Quote (mclarke @ 13 Dec 2016 17:53)
VII - Materia & equipment is best, really easy to mess around with, makes sense and good progression. Good story although annoying for me at times (some of the Cloud/Tifa cutscenes are just way too long). Good sense of challenge with the 2x weapons without going overboard.
VIII - Best card game. GF's are "ok", bit weird but works. Decent story and least annoying main character, Rinoa/Squall romance was lame imo and better off without it. Lack of side bosses a bit annoying and the ability to go invulnerable for the entire battle just silly.
IX - "ok" card game. Equipment is super annoying though, never really made much sense for progression. Story from what i remembered was good. Zidane was pretty annoying.
X - Good side game (would rate VIII's triple triad over blitzball but not by much and rate it higher than IX's card game), Progression was ok, preferred both GF's and VII's myself rather than sphere grid. Tidus was the most annoying character of the 4 games i've tried, riku being nearly equally annoying. Story was ok. Solid side quests but i never really got too far due to not really liking the progression.
I only have VIII installed on my computer, so guess that answers which i liked the most :P
Not tried the older ones, graphics/style a bit of a turn off. Not gone for newer ones as in general felt like the characters were getting more annoying after VIII. Reckon X-2 would really annoy me and it's now all this online crap these days.
If you didn't like IX's equipment thing, you probably won't like the older ones. The first 6 games have even more complex equipment mechanics, with up to 6 equipment slots (they even have right hand and left hand) and with different characters being able to use different weapons (some can choose between using a sword, a spear or a dagger for example, and each will have its benefits and disadvantages). For me this was a good thing, and it's one of the reasons IX is my favourite, because the other newer ones seemed too dull/boring on this department (especially 8, where there is no armor and only a very limited amount of weapon upgrades), but everyone has their own tastes in regards to this
If you're talking about learning skills through equipment though, then IX is indeed unique at that. VI works very similarly to VII, but in the first 5 games characters learn their abilities either by leveling up (each character has a unique job, so that a black mage will learn firaga/thundaga/etc at a certain level while a white mage will learn curaga/esuna/etc) or by buying the ability from magic shops (or getting them as drops from enemies or finding them in chests).
This post was edited by zarkadon on Dec 13 2016 12:55pm