Information:
- Review Date: July 19, 2021
- Release Date: September 9, 1999
- Platform: PlayStation
- Publisher: Square
- Developer: Square
- Genre: RPG
Anecdotes: “……”
Description:
- Irvine: Shut up, get lost, and bleep off. He acts like he’s God’s gift to women when really he’s just a creep. He won’t leave the women alone. He also keeps stopping me every time I try to leave that boring conversation on the beach. The guy will NEVER be in my party unless he’s forced in, and even then, I refuse to junction him.
- Quistis: Quistis (pronounced “keys tees”) is a teacher at the SeeD garden that wields a whip and hits on her own students. For some reason, though, she’s of similar age to them. That is made obvious once the game forces players to sit through one of the stupidest plot twists in gaming. Quistis will be in my party a lot simply because the other options are even worse.
- Rinoa: She could be useful…if she were ever available. The game will constantly take her away. There is a segment where Squall carries her around like a sack of potatoes, literally making her dead weight to carry around. Later, Rinoa is unavailable for a boss fight because the enemy is holding her. I use her in some cases. I should also mention that she’s the only one that avoid being in the the middle of that orphanage stupidity.
- Selphie: At least in VII, I had to wait until disc 3 to overpower Yuffie into a destruction machine. Here, Selphie becomes one in disc 1. First, find someone in Balamb with the Tri-Face card. Win two of them and refine them. Second, play Zell’s mom over and over and take 9 Iron Giant cards and refine them. Now go defeat Minotaur and refine his card. Go into the Junk Shop in Deling City and buy the Strange Vision. Selphie will have a Hit % in 255! Junction whatever strength is available and watch the carnage. Selphie is the best character in the game. Of course, with this cast, that isn’t saying much.
- Squall: “……”
- Zell: What the Zell? This guy is annoying and obnoxious. He says a lot of stupid things. He’s just ridiculous. I can’t stand Zell, either, but I like him much more than Irvine.
Positives: “……”
Negatives:
- I can’t stand the cast of this game. I can deal with Selphie and Rinoa, but the rest can go take a hike. Squall says “whatever” and “……” half the time; Zell is an annoying pain in the butt; Quistis is a bossy know it all; and Irvine sucks in ways previously thought impossible.
- The draw system is painfully slow. It’s not entirely required, but magic can be drawn from enemies. There are two problems with it. First, when obtaining a new spell, the game doesn’t tell us what it is until after we’ve drawn it. Second, it’s a slow, boring process that takes forever. On top of that, at later levels, the game starts offering stronger versions of the spells. While we could refine spells up to the next level, it would still take more drawing to boost the amount up to 100.
- After the drawing is done, we have to junction all of that magic to increase our numbers. This sounds good in theory, but in practice, it discourages us from using any of that magic, so it just sits there.
- Oh, and then there are the GFs. I almost forgot them because I NEVER use them. The last two times I played, I never even assigned the GF command to anyone. I’m not going to sit through some long animation (let’s say Brothers) for an attack, then wait, choose the GF command again, wait for it to recharge, and sit through the animation again. No thanks.
- This game has a ridiculous rescue mission in outer space that violates the laws of space physics and, amazingly, that’s not even the dumbest plotline in the game. No, that comes earlier in disc 3 when the whole cast, minus Rinoa, is revealed to have met as kids in an orphanage, but their memories were erased by the GFs. It’s the stupidest storyline in Final Fantasy in its 15 games.
Screenshots:
My Progress: I’m at the point where Squall “says” “……”
Final Opinion: The Final Fantasy title really blinded me to the massive faults of this game: slow gameplay, bad characters, dumb plot twists, complicated systems, and imbalance issues. I hate to rate a FF game this low, but this writeup made me see the problems.
Grade: D