Final Fantasy is one of the most popular role playing games on the market. Anyone who has been playing video games for more than a week has heard of Final Fantasy and the newest version can be easily found at your favorite video game supplier. For older versions I would suggest either the Internet or a shop that sells used video games.

Playing a Final Fantasy game can be far trickier than most other games you might pick up. The problem isn’t the game play. I have to say that, especially in Final Fantasy XII, the game play portion is beautiful. The difficulty actually lies in the amount of things that you can do in the game. For the purpose of this article, I am going to assume that you want to beat every aspect of the game. This would include the side quests, of which plenty can be found in most Final Fantasy games. In order to complete the abundance of things to do besides the main story, you will have to train your characters far higher than is necessary for just the main story. There are generally some creatures that are even stronger than the final boss lurking around. You should also be prepared to do an insane amount of running around. Side quests will take you from one side of the world to the other, sometimes for no good reason. Make sure you have plenty of patience. The main story, on the other hand, is fairly straight forward. For anyone ready to invest large amounts of time outside of the main story I would suggest buying the strategy guide. If your not the type to let a book tell you what to do, however, I wish you lots of luck. You’re going to need it.

Pros:

Serious storyline

Beautiful graphics

Engaging battle system

Cons:

Clunky leveling system

Very short main quest

Having already played every Final Fantasy game released in America, (including FF: Mystic Quest) I was very eager to wrap my hands around this title. Like Square has done so many times before, FFXII tosses out any notion of formula and integrates the current popular RPG trends into a brand new experience. Its one of the key reasons this series has become so popular.

The storyline is refreshing and mature. Rather than centering around sappy love devices and childish notions of happiness, FFXII focuses on a political war where the good guys and the bad guys aren’t always clearly defined. It’s a story that will remind you of FFVI if you ever played that venerable title. A similarity that didn’t escape the creators, considering the names of the summons just happen to be espers.

The battle system is completely different from any previous FF title. Unless of course you count FFXI. The battles take place in real time and are executed very much like an MMORPG. This is both good and bad. For me, it was all I could do to get through the first few hours of play. The battles seemed nowhere near as involved and strategic as I’d hoped for. But after recruiting a couple of party members, everything got more interesting. Some will love the changes and some will probably hate them but after giving the game a solid chance, I soon forgot all about Active Time Battles.

Is this the best Final Fantasy game yet? In my opinion, no. However, it takes many excellent strides in reviving a series that’s been needing an overhaul for some time now. If you own a PS2, there’s no reason why this title shouldn’t be spinning inside it.

Released in 2004, Final Fantasy X – 2 made FF history as being the first ever sequel in its long running episodes. Yet not surprisingly it is the first Final Fantasy to recieve mixed reviews from official press. Money wise you’ll find this game for around tenner in most gaming shops and even cheaper online.

Story -

As every Final Fantasy fan knows, FF X finished by Tidus disappearing with the Fayths dreams. Yuna and her guardians had defeated Sin and Tidus’ story was over.

This time round it is Yuna’s story and her life as a summoner is now over, yet her reputation has somewhat not dissolved. Joining a gang of Sphere Hunters, Yuna now travels all over Spira in search of both Invaluable and profitable spheres accompanied by Rikku and newcomer to the FF Series Paine.

After a while in true FF style, the story becomes much more complicated and other side stories become intertwined. It all starts when Yuna finds a sphere which shows a man resembling ‘him’. Believing he is still alive, Yuna and her gang search Spira for more spheres that could ultimately bring ‘him’ back to her.

As stories go, FF X 2 is at times both memorable and uneventful. Its a nice idea and concept of searching for Tidus and seeing Yuna’s longing for him, however you seem to get tired quickly as the story takes so long to evolve and many side stories appear often. For instance Paine is a quiet yet powerful character almost resembling Lulu, yet her story seems to unwind itself as you play along also.

Different names pop up every now and again to remind you of the essence of FF X, yet each character just seems to be placed in at random intervals leaving them insignificant in the whole plot.

I’m not going to ruin the ending (or should i say one of many) but i was hugely disapointed by this. To me it seems rather rushed and just ‘invented’ at the last minute. Its like one of those ending where they wake up and its all just a dream disapointing

Graphics -

FF X – 2 is on par with the previous installment. Familar gorgeous sceneries cloud the background and fills the whole game with a real life world. Clouds litter the skies perfectly and each landscape is heavily detailed no matter if its the lush paradise beaches of Besaid Island or the glooming darkness that is the Thunder Plains.

