Get Played - Tiers of the Kingdom: Final Fantasy

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Heather, Nick and Matt talk first impressions of Final Fantasy XVI, then they make a tier list of all the main entries in the Final Fantasy Franchise! This month's We Play, You Play: Final Fantasy XVI! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd on patreon.com/getplayed or on Stitcher Premium. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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You know, once in a while when we are doing the show, we like to onboard new fans or new listeners and tell you a little bit about how the show works and what we do. So my name is Heather Ann Campbell. I'm one of our three hosts. Our other host here is... This is Matt Apodaca. I also produce the show and edit the show myself. And, you know, I'm just here to make sure that everything's, you know, going as planned.

You know, I keep the train on the tracks, as they say. Yeah. You have a third host here, and I don't know why he's not piping in. Please say hello to Nick Weiger. I mean, Nick, you should... Guys, my active time battle gauge isn't full yet. It's going really slow. I'm not allowed to talk yet.

Okay. You guys could just vamp until my gauge fills up. Sure. Okay, great. Yeah, because we have a turn-based conversation system where you know our initiative governs how fast our agility how fast our mind just this is the first i'm hearing of this i thought we just were riffing this whole time i wasn't even aware of having an active time conversation system well it's not like like again you know i'm not supposed

to be talking right now so i don't want to get in trouble but it's like in trouble it's trouble well yeah i mean it's it's it's not like it's not like we just like you know because because turns can be kind of staggered because we all have different gauges filling at different rates so like it's just just whatever like my gauge my gauge is filling up i'll be able to talk to nick have you been have you been monitoring all of our conversations for years and waiting for your turn? Yeah, it's extremely stressful. Honestly, it's hard to just kind of stay in the moment because I'm just watching bars fill up at all times. Yours is flying, by the way.

Because I don't even know that it exists. Like, I feel like this is something that's exclusive to you. It's starting to make sense a little bit, though, because I feel like sometimes, like, when one of us is going off, Nick is always saying that we're using our limit break. And I'm like, that's like, what are you talking about? But now it sort of makes sense. Yeah, I mean, did you both slot in, like, haste material or something? Like, what the fuck's going on? You're fucking so fucking fast.

No, I'm not slotting in anything. I'm just talking like a human fucking person. Nick, what else in your life functions on an active time system? Like meal breaks. That makes sense. Exercise, sleep, you know, reading. If I want to turn the page of my book, gauge has got to get all the way full. You can't turn a page until your gauge is full? Yeah, if I read it too fast, I'm like,

ah, I just got to wait here for a second. This thing to spit up. It's tough. It's our life. But, you know, things are good. good again i shouldn't be talking right now i feel like if this is somebody's first episode of the show they're baffled one more logistics question here nick do you think a limit break is like a joke um yeah i mean kind of yeah you know you up, you have your big moment where everyone reacts to it. So you then have never used a limit break?

Okay. The gauge is full. Hi, I'm Nick Liger. We cast Thundaga and guzzle high potions as we rank Final Fantasy games. This week in Tears of the Kingdom, Final Fantasy on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. Oh, you know that's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Abadaka.

Oh, hello, everyone. Oh. Oh, hello, everyone. And welcome back to the premier video game podcast where, you know, we do what we want. We're sassy. We do whatever the fuck we want. This show is unfiltered and uncensored. And you can't cancel it. No.

Well. I mean, you could. So please. You could cancel. Honestly. Don't. Stitcher may be canceling it. Yeah.

Who knows what they're going to do. Yeah. We're recording this and it might not come out. That's not true. No, I don't want to cause any alarm for anybody. They're mad scientists over at Stitcher HQ. Who knows what they're going to cook up in that lab. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's always a bright idea. You know, it's, you know, how about this? How about this? We just make it all go away. Wait, is this a risk? Because if this is a thing that's a real risk, then I'm going to shut my laptop and go out and have a fucking beer. And we should reiterate to people who maybe missed the recent episodes, you can have a beer and that's not an insane thing to do because it is evening your time.

You're over in Amsterdam. Yeah. Well, these, I mean, if you're, they could have assumed that. Whenever they're listening to this, it might not be, it could be an appropriate time

to have a beer anyway. Yes, I am in Amsterdam here on the international push of Get Played Pod where I've got a couple of great leads. Can't wait to explore them. I have a question. Maybe set up a couple of great leads. Can't wait to explore them. I have a question.

Huh, what? Me and Nick, we're on PT Pacific Time. That's right. If you were on the East Coast, you'd be on ET. Yeah. What is yours? It's not GMT, is it? It's not Greenwich Mean Time.

I'm GMT plus one. Oh, GMT plus. You got the GMT plus, baby. I think it's I think it's Central European time. Oh, maybe I'm not going to remember. So I don't know why I asked, but I'm an hour ahead of London. So you're like, oh, what time is it in London? I'm an hour before that. I'm racing into tomorrow faster than anybody except, I think, Japan.

Wow. Hey, that's not nothing. That's pretty good. Yeah. Matt, I just realized we are in PT. Nick, don't even say that. I'm just saying. Have you looked behind you recently?

