FFX - Good? Bad?
 

the 19 out of 20 was more square covering it's ass than truth. storyline is important to rpg's but that doesn't mean we're going to want to watch all the cutscenes. especially not the annoying ones where they try to make themselves laugh. and i like ff2j, which also has no levels, so no levels isn't the problem it's more the potential for wasted moves(thus wasted experience) and the fact that there are a lot of empty spaces so that each "level up" per say didn't actually mean a bonus

As someone who OWNS FF4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, and Mystic Quest, I can honestly say that you're probably just trolling.

Let's go over the points you didn't like:

This IS the truth. I OWN the 2 such game that aren't truly linear: Final Fantasy X-2, and The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. ALMOST every single console game suffers from a linear story. Every Final Fantasy save Tactics Advance, and X-2 has a linear story. To create a non-linear story is bar none one of the most difficult stories a writer can make, because quests within it have to be written so that it can be started independantly, AND make sense in the overall plot of things.

So you're telling me that you're incapable of maybe... say... *gasp* NOT WATCHING IT?! Just switch the TV to another channel. That's what I did. I still enjoyed the game. It didn't ruin the experience for me. It actually showed that this story has *gasp* PEOPLE WHO HAVE FEELINGS?!

So it's too much to look ahead and plan? That's what you're supposed to do, look at the grid for more than a minute, PLAN your moves out, and act accordingly. As far as wasted "Experience" goes, in FFX you level up so fast it doesn't matter if you wasted a sphere move, you can still get it back by participating in about two or three battles. The "empty spaces" can be filled by finding special Node spheres, which are rewards for difficult tasks. The "lack of a bonus" in this game is heavily offset by the speed at which you level up. Go play FF7 and tell me you can advance 3 levels in four fights, WITHOUT seriously outclassing yourself.

Your arguments show the attitude of someone who either didn't read the tutorials, OR the manual to the game in the first place.

I own the game, and would love to advance my story some more, but my PS2 deepfried itself. So I'm stuck waiting for my next paycheck. I love playing all of the Final Fantasy games, even the earliest ones, and the FF related games, such as Tactics, MQ, and Adventures.

2 RPGs are hardly proof of that

it's a lot better to just be able to skip it especially if something comes up and you have to save really fast but have to wait ou the whole cutscene instead and like it's lasting forever

it WOULDN'T be bad if the AP needed for each move didn't keep increasing. i understand the reasons why it does, but because of them they shouldn't have used the damned grid, and when i feel like planning out moves i play games like "Empire Earth" not "final fantasy"

Out of twenty games, if nineteen are linear, that leaves one non-linear game.
I came up with two examples, so:

20-19=1
1 < 2

Understand my math?

And a friend of mine came up with a third non-linear game, Knights of the Old Republic.

So, FFX sucks because there is not a world map, making the game seem linear?

Then let's go down the list of games that suck because they are linear:

FF 1-10
Breath of Fire 1-4
Legend of Dragoon
Dragon Warrior 1-7
Mario & Luigi Superstars
Super Mario RPG
Legend of Zelda series (These WERE world maps)

My point being, because these games ARE linear, and you said that FF10 sucks because it's linear, ergo all games that are linear suck. So that's almost EVERY SINGLE GAME IN EXISTANCE, RPG, ACTION, PLATFORMER, FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS, FIGHTING, AND UNDER MOST CIRCUMSTANCES STRATEGY GAMES ARE AS WELL!

Let me enlighten you on something: No Final Fantasy (aside from FF X-2) game has EVER EVER had the option of skipping cutscenes. So... are you willing to damn the entire FF series for doing this?

A. Almost every Final Fantasy level up system in existence requires increasing amount of AP/Experience to improve your characers! Anyone else remember hanging around the North Crater in FF7 for Experience points, trying to level Cloud over level 70? And how it seemed to take forever?

B. Monsters level up with you, so... help me here... the AP increases too!

C. You don't like to plan ahead? Then have you ever beaten Final Fantasy 5, 6, 7, or 9? If you didn't plan ahead, those games would become damn near impossible very quickly.

good now find the other 17 and the one non-linear


YES, congradulations you figured it out

okay

1: FF 1-9 were NOT linear

2: neither were the breath of fire games

3: neither were the dragon warrior games

4: i'm geussing you meant super mario allstars, but that was a platformer and not an RPG so it's irrelevant, also the SMB3 part was partially non-linear due to it's mapped stage selection

5: super mario RPG was not linear

6: neither were the legend of zelda games

7: Anarchy != Anthony

you didn't even read my post, i said it sucked for being an RPG with no world map among other things

no but you can make them go faster by mashing the buttons at least

you couldn't waste the experience by wasting a sphere grid move in the earlier final fantasiers either, so that's irrelevant

no that's final fantasy 8, not 10

i'm talking about moving around on a board not equipping your characters, and besides that, not they didn't. i've beaten all of them and there's no "planning ahead" needed, unless you can't use the right spells or are playing a low-level game(at which point you really need to get out more)

Excuse me, I'd just like to point out, that anyone who thinks console games are not linear obviously has never played a PC game. Apparently no one knows the definition OF linear. No Final Fantasy has ever been non-linear, and neither has a game like Tactics Advance, which, by the way, I own and love. In fact I love Final Fantasy myself.

I enjoyed 10. I enjoyed the refreshing system as opposed to the generic system of the old ones.

Let me reiterate: if you honestly think super mario rpg was not linear, please stop posting in this thread and play baldur's gate 2, while the rest of the gaming world laughs at you.

no it had places were you had to go back to old towns and shit. so it wasn't linear, and neither are a lot of console games. just because you don't run around 10,000 times doesn't mean the game is linear. besides i'm only talking about RPGs anyway. platformers and other action games are okay if they're linear, but RPG's? fuck no

I think what he's trying to say is that Mario RPG followed am A-B-C formula, meaning that once you got to point A, the game would lead to you to point B, and then to point C, instead of several other games that force you to figure out where to go next. About FFX, I thought it was ridiculous how linear it was. You would practically have a five minute cutscene everyother screen. And you can't skip them either, so you could change to a TV channel, but you might miss something important. Although the voice acting was pretty good, there was no need to act out every..single..point..of..dialogue. I mean a simple "Ok" is what appears on the screen , but they go "(move around) (grumble)....Ok...(sulk)" The leveling up system was pretty cool though, I always go for the +200 hp spheres first. And don't even get me started on Blitzball.

Just by needing to go back to towns doesn't make the story non-linear, because you still NEEDED to go back to the town. And an occasional side quest doesn't make it non-linear either. Seriously, no FF game has been nonlinear (except for X2 which I haven't played).

Non-linear: Baldur's Gate 2, Morrowind, Planescape Torment, etc.
Linear: all the ones Raerlynn listed

For example, can you give me one example of the non-linear story in say FF4? I love the game, but it is the classic case of get hero at town A, go to town B, something happens, pick up new member, go to town C, etc.

Addition: About the miss something important issue and cutscenes, if you are playing it for the first time, why is watching the cutscenes such a bad thing? If it is on a second or third time, you already know what is going to happen, so there is nothing important to miss.

when i say linear i'm thinking more of how you can't go back to previous areas and when you can, you have to go through all the ones after it to get there. that and how you just keep going to new areas without backtracking