Favorite Final Fantasy?

[uc pseudonym]

My gambit set up removed the gameplay entirely. Toward the late game, short of a few boss battles I never even had to push anything other than the analog stick for movement.

And I LIKED it that way.

Really? I found that for most serious challenges my pattern got interrupted often enough that I had to intervene. It was enough to keep me mentally engaged, anyway, except for Yiazmat.

Essentially, what happened is all those Star Wars fans among FF creators got together and determined to make a Star Wars JRPG...

I do dislike the random fighter airships. They appear at the beginning and end, but feel strange in the context of the rest of the game.

[TriezGamer]

Me too. I mean who buys games to play them? Seriously I just want to put in the game and watch it play itself. It saves me a bunch of time let me tell you.

Ever worked your way through Xenosaga? Sometimes you just want the story, not that gameplay that gets in the way. I don't buy games to play them, I buy games to be entertained -- and if I find a game is more entertaining for the story than the gameplay, I'll readily sacrifice gameplay for the story.

[MasterDias]

Ever worked your way through Xenosaga? Sometimes you just want the story, not that gameplay that gets in the way. I don't buy games to play them, I buy games to be entertained -- and if I find a game is more entertaining for the story than the gameplay, I'll readily sacrifice gameplay for the story.

I'm actually the opposite sort of. I really like good stories as well. However, I'm not necessarily going to want to put up with poor gameplay for the story's sake.

I found Xenosaga I's battles rather boring and tedious as the game went on so I never continued the series. Although, I have come to understood that the last one fixes many of these problems.

Really? I found that for most serious challenges my pattern got interrupted often enough that I had to intervene. It was enough to keep me mentally engaged, anyway, except for Yiazmat.

Yeah, same here, pretty much.
I had to switch around my gambits for quite a few of the bosses and most of the hunts I did. Some of those hunts could be nasty. It took me much longer to get into that system then in other games in the series, but I never felt like it was complete hands-off. On the other hand, I wouldn't consider it my favorite system.

[Nate]

I like good stories, but I'd rather have a game with fantastic gameplay and weak story than a game with a fantastic story and weak gameplay.

Which is why Super Mario Bros. (weak story, fantastic gameplay) is better than oh, say, Lair for the PS3 (great story, TERRIBLE gameplay).

If I wanted a good story I'd go watch a movie, anime, or read a book. I buy video games to play them, which is why Final Fantasy XII fails.

[TriezGamer]

There is certainly a place for games with great gameplay. I'm not about to argue that point -- I'd be foolish to do so, being that I'm obsessed with a lot of games merely for the gameplay.

But what is the point in merely average, repetitive gameplay -- that is, almost every RPG with a rare exception here and there -- if it can't even support itself with a decent story?

Let's face it -- most RPGs aren't actually fun to PLAY, they're fun to WATCH. At least, that's how it is for me. Many games even have battle engines that emphasize this, Final Fantasy being one of the notorious ones, with intricate and long spell, skill and especially summon animations.

Part of the problem is that most RPGs seem to have a difficulty curve designed for the average player. When it comes to numbers and statistics, I excel greatly, and thus any apparent necessity of 'strategy' is really just developing a rather short series of mental IF->THENs that are essentially never challenging to ME as a player, outside of a boss battle. And even then, most boss battles merely become a longer chain of the exact same sequence used to handle random encounters, instead of throwing out situations I'm not actually prepared for. I realize that's a slight over-simplification, but if anything, my gambits on FFXI over-emphasize the fact that, often times, RPG 'strategy' can be reduced to a '12-step program' (Gambit) for each character.

It is BECAUSE most RPGs are too easy and too repetitive that I'd rather they sacrifice gameplay for the story in most cases. There are exceptions to the rule, as with any standard regarding entertainment. But it holds true for the most part.

There's really only four classes of challenging RPGs that I can think of:

1) Games where the enemies have a significant statistical or numerical advantage over the player. These games are often 'artificially' hard, and rarely actually have a well-built AI.

2) Games with a genuinely good AI. Depending on who you ask, these games may not even actually exist.

3) Games where the enemy is not restricted by the same rules as the party. Depending on how it's handled, this may be a fun game or a terrible game. The worst example I can think of is Xenosaga Ep 2, where in order to effectively fight even random battles, you often had to waste two turns allowing the enemy to beat on you for free. This is dangerous territory, since even though people have different standards and opinions about how hard or easy a game should be, a frustratingly ANNOYING battle engine will kill most people's interest VERY quickly. I've only met one person who actually thought XSII's battle engine was a cool thing.

4) Games with a high degree of unpredictability. These are the ones that actually challenge me as a player because I cannot simplify them, and it is these games where I wouldn't sacrifice the gameplay for the story.

The kicker: In many cases, unpredictability is not a popular design decision in RPG-land because it increases the difficulty signficiantly and renders the game frustratingly unplayable for the majority of audiences.

To put it into extremely simple terms:


Predictability

My party

Melee-damage-type: 6000 HP, 3500 damage (+/- 250), 95% accuracy
Melee-thief-type: 5500 HP, 3000 damage (+/- 200), 98% accuracy, high speed
Healer-type: 3200 HP, can recover 1500 (+/- 100) damage to a single target or 1000 (+/- 75) damage for all targets, has an ability that will half physical damage taken for 5 turns.
Wizard-type: 2800 HP, can deal 5000 (+/- 500) damage, but is slow

Boss

130000 HP

Boss has three attacks which it can use with an even probability.