Oh, God. Wait, you guys, you've seen my new place, right? It's just this hallway? Yeah, it's kind of hard. I kind of got lost in there. Yeah. I can't find my way out. Yeah, the bathroom is fucked up.

Oh, so much to discuss this week. We're talking PT. So much to talk about. And I should say, on that note, because we go back and forth. We have our little group chat, and we try to decide how we're going to book out the show. Yeah. And one thing we have – look, I feel like I've been beating this drum. We've been talking a little bit about just internally, like we don't want to just set the expectation

that whatever big new AAA release that comes out each month, we are going to dedicate an episode to it. Right. However, the way this year has worked out, it kind of is just sort of like we're kind of in that rhythm. So we are going to do a We Play, You Play of Final Fantasy 16 because we're all playing it.

That will be coming Monday, July 31st. So hopefully if you're listening along, you'll have enough time to get through a lot of the game by then. And you'll hear our extensive thoughts in a few weeks. I also know that a lot of listeners may be frustrated with us

doing a console exclusive video game for our right we play you play um you know it's the it's the first final fantasy to come out exclusively on playstation 5 it's also the biggest selling playstation 5 game so far i think i think really yeah it's also as of right now one of the only playstation 5 exclusives and so for that we're sorry but it is it's a mainline final fantasy game and what do you want us to do not play it we played zelda nobody was like i can't play zelda on the xbox i feel like that's different somehow only because like grandmas have switches you know what i mean like everybody's got everybody's got a switch it's true um some grandmas have playstation fives so that's true playstation ones that's true too yeah and that's we salute them here on this show we this show's for the grandmas we love the grandmas if you're a grandma and you listen to this show let us know like honestly we want to know i had i my grandparents first off my grandma and grandpa i mentioned before they had

a god bless them had a on my dad's side had an atari 2600 yeah at their house that like the kids could play so it was like hey there's like it's whatever it versus what i was used to it kind of sucked but it was just like video games were there. Yeah, not nothing. And then my grandfather on my mom's side and my grandpa was a big computer enthusiast. He worked for JPL back in the day. And like, there's like photographs of him with like those old school, like room size computers.

Like that was the stuff he used to work on. Wow. And, but he always like had a had a had a pc capable of playing games and he would just have games installed for the kids to play so i'd go up there and play like hexen or whatever or uh or secret of monkey island that's how i got introduced to that game so it's just some grandparents are like hey we're gonna encourage a kid's habit or a kid's hobby you're were playing real-life war games too, right? Yeah, I inadvertently got us into a Balkan crisis.

I didn't realize that thing was wired to fucking NORAD. I want to say, because you were saying, we're not always going to do big releases or whatever. It just so happens that this year in particular is like a banner year for video games. Like maybe one of the great years in the last decade. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it's tricky. Man, yeah, again, I would like to have time to cover something classic or something smaller, something indie.

We'll do that next month. That's the gameplay guarantee. We're going to mix it up. We're going to mix it up next month. And something you can play on PC and something you can play on other platforms. You've heard it here first. We're going to play Pole Position for the Atari. Yeah, yeah.

We're going to play something unfun. I remember Pole Position being okay. Yeah, I think my mom likes Pole Position. All right, so we talk about some video games. Not just video games, not just like the idea of talking about video games, but to actually talk about video games. I think people like us talking about the idea of it. The concept of video games?

About scheduling. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I'll put this question to the panel. What are you playing? Well, I kind of, I feel like my what am i playing segment might merge a little bit with um world warrior because like did you made a sting for that apodoc i heard the sting yeah i did great

like high quality alex alex did a bulk of it i'd sort of put it in order and was like this is the vibe and alex executed it so that's our engineer it in order and was like, this is the vibe. And Alex executed it. It's hard for me to talk about gaming without talking about context. Okay, can I do this then? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Can we start the discussion here? Because I know we're going to talk about it in depth,

but we can get early impressions. Should we just talk about Final Fantasy XVI a little bit? A little bit. We've all played it. Yes. Alright, good. Let. All right, great. Well, let's start there, because I've played slash watched the first two hours. I finally got back into town, and I played a little bit last night.

That said, I am really enjoying it so far. I should say that on my morning walk, I listened to the TripleClick episode about Final Fantasy XVI, which is a great pod. Check it out. that like on my morning walk, I listened to the triple click episode about Final Fantasy 16. So I'm trying a lot to, which is a great pod, check it out. Yes. But I'm trying not to let their thoughts affect mine too much.

Based off of my experience, things I really like, active time lower system, which is you can get, you know, if you've played the game, you know what this is, but it's basically at any time you can pause any game action that's going on,

and it essentially brings up like a Microsoft Encarta that just has like a visual representation of all these concepts, and you can mouse over them and click them, and it will give you an explanation of what's going on. So like the name of a kingdom, the name of a character. Mouse over? What's that? Mouse over?

Whatever. Like, what's the term for moving a cursor over something with an analog stick? Nick's playing with a mouse and keyboard. Highlight. Fine. You can highlight it. It's sort of like on if you watch anything ever on Amazon Prime. Hmm. It has like that like parents mode where if you pause it, it tells you who's in the scene and where you know them from.

