Final Fantasy: Is the oldschool style or modern style better and why?

[Dagger Dias]

This is a debate between me and Dave, but I encourage ALL fans of the FF series to join in as well.

There is a lot of arguments among fans of the series as to whether the oldschool FF's are better or the modern ones. I would like to know which style you like better for the series. Oldschool (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Mystic Quest) or modern (7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, 12, and 13) and why.

A brief history on the series:

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OLDER FF GAMES
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Final Fantasy
Where it all began. This was one of the first RPG's ever and introduced us to 6 character classes, all of which have shown up in most of the other games in the series. The original was on NES in 1987 and then got remade several times for Playstation, Gameboy Advance, and PSP.

Final Fantasy 2
(Not to be confused with Final Fantasy 2 on the SNES) This game, while the least popular in the series, was the first FF to have heroes that had actual development and backstories. It was an NES classic who's main problem was an aggrivating (yet unique) battle system where you earned stat updates in battle actions rather than leveling through EXP. The story and characters were great for its time. We also saw an airship engineer named Cid and Chocobos for the first time. The original NES version was never released outside of Japan. It has been remade for the Playstation, Gameboy Advance, and PSP.

Final Fantasy 3
(Not to be confused with Final Fantasy 3 on the SNES) This game was so ahead of its time. It took the NES to its limit for graphics and music. The EXP leveling system returned. It took the character class system of it's ancestor, FF1, and gave it a massive upgrade where you could now change your character class from the main menu. The original was on NES but did not see a worldwide release. It got remade for the DS with upgrades to both the soundtrack and graphics. The 4 heroes now also had names and backstories.

Final Fantasy 4
The first entry on the SNES (originally released as FF2 due to translation issues) and one of the more popular FF games. It took everything that FF2 and FF3 had done best, and made it better. Each of the many playable characters had a predetermined character class. Many playable characters with great character development and a story that was nothing short of incredible for its time. The only major flaw it had was that you could not control when someone was in your active party or not. That was changed in a special version on Game Boy Advance where a new event was added that you could pick your party members for, although in the DS version that was taken out. It received a remake on the DS with updated graphics and soundtrack. This is one of my two personal favorites, alongside FF7.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Although this game gets a lot of criticism for being too easy, I really enjoyed it. Its low difficulty level is honestly its best quality. It is the perfect game for someone to break into the RPG genre with because it is user-friendly and entertaining. The characters did not have much development or backstories, but the game was fun and a lot better than a lot of people seem to think it is. The soundtrack was amazing too.

Final Fantasy 5
The character class system returned in this entry. You could assign all sorts of abilities that someone mastered by using a certain character class long enough. The original SNES version did not get released worldwide, but it got a remake on the Playstation and Gameboy Advance. It had a good story and good soundtrack, but fell a little short in character development compared to FF4. It was good for its time though and a fun game.

Final Fantasy 6
Originally released on the SNES as Final Fantasy 3 due to translation errors.... Final Fantasy 6 is another one of the more popular entries in the series. It featured the largest playable cast (14 in the final party, if you recruited everybody) so far in the series. The graphics were amazing at the time and so was the soundtrack. It received remakes on the Playstation and Gameboy Advance.

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MODERN FF GAMES
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Final Fantasy 7
One of the most popular RPG's of all time. It took the series to 3D and started the "modern" style of the series by relying on cut-scenes and 3D graphics. Some of my fondest memories come from playing this game over and over again. It is a favorite among countless gamers. The materia system allowed a lot of customization for characters, and the soundtrack was out of this world. Many of the characters went on to become fan favorites. Cloud Strife inspired countless other "spiky haired angsty heroes with huge sword" characters.... Sephiroth is widely regarded as one of the best villains ever.... Aeris was involved in the biggest spoiler in video game history.... and then there's Tifa, who is arguably the most popular female RPG character. FF7 has yet to receive a remake, nor have any that came after it.

