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Not VII, but I never played a Final Fantasy before, and the internet told me X is modern-enough, good, and approachable, but I'm having a really hard time getti

Not VII, but I never played a Final Fantasy before, and the internet told me X is modern-enough, good, and approachable, but I'm having a really hard time getting into it. Plus my time is more limited these days. Maybe I should try powering through?

theptip 3y ago
I played VII - X when they came out, X was pretty bad. None since VII had any content worth powering through for; if you don’t dig it, I wouldn’t recommend it. (Doubly so because JRPGs are extremely grindy and the opposite of time-efficient.)
- dehrmann 3y ago
  > JRPGs are extremely grindy and the opposite of time-efficient Good point. I've played Pokemon and South Park: Stick of Truth, so maybe I've had enough of a taste of JRPGs to know what they're about. I wonder if the grinding was because content was expensive to produce, so it's a lazy way to add gameplay, and their target market is kids who will happily grind if it's a video game (vs. a piano).
  - djur 3y ago
    Nah, grinding was (and remains) in CRPGs with adult audiences. Some people just really like it. These days people, adult people with jobs and families, will pay a monthly fee just to grind.
- kqr 3y ago
  There are SNES emulators for Android. With time compression, some of the worst of the grinding goes away. I still haven't finished it, but I got further in FF6 in the past year than I did before, thanks to that. (I have very little patience for grinding.)
gettodachoppa 3y ago
May I ask what you don't like about it? It eases you in with a tutorial, there's a lot of story and dialog for the "movie game" generation, the Sphere Grid is mostly locked so you can't cripple yourself by picking bad upgrades (unless you played one of the remakes and picked an open grid?), it's the usual high production values FF title... FFX to me is the pinnacle of the FF turn-based battle system. That said, it IS over 20 years old. I think there's some game genres which, if you didn't grow up on them, you might not enjoy them. Kinda like how you have to eat sushi a few times before you start liking it. I think turn-based JRPGs are aimed at people who enjoyed those games in the 25 years ago. The Metroidvania genre, even more so.
bsoup 3y ago
It really depends on what you mean by "having a really hard time getting into it". If you let us know what you're not enjoying, we may be able to tell you whether it's worth you trying to power through. I think people tend to recommend X these days as the first one for newcomers primarily because it has voice acting and relatively modern graphics, so it's more approachable in that respect. X is my favourite FF, alongside VII, but that doesn't mean it's best at everything, even compared to other FFs. For me, its strength is primarily in its storytelling (which includes things like writing, music and cutscenes) - but all that really takes quite a while to fully reveal itself. I don't personally actually think too highly of X's gameplay. The turn-based combat and the sphere grid are ok, but for me not the best even in the FFs (though I know quite a few people who consider it the best, so it's all personal taste). The temple "puzzles" are terrible. It has some truly terrible minigames (although Blitzball is really great - it just has a terrible tutorial). And it's not as if there are no flaws with the storytelling either - the party members are not on the whole as good as in some of the other FFs, and it was the first FF with voice-acting, so there were some infamously awkward moments. But its storytelling highs are some of the highest I've ever experienced in games - I am still in awe of the sheer beauty of some of its best moments. I mean, it's a game about a giant whale, that makes many people sob their eyes out, fall in love with it, get tattoos for it, etc. But that is also very much personal taste. Are you enjoying the music? Did you like the music and the environment in Besaid? Did the scene of Yuna performing the sending do anything for you in Kilika?
djur 3y ago
I don't know if it's the gameplay or the writing that you're having trouble with, but if it's the latter, you're not alone: I think it has overall the worst plot/characters/setting of the single-player FF games I've played (I haven't played XV or XVI). And XIII provides some really stiff competition in that regard.
- imbnwa 3y ago
  Squall Leonheart, gods shoot me in the face
- warpspin 3y ago
  I know it's an unpopular opinion, but for me, FFX has the best and deepest story of all FFs I played (which are 7, 8, a bit of 9, 10, 12), closely followed by 8. 7 and 8 suffer from too much arbitrariness for me, 10 is just the right kind of mixture of weirdness with proper storytelling for me, and with 12, Final Fantasy started to become bland.
  - djur 3y ago
    I don't think it's an unpopular opinion. X is very popular (there's a reason there's so much sequel material for it). I just find the Zanarkand stuff to be a real lead weight on the story, and the emotional heft of the story requires you to care about Tidus, which I absolutely do not. X-2 is silly but I at least sympathized with the characters. The entire party in X could be eaten by Sin for all I care.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  It might actually be the writing. So the main character is a "blitzball" player with throngs of fans, there's a bit of an apocalypse with unclear motivations, his friend sorta saves him, and they're transported to a new place? It was a whole lot of eyerolls.
norwalkbear 3y ago
No, there are so many games today just find one that matches your tastes.