Yeah. Like, okay, good. Yeah. Oh, that's that guy from that thing. Yeah. There's also a new thing because I heard about this with Amazon and I was like, I have to see this in person. I have to see it. What's their new one?

Citadel, right? Their big, high-budget, AAA fucking thing. If you pull up at the bottom of the screen more info, it will also let you buy the outfits you see on screen. Is that true?

Yeah. I had to see it in person. I was like, holy shit, is this real? And I went and watched Citadel and during the first scene, I pulled up the bottom i had i was like holy shit is this real and i went and watched citadel and like during the first scene i pulled up the bottom menu and it was like shop the dress and i was like fuck wow i can't wait to dress like the amazon hit citadel i wrote on an amazon prime years ago that that did it earlier this morning years ago and this was a that it was heather like built around what you just said like the

idea wasn't just that it was going to be i'll talk about it very circuitously but it was was essentially going to function as an infomercial for like a comedy, but also an infomercial for products you could buy. And it was like the most dystopian thing I've ever had any sort of hand in. And I was like, all right, sure. But it would be, you know, like we'd like there'd be a character would be, you know, whatever, drinking a coconut water in the screen, and it would have an integration for you to buy that coconut water.

It was like that level of like, like here's a, like it's, this is just an ad that's disguised as entertainment. I was thinking it was maybe going to be like all like Amazon basic stuff. So it's like stuff that you like could use, but it's like a shittier version of it. Well, there was shit like that too.

There was like also like, you know, whatever you could like, Hey, I can order this, this extension cord or, or what have you. Very strange.

That's a really funny. Buy their underwear. Like, hi, I can order this extension cord or what have you. Very strange. That's a really funny. Buy their underwear. Like, hi, I don't even see it. Product placement is to like walk through a set designed thing and be like, actually, we're going to bring this fan into the middle of the room and use a yellow extension cord and be like, well, but I don't want that. No, no, we're going to do that so that they could buy the extension cord. Yeah.

For the fan? Yeah. Why not just have them buy the fan? Both. Both are for sale. They're both up for sale. And then also we're going to add a line where you say like, hey, don't trip over that extension cord.

Like, don't worry, it's yellow. I'm not going to miss it. This person keeps their toothbrushes in the dining room, on the dining room table. Really? That's weird. All right. Yeah, all right.

They need to be able to see them at all times. A lot of the action takes place in the dining room and we got to know if they brush their teeth. Look, we could be executives if we wanted to be.

It's not hard. No, we can do it. We can be executives, we can be cops, we can do anything. If I was an executive, I would ruin the industry within six months

it wouldn't be hard it would be the easiest thing to do like if you walk if you walked in with absolute confidence and yet also had the creativity of a writer you could like fucking destroy the system from the inside with like one bad idea like Like that's really all it would take is like one bad idea. One excellent bad idea. Like that Sony idea where you have to stand up and shout the name of the product before the commercial can end. Oh yeah. Like that was some,

that's some writer who has been cornered by the tech division and they're like, I don't know, maybe you have to, you got to stand up and shout McDonald's. If you're, if listener, if you don't know

what we're talking about, there's a Sony, a famous Sony patent, which is for a commercial detection apparatus for your television

where you can skip a commercial by shouting the name of the product at the television. Maybe they patented it so nobody would ever do it. An altruistic patent. Yeah, just kind of sitting on it.

Yeah, that'd be good. I'd be all in on Sony then. I first gave AG1 a try because I was tired of taking so many supplements every day and wanted a single solution that supports my entire body by filling in nutrient gaps daily. I need energy. I wanted to simplify my morning routine with easy habits. Since drinking AG1, I've felt energized, strong, and nourished. Not only does AG1 deliver my daily dose of vitamins, minerals, pre- and probiotics, and more,

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week. Plus, you can pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime. We've done the math. Factor is less expensive than takeout, and every meal is dietitian approved to be nutritious and delicious. What are you waiting for? Head to factorme Nick. No, please. I want to talk a little about, unless you were going to keep going, Nick. No, please. I want to hear your thoughts. So my main thoughts are that the combos, so it's a great, great combat system. So far.

Super, super enjoyable. The layout in any of the layouts, like if you switch between controller schemes and you play any of these layouts there are some baffling choices that prevent the execution of combos that are built into the system like there's a lot of stuff where you have to be charging one button and like rapidly tapping another button in order to set up a specific chain but both of those buttons in the default controller setting are face buttons so unless you're holding the controller in your left hand and tapping with right with your like index and middle finger it's kind of impossible to execute those combos.

But if you switch it so that you can charge those magic spells while also doing the combo systems, then your icons are rotated to a different place. And it's just a very strange... It feels like an excellent combat system, which for reasons I cannot fathom, have not properly been tested. It's like if you had Street Fighter VI

and light and medium punch were on, in their standard location, on the face of your joystick, and then their standard location on the face of your joystick. And then heavy punch was to the left of the joystick, like on the other side of your. So like in order to execute certain moves, you'd have to switch hands to press heavier, heavy punch or heavy kick. So that's that's my only complaint about what has been a very delicious game that. That's my only complaint about what has been a very delicious game. That, well, speaking of delicious, that and the fact that the food in Final Fantasy XV is so much more beautiful than the food in Final Fantasy XVI.