Final Fantasy 8
FF7 was a hard act to follow, and FF8 stepped up to that challenge, despite receiving a lot of criticism at first. The graphics took on a new CG style, as opposed to the cartoony style the fans were used to up until this entry. The cut-scenes were better than ever. It also had a good soundtrack and great character development from the main characters.

Final Fantasy 9
In this entry the series returned to its roots with a medieval world full of interesting characters. The character classes returned, but each playable character had a predetermined character class, like in FF4. The graphics also had the same oldschool cartoony feel to them, despite remaining in 3D and CG like FF8. In my personal opinion, it fell short of the potential it had.... but it was a really great game.

Final Fantasy X & X-2
The first entry on the PS2 and the first to feature voice-overs for the characters during dialogue scenes. The sphere grid was a very innovative new way to make the characters stronger as they leveled up. FFX became the first entry in the series to receive a "true" sequal, in FFX-2 (which I consider to be the 11th game in the series because FFXI is a MMORPG). FFX-2 brought back the character class system seen in 1, 3, and 5. Also.... Yuna and Rikku looked great in most of their character class outfits.

Final Fantasy XII
This entry introduced a few innovations such as battles occuring on the same screen, a customizable system for the characters called gambits, and the license system which determined what abilities or equipment you could unlock. The graphics also saw a large change compared to older entries, to a more realistic look.

Final Fantasy XIII
Not gonna reveal anything here as that could be seen as spoilers.

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Ok.... now that that's out of the way.... which style do you prefer when it comes to Final Fantasy and why?

I personally prefer the older ones because of nostalgia, as well as how they were (for the most part) more fun than most of the newer ones, and had greater replay value.

I plan on going into FAR greater detail in my next post, but I am going to let Dave have the first opening statement in our debate. So let's begin this thing.

 

[Dave]

OK, I finally made it.

In my mind, there is little choice but to see that the "New School" Final Fantasy games are infinitely better. I have played every single Final Fantasty release, with the exception of 3 and whilst I may not be as well-versed as you Dagger, I certainly know which ones I have enjoyed more. You see, throughout my gaming life, I have been lucky enough to be privy to, what I feel, is the best gaming saga and series of all time. Final Fantasy has been dominating the RPG genre for decades now and whilst the initial games in the series got the ball rolling, once they got to Final Fantasy 7, they had effectively found their niche and began to churn out some of the best games in the history of both RPG's and gaming in general. Square have always been at the fore-front of the RPG scene and I personally believe it is because of the more recent releases. In this post, I will hopefully convince you that the later games in the Final Fantasy saga are much better.

So let's get started.

Since Final Fantasy, Square and Square Enix have been widely regarded as being the best creators of RPG games. Not that this wasn't true before but people certainly sat up and took notice of Square when Final Fantasy 7 came around. There is no need to doubt the credentials of this game. I urge you to go back and look at the well-run Video Games tournament that took place on here over the summer. Final Fantasy 7 was both the most supported game of the series and the best thought of. I am pretty sure it went the furthest of all the games in the Final Fantasy saga and it's success speaks volumes for what it was trying to achieve. Final Fantasy 7 is and forever will be, the game that set Square apart from the others. You can try and deny this all you want but Final Fantasy 7 is the most well-though-of game in the series and for good reason. You see, never before had a game brought so much life to a series that was stuck in it's ways. You look at the first release and then play the fifth, for example and very little had changed. Final Fantasy 7 broke that mould and left it in the past. Since then, Final Fantasy as a seies has gone from strength to strength. It has churned out some of the most-playable games of the series and it is not limited to Final Fantasy 7.

