Playing Final Fantasy 7, 8 and X Twenty Years Later — A Newcomer’s Perspective
When people talk about JRPGs, the Final Fantasy franchise will often emerge in the discussion. For over thirty years, Final Fantasy games have blessed gamers from around the world with fun combat, epic boss battles, amazing music, compelling storylines, and creative worlds. Today, Final Fantasy is still just as mainstream and popular as ever (Final Fantasy 7 Remake was the third best selling game in 2020), and already has a ton of momentum with two highly anticipated titles in development for the PS5.
Prior to 2020, I was a stranger to the magnificence of Final Fantasy as a gamer who never really dabbled with games in the JRPG genre. April 2020 ended up being a turning point for me when I played Final Fantasy 7 Remake, my first Final Fantasy game. Today, I consider FF7 Remake to be the best video game I’ve ever played. I fell in love with FF7 Remake’s rich story and dynamic gameplay, and my positive experience with the game made it immediately obvious to me why Final Fantasy has stood the test of time and amassed such a devout following. FF7 Remake thankfully exposed me to a series of games that I have overlooked for far too long and sparked a personal interest in exploring other Final Fantasy titles to see everything that the series has to offer.
The three titles that initially captured my interest were the original Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, and Final Fantasy X. I think many fans would argue that these games represent some of the best that Final Fantasy has to offer, with all of them being released around the height of Final Fantasy’s popularity after the late 90s. I also gravitated towards these games because I preferred the more modern, technological setting of these games compared to other titles with a more high-fantasy theme. These similarities in presentation also made it easier for me to transition from game to game and makes it easier to compare the games for the purposes of a review like this one.
Last weekend, I finished my playthrough of Final Fantasy X, officially ending my quest to experience these games first hand. I can honestly say that all three games are worth playing, and ones that I can recommend. I do not think that one game is objectively better than the other two, but I do believe that players will naturally resonate with one title more than the others as each game features vastly different gameplay mechanics and narrative approaches. Instead of providing a numerical score for each game like my other reviews, I will compare and contrast all three titles and provide an individual recommendation for each game to help you — hopefully a newcomer to Final Fantasy like I was — decide which games would be the best fit for you.
Narrative
FINAL FANTASY 7
Final Fantasy 7 is revered as a video game classic, and a big reason for that is the game’s engaging and captivating narrative. I think the story of FF7 is so well received because the game probably has the greatest cast of characters in any video game I have played. Nearly every main character in the game has a well-constructed arc, which makes it easy to understand the motivations and actions of each character and empathize with them over the course of the story. The strong character development that permeates through the game allows players to get emotionally invested into the characters, ultimately amplifying the impact of their many triumphs and losses. When I look back on FF7, the parts of the game that I remember the most fondly almost all occurred in Disc 1. This is because Disc 1 epitomized the strengths of the game’s approach to characterization with a string of sections dedicated to the backstories and/or growth of individual characters.
FF7 by far has the best villain out of these three games. Personally, Sephiroth is the only villain from these games that successfully left a lasting impression on me. Sephiroth is regarded as one of the best video game villains of all time, and I mainly attribute this to the consistent foreboding and sinister presence that he casts throughout the entire game. Every time Sephiroth appears, you truly get a sense of how powerful and threatening he is. The inclusion of a genuinely terrifying antagonist greatly enhances FF7 from a narrative perspective by heightening the stakes of the game’s central conflict and ensuring that it can be taken seriously by players.
My biggest qualm with the story of FF7 is the game’s ending, which I found to be a bit inconclusive. It did not sit well with me that I walked out of the game with more questions than answers, particularly around the fate of the game’s cast and why things happened the way they did. I do not think it takes away from the rest of the story though, which was excellent all the way through. I am sure many people admired the ending of the original FF7, but I felt that it could have been improved and I am hoping that some of the ending’s shortcomings are rectified in the final part of FF7 Remake.
FINAL FANTASY 8
Final Fantasy 8’s story contains some elaborate set piece moments, and it is balanced and paced quite well with an excellent mix of action and slower, more thoughtful emotional scenes. I also thought the game concluded with a deeper and more satisfying ending compared to FF7. Although the story of FF8 is not bad, I think it has the weakest story out of the three Final Fantasy games featured in this review.