Take a step backwards. I think that I had the same issue with just the way the controller is mapped out. I just kind of accepted like, okay, I'll get used to whatever the default is this is this is a larger issue i have with they they just got to have like some sort of conference and just the un maybe has to get involved and decree that there has that buttons just have to correspond to a certain function across different character action games because it's just too much to like that to me the most disorienting thing is that r1 is essentially your dodge and that is really fun when you get a perfect dodge and then you can counter that's a super satisfying like like rhythm to the game i love that but it just feels unnatural

to use for me i've having gotten so used to where dodge roll is on other games to be like be using r1 to dodge and then like square to counter well your second controller mapping resets dodge specifically to circle which is where it is in like dark souls and stuff yeah maybe i'll try that then and the problem with that is that then your your action i think is triggers so in order to charge your, in order to charge magic, you have to be holding down the second trigger, what L2 or R2 in order to, like,

I wish you could just, I wish that you, the player could create a, a control scheme that then was mapped on all games for you. Like, oh, this is how i play this is part of my online identity it's part of my so that for example the fortnite controls which i have become you know it's now part of my blood yeah i could just map those on everything and like weapon switching if if it exists would always be in the same place jump always in the same place dash right always always be you know push in the joystick halo style

as opposed to in breath of the wild where you gotta like fucking like move your thumb up to the top of the controller in order to dash maybe that's the ultimate solution. Some sort of profile system where just like when you log into your to your console, it just loads your profile of how you control games and then you can just import that in anything or just applied by default. That might be the solution. It could be applied by default. And if the game had specific actions that weren't universal, then it would give you the option of where to place those around your default control scheme. Because I always want jump to be X.

I don't want it anywhere else on the controller. I pretty much agree with that. The other thing that I have, and I run into this a lot when flipping between like Switch and PlayStation, is I got so used to confirm being where circle is at AKA aka which now i gotta look at my fucking switch controller is that the a button that's the a button on switch right yeah

and and sony at a certain point decided that that should be on x which for me is unintuitive in a couple of ways one it's just like different than than what I get used to. But two, it's, like, X and circle have, like, circle has, like, an approve connotation to it. And X has, like, a no, right? Yeah. So it's, like, from a symbology standpoint, it, like, confuses me. So, yeah, I wish I could just set that shit. Whatever. Never going to happen.

No. We're still going to be having this issue in 2035 uh yeah right on the heels of uh playstation 7 um i will we be in seven by then uh it'll be it'll be in six i was reading recently that uh they're predicting that the next cycle will be 2028 uh so still still a ways to go a longer i think a longer console cycle than previous. Yeah. That's in part because they couldn't get the fucking systems. Yeah.

Cause nobody has them three years in. That's true. I, I've been playing this and something has happened to me. I, you're glowing. I, oh my,

oh my God. Are you a dominant I'm a dominant yeah I'm branded I love all the I love all the stupid bullshit in this game like that like the lore stuff

oh my god I love it it's delicious people are comparing it to Kingdom Hearts stuff. And I'm like, oh my god, Alpidaka must be just in his juice. Well, the combat is also similar. Like that too. And there's like, I've had to, I've messed with it. I don't even know if I have a complaint necessarily.

I found the game to be pretty easy so far. And I know that there are charms or rings that you can wear that sort of eliminate some of the things you were speaking of like there's a thing that you can wear that makes all combos and

other like actions like if you want to like activate the dog Torgl or something. Also, Torgl. Turgl from Jedi Survivor. Let's talk about it. Those names are pretty similar,

if you ask me. Anyway, that's the end of the question. That's the new name. That's the new name of this year. But yeah, there's a thing you can wear that if you're wearing it all the combo actions and stuff are assigned to just the attack button and so you just you just you could just mash square the whole time and activate your other abilities and stuff or send torgal and like

that i was like this is cool i'd rather be sort of just doing it myself so i took that one off and i took there's a couple other like easy mode rings that you can uh wear i was like i'm just gonna take this off i've died one time in 20 hours there's 20 hours wow i played 20 hours already i just got i got to a i don't want to say where i got to um but there's a new game plus that I hear is a real royal good time. Yeah, because this, I mean, I know that this is very different than other Final Fantasy games. I've not played very many, but I'm currently Final Fantasy pilled. Just to expand into what else I'm playing.

I got the Pixel remaster on Switch. Nice. And I was worried that, I had heard that they fixed a couple of things about it. You know, like the font, namely, was like the main thing that people were not super happy with. I don't have a problem with this font now. Because you have the option of restoring the old font and, like, the old, like, scanline, like, screen. Sure. And I activated those.

