Board 8 > Was FFX the last good mainline final fantasy game

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ff7r isn't a mainline title no

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11, 12, and 14 exist.

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_stingers_ posted...

Ff7r isn't a mainline title no

It is though!

And people clearly adore XIV now so I doubt there'll be many agreeing here. I personally like 13, not 12, and haven't yet played the onlines or 15.

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I wanted to get into 14 but MMO style gameplay is just so tedious and boring, I couldn't force myself through it

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12 one of my favorites

Do we count direct sequels because 13-2 is legit

14 I'm still in the pre-expansion stuff but I like it well enough to have 150 hours into it. We'll see if the expansions make me think it's one of the best.

15 I had a lot of fun with and Noctis is my favorite FF protagonist since Squall, I look forward to replaying it before 16 is out. I had only played it to completion when it first came out so it didn't have all the content that was added later.

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No XV is

XII vanilla kinda sucks but the PS4 version is good. XIII is great. Haven't played the MMOs

FFX is the best tho

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12 is great and I really enjoyed 13-2. 14 is also good but I'm not sure I'd count it here.

I haven't played 13 since it came out and remember thinking it was 'okay', but I'd be interested to see how I feel on a replay now that we're removed from the negativity surrounding it.

I could never get past the time mechanics in 13-3 long enough to finish it.

15 was one of the most disappointing games of all-time for me.

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The only FF Ive liked since X is XIII, but in fairness Ill probably never play the two online ones, did not like XII at all and havent even tried to play XV yet

14 is the best Final Fantasy game, coming from someone who in January of this year would have told you he barely even considers the entire MMO genre to be valid or capable of being decent in the first.

But I would have said IX was the last good one before that.

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XIII and XV were both good.

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XII is in my all-time top 100. I started XIV this year and am really digging it.

XIII and XV are both 'good,' at least, but definitely not 'great' like I would consider most mainline Final Fantasy games since IV.

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Arti posted...

XIII and XV were both good.

This tbqh

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XII wasn't my style of "Final Fantasy" game to me. They tried to make a pseudo action game/faster turn based system that took 2-3 times to gets snappy and smooth (7R). Other issues were a political intrigue plot, every character other than Balthier lacking charisma and "presence", and a just overall "western" feel to the entire thing. The music too. Uematsu wasn't there, and the Odin Sphere/Valkyria Chronicles guy did a "orchestral movie soundtrack" that didn't hook me like Uematsu's "jingle based" songs.

I tried to play it multiple times. I've beaten it twice and quit two other times in the same spot (Raithwall).

To me, FF should feel like Dragon Quest/Persona and other JRPGs still do. Yakuza for instance went from a beat em up TO afull on turn based system and benefitted from that change. Square is free to experiment, but that kind of experimentation with "Western or Mainstream" game styles just isn't what I want. XIII and XV had things I "could" have enjoyed, but 7R is the closest to a "fun" game.

FFX was the last time Square Enix gave me a "FF" experience.

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XII is awful
XIII is great and XIII-2 and LR were even better
Still haven't played XV or the MMOs

FFXIV is basically a full single player Final Fantasy game with a full single player narrative, just masquerading as an MMO, unless your actively seeking out those elements or course. It has a larger and richer narrative than the vast majority of the series, and a much better cast of core characters.

But I also know that basically nobody is ever going to believe people who say that if they haven't played the game themselves. I sure wouldn't! It's still quite a shame though. At least the first 200 hours or so of content are completely free.

https://youtu.be/b59TR8pShQ0

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They're all good

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FFXII and FFXV are also pretty good, though not as good as X.

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12 is better than 10.

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Ff14 best ff period

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

At least the first 200 hours or so of content are completely free.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

the first 200 hours

this is a bigger hurdle than the MMO elements >_>

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XI I never tried, it seems decent but impenetrable unfortunately.

XII I found very dull though really respected what it was doing - the remaster seems like it could be really good.

XIII I did not like at all.

XIV I believe is an absolute top-tier Final Fantasy game.

XV I somewhat enjoyed but dont know if it gets all the way to good. However, the version with all the DLC and patches might actually be pretty good I havent tried it.

So definitely XIV, and we can say maybe for XII and XV or specifically their updated versions.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

Ff14 best ff period

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FF9 was

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MZero posted...

this is a bigger hurdle than the MMO elements >_>

Undeniably yeah. Time your willing to spend is just such a subjective thing.

I think it's worth it, but I'm still sitting well over 1000 hours even playing casually, but that's with, like, specific content goals.

If you were to go into the game with the goal of playing JUST mainline content to prepare for Endwalker, you're looking at maybe 300-350 hours across the base game and 3 expansion's. If you factor in major side content that you would want to do for the sake of narrative, you can add another 50-100 hours on top of that depending.

