sense that FFIII is really bad and no one cares about it. ExDeath is a generic doomsday villain, although I like the origin that he's everyone's hate that possessed a tree or whatever. Him being just a big old suit of armor is a weird stylistic choice, but it works. Your love for FFV will depend on how much you value story versus gameplay, so to me it has a permanent position at the midpoint of a tier list. I say "permanent," but I guess its position goes up by one with every game released post-FFX.
Weather-themed Names
Official Dressphere Spelling
Job Systems
Stay Away From the Summoner Lady

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Card Games
Final Bosses
The Laughing Scene
Tidus being an awkward fool
Edea
The kid who wants to grow up to be a blitzball: Gotta hand it to that kid. There are a billion NPCs in these games, 99% of them are forgotten, but he found a way to stay memorable. I don't fault him for it.
Ondore's Lies
Same Orphanage
This Guy Are Sick
Xenogears
SMFFFC

Whatever
Final Fantasy Dissidia 1
Gabranth
Frontier Village Dali (song)
Summon Monsters
Terra vs Celes
Costa del Sol condo
Mario Hoops 3-on-3
Final Fantasy XIV
FFVI Glitches: Does the game have glitches? I'm too lazy to look them up, but I don't recall ever seeing them, and I've played FFVI many times.
FFVII CPR Minigame
Smash Ultimate Sephiroth Reveal
Irvines hat: The most generic cowboy hat possible. At least have like a playing card with a heart symbol in the little black band around the hat to symbolize his wannabe Casanova status.

Dilly dally shilly shally
Tetra Master: The lesser card minigame. According to the FF Wiki, this got a standalone release, but Triple Triad didn't? Square is so weird.
Hot Dogs
Argath's Name Change
Ramza's Nose in Dissidia: Pretty unremarkable. This is the definition of 'who cares' to me, I don't view noselessness as core to FFT's visual identity.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within: The story behind this movie is much more interesting than the movie itself. But for the merger with Enix, this would have been the cinematic equivalent of the Titanic in terms of sheer hubris. The idea of a CGI 'actress' whose model you reuse for future roles is sort of interesting in a cyberpunk sense, but CGI wasn't there in 2001 or whatever. The movie is also just bad. Whose idea was it to set it on Earth instead of a fantasy world? That is something FF should never do.
Renaming Characters
Final Fantasy III
Racist Wakka: I mean, he is sort of racist, it's true. It's a little unbelievable that he never noticed Yuna's green eye. Heterochromia is like the most noticeable quality a person can possibly have, and if only Al Bhed have green eyes, then he should've zeroed in on that immediately. Anyway, Wakka's racism never really becomes important, and he gets over it after a while, so I'd say it's just a subplot that fizzles out with no real resolution.
FFXVI Trailer
Final Fantasy II
Prerendered Cutscenes
Zidane's Sexual Harassment: Boy oh boy, some things don't age well.
Feral Chaos: Dumb design, though better than Materia. I kind of like that his wings are falling apart, but beyond that, he's just a big ol' demon man.
Crazy Chocobo
Shelinda
FFX being the last good one: It's sad, but we all need to just accept that FFXII is bad with some good qualities, FFXIII is bad, and FFXV is something I never played, but looks bad.
Characters with names three letters or less
Materia (Dissidia NT)

Hundreds of voices screaming in unison
Lightning Dodging

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Good lord, do I agree with your Blue opinion. Favorite class and yet it gets dicked over (especially in 14, where it's a sidequest, not actually usable in normal content.)

On that note, let's get physical. Monks.

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Moombas (The mascot species thing from FF8)

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Gunblades

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Final Fantasy VI

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The name "Final Fantasy"

The fact that the world levels with you in FF8.

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Isquen posted...

Favorite class and yet it gets dicked over (especially in 14, where it's a sidequest, not actually usable in normal content.)

How does this work? I've never played FFXIV, is it simply not available when you play important quests?

