Final Fantasy Omnibus

[Matt D]

I mean... Make her play VI?

There's a window with kids where you can sneak in the earlier games. If you miss that window, it becomes a lot harder to ever do it. My now 18 year old played Chrono Trigger before he played a lot of other current gen stuff (maybe when he was 12) and because of that he can go back and play a SNES game like Link to the Past or Super Metroid or FFVI where he might not have been able to otherwise. It's the same with old anime (he's watching Yamato now on his own and no way would he be if I hadn't had him watch Robotech years ago) or black and white movies. 

It's not like going from Animal Crossing to FFVI is going to be a big graphical leap down or anything.

[Craig H]

I tried getting her into SNES games with my Super Nintendo Classic and aside from Legend of Zelda and Secret of Mana, she's not all that into old looking games.

The other ones my wife and I thought about getting my daughter were Xenoblade Chronicles 2 or even just getting FF7 because even if my daughter doesn't like FF7, I'll probably still play it at some point. Then again, I'll also wind up playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

[Craig H]

Also, the other suggestions were good too regarding 12 or 13.

On the other hand, I may not get her any of these because she has more than enough games anyway and is always bouncing from Animal Crossing to Minecraft to The Sims to Breath of the Wild.

And while she isn't into the old look of SNES games, Celeste is one of her favorite games. It's one of my favorite games too, but I never expected my daughter to like it.

[dogwelder]

I would second the recommendation for 12, especially the Zodiac Age update.  IMO it's the best of the modern era (post PS1) FF games, with the only real knock against it being that the "main" character really ending up being mostly a sidekick.

[Raziel]

3 minutes ago, dogwelder said:

I would second the recommendation for 12, especially the Zodiac Age update.  IMO it's the best of the modern era (post PS1) FF games, with the only real knock against it being that the "main" character really ending up being mostly a sidekick.

You mean the Main Character wasn't Ashe?

[Raziel]

23 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I mean... Make her play VI?

There's a window with kids where you can sneak in the earlier games. If you miss that window, it becomes a lot harder to ever do it. My now 18 year old played Chrono Trigger before he played a lot of other current gen stuff (maybe when he was 12) and because of that he can go back and play a SNES game like Link to the Past or Super Metroid or FFVI where he might not have been able to otherwise. It's the same with old anime (he's watching Yamato now on his own and no way would he be if I hadn't had him watch Robotech years ago) or black and white movies. 

It's not like going from Animal Crossing to FFVI is going to be a big graphical leap down or anything.

Yeah, while my kids are currently playing Lego Marvel, on PS3, I have a SNES and RetroPie set up and they play the shit out of SMB3 and the Sonic Games, so it's just a matter of taste and what you walk them into first.  

 

As for the 10 year old playing FF7R, the story gets a little heavy at points, but at the worst you can switch it into Classic or Easy mode and not worry about the difficulty (classic is damn near auto-pilot)

[dogwelder]

4 minutes ago, Raziel said:

You mean the Main Character wasn't Ashe?

That's why I put the quotes. 

(Since of course the intended main character was supposed to be Vaan according to all the media leading up to the original version...)

[Matt D]

I mean, XII is basically Star Wars, so...

[Craig H]

Is FF12 the one made by the producer of Vagrant Story? If so, I remember liking that one quite a bit.

[Matt D]

I worked at a Borders in the summer of 1999 when I had just graduated from high school and I got a Vagrant Story strategy guide with my discount and one of my co-workers gave me lots of grief about it and how the main character was probably a hobo. I hated weapons breaking. I always hate weapons breaking. That's all I can remember.

For XII, at the time I hated the random chest issue (especially in end-game/bonus dungeon places; ridiculous and infuriating), the fact that all of the side quests were just monster hunts instead of something with more plot/world/character development, the money system, and the fact the license board was so easy to max that you could build all the characters into anything quickly. I'm pretty sure the re-release fixed that last bit by offering a bunch of different boards. 

While I'm making gripes I've made on the board previously... the biggest issues with X are the fact you can't skip cutscenes, the fact that stuff that isn't a cut scene moves so slow because you're waiting for the characters to move in between dialogue (Basically how cinematic it all is at the expense of control/gameplay/time), that so many things are locked behind mini-games, and Tidus being annoying. 

