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			[an error occurred while processing this directive]		Final Fantasy Articles Final Fantasy: Love it or loathe it - [ Author: Zell ] It's fair to say that the Final Fantasy series is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, gaming series' in history .It has incredible story lines, ground - breaking graphics in each instalment, it has old men called Cid and the good old Chocobos. But it's also fair to say that for some people just the mention of the words 'final' and 'fantasy' conjures up visions of a gaming experience akin to driving toothpicks under the fingernails. Menu-driven combat, twee fantasy environments and role-playing style juggling of characters' statistics are never going to sit well with certain elements of the gaming public .In fact, not only was FF7 voted the game of the year in England, it was also the most returned game in history. Here I'm going to try and understand why the Final Fantasy series divides the gaming community like it does. Love it No one can deny that the Final Fantasy series is, without a doubt, the most visually stunning gaming series ever made. On every console it has appeared it has pushed back the boundaries of the system. They are beautifully, breathtakingly, overwhelmingly, tear-inducingly gorgeous in fact. Ok, so yes I'm getting ahead of myself - we always knew that the Final Fantasies looked great. It's just that it's hard not to get swept up by it's optical splendour even before you come close to getting your grubby mitts anywhere near a joypad. So now that I've got over my orgasmic outburst over the incredible graphics, what else is so great about this series? Well, for one, the characters. In every instalment of the series the characters have an even more in-depth history. They are not normal gaming characters. You are given so much detail about them that by the end of the first two hours of play you feel like you know the characters personally. When a character dies at some point in the story (the most well known of which is Aeries , or Aerith in Japan and areas around there, from FF7) you actually feel a sting inside of you. There is also always someone in the games that you can relate to (I can relate to Zell in case you hadn't guessed). Someone that you can really understand and see where they are coming from. But possibly the main thing that attracts you to the series is the attractive storylines. The sheer power of the storylines suck you in completely. It is not uncommon to play for 15 minutes or more, only to realise your hands have barely touched the joypad, but you are in such a slack-jawed state of amazement about the story that you don't really mind. You are completely involved in the story and will really hate having to save and turn off for a while (for whatever reason,normally because you have lost 4 days worth of sleep or it's made your relationship crumble because you've been paying more attention to the game then you have your lover) because you just can't wait to see whats going to happen next. So what isn't there to like? Let's try and find out. Loathe it If you had never played a Final Fantasy game before and had just read the first part of this article, you would be forgiven for thinking there isn't possibly anything not to like. But there is many a person who would disagree with that. When FF7 first came out here in the U.K, thousands of people returned it to the shops in disgust after five minutes 'play'. They found the characters uninteresting, they thought the actual playing graphics were rubbish and that (if they actually got to the end of the game) that the ending was a real anti-climax, and the same goes for all the other games in the series. The biggest reason that people don't like the Final Fantasies is that they find them incredibly slow. They just can't sit and watch them talk for hours on end. They didn't depart with a hard earned forty quid to sit and read for ages. They just find them mind numbingly benile. If they wanted to do that they would have gone to the library. Personally I just think that is impatience. If you play a game for five minutes and return it, it shows that you never really planned to play the game in the first place. When I play a game I try and get my moneys worth and play it to the death. Even if it is rubbish. But the most annoying thing for me about the people that don't like the games is this: they say that they don't like the fact that the characters are so cartoony and that they don't have mouths or noses in FF7. But then when FF8 came out people complained that the characters were too realistic and that gaming characters shouldn't be so realistic. And too a point I agree with them. I didn't like the cartoony characters so when FF8 was released I was double pleased but these people weren't. Anyway best leave that topic before I get too angry. The final reason that people don't like the series is because they say that Square relies too much on the fabulous graphics. They say that they spend so much time worrying about the graphics that it lets the game play down. And for FF9 I agree with them. But they cannot say that about any of the other Final Fantasies which all have suburb graphics and stories. Conclusion So have we got any closer to working out why this series splits the gaming world like it those? I think that in the end I think that it is down to opinion. As the title of the article says, You either love it or loathe it. « Back [an error occurred while processing this directive]