The biggest issue I have with FF8’s narrative is that the story is centered so much around the main character, Squall Leonhart, to the point where other characters in the game receive hardly any character development in comparison. I thought Square did a great job of fleshing out Squall as the game’s main protagonist by showcasing his insecurities as a recluse who over time learns to be more empathetic, compassionate and appreciative of his friends. I think Squall experiences the most character growth out of any character in these three games and has the most extensive story arc, but sadly he is the only character in FF8 to receive this kind of treatment.
All of the other playable characters in FF8, except for maybe Rinoa, have nearly zero character development over the story. Although these characters have their own quirks and personality traits, there’s nothing particularly compelling that happens to these characters distinctly unrelated from Squall’s story arc. There are a few profound moments highlighting the vulnerabilities of some of these characters, but they end up getting dismissed and forgotten as the story moves forward. To further compound this issue, five of the playable characters have a shared backstory which only diminishes the individuality of the characters even more. Ultimately, I felt that the cast of FF8 apart from Squall and Rinoa were essentially there as a plot device in terms of establishing that Squall always had friends by his side, affirming that he was never alone and had people in his life that he could rely on. Squall’s transformation from start to finish was one of the highlights of FF8, but I just wish that it did not have to come at the expense of making other characters flat and uncompelling.
FINAL FANTASY X
The strongest part of Final Fantasy X’s story is the game’s focus on the relationships and parallels between different characters. As these connections and their importance become clearer to the player, it adds a lot of emotional weight to many scenes that occur later in the game and ends up strengthening and even changing your perception of different characters. On the topic of relationships, the story of FFX also thematically focuses on the implications of loss and self-sacrifice. These are some fairly mature themes for a Final Fantasy game, but the exploration of these themes helped the game leave an unforgettable impression by setting up some incredibly powerful and bittersweet story revelations. The ending of FFX is epitomizes this perfectly, and the ending’s emotional complexity makes it the best out of the three games in my opinion.
The game’s central conflict is something that I have a neutral point of view on. Instead of overcoming a central villain like FF7 or FF8, FFX’s main conflict goes in a different direction by focusing on the idea of questioning and challenging longstanding traditions. Although I think the creative choice that Square made here is fresh and unique, I felt that it ultimately made the antagonists of the game the most unmemorable out of the three games. Given the nature of FFX’s conflict and how the cast was pitted against a force much greater than one individual, I found that the game stumbled at times because there was never a consistent antagonist for the player to rally against. Sometimes, key villains connected to the larger forces at play would pop in and out of the story randomly or get introduced (and subsequently defeated) far too late into the story for their presence to have any meaning or impact.
In complete contrast to FF7, I thought the earlier sections of FFX’s story were somewhat slow and uneventful with a lot of exposition introducing the game’s world, conventions and characters to the player. The game really begins to pick up around halfway through. Upon reaching this point, the game starts to twist your expectations about everything that governs the game’s world, and more time is invested into meaningfully exploring the character relationships I mentioned previously.
Setting
FINAL FANTASY 7
Final Fantasy 7 has a good variety of unique and memorable areas that range from industrialized, steampunk cities to more high fantasy inspired locations. Many key areas in the game are memorable because they are accented by unique music tracks that provide each location with a unique identity. As the story progresses, many locations are revisited with different intense and climactic events occurring in these areas. This ultimately gives these areas more significance within the context of the greater story.
FINAL FANTASY 8
Final Fantasy 8’s world has a similar feel to FF7’s, but I felt FF8 did a much better job of presenting more futuristic areas. Locations like Balamb Garden and Esthar City had imaginative and original designs that helped the game’s world stand out from other games in the franchise.
FF8 also features the best final dungeon by far. With a range of puzzles and secret areas, FF8’s final dungeon has the most distinct atmosphere and it evokes an overpowering feeling of size and scale. Going through this dungeon was an incredibly fitting way to close off the game.
FINAL FANTASY X
Unsurprisingly, Final Fantasy X really took advantage of the PlayStation 2’s newer hardware to deliver more realistic looking and lush environments with vibrant colors and enhanced detail.
Although FFX has some steampunk elements, I considered these elements to be less pronounced compared to FF7 and FF8. This is perhaps the case because a large portion of society in FFX has rejected technology, leading to a larger number of areas with a relatively old-fashioned appearance. (There’s still technology in the game, it just isn’t as futuristic as something you’d find in FF8 for instance.)
I also enjoyed playing through FFX’s environmental puzzles, which appear at regular intervals throughout the game. I found these puzzles to be quite complex, and Square did a great job of building upon them over the game by introducing new mechanics to keep the puzzles fresh and challenging.
