4 definitions by Lofwyr
The winning contender for worst Final Fantasy game ever created. It was released after Final Fantasy VII and Squaresoft were hoping it would be just as successful as the last one. However, the changes they made to the system in the game were radical and only served to cripple the game, making it vastly unpopular and a flop.
The story focuses on a group of six characters, most of whom are mercenaries contracted out to help a struggling (read: worst I've ever seen) rebel group. From there, the characters fall victim to incredibly hackneyed, trite and implausible twists and turns in the story (such as the point where they all find out they knew each other as children but had their memories wiped).
The gameplay is quite bad and actively discourages the use of magic. The characters themselves have little to distinguish themselves from each other apart from their Limit Breaks. The Junctioning system (used to help improve your character, since evryone levels up at the same rate regardless of their level) is unnecessarily complex and fiddly, detracting from what little good gameplay there was.
Some elements of the game were good, but ultimately Final Fantasy VIII was a flop compared to may of the others.
The story focuses on a group of six characters, most of whom are mercenaries contracted out to help a struggling (read: worst I've ever seen) rebel group. From there, the characters fall victim to incredibly hackneyed, trite and implausible twists and turns in the story (such as the point where they all find out they knew each other as children but had their memories wiped).
The gameplay is quite bad and actively discourages the use of magic. The characters themselves have little to distinguish themselves from each other apart from their Limit Breaks. The Junctioning system (used to help improve your character, since evryone levels up at the same rate regardless of their level) is unnecessarily complex and fiddly, detracting from what little good gameplay there was.
Some elements of the game were good, but ultimately Final Fantasy VIII was a flop compared to may of the others.
by Lofwyr August 11, 2005
Orginally, phylacteries come from Jewish lore, and are small leather boxes, containing strips of parchment inscribed with quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures. Traditionally, a Jewish man will strap one to the forehead and the other to the left arm during morning worship, except on the Sabbath and holidays.
Recently, phylactieries have been used in Dungeons and Dragons to describe the object in which a lich keeps its soul. This prevents the lich from staying killed and allows it to regenerate a few days after it was slain. In order to permenantly destroy a lich, the phylactery (which doesn't have to look like a small box) must be destroyed.
J.K. Rowling also used this idea in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," but decided to refer to it as a horcrux for some reason.
Recently, phylactieries have been used in Dungeons and Dragons to describe the object in which a lich keeps its soul. This prevents the lich from staying killed and allows it to regenerate a few days after it was slain. In order to permenantly destroy a lich, the phylactery (which doesn't have to look like a small box) must be destroyed.
J.K. Rowling also used this idea in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," but decided to refer to it as a horcrux for some reason.
by Lofwyr August 13, 2005
A person whose gender is very difficult to determine.
Derived from Kuja, the main villain of ambiguous gender from Final Fantasy 9.
Derived from Kuja, the main villain of ambiguous gender from Final Fantasy 9.
by Lofwyr August 12, 2005
The last Final Fantasy game published for the Playstation 1, it was released around 2000/2001, after the overall failure of Final Fantasy 8. As a result, Squaresoft didn't market it as much as it had the previous two games.
The game is a return to earlier games, where each of the 8 characters have one class they stick to for the entire game. The characters weren't as customizable as those in the previous two games and the limit break system was replaced by a "Trance" system which had its own advantages and disadvantages (hitting Trance gives each character different special powers but you couldn't "save" it up between battles like you could with Limit Breaks).
The story itself is reasonably engaging, involving an over-dramatic villain of indeterminate gender (seriously, it's hard to tell whether Kuja is male or female, despite all the characters referring to Kuja as a he), a plausible love story and ultimately a fight for the souls of everyone on the planet.
Final Fantasy IX has many of the staples of the series with a few improvements. For example, the game actually encourages you to steal from creatures (there are about 4 or 5 creatures in the entire game that don't have something to steal, and one of the main character's attacks does damage based on how much you've stolen throughout the game), the Chocobo sidequest is useful for obtaining all sorts of items and it's actually possible to do well in the card game (Tetra Master) without a huge amount of effort. The major sticking point as far as the game system is concerned is the frustration that can be gained when trying to learn new Blue Magic - in this game, you have to beat down enemies to 1/8 of their health before the Blue Mage can eat them and gain their abilities (if the Blue Mage has Tranced, they only need to be down to 1/4 of their health)
Overall, while it's not as popular as Final Fantasy VII, it's still a good game in its own right, and a reasonably popular one among those that know it.
The game is a return to earlier games, where each of the 8 characters have one class they stick to for the entire game. The characters weren't as customizable as those in the previous two games and the limit break system was replaced by a "Trance" system which had its own advantages and disadvantages (hitting Trance gives each character different special powers but you couldn't "save" it up between battles like you could with Limit Breaks).
The story itself is reasonably engaging, involving an over-dramatic villain of indeterminate gender (seriously, it's hard to tell whether Kuja is male or female, despite all the characters referring to Kuja as a he), a plausible love story and ultimately a fight for the souls of everyone on the planet.
Final Fantasy IX has many of the staples of the series with a few improvements. For example, the game actually encourages you to steal from creatures (there are about 4 or 5 creatures in the entire game that don't have something to steal, and one of the main character's attacks does damage based on how much you've stolen throughout the game), the Chocobo sidequest is useful for obtaining all sorts of items and it's actually possible to do well in the card game (Tetra Master) without a huge amount of effort. The major sticking point as far as the game system is concerned is the frustration that can be gained when trying to learn new Blue Magic - in this game, you have to beat down enemies to 1/8 of their health before the Blue Mage can eat them and gain their abilities (if the Blue Mage has Tranced, they only need to be down to 1/4 of their health)
Overall, while it's not as popular as Final Fantasy VII, it's still a good game in its own right, and a reasonably popular one among those that know it.
by Lofwyr August 11, 2005