And let me tell you something. They look like dog shit. They look so bad. Like, it doesn't look good on on the oled it's just a little too um a little too old for such a nice uh screen uh so i the hd graphics and the uh hd graphics they're not even that um they're just a little cleaner i guess uh and then the the updated font that is more similar to the old font than it is uh the original new font that they they picked um is good is good enough and look

it's i'm playing final fantasy 3 and about halfway through that one holy shit simultaneously i'm playing two yeah yeah i'm uh final fantasy 16 is my daytime game and final fantasy 3 is my nighttime game because it's a lot less to do it's a you know the whole world's on a single map you're just sort of you can right you can walk you could walk around the entire map in a single go um and in like a minute basically you, you just go around it. And there's some quality of life things in there that they've added that I'm particularly enjoying. I'm not trying to have a hard time with this one. So there's boosts that you can add.

So you can get four times the amount of EXP and gil per fight. So I just have that on because i'm just trying to i'm just trying to fly through these fuckers i think that's like i think that's the way to experience yeah because otherwise it just gets so tedious grinding all those random encounters exactly and i i'm having a blast i love my team right now this one introduces the job system so you can change jobs but i haven't changed jobs because i haven't felt the need to because everybody's doing excellent work on my team. My monk in particular is wrecking house.

He's incredible. But I'm playing that and I mentioned Jedi Survivor a little bit ago and I did finish it and I gotta say that I think when it gets to the end of the year and game of the year discussions are being had, I think when it gets to the end of the year and game of the year discussions are being had,

I think it's a contender. And I think it won't, it obviously, it's not going to win. But I don't want it to be left out of that conversation. I think it's an incredible, incredible video game. Wow. And they, it's iterative of the, you know, of the first one, not unlike Tears of the Kingdom to Breath of the Wild.

But the combat, late game, it becomes like such, it becomes a different game. Once you have all the stances and all these like abilities unlocked, it is like, it's like, I don't know. There's like, it's incredible. This year is nuts for video games they really i can't believe what they pulled off what respawn did with um with jedi survivor 2 it's unreal and the story is the jedi the jedi games are some of the best star wars stories in star

wars they're fucking great really really well. Well acted. The stakes are incredible. I hats off to them. They fucking crushed it with that one. Wow. I'm impressed with your enthusiasm. And it makes me wish that I did not bring. I brought it. I bought a physical copy of that game and I didn't bring it with me.

And I wish I had. I wish I had. I wish I had. You gotta get, once you get, I know you're gonna love it. Once you get the fucking Kylo Ren stance you're just fucking people up with that. It's heavy and it takes it has a rhythm to it because you can't just

swing it at all times. It's like a slow sort of swing. Man. It's fucking great. It's so so good tylo wrecked house he oh i hope he's in the new movie he well he famously died uh yeah but so did you know alec guinness and i mean obi-wan died and he just shows up in the next movie the thing that here's here's something that I've been thinking about with Star Wars, not to get us too far in. It sounds like every single person that worked on these movies

fucking hated it. Like, they hated it so much. Like, you ask Oscar Isaac if he would return, and he doesn't even think about it for one second. He's just like, nope. Like, I'm done. Nine was so rough. Yeah.

Rise of Skywalker was rough. I am going to, I have a couple more things to say about Final Fantasy XVI. Great. Just real quick. One, Kazuya Takahashi did the character design. I do really like the character designs in this game. They look really cool. I know it's like very, it's a little more regal and austere than I normally like.

I don't respond to the high fantasy stuff. Even though I like high fantasy a lot, it's just like what I like in a Final Fantasy is usually when it's a little bit more,

you know, steampunky or cyberpunk-y. They don't usually say fuck in these games either, do they? No, they do not. They don't usually say fuck.

They say fuck a lot in this one. They do. They bust out a cock pretty early on. Also, I don't know which point in... The icons can suck my cock. Hey, Ifrid.

I feel like they tested that water on... What was that one? The Final Fantasy Paradise Origins? Oh, Strangers of Paradise? There it is. they tested that water on uh on that what was that one the final fantasy paradise origin strangers of paradise there it is strangers of paradise is where they were like they were like sticking their toe in that water and being like what if final fantasy characters said fuck and they said it so much i don't give a fuck who you are yeah yeah and they were like okay roll it back roll it back a little bit i can say it while running from something fuck it's they they do that in logan too a movie i like but it's like you know when when wolverine and uh and professor x are just saying like fuck just constantly it's

like at a certain point this is just a distraction yeah you have the leeway because you have the r rating but dial it back a little bit. Fuck Charles. So I don't know what point in the Final Fantasy lore, at which point in the series, the enemy, one of my favorite enemies, the Marlboro became the mole bro. But that's like it's happened now. Like, you know, the enemy that cast that has it's like this gigantic, like Kraken-like abomination that blasts out bad breath is its big attack, but now it's called a mole bro. Maybe that happened in 15 or 13 or something like that, but I do

kind of miss Marlboro, though I understand the reason for the change, obviously. Well, I thought that it was called a Marlboro because cigarettes gave you bad breath. That's what it was, I think, and then they changed it to mole bro. They're like, nobody smokes anymore. Nobody smokes anymore.