One downside of FFX’s world is the absence of an overworld map, which is a departure from FF7 and FF8. The game moves forward in a fully linear fashion until the last section of the game where players are given the opportunity to revisit the game’s locations. FFX’s linearity makes it easy to not get lost or confused on where to go next, but it eliminates the feeling of freedom and exploration that comes from having a more open world. Players also cannot get intimately familiar with the game’s diverse locations since none of the them are visited more than once over the main story.
Gameplay
With regards to gameplay, I will be discussing each game’s approach to combat and character progression. As a primer for those unfamiliar with combat in the Final Fantasy series, there are some basic elements generally characteristic to every Final Fantasy game:
- Many Final Fantasy games embrace turn-based combat elements, where commands from player characters and enemies occur sequentially. There are some differences in how this is implemented in each game. FF7 and FF8 features an Active Time Battle (ATB) system where after a command is made for a character, a cooldown occurs before the next command for that character can be inputted. However, commands must be made quickly as enemies can attack at any time without warning and will not wait for the player to make a command first before retaliating. FFX features an entirely different system, which I will explain further in the review.
- Player commands include attacking and inflicting status effects on enemies using physical attacks or offensive magic, and using defensive magic, items and other abilities to heal and improve character stats.
- Characters can equip different weapons and armor with unique offensive and defensive properties.
- Characters can summon mythical beasts to assist them in battle with strong attacks — they are called Summons in FF7, Guardian Forces in FF8 and Aeons in FFX.
- Upon meeting certain requirements such as taking enough damage, characters can unleash an incredibly powerful attack or ability called a Limit Break (or Overdrive in FFX).
FINAL FANTASY 7
Final Fantasy 7’s straightforward combat makes the game incredibly friendly to Final Fantasy and JRPG newcomers.
FF7 features the Materia system. Materia are items that can be equipped to armor and weapons to grant characters access to certain abilities (like the ability to cast different spells, access Summons, etc.) and boost stats. The Materia system is incredibly simple to understand, but it adds a surprising amount of strategic depth to the FF7’s overall gameplay. Throughout the game, players are challenged to constantly switch up the combinations of Materia that their characters are using in response to different situations and boss encounters. I really commend Square for making the Materia system accessible for a more casual audience, but still ensuring that customization encourages players to experiment and test out different battle strategies.
Overall, I found that FF7 had the most reasonable grind out of the three games. The best items are reasonably easy to acquire (although it may be hard to figure out how to acquire these items without a walkthrough), and I did not have to spend too much time level grinding to keep up with increasingly stronger enemies and bosses.
One con about the combat in FF7 is that a few characters are genuinely not worth using or must be built a certain way in order to be useful in battle. It is disappointing how some characters outclass and overshadow others, but I am impressed so far with how Square Enix has addressed this issue in FF7 Remake. This issue is also a concern in FF8, but to a much lesser extent as the game’s systems do a better job at allowing the player to counteract the deficiencies of weaker characters to make them more playable.
FINAL FANTASY 8
Despite my reservations about Final Fantasy 8’s story, I have a resoundingly positive opinion about FF8’s gameplay. I consider it to be the most memorable and gratifying part of FF8 for me, which is a surprisingly controversial opinion since FF8’s gameplay even to this day is extremely divisive within the Final Fantasy community.
FF8’s customization and progression, in contrast to FF7, is VERY complicated. However, I feel that the complexity of the system is the game’s greatest strength and biggest differentiator. FF8 features the Junction system, where players “junction” or equip magic to different character stats (e.g. Strength, HP) to boost them up. Magic can also be junctioned to weapons and armor to add effects and resistances. Junctioning rarer and more powerful magic will increase your stats more, and certain magic are better suited for some stats versus others (e.g. healing magic should be junctioned to HP, offensive magic to offensive stats like Strength). Luckily, there are some helpful features in FF8 that automatically junction the magic in your inventory to optimize your stats, making the customization process a lot less cumbersome and painstaking.
Acquiring the strongest magic is essentially the only way to improve character stats, ultimately replacing the traditional method of leveling up through enemy encounters. In fact, grinding battles in the traditional fashion is discouraged in FF8, as almost all enemies will scale to your level. The grind in FF8 comes from understanding what magic is the best to junction to your characters, determining which stat each magic is the most suited for, and how to acquire enough inventory of the magic — either through refining items into magic, or “drawing” the magic from enemies — to fully boost the stat. The unique nature of this grind to strengthen your character was my favorite aspect of FF8 because it really challenged me to study and learn the inner workings of the game. Understanding the strategies involved in stat-maxing for FF8 is honestly an art and skill in and of itself. The grind to get the best magic is also intensely rewarding and satisfying, as the feeling and power trip of playing with a statistically optimized character is nothing short of amazing.
