Final Fantasy Newb

[Cnasty]

I have never owned, played or even seen any of the other FF games prior to this one which I believe is 15?????

It seems this game has a cult following and wondering if I jump in now, I assume it is too late and will have no clue what is going on.

I did see some reviews and the boss battles look fantastic but man does it look cheesy with the dialogue and actual story of what is going on and I really dislike that art style of animation if you will.

I am keeping my options open though as I want to try as many different genres as possible.

Any big fans want to give me a quick run down to a newb on what the hype is all about?

 

[mandoman]

I'm in same boat as you. Tried playing FF7 on PS1 back in the day and couldn't get into it, even though that is considered by many to be one of the best ones. I just couldn't get into jRPG turn based combat, and have pretty much stayed clear of jRPGs ever since.

Combat in FF15 looks much more western and action orientated. It's no longer turned based as far as I can tell, and actually looks pretty darn good. I agree the characters and dialogue are super-cheese.

Personally, I probably won't pick this one up anytime soon, I just have too deep a back log. Maybe some day, I'll give it a try. Actually, I'm more inclined to give FF7 Remake a try when that comes out in a year, since fans are really going bat crazy in anticipation for that one.

I too would love to hear insight from long time fans on these games.

 

[s0nicpr0s]

I have never owned, played or even seen any of the other FF games prior to this one which I believe is 15?????

It seems this game has a cult following and wondering if I jump in now, I assume it is too late and will have no clue what is going on.

I did see some reviews and the boss battles look fantastic but man does it look cheesy with the dialogue and actual story of what is going on and I really dislike that art style of animation if you will.

I am keeping my options open though as I want to try as many different genres as possible.

Any big fans want to give me a quick run down to a newb on what the hype is all about?

To respond to your comment about getting into the story too late and not being sure what is happening, the Final Fantasy series generally isn't connected game to game. There is some backstory to XV, but that is attached to a movie (Kingsglaive) and not any previous games. I have played multiple entries (VII, X, X-2, XI, and XIII), but have never found the time to actually complete any of the games. Each one is its own unique story with no crossover for plot points (except for the simple premise of people coming together to save the world from some world ending event/bad guy).

I'm not a big fan compared to most people who have played more than 1 or 2 of the games, but I can tell you that this game is the biggest departure from the previous console entries. The battle system being full speed rather than turn-based is huge, and Square-Enix generally does a fantastic job at creating beautiful worlds on whatever console generation they're using.

I don't feel like I can recommend the game to you if you aren't a fan of the animation style they use since you'll be playing through the game for several hours (I'm going to go out on a limb and say 25+ for story, 50+ for 100% completion).

 

[pat500000]

Just got FFxv and I have to say...it's like Kingdom heart.

 

[s0nicpr0s]

Just got FFxv and I have to say...it's like Kingdom hear.

Really?!? That sounds fantastic. Now I just need to get through part of my backlog before I can justify buying a new game...

 

[pat500000]

Really?!? That sounds fantastic. Now I just need to get through part of my backlog before I can justify buying a new game...

You can justify it ......now. Heh.

 

[Cnasty]

Great feedback guys. Thanks for that especially the non connected story details.

I've heard such awesome things about it I was hoping to give it a try. My backlog is large as well and will grab it on sale eventually and add it to the PSN wishlist.

 

[iosuser]

15 Final Fantasies later, it's still not final . Turn based RPG is something I can never get into, and since they did away with that, I might one day give it a try.

 

[0098386]

They're basically just big games where you start with nothing, gather items, kill bosses, get stronger and finally take on the final boss. Older ones were turn based but newer ones have a more action-like system. They usually change between games.

Nothing really holds them together except you're always hunting crystals.

FF15 is an okay game, it's certainly not worthy of the hype around it but it's not bad. None of the games are bad though.
For a starting point I'd definitely go for FFVII first on a home console. My absolute favourite (story wise) is FFIV but it's not available on new systems, you could get it for the DS and play it on a 3DS if you have one.

If you have a PS3 around then you've got access to pretty much all of them up to FFIX.

 

[JohnGrey]

I grew up playing Final Fantasy, and I still return to VI at least once per year along with Chrono Trigger and for my own money XV is a solid contender for the proverbial pot of soup with too many cooks and too much time in the offing. Had it had a normal development cycle, it might well have garnered a place, however undeserved, amongst the more beloved 3D titles, but a decade of promises produced a title whose profundity of mediocrity is made nearly criminal.

For a great many diehard fans, the graduation of combat that was perverted by Final Fantasy XIII's realtime paradigm-roulette gameplay to full on real-time combat in which you have full control over only one character can be a real turn-off. If that less-strategic style of combat is something that you find to be appealing, I would suggest you avoid FFXV and go with Mistwalker's immensely superior The Last Story, which was written and directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy franchise.

If you're wanting a more traditional title in the Final Fantasy franchise, rather that suffer through what will almost certainly be an abysmal VII remake I would suggest the forthcoming XII remaster that's due soon.