VIDEODROME: Final Fantasy vs. Dragon Quest

WELCOME TO VIDEODROME!

This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting on it. End your first post in this thread with the title of the game you're placing a bet on (i.e. voting for) so its clear to me when reading it later. You have until Friday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. Counting sequels, spin-offs, expansions, system ports and DLC or not is entirely up to you.

Although you should be familiar with both games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Videodrome is this:

Two games enter! One game leaves!

FINAL FANTASY 7 SUCKS.

There, that's out of the way.

OK, I loved the first FF and I swear I played it for about 36 hours STRAIGHT one summer when I rented it from this little video store around the corner from my house. I sort of missed the others up until 7 and I played through it and when it was done, I realized that I had wasted like 90 hours of my life. I didn't even beat the damn thing, I got to the end and didn't have Knights of the Round or whatever so it was practically impossible to beat. That's one thing I FUCKING DESPISE about Square games- the impossible end boss that takes an hour to beat.

FF7 really is one of the worst games I've ever played. Yes, it looked great at the time and it had some memorable characters and plotlines. But the gameplay was ABOMINABLE, even by JRPG standards. Completely linear, but with a lot of dinky little minigames thrown in to make what could be a two hour movie into a 100 hour "game". Somebody lay this development concept to rest NOW, please! I honestly can't think of a more overrated game. I guess if I were nine or ten when I played it I'd have better memories of it, but I played it when I was in my 20s.

8 was unbearable, I actually threw it away. OK, so it was a "backup", but I tossed it nonetheless. Couldn't be bothered with the rest. But I did love FFT, dearly. I played 4 on the DS and it was very good, but definitely old fashioned.

As for DRAGON QUEST, I've only played the first one, 4, and 5. 4 and 5 on the DS are very good, fun JRPGs with good characters and reasonably fun gameplay despite antiquated concepts like random encounters. I've never gotten into any of the other ones, and chances are I probably won't.

This is tough, because I don't really like either franchise all that much. They're both ultimately "OK". But I'd give the nod to FINAL FANTASY because I do really love the first one (at least in a 1987 kind of way) and TACTICS.

I'll abstain because I've never played a Dragon Quest, but I will say that the SNES FF installments are still two of my favourite games. And I'll be buying FF13 day one because I'm a fucking idiot.

Final Fantasy I defeats Dragon Quest I (both for NES) soundly.

Vote: Final Fantasy.

Ummm, they both suck ass. Really, is there a JRPG out there where you have any decisions to make? They are boring as fuck.

FINAL FANTASY 7 SUCKS.

Most of that "growth" you've been yammering about within the medium is directly traceable to FF7's influence. The gameplay itself may not have been groundbreaking, but everything else about it was. You must not have played very many video games if it's one of the worst you've ever played.

IV and VII excepted, The Final Fantasy series overall is totally overrated.

FF1 was good, you say? Fuck that, play the original Phantasy Star for the SMS. It's the best 8-bit RPG ever made, the only thing that even comes somewhat close is Dragon Warrior III.

Vote: Dragon Warrior

But seriously, Phantasy Stars 1, 2, and 4 are still the best JRPGs have ever had to offer for my money.

This is a contest?

VOTE: Final Fantasy

DRAGON WARRIOR 8-bit bites a fat cock. Some otaku nutcase will come in here and tell me which one? The English one, which is actually DW IV or some other shit that I don't care about. I blame DW for the travesty that is THE ADVENTURES OF LINK.

That said, I kind of liked FINAL FANTASY II-or-IV-fuck-it on the SNES. Never played FFVII and don't want to. Played some FF X, and that is par-for-the-course jPRG fuckery. Played about 60 minutes of DQVII and gave up. Those games are not for me. Honestly, I liked THE GOONIES more.

The games nowadays are -so- pretty, but I just can't play them. If I'm gong to kill a goddamn blob a billion times, he'd better drop phat l00tz, or at least have a chance to.

Disappointed all around, but voting: Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy 7 (and 8) are bad news bears. Worse than even XI which hardly even counts.

The first DW is a good time, but didn't age nearly as well as the first FF.

FF (US#) III is tied for best digital RPG ever with Chrono Trigger.

Vote: FF by a mile

FF Tactics and FF VI (or III) are two of my favorite games ever. FF VI is like STAR WARS made into a JRPG; it's awesome.

FF 7 is great, too, though I don't think it has aged very well (most early 3D games don't). I don't think it was any more time consuming than other RPGs (I beat it in ~25 hours on my first play through).