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He was brilliant... Perhaps too brilliant...
Final Fantasy (name): Fantastic name. The alliteration is perfect, it tells you immediately that this is a fantasy series, and it's just a cool name. And yes, everyone knows the story about how they thought it was their last game. It's such a good name that I have to believe it was just an accident of fate or chance, I would actually call this the best name of any video game series I can think of.
Aerith dies
Blue Magic
Spheres
8-Bit Theater
Nobuo Uematsu

This is the way
Final Fantasy VI: I see a lot of people claim this is the best in the series. When I did a series re-playthrough a few years ago, and got to FFVI, I was like... you know what, this game has its flaws. Play it too many times, and you see the seams a little too easily. But with that said, it's still top three in the series, it's just not perfect, which Final Fantasy as a series has never been. It's got the silliest villain of the series, although I'm not a fan of evil clowns, it's got an emperor with a dog face for some reason, and it's got a cast that's waaaay too big for its own good. I remember once seeing someone argue that Setzer counts as the main character. I also really appreciate the gameplay attempt to let anyone learn any magic, but give everyone a unique power. In practice, though, this just results in Sabin and Edgar carrying your team for the first half of the game, because they have the easiest abilities to make useful. One interesting element about this game is that this is the first one where the final boss is just a straight-up god, but it lacks any of the pseudoreligious nonsense that infects JRPGs as a genre. There's no giant robopope or ancient gods who need to be slain or anything like that.
Desperation Attacks
Chocobos
Opera Scene
Kilika Sending Scene
Suplexing a Train
Unique Game Logos
Final Fantasy IV
Yuna's Character Growth
Final Fantasy I
Aerith vs Tifa
Bravely Default
FFT's Original Translation
Final Fantasy V
Weather-themed Names
Official Dressphere Spelling
Job Systems
Gunblade: Mechanically, one of the stupidest weapons ever. But man, they're cool.
Stay Away From the Summoner Lady

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Card Games
Final Bosses
The Laughing Scene
Monk: Conceptually cool, mechanically a mixed bag. They have to match normal weapon classes without being better than them, and how do you do that? I guess the niche of "lots of HP, moderate other stats, and lots of weird special abilities" is as good as anything, but this is not a class that ever wowed me. Of note, though: this class has Sabin and Tifa, who are great characters. It also has Yang and Zell, who aren't as great. Is there no FFIX monk? I guess Amarant sort of counts?
Tidus being an awkward fool
Edea
The kid who wants to grow up to be a blitzball
Ondore's Lies
Same Orphanage
This Guy Are Sick
Xenogears
SMFFFC

Whatever
Final Fantasy Dissidia 1
Gabranth
Frontier Village Dali (song)
Summon Monsters
Terra vs Celes
Costa del Sol condo
Mario Hoops 3-on-3
Final Fantasy XIV
FFVI Glitches
FFVII CPR Minigame
Smash Ultimate Sephiroth Reveal
Irvines hat
Moomba: I had to look these up. I have zero memory of these things. If you told me that I'd just mandela effected into another universe with a slightly different version of FFVIII, I'd believe you.

Dilly dally shilly shally
Tetra Master
Hot Dogs
Argath's Name Change
Ramza's Nose in Dissidia
Final Fantasy
Renaming Characters
Final Fantasy III
Racist Wakka
FFXVI Trailer
Final Fantasy II
Prerendered Cutscenes
Zidane's Sexual Harassment
Level Scaling: I never liked this conceptually, but it at least makes sense in like Dragon Age, where you have multiple options for where to go and the developer can't predict where you'll go first (spoilers: Mage Tower), so it's mechanically necessary. But in the context of a linear JRPG, there's no reason for this that I can think of? Like, what's the logic here? Did they include it just for fun? It robs you of feeling like you're progressing in the same way as the rest of the series. Even FFII got this right.
Feral Chaos
Crazy Chocobo
Shelinda
FFX being the last good one
Characters with names three letters or less
Materia (Dissidia NT)

Hundreds of voices screaming in unison
Lightning Dodging

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Dark Aeons

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Ivalice Moogles (the FF12/FFTA/FFTA2 design)

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Final Fantasy VII

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Calculator/Mathematician

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What, you don't think monsters fight each other and get stronger? Survival of the fittest, man.

Nominate Squall dreaming he was a moron

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https://youtu.be/jMJ3oGF2SJM

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XV's protracted development

Blitzball

The Square-Enix merger

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