Old Skool: good or bad?

[47]

FF9 struck me as one big homage to FF's past, you had elements of nearly every FF in there; Dragon Guards, Mages and of course the crystal. I found that the world in FF9 felt far more fantastical. It was the castles and the dragons that made this the most magical FF experience for me. The evil forest, i mean its all bedtime story stuff from when you're a kid and far more fun than the techie-bland world of FF8. what I wanna know is:

do you think that the old skool elements were good, did it improve the game or did it just make the game weaker by obviously 'stealing' parts from FF's past and regurgitating them under another name?

[Scrutator]

I've always preferred the more fantasy setting of IX over the manga infused VII and technological (and dull) VIII, it made it more interesting for me personally seeing these sort of elements and made the game more enjoyable too, although I didn't notice half the stuff it was paying homage to since it was the 4th FF title I played after VII, VIII and X.

[Garnet]

I loved IX and the fantasy-like setting it was in. It's one of my favorite FF's definitely. Even though I didn't get to appreciate the "old skool" elements in it at the time because it was one of my first FF's also, replaying it recently has been very fun!

I'd never say it was any less of a game simply because it used a lot of elements from the previous games.

[Suikolove]

Final Fantasy IX was my personal favourite out of the entire series. I did enjoy the series because of it's Fantasy setting, but moreover, I thoroughly enjoyed the new abilities system featured in the game where you learned your skills by fighting enough times to master each one before being able to change equipment.

[stitchphil]

I loved FFIX to bits, all of it, from the big heads-small sized body characters, to the system of having 4 in a party, with the mages in Vivi and gang, to castles, dragons, knights, and that ever cute moogles, oh and the great side quests too!

I've replayed it three or four times and never seem to get bored of it. I only found out about the old school stuff when I played the game because it was only the third title I played after XIII and XII, but in any case, it was a great play.

[The Man]

FFIX is my favourite latter-day entry in the series (although I still haven't played FFXII yet). I appreciated all the little homages to previous titles in the series, and graphically it remains the most appealing entry of the series to me. It also has one of the best soundtracks in the series (probably second to VI).

One could argue that the "homages" detracted from the game, but honestly, FFVII's plot is nearly as regurgitated as FFIX's. FFIX is just consciously aware of it, and pokes fun at itself for that reason. I like that. Final Fantasy games had been taking themselves far too seriously in the past two entries of the series, with lead so characters so emo their favourite bands are probably Linkin Park and Simple Plan, and with FFIX it seemed like the developers finally realized that games are above all supposed to be fun.

[47]

that sense of fun seemed to be forced with FFX and X-2.

I count IX as the last "proper" FF experience. It's the last one that really absorbed me for a period of time.

yeah, the last boss was.....well....weird. but it's still 40 hours or so of the best FF gaming ever. Second only to VII imo.

[The Man]

FFX-2 didn't work for me because it had no plot. And FFX had another whiny emo tard as the lead character, of course it didn't come across as very fun (although tbh, it had the best post-FFT battle system except maybe FFXII's, because again, I haven't played that)

[twighlight sora]

Yeah but FF X rocked i loved the storyline and the charchters in it

[Seph Stampede]

Doc knows my stances on this. I want FANTASY from my Final Fantasy games; not steampunk or cyberpunk. Final Fantasy IX is my all time favourite FF title, ever. While titles like VII and VIII seemed to focus more on modernised settings with a ****load of sci fi influences, FFIX returns the series to a more classical setting, with kings, queens, princesses and Steiner.

FFXII has started to appeal to me quite a bit recently. Just 13 days til I have it, woo.

[Zexion Lionheart]

Final Fantasy IX was my first RPG, and now its my favorite game of all time. Very good game and very underrated.

[Tornado]

Out of the Final Fantasy's that I have played, FFIX was was probably my favorite. Close second was FFX. Let me explain why...

Alot of the Final Fantasy's have technology and sophisticated weaponry, things that could almost slightly be compared with the technology and etc. of today. Aside from the idea that today's technology isn't quite as "colorful" you might say, as the technology of that in the FF's. But FFIX has the castles, dragons, and medieval appearance and feel to it. It had technology of a sort, but old technology..things that are outdated compared to the technology we have today.

We can get a feel for futuristic technology and etc. in the other FF's of today and other games as well as in real life somewhat, but in FFIX we can actually "fantasize" and see a whole new world nothing like what our world is today because to even see anything like that in todays world, we'd have to have been alive hundreds of years ago. And to me, the medieval times rock.

[The Dude]

Old School's are usually good and FF9 is no exception. I do feel however at times people tend to obsess a little too much on the old school ones and not look much at the new ones that have potential.

[Derek]

Old school games were the most fun. In today's world Square learned that neglecting all those status ailments made their games quite different. I enjoyed FFT because it had so many magicks and ailments that made the game so much fun.

[Godiva]

What I've found is that players of the older NES/SNES FF's usually love FFIX for the homages to older games, whereas 'new school' players aren't as keen.

I have to admit FFIX wasn't one of my favourites - the plot was good but I didn't find myself caring about the main characters very much. (Beatrix for the win, lol).

[47]

Beatrix was awesome!

I guess there are two generations of FF fans now, the Old Skool Retro'ers and The Next Generation. OSR's can play any of the old FF's and not have a problem with the graphics because they remember when those graphics were cutting edge.

TNG's first played FFX and can only play as far back as FFVII because then "graphics become a problem" for them. These are the people who look forward to new releases.

[Exodus]

Originally Posted by The Doctor

Beatrix was awesome!

I guess there are two generations of FF fans now, the Old Skool Retro'ers and The Next Generation. OSR's can play any of the old FF's and not have a problem with the graphics because they remember when those graphics were cutting edge.

TNG's first played FFX and can only play as far back as FFVII because then "graphics become a problem" for them. These are the people who look forward to new releases.

I'm both. I have all the old FFs, except III, and can replay without a problem because in a game, I don't look for graphics, I only worry about the gameplay and storyline.

FFIX, I loved how they put in this sense of old skool by having a black mage, knight, summoner, etc etc. They even had a Dragoon! It also made many references to the other FFs, such as the Buster Sword, probably because it was the last numeric FF for the PS1. I thought it seemed very traditional, but in a good way. They did it right, except for the damned trance thing, they didn't think that through at all. I'm not trying to say it's perfect either, though it is my favourite, I do see the flaws it has.

[47]

it really did seem to be the last proper FF experience.

the characters all had character and the game had a soul. moreso than FFX/X-2. it actually seemed to tell a story instead of a series of events. if that makes sense.

[Naked Gackt]

It has good and bad points by using elements from the older FF games. I think it's good concept and I did enjoy seeing things like the Black Mages again and what-not, but in terms of an actual game rather than just a concept for me it didn't really work out. Unfortunately it did just feel like a typical fantasy game, I know the whole point was to make it as such but I think it wasn't pulled off that well and I don't think it stood out enough from other games. I know that a lot of people list FF9 as their favourite whic his fair enough but I just didn't think it was that great personally.

[Hironobu Sakaguchi]

i like the classical final fantasy 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 9 more than technical final fantasy 7,8,10,10-2

i think that final fantasy without this team: (Hironobu Sakaguchi, Nobou Uematsu & Yo****aka Amano), is not final fantasy any more (Hironobu Sakaguchi, Nobou Uematsu , Tetsuya Nomura & Kitase)

but i got high expectation on FF XIII & the rest, because there will not be any interferance in imaginary of the creator ( Nomura ONLY)