FF8 just sucked. The crappiest gameplay ever. Really easy to take advantage of the crappy fighting system and make the whole game a cakewalk. And the story got really stupid at the end.

I don't like their more recent games, though X is really the most recent one I've played. Don't have time for JRPGs anymore, anyway.

For Tactics, 6, and 7, vote: Final Fantasy

(If we were voting on just the 8-bit RPGs, I'd have to vote: PHANTASY STAR, which has aged MUCH better than Final Fantasy.)

Most of that "growth" you've been yammering about within the medium is directly traceable to FF7's influence. The gameplay itself may not have been groundbreaking, but everything else about it was. You must not have played very many video games if it's one of the worst you've ever played.

That's very true. But it was like a team of cavemen trying to build a Maserati. Neither the technology, language, or sophistication was there yet to really build anything truly cinematic or emotionally engaging so it winds up being this awkward jumble of crusty, moldy gameplay with really cutting edge cinematics that now look about as "awesome" as YARS REVENGE. Yeah, it had a multilayered plot (which was really just typical anime nonsense when you break it down), it had extremely high quality graphics for the time, and it was definitely reaching for something far beyond what we'd seen from JRPGs before. But the gameplay buried underneath all of the gloss was simply dreadful, and for all the forward momentum it created it also locked JPRGs even further into a particular style that lingers to this day.

I'd say that ultimately, METAL GEAR SOLID, TOMB RAIDER, and RESIDENT EVIL wound up being much more important out of that generation but it's impossible to discredit FFVII completely and it remains an important game, I agree with you there.

But it still sucks. I hate Cloud. I hate his stupid haircut, the gigantic butter knife, and his dumb motorcycle. Barrett is pretty cool even though he's really just B.A. Barracas. If the game came out now, people would cry racism. Tifa was cooler than Aeris. I'm glad she died, she seemed like the kind of girl that would be really into teddy bears or something. Sephiroth is one of those damned anime characters that all these 13 year old nerdlingers want to be one they grow up. I wonder how many times a teenager has registered for an email address or online account and wound up crestfallen that "Sephiroth" was already taken.

PHANTASY STAR II...yeah, I'd say that's better than both of these franchises.

Michael Barnes wrote:

I wonder how many times a teenager has registered for an email address or online account and wound up crestfallen that "Sephiroth" was already taken.

That's pretty funny, right there.

I've always been more in the American style RPG camp. The old SSI AD&D games, WASTELAND, NEVERWINTER NIGHTS, &c.

Almalik wrote:

Ummm, they both suck ass. Really, is there a JRPG out there where you have any decisions to make? They are boring as fuck.

What he said. Also, this:
Michael Barnes wrote:

FINAL FANTASY 7 SUCKS.

Seriously, is there a <Insert Thing Here>DOME protocol for voting against both of them?

FF XII is pretty damn good too.

It seems like maybe I'm the only one here, but I'm super stoked for XIII.

Michael Barnes wrote:

FINAL FANTASY 7 SUCKS.

I don't think this could be said enough.

I really enjoyed the first three to hit the US shores. I heard all this great talk about 7. I played 7. I trudged through that entire ugly motherfucker of a game. Not one time did I feel any need to play it again. Was glad I borrowed instead of bought it. Didn't ever touch 8. Only played 9 because the lady I was with at the time wanted to watch me play it as a distraction while she worked on her thesis. Another ugly worthless game. With a broken boss battle and a stupid hour-long ending. X ended up being a solidly enjoyable game. I even had fun with X-2 primarily because I really liked the ability to change jobs on the fly and you had to actually use the jobs to get the abilities out of them. Played XI with friends - it was fun for a while but bogged down because the main mission battles are so horribly scripted it sucked the fun out of it. Borrowed XII and it started out okay but ended up a pretty awful grind-fest with a stupid plot. Will probably get XIII at some point down the road. Maybe when it gets down to $20 or somesuch.

That was longer than I intended.

The only Dragon Quest/Warrior games I played were the first two to hit the US. I wasn't impressed with them for the most part.

I think the term JRPG should be swapped out for "interactive movie". You don't have any real choice on the plot or make any decisions that have impact on the gameworld. You're just coasting along, killing and looting along for the ride. Which can be fun sometimes, assuming the story can draw you into the game.

Given the choices, I'll have to toss my vote to (not quite so) Final Fantasy.