And also this is an insane copyright infringement. Like we can't do this. How have we not been sued? I feel like you used to be able to maybe get away with stuff like that. Or like, it's on the cart. We can't patch it out. It's on the cart.

Yeah. I have some, we want to touch on Diablo 4 a little bit too, because I played some more since the last time we recorded. I did roll a new character. I rolled a rogue and I played a little bit with a rogue. There's a thing it lets you do in on your second playthrough, which is skip the campaign, which I checked just to be like, all right. Yeah, I can just get the campaign and go straight to the open world. And I kind of regret that because I do think the campaign is pretty engaging. And although there are a lot of cut scenes, I'd almost rather like just sort of speed through the cut scenes and still experience them than just go straight to the open world,

which, you know, it's a challenge to make these games endlessly replayable. And, you know, I think they've done they did they did a really good job with the launch of this game. I'm sure a lot of new content will be coming. A lot of new content has already been promised that will fix this. But the open world feels a little bit barren if you just jump into it without the context of the narrative. So I kind of regret that. of the narrative. So I kind of regret that. The other thing that I was kind of I was looking forward to, I was just sort of like rolling through Diablo four, like on the the the level, the world tier two difficulty. And then once you do that, then you then you have to go to

a specific dungeon to unlock nightmare difficulty, which I was like, great. Now I can have like a little bit of a challenge here. But you can't use nightmare difficulty on your character until you hit level 50. And so my new character, I was looking forward to like having like playing in a more challenging difficulty, but it's not available to you. And so I was reading some guides and they're basically like, yeah, you might as well just go down to, you know, tier one difficulty and just blaze through things as quickly as possible so you can get to level 50 to experience that. And it just kind of felt like something of a grind. So I might be taking a break from this game,

which is fine. I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. I got 30 plus hours of enjoyment out of this game. It's really well made. It's really satisfying, but it might take a little bit of time before I come back to it and play another character all the way through.

Yeah, I just finished act three of Diablo 4, actually. So I'm slowly chipping away at it, but I'm not in a rush. Because it sounds like you can just play it forever if that's how it's designed. So I'm not in a rush to finish it yet. But I'm going to get back in there because I do miss my sorcerer. Yeah, I mean, I was having a lot of fun with the rogue. The rogue is very active. And, you know, the character I played before that,

the necromancer, super duper active, lots to do. It's a very fun gameplay loop. I just might be taking a little breather. All right. Heather, do you had something else? Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about my international experience here as the world Warrior in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam! Wow. Couple of things. One, I texted you guys this because I was stunned. You can go into a store here and there are just stacks of PlayStation 5, both models. Wild stuff. Stacks. Totally wild. here and there are just stacks of playstation 5 both models wild stacks like totally wild like

it's a fucking nintendo wii in late in the wii's life cycle like it's crazy to me that you can just like walk in and be like well i guess i'm gonna get a playstation 5 today yeah um that is not the case in the United States. The tradeoff is that here in Amsterdam, I've learned how secondary the European market is. And this is anecdotal, but a game like Fortnite, an international super hit, right? The hours for maintenance are scheduled during prime playing hours here in amsterdam whereas in new york or california uh they're scheduled for the middle of the night right so it's it's one of those ways in which like the game companies just throw like a little bit of shade at uh at europe as a market which is crazy because like it's a big it's a big fucking game i guess it's a it's a north american game so of course but like still it's i can't imagine that grand theft auto which is technically a

european game is i mean i guess not anymore, not anymore. It's Brexit, right? So isn't it like a British game now? I don't know the rules. That shit works. That's Prince Andrew. I know I support it, but I don't know

beyond that. So that was a surprise. Finally, I went to Amsterdam's only retro game store, which I don't think I've talked about on the show. Correct? No, I don't think I have. I don't think so. Seattle, like there's tons of retro game stores in the United States. Here in Amsterdam, one retro game store. It is down an alley. The sign on the window is cardboard with like writing on the cardboard and the store is called Game Over? And you go in and it is like Akihabara adjacent density.

There are two aisles. They are shoulder width, like across. And all of your games are just stacked and stacked and stacked like a hoarder's apartment almost. Sure. Without, you know, without any judgment i guess it just i'm trying to convey that density and i don't have like a library but but more packed um but they had an incredible selection of games that i realized i would not buy because they were all pal versions and i was like well sure would suck to get like a pal pal version of any of this stuff is kind of a dead end yeah purchase um but it was pretty neat to go in that store um i have plans to uh there's a video no a

home computer museum uh a couple hours outside of amsterdam that I plan to take the train to. And then also... That rocks. Yeah. Doesn't that fucking rock? Yeah. Like a home computer museum. That's awesome. That's fucking great.

Yeah. You could take the train there and back. Yeah. Oh, right. This is Nick's best day. Took the train to the computer museum. They put you behind a case.

The Nick has arrived. Finally, the final piece. He belongs in a museum. But I'm also going to, there's apparently an arcade here now in Amsterdam that I plan to take a visit out. And then I also, you know,

I've received a lot of DMs and like leads on people who might want to, you know, be featured on the show. And I'm getting to it. I'm getting to it. It's been a lot to set up my life here and then answer all that stuff.

