Oh... I hated the end battle in VIII, how you didn't get to choose your characters lol. That was challenging. Although somehow I managed to beat it on my first try.

But one of my favourite bosses is the first form of Sephiroth at the end of VII, when you control the different parties to attack his different sides.

Just because people were talking about it, which game had your favourite experience system? (like materia, junction and GFs, sphere grid, etc)
I think mine was in IX, where you learned all of your abilites from the weapons and armour. I don't really know why I liked that one so much.
Although the materia was a good idea too.

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My favorite Final Fantasy is VIII...I love it... all.....(of course squall...*¬*)

Ew, Chrono Cross was sorta...poiintless. What was the point of 42 allies, again? When half of them join like this:

Char A: Wow, I lost my frying pan, can you find it?
-HERO FINDS FRYING PAN-
Char A: Thanks. Now I will follow you to the ends of the earth, as a reward for finding my frying pan.
-CHAR A JOINED THE PARTY-

And then your party is only 3 characters? How do you pick 3 characters outta 42? That makes about 20 of those characters (because a few were special storyline characters) pointless and redundant. And why again, is Serge following Kid? I honestly thought I missed a box if dialog when Serge teamed up with Kid. And I beat the game, and it was easy. =\ And the magic is sorta fugly.

What bugged me about FF8 was the history of the characters. I like to know how the character grew up, w/ who, etc etc. FF8 sorta half-assed that. Each character, including a semi-villain, grew up in the same orphanage, split up, and met up again. Wow. How captivating. Such unique pasts.

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There was a little more to it than that. They were still connected in other ways.

Laguna was in love with Julia.
But Julia had a baby with Caraway -> Rinoa
Laguna had a baby with Raine -> Squall

So even their parents were connected.

Yeah the story was a little convenient at points.
But they were all raised to become SeeDs so it makes sense that they meet up again.

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VI. Normal leveling up for the better half of the game, but then you get espers, and suddenly everyone has a potential for magic on top of their other skills. Yush. And relics. Those were bedess.

I'd agree...normally (detailed childhoods can get redundant...). I thought the character development in VIII was pristine. They briefed you on Squall's childhood, but focused mainly on Ellone's absence and how it took a toll on how Squall developed. They didn't really throw in anything that didn't have a direct affect on how he'd developed into the Squall of present time (pun unintended). Whether he tripped and cut his hand or used to wander off by himself or survived a snake bite, none of it really reflected who he had become. Alot of people appreciate stuff like that, focusing more on defining events (little Squall's self-speech in the rain) rather than things that didn't really pertain.

There's a saying in story writing that goes, "If it doesn't add to the story, it subtracts." It seems like the same people who don't feel this way also enjoy delving deep into Tolkien's Middle-earth historical works. Not that it's bad....

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i found the end battle for ff8 was so easy. and i found that you could pick your own characters. i had the crappy characters go first, and then my good party [squall, rinoa and quistis] kicked ass. t'was a bloody long battle though. but beat it on the first try.

anyway i've only played ff7 and ff8, but i started ff9, and i'm well into ff10 (which i don't play a lot...since it's my b/f's game!)

*Vincent Valentine ans Squall= hot! *

For the long battles, I like casting Aura magic on Squall and then using Renzokuken every turn. It's a cheap but awesome, awesome combination.

The first time playing FF8, I always thought Seifer would rejoin the party before the end (since he was a playable character), as with Aeris in FF7. It was too bad that they didn't but the storylines in both games were better for it.

you thought VIII's end battle was easy?

wait till you finish X, then you'll know easy.

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Haha, yeah really.
The Monster Arena somewhat made up for that. It took me quite a while to develop a good strategy to beat Nemesis.
I like really hard battles that take more than the regular full out attack to defeat. The Ruby Weapon in FF7 took me a while but the Emerald Weapon was practically nothing. I hear most people have an easier time with Ruby though.

Yeah, beating CC is easy...if you go for the crappy ending that just rolls the credits. The good ending is a little harder. I thought the game was beautiful, magic and all. All those characters made it cool...if there was a character you don't like, you never have to really see him/her/it. And having a purple dog in your party is just funny, comeon now.

~shrug~ to each their own, suit yourself. But getting all the characters possible is a neat sidequest in itself too. And I still say the game had badass evil twists.

Meanwhile, favorite magic system for me was probably FF6...pretty simple, you couldn't overuse the summons, and once you learned the spell, you couldn't un-equip that esper and lose it, like you would with FF7's materia.

8, my main problem with I think that, throughout the duration of the game, it wasn't evil enough, like 6 and 7 were. It had its moments there too...but not as much as 6 and 7...oh, and that it reminded me of school WAY too much. Yeah.

Ok yeah that's my rant of the evening, I'll shut up now.