Only one perhaps new place has been added to the Spira world and personally i think this was a right decision. FF X had already created a world that was full of life, real life cities such

Final Fantasy VIII was released in 1999 for the Playstation One, then again in 2000 for Windows home computers. The game was received with mix reviews from players as instead of being high fantasy in nature; it turned to a more realistic style.

The game story is based around military academies, known as Gardens which produce mercenaries named SeeDs who are hired by different organisations as warriors to help keep the peace. It all begins with the introduction of Squall and Seifer, who scar each other during a duel outside the Garden. This helps to outline instantly the constant rivalry between the two. Once they return to the Garden they are treated for their wounds and reprimanded before being sent on a mission to help Dollet.

The Galabadian’s have invaded Dollet, forcing Dollet to hire out SeeDs to help them. With the help of Quistis, Squall’s instructor, he passes a test first before being able to help out Dollet and take on the mission. A small group of candidates for SeeD are gathered and taken to Dollet to help out. During the mission Seifer abandons his team and leaves Selphie on her own, who joins Squall’s and Zell’s team instead. The three manage to stop the Galabadians from taking over Dollet and return to the Garden to graduate into fully fledged SeeDs.

Next the three are assigned to help a group of rebels, led by Rinoa who are helping to fight the Galabadians. During this mission Squall learns of Edea, a sorceress who is behind the attacks from the Galabadians. They head out to stop Edea and gradually begin to unfurl a plot to destroy the order of their world.

The gameplay focuses heavily on role-playing and allows the player to explore and interact with the game world. The player can travel the world using a variety of modes of transport ranging from on foot to trains to chocobos later in the game, as well as some surprising, exotic modes of travel which I will not ruin for new players.

The battle system is similar to Final Fantasy VII with some changes. Magic has to be drawn from enemies or draw points and has no MP cost, rather it acts like an item system of sorts. GFs, or Guardian Forces, are the new summons and give the characters different abilities when they are equipped or Junctioned. Summons can also have their powers boosted, after learning an ability imaginatively named Boost, by pressing a button rapidly during the cut scene sequence while the GF attacks.

Limit breaks are handled slightly differently as well, instead of having a gauge which has to be filled, limit breaks are available when a character’s health drops below a certain percentage and is then randomly available for use each turn. Some limit breaks have an interactive element to them, unlike the Boost ability of the GFs, which allows the player to increase the damage dealt by the attack.

The serious nature of the story and focus on realism can be off putting to fans of the high fantasy nature of previous Final Fantasy stories. The gameplay is enjoyable, but players may find that they can complete the entire game without even bothering with the new magic system. Some people love it and others were disappointed by it, either way Final Fantasy VIII is a well made game and deserves at least one play through to see what it did right, and what it got wrong. It deserves a chance, but may not appeal to fans of previous games.

The Final Fantasy series does not do sequels, ever, not in the same format as the original. Which means it came as a huge surprise when they released this: the sequel to Final Fantasy X.

The game commences 2 years after the end of events in Final Fantasy X (funny, about the same time as had elapsed in real life). Everything has calmed down, but Yuna and her new gang, the Gullwings still have to beat up thousands of monsters (which can also beat them up).

All the three main characters (not including the other members of the ‘Gullwings) are female, which leads me to think that this is also aimed more towards the males.

The battle system has changed dramatically from the one in Final Fantasy X, from the slow CTB (conditional turn based)system to a ATB (active time battle) system, which is similar to the one found in good old Final Fantasy VII, although a lot quicker. Having an ATB system means you can’t think out what you will do for too many turns in advance, else you will probably be dead by the time you put the plan into action.

The game is also very non linear, there being a multitude of side quests (in fact, if you only do the main story line, you will only complete 50 percent of the game). You can access most areas in the game, very soon from after the beginning, the airship system being very much like the one in Final Fantasy X. Unfortunately, that means no world map, which means you won’t spent as much time as you should leveling, which in turn often makes you underpowered for the challenges that you face.

The musical score is very good, in the tradition of Final Fantasy games; I did not once get sick of the ‘Airship’ theme, or any other music in the game.

The graphics haven’t improved that much since the prequel, but that does not really matter, since they were very beautiful in the first place. It is easy just to imagine that you are actually there, in Spira, from the graphic’s excellence.

There has been quite a lot of speculation among fans, that this game (and therefore, Final Fantasy X), are in the same world as Final Fantasy VII. Shinra (one of the male members of the Gullwings, also the same name as the secondary antagonists in Final Fantasy VII, talks about extracting energy from the lifestream for use.

The characters are all very good, and there is an addition to the main group of Paine, a mysterious, dark woman, whose past is shrouded in mystery.

Overall, a very good game, and a sequel in the Final Fantasy series (which is an achievement in itself).