That said, I'm winding down hard right now and actually am likely not going to play at all until Endwalker. I only have a handful of uncapped jobs and am not in a rush. I feel like that will make the Endwalker experience that much more potent, combined with the week of vacation I took for it.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

But I also know that basically nobody is ever going to believe people who say that if they haven't played the game themselves. I sure wouldn't! It's still quite a shame though. At least the first 200 hours or so of content are completely free.

As someone who has never played FFIV, this aligns with my thinking. I'm sure I'd probably like it if I tried it, but even with now being perhaps the best time to jump in, I'm content to let it pass by.

XIV might be the correct answer to the question posed, but for me, X was the last one I personally enjoyed.

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Didn't play XI.

XII was decent.

XIII was absolute trash and killed my desire to play any new games in the series to the point that I still haven't played XV.

I've started XIV 4 or 5 times now and every time I immediately get turned off by the MMOness of it all. I hear all the good things and would love to see it for myself but I just can't stomach MMO gameplay.

FF7R totally counts as mainline thought and it was great.

XIII is the only FF game I have played but not finished.

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JonThePenguin posted...

11, 12, and 14 exist.

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XI: haven't played
XII: great
XIII: okay
XIV: great
XV: only played for a few hours; need to get back to it to form an opinion


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Murphiroth posted...

I've started XIV 4 or 5 times now and every time I immediately get turned off by the MMOness of it all. I hear all the good things and would love to see it for myself but I just can't stomach MMO gameplay.

Yeah, this is the main thing holding me back from trying XIV despite all the praise from user SaveEstelle and others.

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I don't agree with the premise of the topic
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KCF0107 posted...

I don't agree with the premise of the topic

That's why the third poll option exists

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Question for the people that say they are "turned off by the MMOness"- what exactly do you mean by that?

Because it could mean several things and several of the things I could think of are fixed the farther you get in the game. I mean that still leaves the problem of the amount of time you have to sink in to get to it which itself is a valid reason to be turned off, but even so, I'm curious.

And I'm definitely in the camp of "FF14 is the best Final Fantasy in the entire series" for the record.

tcaz2 posted...

Question for the people that say they are "turned off by the MMOness"- what exactly do you mean by that?

I only tried XIV for ten minutes before realizing the free version wouldn't let me play with my friends, but everything from the way my character controlled to the cluttered screen to the lack of real direction made me think 'MMO' in ways I didn't think I'd like

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Leonhart4 posted...

They're all good

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Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, this is the main thing holding me back from trying XIV despite all the praise from user SaveEstelle and others.

While its definitely an MMO, I think it plays a lot more like a single player game than other MMOs for the main story. You do need to group with other people for dungeons/raids, but the ones required for the story are designed so that almost any group can get through them without too much trouble (and you dont need to actually assemble the group yourself for story-level content; you just enter a queue and the game takes care of assembling the group).

Its also a lot better than other MMOs Ive played about not wasting your time; dailies/weeklies etc feel a lot less essential here.

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Mobilezoid posted...

I only tried XIV for ten minutes before realizing the free version wouldn't let me play with my friends, but everything from the way my character controlled to the cluttered screen to the lack of real direction made me think 'MMO' in ways I didn't think I'd like

Not trying to convince you to do anything since to with their own, but I do have responses to all of these.

You can play with friends in the free trial, they just have to invite you, you can't invite them.

The game absolutely front loads you with popups, but you turn basically all of those off.

There are multiple control options you can change in regards to how your character moves. You can also play with a controller, which even a large chunk of PC players do. I've even seen hardcore raiders using controllers.

The lack of direction thing is a wierd one because in the current state of FFXIV you basically ignore everything but the main quest and your job quest until you best the base game. So yeah there's a million things to "do", but what you actually should be doing is literally always in the top left corner of the screen and will always tell you exactly where to go.


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Mobilezoid posted...

I only tried XIV for ten minutes before realizing the free version wouldn't let me play with my friends, but everything from the way my character controlled to the cluttered screen to the lack of real direction made me think 'MMO' in ways I didn't think I'd like

I mean this just sounds like you went into it thinking "I'm not going to like it" so I mean... yeah of course you're not going to like it if you aren't even going to give it a shot BEFORE you try it.

And also the first and last things are definitively not true (you can play with your friends in the free trial and the game constantly guides you on where to go) + you can customize the UI to declutter it if you find it cluttered by literally dragging and dropping things.

I'm not gonna say you're wrong for not being into the game, but it does sound like you didn't even want to give it a fair shot, which isn't really 'trying it' imo.

We were all on the free trial, none if us could invite the others.

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XIII and XV were both good but hugely flawed imo

So no, X isn't the last good one, but it was the last great one

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Oh, well yeah, if you're all free trial then you can't group up. You would need one paid player to invite you all into their party.