theptip 3y ago

I played VII - X when they came out, X was pretty bad. None since VII had any content worth powering through for; if you don’t dig it, I wouldn’t recommend it. (Doubly so because JRPGs are extremely grindy and the opposite of time-efficient.)

dehrmann 3y ago
> JRPGs are extremely grindy and the opposite of time-efficient Good point. I've played Pokemon and South Park: Stick of Truth, so maybe I've had enough of a taste of JRPGs to know what they're about. I wonder if the grinding was because content was expensive to produce, so it's a lazy way to add gameplay, and their target market is kids who will happily grind if it's a video game (vs. a piano).
- djur 3y ago
  Nah, grinding was (and remains) in CRPGs with adult audiences. Some people just really like it. These days people, adult people with jobs and families, will pay a monthly fee just to grind.
kqr 3y ago
There are SNES emulators for Android. With time compression, some of the worst of the grinding goes away. I still haven't finished it, but I got further in FF6 in the past year than I did before, thanks to that. (I have very little patience for grinding.)

gettodachoppa 3y ago

May I ask what you don't like about it? It eases you in with a tutorial, there's a lot of story and dialog for the "movie game" generation, the Sphere Grid is mostly locked so you can't cripple yourself by picking bad upgrades (unless you played one of the remakes and picked an open grid?), it's the usual high production values FF title... FFX to me is the pinnacle of the FF turn-based battle system. That said, it IS over 20 years old. I think there's some game genres which, if you didn't grow up on them, you might not enjoy them. Kinda like how you have to eat sushi a few times before you start liking it. I think turn-based JRPGs are aimed at people who enjoyed those games in the 25 years ago. The Metroidvania genre, even more so.

bsoup 3y ago

It really depends on what you mean by "having a really hard time getting into it". If you let us know what you're not enjoying, we may be able to tell you whether it's worth you trying to power through. I think people tend to recommend X these days as the first one for newcomers primarily because it has voice acting and relatively modern graphics, so it's more approachable in that respect. X is my favourite FF, alongside VII, but that doesn't mean it's best at everything, even compared to other FFs. For me, its strength is primarily in its storytelling (which includes things like writing, music and cutscenes) - but all that really takes quite a while to fully reveal itself. I don't personally actually think too highly of X's gameplay. The turn-based combat and the sphere grid are ok, but for me not the best even in the FFs (though I know quite a few people who consider it the best, so it's all personal taste). The temple "puzzles" are terrible. It has some truly terrible minigames (although Blitzball is really great - it just has a terrible tutorial). And it's not as if there are no flaws with the storytelling either - the party members are not on the whole as good as in some of the other FFs, and it was the first FF with voice-acting, so there were some infamously awkward moments. But its storytelling highs are some of the highest I've ever experienced in games - I am still in awe of the sheer beauty of some of its best moments. I mean, it's a game about a giant whale, that makes many people sob their eyes out, fall in love with it, get tattoos for it, etc. But that is also very much personal taste. Are you enjoying the music? Did you like the music and the environment in Besaid? Did the scene of Yuna performing the sending do anything for you in Kilika?

djur 3y ago

I don't know if it's the gameplay or the writing that you're having trouble with, but if it's the latter, you're not alone: I think it has overall the worst plot/characters/setting of the single-player FF games I've played (I haven't played XV or XVI). And XIII provides some really stiff competition in that regard.

imbnwa 3y ago
Squall Leonheart, gods shoot me in the face
warpspin 3y ago
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but for me, FFX has the best and deepest story of all FFs I played (which are 7, 8, a bit of 9, 10, 12), closely followed by 8. 7 and 8 suffer from too much arbitrariness for me, 10 is just the right kind of mixture of weirdness with proper storytelling for me, and with 12, Final Fantasy started to become bland.
- djur 3y ago
  I don't think it's an unpopular opinion. X is very popular (there's a reason there's so much sequel material for it). I just find the Zanarkand stuff to be a real lead weight on the story, and the emotional heft of the story requires you to care about Tidus, which I absolutely do not. X-2 is silly but I at least sympathized with the characters. The entire party in X could be eaten by Sin for all I care.
dehrmann 3y ago
It might actually be the writing. So the main character is a "blitzball" player with throngs of fans, there's a bit of an apocalypse with unclear motivations, his friend sorta saves him, and they're transported to a new place? It was a whole lot of eyerolls.

norwalkbear 3y ago

No, there are so many games today just find one that matches your tastes.