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they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember, start the new year off right with a delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at magicspoon.com slash getplayed and use code GETPLAYED to save $5 to save five dollars off thank you magic spoon for sponsoring this episode you know what else we should get to is the meat of the episode that's right you know we should get to uh what we're talking about today which we thought because Final Fantasy is so back in the zeitgeist and 16, everyone's like, well, I love it. I hate it. I think it's the best one. I think it's the worst one. Where does it rank in the hierarchy? Well, we can't determine that, but we

can determine the hierarchy itself. It's another edition of Tiers of the Kingdom, T-I-E-R-S, for Final Fantasy. That's right. We're going to do tier rankings of the mainline entries. I think we just have to do mainline. I don't think we can do everything else. Now, do we want to do the 3 remake? Do we want to do X2 slash 10-2, however you say it? Do we want to talk about Final Fantasy 7, a remake? I don't know

maybe we'll get to that what about dirge of cerberus i don't think we can do dirge of cerberus i mean just want to give it a tier just give it a tier nobody does stupid shit like final fantasy that rules stranger of paradise just give it a ranking we'll put, yeah, we'll did a tier of Cerberus is C tier. All right, let's move on. Wait, what about the dirge of Cerberus lost episode which was only available on mobile phones? S tier. That's it.

Easiest S tier of my life. Okay, so let's just get into it. It's mid at best. Damn it, Donald. I can get into it. It's mid at best. Damn it, Donald. I can't believe it. This is more fraudulent than the 2016 election. What about, okay. Legitimately though, like what about like crisis core?

Yeah, I mean, this is the, let's just get into it. Let's just start going in chronological order. And anything anyone wants to shout out. We'll definitely do the main line if we want to throw in some other ones. That's fine. OK, but, you know, well, so we don't have all the time in the world. All right. First up, the game that started it all.

Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy one, as it is now known. But back then it was just Final Fantasy. as it is now known but back then it was just final fantasy so named uh because there was the thought of it being the the end of hironobu sakaguchi's career that is just like hey this is my swan song here's my final fantasy and then we're done no that didn't lo and behold here we are spirits within uh final fantasy was originally released in japan in, in North America in 1990, and in the PAL market in 2003. Isn't that wild? Yeah.

Even the first thing, that there was a three-year gap before it came out for the Famicom and then released for the NES was localized. Yeah. And I think there was thoughts of like, are we even going to bother to, because, you know, they did localize. I think what I think they, I can't remember what happened first, but I think Dragon Quest was localized as Dragon Warrior, and that sold better than they expected.

And so that that's when they started, like the Nintendo was like, okay, let's publish some more, let's port some more RPGs. Yep. I have a lot of fondness for this game. I do kind of feel like it's the game that, that made me,

you know, that I got in on the ground floor with this franchise and it's what made me, we fascinated by final fantasy and want to play all of them. And, and I think that it's aged. Okay. You know, if you play like one of the remakes,

it's pretty good for an 80s RPG. I certainly compare it to like, hey, compared to Dragon Quest one, I think it's a lot more robust and playable than Dragon Quest one and that you can create your party and that it's got some of the elements that kind of persists throughout the franchise like the you know the the uh things like a submarine and an airship um all of the uh a character i think sid is present i'm pretty sure sid is present in final fantasy one like a lot of that stuff is is seated i think that it's a and it certainly like hit really well in the, you know, the eighties and nineties. So I think this one, I don't think it should be below a C tier,

even though it's very dated. I was thinking it's a solid B, solid B tier for the exact reasons that. I could boost it in a B tier. Like C plus tier. Well, all right, fuck it.

B plus tier. Okay. Well, here's the thing. C plus, C plus, not B plus. I was downgrading it. C plus tier well alright fuck it B plus tier okay well here's the thing C plus C plus not B plus I was downgrading it C plus

I could I could rock with C plus here's I should have I should have said this the tier list that I'm looking at right here

has S A B C1 and C2 D and E

can you screen share this bad boy yeah I'll screen share it is that a possibility yeah okay great well this might make our lives easier here we go and i i i added a tier down here that has them just in order because the icons are really small and some of the things like it's like it has all the uh spin-offs here and stuff but i was like there's too many christ too many to get through uh i have one through uh one through 15 here uh and then maybe a couple extra selections if if so you know if

they apply can you can you delete the c2 tier i feel like this is gonna just confuse delete the c2 tier yeah maybe click that little gear delete that row and then relabel c1 just c okay i think you have to click there we go all right so we're sitting pretty so we have okay so Yeah, maybe click that little gear. Delete that row. And then relabel C1 just C. Okay. I think you have to click. There we go. All right, so we're sitting pretty. So we have S, A, B, C, D.

And can we change E to F? Yeah. I'll do you one better. Double F tier. No. Great, not confusing. Not confusing at all. I'll get out of there.