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Mobilezoid posted...

We were all on the free trial, none if us could invite the others.

Ok this makes sense.

That's unfortunate, but there's really nothing to be done about that. It's not just an arbitrary limit, there is a reason you can't invite players with the free trial. It's to deter botters from bothering people in-game (since there was a point in time years ago when botters realized they could start a free trial account for free, then spam party invites to people to advertise real money trading).

You can technically do a work around for this by asking someone who is subbed to make a party, invite your friends and you, then leave, but it is a bit of a pain to be fair.

There's really not a lot of point in partying until you get to dungeons anyway though, since the main story is single player outside of the dungeons and trials.

I usually only save clips of ridiculous cutscenes of Haka Warrior Birdmen having Dragonball Z dance battles, so I don't have any noteable clips with my UI uploaded, but here's at least short clip showing how much you can clean it up from how it is at launch. I would say it's gotten even more minimalist since then.

https://youtu.be/cZiIYVkFUok

Please ignore the absolute mess of players on scream as they were all waiting to welcome a big Twitch streamer into the city for the first time, that's not normal <_<

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This is so silly.

why are people pretending that final fantasy eksiv is a mainline game rather than a spinoff whose title when capitalized just so happens to resemble a roman numeral?


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tcaz2 posted...

There's really not a lot of point in partying until you get to dungeons anyway though, since the main story is single player outside of the dungeons and trials.

I think that's where some people understandably come in with the wrong impression. They think trying to set up a group ahead of time is going to make the experience more "tolerable" or that it will be hard otherwise, but that's not the case (a VERY stark contrast to how FFXI worked). Multiplayer content and grouping up in FFXIV is mostly a thing you would do after..."beating" the game. Nothing is stopping you from being grouped up other than the trial, but there's really not much of a point, and it would almost get in the way. SO MUCH of the core game is essentially a single player RPG. Yes you have to group up for everything in the duty finder, but you never have to actually interact with a other player directly for any reason if you don't want to. If you actually wanted to experience it as a journey with your friends, you'd be better off just hanging out in Discord while playing even if you could group up.

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Yeah I mean there is definitely multiplayer content as you are leveling you can do (you'll be wanting to do a dungeon roulette most days at the very least, and there is also other optional group content like Palace of the Dead, Ocean Fishing, PvP, etc you might want to check out sometimes as you level just to shake things up) but probably the majority of your time in FF14 will be spent playing solo doing the story until you hit level cap and its gonna be something like a 80% solo/20% grouped split.

But yeah I actually tried playing the game with a party of 2 others originally when I started all the way back in ARR and quickly found out it actually either doesn't really add anything (doing the inbetween filler quests that aren't instanced) or actively gets in the way (since story duties are solo only, so you'd have to drop party and remake it any time anyone got to a story section with a battle).

There is a lot of social elements in FF14 but the core leveling gameplay is made to be a predominantly single player experience with only occasional partying up for dungeons and the like.

AxemRedRanger posted...

This is so silly.

why are people pretending that final fantasy eksiv is a mainline game rather than a spinoff whose title when capitalized just so happens to resemble a roman numeral?

Because it has a main storyline better than most if not all of the rest of the numbered titles

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I would say that FFXIV has the best story on the franchise, yeah.

A Realm Reborn was rough in retrospect, but I really don't feel like it was all that bad in the moment. It's just looking back on it after doing all the expansion's that it comes off as a bit...embarassing by comparison, though a lot of that is on the voice acting.

And then everyone knows Heavensward is fucking baller.

And then Stormblood is more up and down, but it has some great highs. I would say that's where some of the best actual gameplay is, too.

Then you get Shadowbringers an all bets are off. It's not like you can play Shadowbringers by itself, far from it, but I'd say on its own that's the best Final Fantasy has EVER been as a franchise.

And I think Endwalker may end up even better than that. We also get to look forward to the nice little bow of being able to say "End of FFXIV: Part 1"

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Yes. Nothing after X comes close to the quality of the Golden Age FFs.

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My experience with 14 so far I basically just use it as my podcast game and only play a little bit each day over the past 5 or 6 months.

I'm pretty much right at the end of base ARR before the post game patches that set up the expansions and there's only been two really good story moments, one about halfway through and one I just saw today. I haven't just been sticking to the main story though I just do any exclamation point I come across because that's just how I am. The game is still fun enough to continue though knowing the actual good story bits are still coming. The main cast established in ARR all seem fairly interesting.

Once you get a handle on how the MMO mechanics actually work is pretty easy and I have 3 classes all around level 50 that I switch back and forth between depending on who needs the exp

I've pretty much given upon thinking I'll get to endwalker before it releases, but I'll get to it eventually next year and I'm fine with that.

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