Final Monotony

Final Fantasy. Genre-defining. Gameplay refining. Evoloutionary perfection. It's great, isn't it? No! Seriously, it's the most over-rated game series i've ever seen. I'm not biased or anything, i have played a couple of them, but i just can't see what all the fuss is about.

I've tried sitting through them, honestly i have, but they are the most jarring, annoying and downright monotonous series of games i've ever tried to play- yet the whole world loves them and it's the biggest selling RPG of all time. I just don't get it. What's the appeal of sitting through a long-ass cliched story about stereotype Japanese androgynous emo characters (that all look the same), getting randomly and inadvertently attacked every 3 seconds and then consequently waiting your turn to fight? It's the most irritatingly laborious type of drivel thats ever tried to pass off as "gameplay" that i've ever experienced. Someone please explain what the deal is, as not only is the series so highly revered and popular but why FF7 is constantly regarded as one of the greatest games of all time? And most importantly, someone please tell me where the fun is, as i really don't seem to understand.

I agree that the soundtracks are always outstanding (even if they do sound repetitive at times) and the art/concept design is stunning, as well as the CG cutscenes which are always beautifully rendered, and i see can what fans (especially those crazy cosplayers) dig about it from that perspective. But that doesn't make the game itself any more fun to play. Playing through 50+ hours of random battles of it is just insane!

I just never understood how turn-based battle became accepted as a standard when the whole concept to me is monotonous. They dealt with it in FFXII to an extent, but the point of attacking, waiting your turn, juggling characters around, then attacking agian etc is just too annoying for me to see any sort of satisfaction from. On a side note, i absoloutly adore the Legend of Zelda series. I guess it's the more hands-on, control based scheme. With FF, it's just walking around and adjusting stats. With Zelda, i feel your'e immersing yourself fuller into a world with a character you have more control over.

Stories are all the same too. Considering they are all based around a central theme (Planet is dying, everyone must unite, tragedy will unfold but it will be for a better future) you can only do so much within that field until it gets repetitive and cliche. The central characters are almost always the same, like all stereotypically insane-haired Japanese fictional heroes, but i guess the typical Japanese-ness of it all is the appeal. Usually revolving around the central protaganist (arrogant/brash/angry/innocent but all good-at-heart emos) who are connected to the story in a much bigger way than what first started out (either through relatives or a past/future event), where the other characters are either quiet "strong" hard-asses (Kimhari, Barret, Vincent V or Auron) or annoyingly high-pitched happy happy joy joy cute girlies (Rikku,Tifa, etc) as well as the antagonists/villains (Sephiroth, Seifer, Edea) There's always a tragedy in there to spice things up but everything is mostly resolved by a love story (Rinoa,Aerith, Yuna) to keep everyone happy as the world they live in falls apart and then puts itself back together agian in some way, shape or form. And i'm drawing that quick conclusion having never finished playing any of them and not being a fan, but i think most will agree that's FF in a nutshell. But it is epic fantasy and it's hard to do something original these days when everything has been done before. I don't really have a problem with the stories as much as i have with the actual point of random turn-based combat.

And i don't even want mention the pointless movies, but becuase they were so terrible i'm going to rant on them anyway."Advent Children" was laughably bad, to the point that i just got bored at the pretty visuals before me. The plot is all over the place, broken and non-sensical whilst moving slower than a snail pace, the action is just too random, constant and OTT (not to mention physically defying to the point of ridiculousness), the dialogue was terrible and was full of cliche stereotype anime EMOs we've all seen a hundred times before already. It was nice to look at yes but where's the depth? Where's the plot? Wheres the POINT?

It's clear the makers had no idea how to make a film so why bother? There was no sense of direction, character development or story progression- just one long ass FMV sequence. And people actually wanted it? The film does nothing new to anything, i don't even see the point of it's existence except to showcase fancy graphics, and i can do that on my PS2. It tried to ramble about something important but stumbled at the first hurdle, taking itself so seriously it ended up mumbling nonesense and being shallow and emptier than the very CG it's made from. There's nothing deep about it, despite constant images of wide-eyed, stupid-haired miserable morons looking up the sky and philosophising over making the world a better place. Well boo-hoo. It all seems like an overlong outlet for depressed teenagers half the time. It was a waste of time, just like the other FF movie. Money wasted on fancy graphics.

But the fans seem to love it, so good for them i guess....