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The Top 25 Squaresoft Games Ever?
darknight17 writes "The unofficial Final Fantasy Online site has just finally finished its Top 25 Squaresoft games by featuring the Top 5 titles. Here are the other picks - 25 to 21, 20 to 16, 15 to 11, and
10 to 6, as chosen by fans in the Final Fantasy and RPG community." There's also a 'hidden gems' section in each part of the countdown, highlighting overlooked titles like Einhänder and Bahamut Lagoon - neat.
"IX actually broke the mold by being nostalgic and reaching all the way back to V ... Square is done innovating here, move along."
I'm not quite sure repeating methods used before is breaking a mold (it rather seems to be reusing the mold, doesn't it?), and to say that Square isn't innovating by doing new things every iteration (in your words, "line of travel") is to misunderstand what innovation is. According to dictionary.com: "a change in customs; something new, and contrary to established customs, manners, or rites."
Bottom line here is that Square _is_ innovating, by constantly creating new gameplay and character development systems, and you don't like it. You don't like Square's innovations. Admit it: what you want are recasts of FFIV and VI (such as IX), not new things, like, well, VII, VIII, and X.
"VII, VIII and X all practically required you to take a college course before you could understand the mechanics they used for character development (whether they called it "materia," "guardian forces/draw" or "sphere grid")."
This is called a learning curve, and it's necessary for new, complex systems. anytime there is an innovation, people have to go through a learning curve. I suppose all future final fantasies could have systems based around tic-tac-toe, but I would rather spend a few hours learning how to use and master a game system, every time, than play the same game over and over again.
"In general, any RPG that requires you to take several hours of your time to learn how to play the game isn't worth my money, because spending so much focus on the game mechanics means that less focus is spent on the actual story."
For stories, good stories, you should really be buy books or videos. Games are about PLAYING, not about reading or watching. Square has never had an interactive story - they're always very linear, and the few choices you get, never effect the outcome, and hardly even effect the dialogue in any meaningful way.