I would very much like to talk more about my favourite game of the series and gauge your opinion on it. For me, Final Fantasy X will forever be my favourite. Say what you want about the character voicing but this game took what Final Fantasy 7 did and then did it all over again. It was the first Fianl Fantasy game to leap over into the new generation of consoles and I think it took the task and accomplished it well. Never before have I been as enthralled to see what happened at the end of a game like I was with Final Fantasy X. People criticize it for the use of the voices but let us not forget that it was one of the first games to pioneer the technology. People also say that Tidus was not likeable but I have to disagree. His chemistry and the storyline with Yuna spoke to me. The general storyline was also exceptional and the graphics were out of this world. I have never seen such an amazing scene that that at the beginning at end of Final Fantasy X. In saying that, 7 and 9 were no slouches either.

Throughout all of the Final Fantasy games, Square have been ingenious with trying to squeeze every inch of gameplay out of their games. I will never forget having such fun on the card system and taking the best to task with my dark flan. Then again, you have the Blitzball side quest in X and that, for me, was one of the best in-game sidequests that has been created in all of the years that Square have been putting games out for. Whilst 1-6 may not be taken at face value for their side-quests, any fool can see that they were innovators for the later games in the series and that is how I like to look at them. As time has aged and we have all gotten slightly older playing these games, Square has taken what it learned in the first few games and has begun to build a recipe for success. That first success came with Final Fantasy X and since then, they have not looked back. I am certainly not saying that 1-6 were bad games. That could not be further from the truth because 4 was one of the finest RPG's I have played and it gave me hours of enjoyment. However, like I said, Square have used the earlier games in the series, which at the time were viewed as just another JRPG and put them to use in developing some of the finest RPG games in the history of gaming.

 

[Aversion]

Okay, I am a huge fan of all the FF games.
My favorite ones are Final Fantasy II/IV, V, III/VI, Tactics, Tactics 2, X, X-2, and XII, so I am split between new and old.

Final Fantasy I-VI were old school, VII and VIII are middle, and X-XIII are modern. Of course, the first batch were released on Nintendo (Game Boy), and then released on PS1, so you couldn't expect the graphics to be that great

I'd give the old school graphics 7/10, considering their time, and the new generation 9/10, considering their time.

The gameplay:

The old games all had something to do with crystals, saving them, etc.
The new games all have something to do with airships, and a lot of technology.
Most of these games have main characters, protagonists, that look similar to each other, and some are named after something that has to do with weather.
The antagonists all look different, and my favourite one was Exdeath/Exodus from FFV (and FFXII). Exdeath looked really cool, especially for that time. They went from things like Exdeath and Zeromus to things more realistic, like Seymour and Vayne.

Gameplay, I'd give both of them 9/10.

Characters:
My favorite character ever was Rikku from FFX, she was so different from everyone else.
The protagonists, like I mentioned already, all looked similar, and there was usually female character to follow along with, and most of them looked similar, too.
My favorite system was the ability system from FFV, where you train not only to level up, but to get ability points, too. You could turn ANY character into anyone you wanted to. I can't forget the sphere grid from FFX, either.

I'd give the old school 9/10 and new 8/10 for characters.

Finally, sidequests.

Sidequests are (to me) what makes Final Fantasy games different from all the other games. After you finish the games, or before the ending in some cases, you can always go back to some places and unlock new things. My favorite is the Monster Arena from FFX, with the hunts, espers, and sky pirates den from FFXII coming in at a close second. They can go from Trials and ruins in FFIV to a Sealed Temple in FFV, and many other things.

I'd give new the edge here, 9.5/10 to 9/10.

Replay-ability.
This doesnt really count because all of them can be replayed. Trust me, I replayed FFV about 30 times, and did the ODINS(One day in no saves) challenge and won. I replayed FFIV and FFVI both a total of around 50 times, FFX, FFX-2, FFXII a total of around 30 times, and FF Tactics a countless number of times. I also played FFVII many times, and failed to see what was so great about it. I don't get why people love it so much.

10/10 for both.

So its 46 for old, 47.5 for new.
Very close, but I guess I prefer new.