I've only played the main XIII (I keep starting Lightning returns and failing to get far), but my gripes there would again be the lack of true side quests and I guess not really being able to talk to people. That you're on rails for so long isn't the end of the world. 

IV, V, VI, IX are better than all of them.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Matt D

[Craig H]

Well this all gives me a lot to go off of, but I think my decision is even harder now. I'm almost just leaning towards not overspoiling her for her birthday and just sticking with everything else we got her. Maybe as a reward for doing something big or working hard on something I'll give her the choice of getting FF12 or FF7 or even Xenoblade Chronicles. The shitty thing with the latter is that I rarely see it sell for less than $60. It's been out for 2 years or more now and it's still full price, but that's more of an issue for all Switch games.

[Craig H]

Octopath Traveler is another option I suppose, but I'd really like to get her into Final Fantasy games. Maybe 12 really is the best route especially since it isn't that expensive so if she doesn't dig it then it's not a big loss and I'll still play it anyway.

Or 7. A lot of you seem to really be digging 7 a lot, I'm starting to get the itch the more I see from you all and from online ads, and I do have a certain fondness for 7.

Decisions decisions...

[Jiji]

Octopath is a very good game with very uninteresting characters. Every character in Final Fantasy VI is infinitely more likeable and better defined than those of Octopath. 

[Raziel]

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

Octopath Traveler is another option I suppose, but I'd really like to get her into Final Fantasy games. Maybe 12 really is the best route especially since it isn't that expensive so if she doesn't dig it then it's not a big loss and I'll still play it anyway.

Or 7. A lot of you seem to really be digging 7 a lot, I'm starting to get the itch the more I see from you all and from online ads, and I do have a certain fondness for 7.

Decisions decisions...

The 7 Remake is very very good, but keep in mind it's a Remake/Reimagining, so there are some changes.  

[Craig H]

I went ahead and bought 7. My daughter usually wants me to sit and watch her play games so that she can pass the controller off to me...So if anything in FF7 gets too rough, I'll be there with her some of the time.

And for me, it's been so long since I played FF7 that I remember so little about it now and I played through it twice.

[odessasteps]

And you dont have to worry about explaining  Aerith’s death to  her yet.

[Raziel]

Normal mode is rough 1st playthrough.  But fun.

[Craig H]

1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

And you dont have to worry about explaining  Aerith’s death to  her yet.

I'm not even worried about that. She's seen Gamora die (and then come back to life), she's seen Black Widow die, and she's seen Iron Man die.

[Eivion]

Never beat XII or XII. At some point I just stopped caring with the former while I spent too long away from the latter and don't want to restart even though its what I have to do. Still haven't even started XV.

[Robert S]

Same for me with XII. I actually gave it another chance half a year ago, but still the same outcome. And before I try that game again, I actually might replay VIII first. The only positive about XII might be the art style, everything else (story, main characters, fighting system, license-board system) is bad. I also have no clue, what the idea about the chaining-system is. Getting bonus item drops if you kill dozens of the same kind of monsters is just weird (and except in some cases, a nuisance).

[JLSigman]

21 hours ago, Craig H said:

I tried getting her into SNES games with my Super Nintendo Classic and aside from Legend of Zelda and Secret of Mana, she's not all that into old looking games.

The other ones my wife and I thought about getting my daughter were Xenoblade Chronicles 2 or even just getting FF7 because even if my daughter doesn't like FF7, I'll probably still play it at some point. Then again, I'll also wind up playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

I know I got here late, but my personal favorite I didn't see mentioned was FF X. Yuna is the lead, it's a great heroic tragedy of a story, and it's still turn based. 

[odessasteps]

Subjecting a child to blitzball could get a visit from the state, 

[Craig H]

I really dislike X. I hate Blitzball. I also don't want to dig out old systems from storage.

[Eivion]

Didn't care for Blitzball, but I've never been super huge on the mini-games in FF.

[John E. Dynamite]

I just realized that if they keep remaking FFVII, they're going to have to pronounce Cait Sith.