In the past I have mentioned how much I love the Final Fantasy series, and while the main series is the greatest ever made, there have been some unfortunate attempts to capitalize on the success of the series by making spin-offs that ended up being crap. Honestly, aside from the Tactics offshoot, I would say anything that Square Enix makes featuring Final Fantasy should probably be avoided.
The first misstep was Ehrgheiz, which was a fighting game that boasted a 3D system. This was actually a revolutionary concept when you consider that most fightign games actually lock the fighters in a 2D plane even when the graphics give the illusion of 3D, Ehrgheiz actually allowed characters to move around the 3D battlefield. This was a good idea that was executed poorly, and the game became more known for featuring characters from Final Fantasy VII. The thing that killed it the most was that the FF cast were bonus characters in addition to a main cast with their own story, which is hinted at being interesting, but unfortunately little is done to deliver on the original promise. The game relies heavily on a story mode with no real story, there is a bonus stage at the end that is hidden in the credits and it's very easy to miss out entirely. There are bonus games that are not worth the data that went into them. The most interesting part to me was a dungeon crawler RPG that was rather disappointing given that it comes from the makers of the greatest RPGs and they just seem to throw away everything they ever knew and made the crappiest mini game since before the original FF. The worst part of the RPG is that you have to pay in game money to save which I thought Squenix learned long ago was a bad idea when it dragged the original FF and they made saving free in every installment after. In the end the only thing worthwhile about Ehrgheiz is playing as Cloud, which is hardly worth renting the stupid piece of crap. The worst part of Ehrgheiz is Squenix was so slow o learn they attempted a sort of sequel called The Bouncer, which bombed just as hard for pretty much the same reasons Ehrgheiz did.
The next bad game that I actually played was Final Fantasy VII:Dirge of Cereberus. A much maligned game, it's not as bad as some people say, but as someone who doesn't play first person shooters, I will say that for those of you that do, you will think this is crap. This game was an attempt to make an FPS out of FF and there was some good intent behind it. The premise is that Vincent Valentine, the gun wielding secret optional character from FFVII has to save the world from an army of super soldiers for which he was apparently the prototype. The whole thing takes place a few ears after FFVII, the world is settling into peace, and then these soldiers leftover from the now totally defunct Shinra Power Company, known as Deepground, decide to attack now that they realize their masters aren't coming back for them. Ultimately the real problem was it just didn't translate formats very well. It might have been good to come up with a decent story to continue FFVII, but this one tried too hard to fit the FPS mold and resulted in a lot of identical generic troops with a few signature FFVII mobs popping in for what amounted to cameos. For FF fans, the whole thing was a bit of a letdown, FPS fans got even worse if they expected anything worthwhile here. Vincent gets a grand total of six guns to use in the game, and all but one can be customized to some extent, but three are practically worthless, the bayonet is basically a fixed rifle with a negligble melee bonus, the Ultima Weapon is too hard to acquire to be worth the trouble, and the machine gun called Griffin is too clunky to bother with at all, it can shoot a lot but rarely hits anything. The remaining three guns include the titular Cereberus, a handgun that shoots three bullets at once which eats ammo but does enough decent damage you don't really need another gun; the Hydra, a rifle which is a good long range weapon for those few foes that are sort of out of reach; and the Death Penalty which only comes in at the end and does it's job well enough, but it makes you feel like all your hard work on the other guns doesn't matter when Vincent just transforms and uses this ultimate weapon to end the game.
Dissidia was...well recieved, but honestly, it's kind of crap. It's a fighting game that has bizarre mechanics and ignores the laws of physics which looks impressive but makes playing eaither frustratingly difficult or, once yu get used to it, makes you feel like what you're doing is utterly pointless. The system involves fighting with two gauges, bravery and HP. The idea is that you go back and forth with bravery attacks until one character is strong enought to take out the enemy with an HP attack. It makes vey little sense, even when you figure it out. The game's story, and I use that term loosely for a series that does well with stories, is that one hero and one villain each from the first ten FF games are locked in combat on behalf of the gods Chaos and Cosmos. Ultimately, it seems that the whole game actually takes place in a limbo in the time loop of the first FF game hat actually went for thirteen cycles before the original FF takes place and this game is the last cycle. It seems that everybody can fly so the actual battelfields ar mostly just irrelevant backgrounds and there is no clear connection between any of them. The only redeeming thing is that I get to finally see the epic battle between Kefka and Sephiroth, which is actually easy to make happen. You do have to unlock them, but to do so all you really have to do is finish any of the ten Destiny Odyssey story modes which will allow you to unlock caharacters for power points, which you should have accumulated enough of in the process to do two characters. From there, simply open an exhibtion match and watch Kefka prove his superiority prove Sephiroth.
The worst of all is Final Fantasy All the Bravest. I am a big enoug Final Fantasy fan to say this game isn't all bad, as a free app, it's a fun diversion, and I really appreciate the throwback to old school 16-bit graphics a la FFV. Howeve, other than graphics and music, it is a complete disappointment. ther is no strategy, the party is randomly assembled from available characters with each battle and everybody has a predetermined attack so all you do is touch them, not that it even really matters, it's really just an illusion that you're doing anything at all that actually makes a difference in the outcome of the battle. The worst part is that you have to pay for the bonus content that you might actually want, but it's randomized, so you'll shell out $40 just so Cloud can join your party.
Final Fantasy is great, but they need to be more careful about venturing beyond what they know and do well.
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