Thanks for this thread, I'll replay FFV again. (Visual Boy Advance of course.)

Oh, I can't forget that my favorite "sidequest" was actually blitzball in FFX and X-2, but since it's required in FFX, I couldn't really count it as a sidequest.
Also, I can NOT forget Gilgamesh, my favorite character from ANY game ever. Made his debut in FFV, returned in FFVI, FFVII, FFIX, and FFXII. Love him. If he was in FFX, it'd no doubt be my favorite game.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Alright. Great opening statement, Dave. You made very great points about how amazing both FF7 and FFX are. They are easily the best out of the modern half of the series, and 7 alone is one of the most beloved games of all time. Now for my opening statement....

I am certainly not questioning what 7 did for the series, it is considered by many to be "THE rpg".... the one that took the mold for what made a great rpg in the past, shattered it, and left a new one that has yet to be replicated. Much like what Ocarina of Time did for the Zelda series and the adventure genre. FF7 changed rpg's forever, and while I would LIKE to say it changed them for the better, I cannot. I'm not gonna lie, I love FF7. I enjoyed 8, 9, and X as well. Tales of Symphonia, another modern RPG, is also one of my all-time favorites. However.... there is something about the oldschool style that gets myself and many other oldschool fans to keep coming back for more, time and time again.

Final Fantasy 1 was one of the first RPG's ever. FF1, along with the first two games in the Dragon Quest series, are what nearly every RPG eventually has its influences traced back to. One could argue that FF1 and DQ1 could be traced back to D&D and ancient mythology, but for the purposes of keeping this on the subject on electronic RPG's, they are the first and few will argue that. Now.... Since they were the first, one could argue that without the first entry in the series, the rest would be drastically different. Would they still exist? Somehow, yes, but they would likely have different names, and certain elements would not exist. Let's take this a little further.

FF1 re-introduced us to character classes that gamers were already familiar with, but in a video game setting. We had already seen Fighter, Black Belt, Thief, and the 3 mages under different names in other media such as D&D.... but all 6 of these basic character classes essentially had life breathed back into them through FF1 and later on FF3. Fighter, back in 1987 when FF1 first came out, was a lot like D&D's Barbarians and Swordsmen, but he was also something else. A spiky haired swordsman hero in a video game, something we have seen countless times since then. "Fighter" didn't begin this trend, but his character helped it become mainstream in video games. This was continued with Firion in the original NES version of FF2, then by many other male protagonists afterwards. All 3 of the mage classes also went on to remain important novelties in the series, you could argue that the 3 mages from FF1 are some of the many mascots of the FF series by this point.

Then you have FF2. One of the least popular game in the series, but if the unique stat building system is ignored, then it was a great game for its time because it was one of the first RPG's to have playable heroes with an actual backstory, an active party that changed, a heel turn in the storyline (this character went on to redeem himself late in the game though), and had a lot to offer those who gave it a chance. It also introduced us to the Cid characters.... and of course every FF fan's favorite bird, Chocobos!

FF3 went back to the format FF1 had with the job classes and expanded upon that to include more and allowed you to pick the job class of each hero at any given point, but it also had a story much more epic than FF2 did. FF3 took what worked from both of its ancestors and did it better.

That brings me to FF4. Never has a video game gotten me as absorbed into the world as this one. I first played it back when I was 5 in 1991 and on that day my love for RPG's was born. (I had played FF1 first, but FF4 was the one that really got me hooked) I have so many fond memories of that game that I could write hundreds of pagers on those memories alone. I loved the characters. I loved the world it took place in. The soundtrack had so many beautiful tracks in it and many have stood the test of time. Since then I have replayed the game countless times, at least once a semester. I can play through it in my mind at this point. I've got it more or less memorized. That game stood out to me like no other. Everything about it was perfect. The one and only flaw that it has 18 years later (DAMN that makes me feel old lol) is that you had no control over who was in the active party because characters would join and leave Cecil's team throughout the game, the final 5 of which are seen in my sig's picture. Disregarding the revolving door of party members, the game is a perfect ten otherwise in 2010 and that is saying a lot considering it is almost 20 years old.