The biggest downside of the Junction system is that it discourages players from using magic in battle, as depleting your inventory of magic means that there is less stock available to Junction to stats and equipment. It is a shame that the Junction system unintentionally encourages players to avoid interacting with essentially half of the game’s battle system. The optimal way to battle in FF8 involves repeated mashing of the attack command and spamming Limit Breaks, which can get quite dull. Additionally, acquiring magic can be monotonous at times. Sometimes, the most straightforward way to acquire a particular magic is to just sit in a battle for 15–20 minutes and repeatedly draw it until your stock is full.
FINAL FANTASY X
Final Fantasy X features an entirely different battle and progression system that overlaps minimally with the gameplay mechanics embraced in FF7 and FF8. There are pros and cons with FFX’s gameplay, but I personally found it refreshing given how much it diverged from what I was accustomed to.
FFX does not use the ATB combat system seen in FF7 and FF8, and instead leverages a fully turn-based battle system where characters and enemies issue commands according to a fixed, predetermined sequence. Players have all the time in the world to decide what their commands will be, which slows the combat down quite a bit and encourages more critical planning and reflection in battle. In addition, players are also able to switch characters mid-battle, which deviates from FF7 and FF8 where you conduct each battle with a fixed party of three that cannot be shifted. The implementation of this mechanic adds a new branch of strategy to the game’s combat by granting players the freedom to tap into every character’s unique strengths during a single fight and uncover different team synergies.
The combat system described above functions well in-game because the progression system in FFX — the Sphere Grid — forces characters into distinct, specialized roles throughout most of the game. The Sphere Grid is essentially a large grid with different upgrade nodes that increase stats and unlock abilities. Each character starts out on a different section of the grid, and defeating enemies earn characters AP which is used to move along the grid. For most of the game, characters are stuck on their own fixed progression track and other characters are unable to unlock abilities outside of their own tracks. This design choice is what specializes each character’s combat abilities in FFX. For instance, there is only one character in the game, Yuna, who can access white magic spells (healing, defense and status recovery). This drastically influences how the player ends up using Yuna in battle. Although the Sphere Grid limits the amount of player freedom when it comes to customizing each character’s build, it ultimately makes each character useful in different situations and challenges the player to figure out the best times to bring each character into combat to exploit their unique abilities. I felt compelled to use each character in battle in FFX, which also led to me using a much greater diversity of combat skills and abilities compared to FF7 and FF8.
One downside with character progression in FFX is that I feel level grinding becomes absolutely necessary in later stages of the game to keep up with enemies and bosses that become increasingly more challenging. I committed more time towards grinding in FFX compared to FF7 and FF8, to unlock critical abilities located at the latter halves of each character’s grid paths. I do not think that it is possible to build a party strong enough to beat FFX by playing through normally without any deliberate grinding. This may be frustrating for more casual players who just want to experience the story. However, I can see the appeal of FFX’s difficulty for players looking for a tough challenge and I personally found FFX’s bosses much more gratifying to beat given how much harder I found them compared to FF7 and FF8.
To finish off, I have two other criticisms about FFX’s combat that I wish to address:
- The game had a weapon and armor customization system that was horrendous. The customization UI was terrible, it was hard to gather enough resources to acquire the best mods and I found that most mods did not really make that much of a difference in battle. I rarely customized my weapons and armor, only occasionally adding mods in response to some difficult fights in the game.
- The Aeons (Summons) in FFX are ridiculously OP, and I felt that using them took away the challenge of battles to the point where I basically stopped using them. I would encourage players to try not rely on them (which is a shame considering that it is an entire battle mechanic), but I won’t disagree with the fact casual players may benefit from using Aeons to better manage the difficulty of the game.
Other Considerations
Final Fantasy X easily has the most side content out of the three games featured in this review. For example, there are twelve optional super-bosses in FFX, which is more than double the number of super-bosses in FF7 and FF8 combined. There are also many extensive side quests like capturing fiends across different areas of the game for the Monster Arena and obtaining the Ultimate Weapons for each character, which is much more time-intensive than FF7 and FF8. FFX has the most replayability out of the three games, but a lot of the major side content requires significant grinding to complete. Final Fantasy X is the best game for completionists, and getting 100% completion could easily take over 130 hours. On the topic of side content, I also have to shout out the Triple Triad card game in FF8, which is one of the most fun aspects of FF8 and probably the best minigame I have played in a video game period.
