I started at 7 and looked forwards to every iteration of the series since then, 8 was more of the same with a weird story, 9 was cute and a good throwback, then I went back to 6 which was a masterpiece, 10 was emotional and beautiful, 12 wasn't great but had cool worldbuilding, being a FFT fan.

Here is when it starts to diverge a little. I would call this the start of 'modern' FFs

I actually liked 13's battle system, it worked out many of the kinks of old systems, like healing after each battle and focused on each interaction as a puzzle to be solved. The story was OK and then the sequels kinda tried to do something different. Lightning Returns had terrible reviews, possible due to the time limit, which is why I never tried it

14 had a bad start and did a reboot to become a well loved MMO, but starting in the first world is such a chore with outdated MMO mechanics as someone who started later

15 was ambitious and unfinished. the first time I was truly disappointed in a FF game.

Then, we have the FF7 remakes, which are amazing, it seems that all the effort, the team members who have passion all signed up for this and it shows, but there's a strong nostalgia bias to it.

Now reading the reviews for 16, it seems there's no real reason to give it a try. At this point, I'm not sure what comes after the final FF7 game, is there a way to make 17 something people would care about?

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[–] De_Narm@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

No, I don't think so. They are just different and people don't like change. For context, I'm a massive JRPG fan and I've played: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12 and 15. And of course tons of spin-offs. Planning on playing 7, 8 and 13 - don't care for MMOs and 16.

Out of these, I love of course the obvious early ones: 4 and 6.

However, 10 is my favorite overall. It has the most solid gameplay (fuck ATB tbh) and a great story, even though we sideline Sin way too much for Seymore who I don't care for. It's biggest problem are the minigames though, I hate Blitzball and especially the Cloister of Trials.

9 could be better, but the steam version crashes so much I didn't get to finish it.

Now, after 10 we got a lot more experimental:

12 was fun but had massive problems. It's biggest was the autobattle mechanic alongside the speed up in modern releases. You basically don't play the game and you don't even strategize. It's always faster to sprint a few minutes around the map and get back with more levels which ultimately killed any interest I had in the battle system. But I dislike programmable party members in every game, so your milage may vary. The world building on the other hand was awesome.

15 was a great game. I think it's reception isn't wrong necessarily because of how much it differs from trailers and such. However, I played it years after release and without having seen a single trailer. I had a blast throughout. The writting is among FF's best, not because it's such a great story, but because the relationships between the main party are so strong. I even liked the battle system - it's different and has a lot of potential, I think. It's biggest failure is that you need to watch a series, a movie and read lots of other material to grasp the story - a lot of it isn't in the game.

16, I can't say much about. I'm honestly not very interested in basic medieval fantasy settings, they've stripped out the RPGs mechanics and quite frankly I just don't own a system I could play it on. Maybe I'd like it after all, I don't know.

[–] Walican132 2 points 6 days ago (3 children)

FWIW 16 isn’t a basic medieval fantasy setting.

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

FF16 is at least advanced medieval fantasy setting

[–] Walican132 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

spoiler

given a huge part of the story is literally aliens either you didn’t play the game or think aliens belong in medieval fantasy.

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 1 points 5 days ago

I'm not quite that far yet

spoiler

I smashed the mothercrystals and there's the big dark crystal and Mid made the hideout a boat, I gotta get back into it tho clearly!