The series took a bit of a step backwards with both FF Mystic Quest, and FF5.... however both were fun games. Mystic Quest was fantastic in the sense that gamers new to RPG's could break into the genre with this game and have a good time in the process. FF5 brought back the job classes, and although it wasn't the best game in the series, is still worth a look to those who missed out on it.

Then came FF6 however, it was a worthy successor to its ancestors and it is a fan favorite to many. FF6 started many of the trends seen later on in the series such as being able to pick your active party members and everyone being able to learn many of the same skills. It also was the first in the series to feature special "Finishers" unique to each character. These have gone by other names such as "Limit Breaks", "Trances", and "Overdrives" in later entries.

Now.... FF7 needs no introduction, but I do happen to believe that part of why it did so well was because "It was the first 3D Final Fantasy game". Take away the FF moniker from its name, as well as anything that sets it apart from other RPG's as "one of the final fantasy games", and it would not have done as well. While that could be argued against in FF7's case, that is certainly not the case with FF8. Part of what made IT so great was (similar to FF7) seeing FF elements come into better looking graphics. The same can be said for FF9, which had ENORMOUS potential that I personally feel it came short of living up to. FFX was also great, but I believe it can be argued here too that having the FF moniker helped it become a success as "the first Final Fantasy game on the PS2" as well as "The first Final Fantasy game where they actually talk".

The first 4 games in the series have received massive upgrades since their original releases. 1 & 2 were given a graphical and sound update to appear similar to that of their SNES descendants. These remakes were fun to play, but in the end the original NES versions remain as the versions with the higher replay value in my opinion. I made it through both FF1 and FF2 on the playstation remake, but I did not feel the urge to replay either one again. The NES versions however have such a high replay value, especially FF1. That game is now 22 years old, and it is STILL so fun to play through again. FF3 and FF4 both received huge updates on the DS. The DS versions of these games showed just how amazing the originals were by giving them a modernized feel. I really enjoyed FF3's DS remake, and it has enough replay value to make me want to go through it a few more times.

FF4's DS remake takes that even further. It was breathtaking. The awe-inspiring world of the SNES version now had been given such a wonderful new look while remaining true to the original.... and then there's the soundtrack. Oh my gosh.... beautiful tracks.... nothing short of incredible. I loved re-living my childhood as an adult by playing through this remake. The great moments in the game were made even greater with the updates to the sound and graphics. This version of FF4 is the only game that I have EVER rated as a perfect 10. While it retains the same flaw that its older version had of not being able to control when each character is playable, that is canceled out by the new system where you can teach the heroes skills to use, including skills used by the characters who leave the party. There is absolutely no reason why any gamer should not play this game, even those who don't like RPG's. Final Fantasy 4 on the DS is the perfect RPG. The original has stood the test of time and the remake is superior to it in every way, that's saying a lot.

Now, my main argument in this statement has been that the later entries in the series (7 through 13) can thank the older entries in the series (1 through 6) for part of why they were so successful. The older games in the series (some more than others) have stood the test of time, while the question remains to be answered if the newer half of the series will. FF7 will for sure, but how do we know that 8 through 13 will? None of the games in the second half of the series have received a remake yet, while all of the ones in the older half (except Mystic Quest) have. I fear that some of the newer ones might fade into obscurity by the time they reach the age of 20. The first 4 games are all at around 20 years old, and 3 out of those 4 are still mostly loved by fans worldwide. Out of the newer ones only 7, X, and to a much lesser extent 9, seem to have aged well in the past decade.... and that is just one reason out of many for why I prefer the older FF games to the newer ones.

While I could go on longer, I'll end this before it gets too long. I look forward to your response, Dave!