Final Fantasy games are known for having amazing music thanks to the creative genius of the series’ longstanding composer Nobuo Uematsu, and it is no surprise that the soundtracks of all three games are phenomenal. With these games sharing the same composer, there are a lot of similarities with the music in each game. The immense popularity of Final Fantasy 7 has made the game’s soundtrack iconic. In turn, this has sadly made the soundtracks of FF8 and FFX a bit more underrated in comparison. I do not think I can say that one game has a better soundtrack than the other, with each game having its own unique selection of standout tracks. I would recommend listening to all the soundtracks, especially the soundtracks of FF8 and FFX given that they generally garner less attention overall.
Lastly, the graphics of Final Fantasy 7 have not aged well in my opinion. I just could not take FF7 seriously with the blocky Chibi character models that were used, and I downloaded PC mods to enhance the game’s graphics. (Here’s a great video that I followed to get my mods running) Although it was initially released on the same console as FF7, Final Fantasy 8 generally looks much better with more realistic 3D cutscenes and overworld assets. FF8 also received a remaster in 2019 which improved the graphical fidelity of many aspects of the game like menus and character sprites. The graphical updates FF7 received when it was released on more modern consoles were sadly not as significant. For players who care about graphics, playing FF7 on PC with the right mods will provide the most ideal gameplay experience.
Recommendations — Which Game is Right for You?
You honestly cannot go wrong with any game, but each game has its own unique merits which will appeal more to certain types of players.
FINAL FANTASY 7
Final Fantasy 7 is perfect for JRPG beginners, newcomers to the Final Fantasy series and players looking to explore a video game classic. FF7 is the most famous Final Fantasy game, and likely what fans think of first when asked about the franchise. With a memorable cast of characters, FF7’s story is highly engrossing and easily one of the best ones ever written for a video game.
From a gameplay perspective, FF7’s straightforward combat system allows it to accommodate the widest range of gamers overall, including those with no experience playing RPG-style games.
The game’s graphics have aged considerably, and some players — such as myself — may find the experience uncomfortable without downloading and installing graphical mods.
FINAL FANTASY 8
Final Fantasy 8 is ideal for a more experienced RPG player interested in fully learning and exploring every facet of a complex, multidimensional gameplay system. There are so many pieces within FF8’s Junction system to tinker around with, and players will have a blast figuring out how these pieces fit together and how to take full advantage of the system to get through the game.
FF8 has a creative and entertaining story. Narratively, it does not deliver the same level of impact as FF7 or FFX, but there are plenty of exciting and moving moments that will keep you on the edge of your seat wanting more. The one thing that the story does exceptionally well is how it handles its main character, Squall Leonhart. He has the most comprehensive story arc out of any character in these three games in my opinion, and Squall’s growth and transformation in game will certainly resonate with some gamers eager to play a game with a strong main protagonist. However, I would argue that FF8 has a more plot-driven (as opposed to character-driven) story despite the amount of character development Squall receives in game. The other characters in FFX receive very minimal development in comparison, which is important to keep in mind.
All in all, FF8 is a unique and somewhat unconventional entry in the Final Fantasy library, and it might not be the best choice to play first. It is easy to get into after playing another Final Fantasy title beforehand, and doing so will really allow players to appreciate the differences and innovation that FF8 brings to the series.
FINAL FANTASY X
Final Fantasy X is the most appropriate for players looking for something a bit closer to the modern third-person video games that have defined the more recent generation of gaming. Featuring fantastic voice acting that elevates the game’s emotionally powerful story and a more realistic graphical presentation, FFX (especially the HD remaster) has adapted much better to the standards of modern video games compared to FF7 and FF8.
The fully turn-based combat system of FFX will appeal to RPG players who are fans of other series with similar combat mechanics, or prefer combat with a slower pace that offers more time to think and strategize.
FFX will also be the most engaging game for completionists motivated to finish everything a game has to offer, with the game containing hours of side content outside of the main story. However, the need to level grind in FFX may turn off some players who are purely interested in playing through the story without hitting any roadblocks.
If you have made it this far, the only thing left for you to do now is to finally start exploring the wonderful world of Final Fantasy. In the future, you will look back at these games and I assure that you will be glad you took the time to play them.