Standard attack deals 1500 (+/- 50) damage to a single target with 95% accuracy.
One special attack deals ~2500 damage (+/- 100) to the entire party and cannot miss, and is a magical attack.
One special attack deals ~3000 damage (+/- 500) to a single character with 99% accuracy, and is a physical attack.

Because my melee characters serve no other purpose than damage output, and combined they can deal approximately 3500 and 3000 damage a turn, respectively, with a minimum 95% accuracy rate, as long as neither character dies, the maximum expected duration of this battle should be 23-24 turns.

The wizards damage output brings this estimate down to about 14-15 turns, however the wizard will use an item to recover the healer's mana if the healer's mana drops below (1 / turns taken -2)

... and so on.

This battle proves to be far simpler than the unpredictable battle below:

UNPREDICATABILITY

My party

Melee-damage-type: 6000 HP, 3500 damage (+/- 2250), 55% accuracy
Melee-thief-type: 5500 HP, 3000 damage (+/- 1800), 65% accuracy, high speed
Healer-type: 3200 HP, can recover 1500 (+/- 500) damage to a single target or 1000 (+/- 300) damage for all targets, has an ability that will half physical damage taken for 5 turns.
Wizard-type: 2800 HP, can deal 5000 (+/- 3000) damage, but is slow

Boss

130000 HP

Boss has three attacks which it can use with an even probability.

Standard attack deals 1500 (+/- 1000) damage to a single target with 60% accuracy.
One special attack deals ~2500 damage (+/- 1500) to the entire party and cannot miss, and is a magical attack.
One special attack deals ~3000 damage (+/- 2000) to a single character with 65% accuracy, and is a physical attack.


What did we just do to the strategy required?

Ignoring the fact that the boss would completely thrash the party in the second scenario without a lot of luck involved, the point is that learning to adapt to a dynamically changing condition of battle in the second scenario is going to be far more of a challenge than the original scenario which is highly predictable.

YES, unpredicatability means a stroke of bad luck can render a fight unwinnable. By the same token, a stroke of luck could render a supposedly hard fight simple. This is a good thing in my eyes.

Your mileage may vary.


Edit: And I will re-emphasize -- I buy games to be entertained, not to play a game. If the 'game' can entertain me by being a 20 hour long 'interactive movie', I consider my money well spent.

[MasterDias]

There is certainly a place for games with great gameplay. I'm not about to argue that point -- I'd be foolish to do so, being that I'm obsessed with a lot of games merely for the gameplay.

But what is the point in merely average, repetitive gameplay -- that is, almost every RPG with a rare exception here and there -- if it can't even support itself with a decent story?

Let's face it -- most RPGs aren't actually fun to PLAY, they're fun to WATCH. At least, that's how it is for me. Many games even have battle engines that emphasize this, Final Fantasy being one of the notorious ones, with intricate and long spell, skill and especially summon animations.

I can't really say I agree particularly. While I won't argue that RPG battle systems can't get tedious and repetitive, I still feel that by and large the better games in the genre are well-designed enough to have enjoyable battle systems.
I don't think I'd have enjoyed Dragon Quest VIII quite as much as I did if story was all that mattered to me, as it had a pretty basic(although charming) story.
You mentioned Final Fantasy, but I've actually always thought that series to have some of the more well-designed battle systems. Chrono Trigger/Cross had enjoyable battle systems. Skies of Arcadia: Legends could get repetitive but was stylish and fun enough where it didn't really matter.
And I've always enjoyed action-oriented battle systems like Tales and Star Ocean.

3) Games where the enemy is not restricted by the same rules as the party. Depending on how it's handled, this may be a fun game or a terrible game. The worst example I can think of is Xenosaga Ep 2, where in order to effectively fight even random battles, you often had to waste two turns allowing the enemy to beat on you for free. This is dangerous territory, since even though people have different standards and opinions about how hard or easy a game should be, a frustratingly ANNOYING battle engine will kill most people's interest VERY quickly. I've only met one person who actually thought XSII's battle engine was a cool thing.

In my mind, "challenging" and "frustrating due to bad game design" are two different things.

4) Games with a high degree of unpredictability. These are the ones that actually challenge me as a player because I cannot simplify them, and it is these games where I wouldn't sacrifice the gameplay for the story.

The kicker: In many cases, unpredictability is not a popular design decision in RPG-land because it increases the difficulty signficiantly and renders the game frustratingly unplayable for the majority of audiences.

Do you have any actual examples of this implemented in a game?

YES, unpredicatability means a stroke of bad luck can render a fight unwinnable. By the same token, a stroke of luck could render a supposedly hard fight simple. This is a good thing in my eyes.

Frankly, in my eyes, a system that's highly luck-based doesn't sound like a good idea.
I'm far more forgiving if I die 8 minutes into a difficult boss battle because I made a mistake, then because the boss pulled off a cheap attack randomly when I had almost killed him.

[Kawaiikneko]

Hmm its a hard choice for me between 7 and 10 because both of them have phenomenal stories and characters. But FFX has a lot of sentimental value for me because it was my first FF and my friend and I played it through together almost every Sunday for like a year. Great fun. So I chose FFX.

[TriezGamer]

Do you have any actual examples of this implemented in a game?

Any low-level D&D campaign, or games based very closely on a D&D ruleset. Typically, 2-3 hits can be fatal, and accuracy floats around 30-35%