10 Things We MISS About Old School Final Fantasy Games

10 Things We Miss About Old School Final Fantasy Games

Welcome to MojoPlays and while we still love the modern Final Fantasy games, there’s quite a few things the old school entries of the genre defining JRPG series did better.

Animal Characters

Final Fantasy games used to have a very distinct style. Their blend of futuristic steampunk tech alongside medieval fantasy helped differentiate the series from other JRPGs of the time. One of the most noticeable aspects of this design was the various non-human companions you could recruit into your party. Final Fantasy IX is a great example of this practice with only a couple of characters in your main party being human while the rest were either animal or something else entirely. Fran from Final Fantasy XII and Kimarhi Ronso in Final Fantasy X are some other beloved non-human characters and outside of Final Fantasy XIV, were some of the last non-human playable characters in the entire series. From Final Fantasy XIII onward, the only non-human playable characters have been the summons, and it feels like some of the magic and mysticism of the fantasy world is lost when every character within it is of the human variety.

Sense of Adventure

One of the things that made the original Final Fantasy games so engrossing was they were more relatable. I know they’re all still fantastical and mythical adventures, but most of the early games started out on a much smaller scale and gradually evolved into a world saving quest. Modern Final Fantasy games rush into getting the player invested into their world and forget about the deep meaningful character and world building that made those original adventures so memorable. In those games, few if any of the main characters started out trying to be heroes, let alone even knew about some world ending calamity that they had somehow become involved in. These days, it's all “The Chosen One” archetype rather than the simple character thrust into an unexpected and unforeseeable adventure that has them grow into the world saving hero they never even believed themselves to be.

No Voice Acting

This one is going to be a bit controversial but stick with me. The inclusion of voice acting was a big step for the Final Fantasy series and while the early days were a bit rough, they eventually reached the level of true Hollywood productions. However, we do miss the old days when we were able to create the voices in our heads for some of our most beloved characters. What bothers me is if you’re going to have voice acting in your Final Fantasy game, then have voice acting for your ENTIRE Final Fantasy game. It makes no sense that the biggest moments of the game are fully and brilliantly voice acted, but then interactions with NPCs are either text boxes, one simple line for the start of an entire paragraph of dialogue, or basic grunts and other noises. It has to be all, or nothing is what I’m saying.

Exploration

Somehow with the game worlds of Final Fantasy being bigger than ever, we’ve lost the sense of exploration the series used to have. With modern Final Fantasy games filled with maps, markers and quest trackers, there’s no real sense of discovery anymore. With the older games, you not only needed to manually keep track of all the side quests you’d taken on, but many if not all of them had no marker beyond the quest giver’s vague directions. Oftentimes you wouldn’t even realize you’d picked up the clues for a side quest until you randomly discovered an item or location and remembered someone in a town mentioning it. Older Final Fantasy games used to let the players uncover the mysteries of their worlds on their own rather than handing them detailed maps and quite literally holding their hand from one location to the next. Plus we miss the overworld maps.

The Musical Score

Now before anyone gets upset, we’re not saying that modern Final Fantasy games don’t also have incredible soundtracks, but there was just something more iconic and memorable about the older titles. The music of the older titles was simple, but it also had depth. These days the musical scores are huge and bombastic, trying to compete with the best of Hollywood, but few if any have the same impact as hearing “One Winged Angel”, “To Zanarkand”, or the Opera scene from Final Fantasy VI for the very first time. These pieces of music and even more from the older titles have remained timeless and a part of the gaming zeitgeist, while the more modern tracks are serviceable, but not nearly as memorable.

Boss Battles

Boss battles are as iconic to the Final Fantasy series as the name itself, but the later entries haven’t exactly delivered on the same scale as the older titles. While yes Final Fantasy XVI went in HARD on their boss battles and were equally eye catching, they were more about spectacle and button mashing than the fight itself. Boss battles in the older titles were a true test of your skills up to that point, requiring precise strategy to overcome insurmountable and oftentimes, heavily mutated odds. The boss battles felt appropriately climactic, from everything about their scale, design and music made these moments feel epic and world altering. Whether it was the static images of the 2D entries or the 3D’s ever-increasing spectacle, the boss battles of the older games were just better, and we truly felt like we’d narrowly survived the encounter by the end.

Art Style

In the pursuit of the uncanny valley and hyper-realism, the modern Final Fantasy games have lost what made the games so special. The overexaggerated character designs of some of the series most beloved characters, Cloud, Cecil, Squall, Vivi, are all memorable because they weren’t chasing the uncanny valley. No one expected these characters to look like they were real people, they were the closest the game designers could get to the artist’s concept art as they could, and this worked to each game’s benefit. While later designs like Noctis or even Clive have their own style, they’re too close to reality to sell the mythical nature of the series and their realism breaks the immersion when seeing them perform acts that no human is capable of. The modern games still have impressive artistic direction, but the older titles are true works of art that have remained icons of the franchise for decades.

Quirkiness

Even if you’re not a fan of the old school style of gameplay, art, or anything else that makes the older Final Fantasy games so beloved, there’s no denying they have one thing the modern games don’t. Fun. While modern games lean heavily into their political and Game of Thrones style narratives, the older games managed to tell these same emotionally gripping, political style narratives, but weren’t afraid to have fun with it. Many characters have overexaggerated anime style animations that bring their characters to life in a way that modern games can’t manage. These games also would routinely have pure laugh out loud moments of levity or ridiculous side quests that felt out of place in the overall plot but ended up being some of the best parts of the game. Modern Final Fantasy takes themselves way too seriously while the older titles could still find the fun even amid saving the world from imminent disaster.

Job Systems

Along with much of the art style specific to the series’ characters, the job system of the older titles was also largely left in the past. While the more modern games make every character a jack-of-all-trades, the older Final Fantasy games gave each member of your party a specific role and without at least one of those in your party, any strategy or chance of winning you once had was on the line. Each member of your team had a special role and while later games would allow you to further customize your party with various abilities or upgrades, traditionally the system was still the same. That is, however, until the modern games streamlined everything, removed any real party system and allowed every member access to virtually every spell or ability, making the rest of your party feel less important to the overall journey.

Turn Based Combat

This choice isn’t going to be for everyone, but turn based games still have their place in RPGs and the absolute GOAT of the game mechanic needs to bring it back. After perfecting the formula with Final Fantasy X, Square attempted to make the series appeal to a wider audience and started moving away from the more traditional turn-based combat before eventually ditching it entirely. However recent hits like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and even Square’s own Octopath Traveler series proves that players still love the old school style of combat if the gameplay is satisfying, with the strategy of battle in the more action heavy and button mashy entries we’ve had in recent years being lost almost entirely. Turn based combat still has its place and with all the improvements to the formula and game mechanics since FFX, the next mainline entry should bring turn based back to its glory days.

Do you prefer the older Final Fantasy games or the modern ones? Share your reasons in the comments.