FF tier for the worst. Let's slot final fantasy one into c tier and and keep moving okay that's that sounds good to me all right because i think i think then i can make i think we can make a case for final fantasy 2 being in b tier then uh because i think wait final fantasy 2 i think so i i think so. I completely disagree. I've only played it on emulator. But my experience with that in an emulator is that it's a pretty broken game. Really?

I guess I played... My experience with these first few is in the Game Boy Advance version Dawn of Souls. It has 1 and 2 on the cartridge. I played through two and i really liked two i don't know if i liked one more but uh i remember playing through two quite a bit

and enjoying it here's my issue with two okay it doesn't have an experience system it's instead got like you just you know it's it's a it's a arguably more modern rpg system where you use a skill over and over again you get better at it but because it's such an early version of that it's completely broken i see where you can just make the game completely unbalanced depending on how you play it i don't know i mean it could be in c unless you think it's worse than that. I do not like it as much as Final Fantasy I, but also Final Fantasy II was not localized for NES, so I only played it later.

I don't have the same nostalgia for it, so maybe it is just as good, but I don't know. I think it's more of a D tier. D tier. But if I'm saying it's a D or a C, and you're saying it's a D, and Matt's saying it's a B, then I think it's a C. All right, put it in the C tier. And see, that's wrong. Donald, if you're going to argue all day, we'll never get through this.

All right, moving on. I can't even think of one it's just so funny i just enjoy it i like can we put one on instead okay uh final fantasy 3 i think is better than one and two um and i know that that game didn't come out stateside for like a long time my experience with it for the first time was with the ds version which is a 3d remake of it yes yeah completely and and that's what that's what i wanted to talk about because that's the version i know yeah and that's its own thing like it's it's it's it's you know again it's 3d it's got a 3d engine it's it's a it has cut scenes that are more cinematic than you would get from a yeah like a top sort of top-down isometric final fantasy so

like it feels completely different are we evaluating that version or are we folding them into each other i think well here's the thing i've only played through some of final fantasy 3 uh the original and i'm really really loving it so i could evaluate that but if we want to say that final fantasy 3 for our ranking is the 3d is the ds version that's fine it, that's fine. I think we evaluate them both because I think that tracks with all of our experience. I want to say, why don't we just shift that one up to B tier? And then I have a feeling we might be doing a little scrunching a little bit later.

We might be moving some things, just shifting everything down a little bit. Yeah, because we'll get to one later and be like, well, it's not as good as this, right? Maybe you have to put this one there and then bump up Final Fantasy 3, you Fantasy 3 or down even. Who could say, you know? I'd put 3 on C tier.

You'd put 3 on C tier as well. I think these early ones are really good games for their time. But ultimately, none of them are, say, Super Mario Brothers. You know? Like, none of them are, say, Super Mario Brothers. You know, like none of them are going to are like, holy shit. This game is still people are rounding up at a party to play it on a fucking on a screen. And I think that what these games sort of represent to me are are like potential and yeah if you put them at a c you have everywhere to go and i and i don't think any of these are bad c is a is a is an average passing grade it's a good grade you're not telling my parents anyway that's a that's a

really good point heather these these are more all of these the 8-bit final fantasies are more prototypes yeah and and four which is the next one is when the series really comes into its own uh and that's the first one i think that probably holds up in contemporary terms i'm fine to put it yeah let's let's put it in c i'm fine to put it in C. Yeah, let's put it in C. I'm fine to put it in C, but just so everybody knows, I'm putting it before Final Fantasy 1 and 2. Okay, so that's the top of the C-stacks. Yes. Alright, Final Fantasy 4, released

as Final Fantasy 2 on Super Nintendo. That's the version that I played and that absolutely blew my mind. Look, I played PC RPGs, and I played the Might and Magic franchise and the Wizardry franchise, and I'd gotten

used to a lot of those conventions. Those games were technically more advanced, but they did not have the JRPG storytelling, which was obviously a presence in the Dragon Quest games as well that were localized for NES, although the Super Famicom ones were never localized.

But Final Fantasy IV, I think, was like the first version of that that you were encountering in the West. I think this is an A-tier JRPG. Wow. I mean, that's where I'd put it. I think that because I feel like people say that when we get to Final Fantasy 4, that's when the shift happens, kind of. They start building to the Final Fantasy that we all know

today as Final Fantasy. So I'm happy to put it in an A. I'd put it in A or B. Let's put it in A, and if we have to dip it down, maybe we have to dip it down a little bit. Yeah, we might do some dipping. Okay.

All right, Final Fantasy V. This is another one that, this one was not localized. They localized Final Fantasy II, at least in Super Nintendo. They did Final Fantasy IV as II, Final Fantasy VI as III, which made shit extremely confusing for about 20 years. And then, but Final Fantasy 5 remained in the Super Famicom.

So this, again, was one I played on emulator later. I really enjoy this game. It's got a job system, which is really cool. I actually think like the gameplay is probably the best of any of the Super Famicom

era Final Fantasies. It's just the story is a little bit more inert. And it's just the core characters are a little less, because you're customizing them and you're changing whatever, like you're altering them so much, I feel like they're just a little bit less fully realized. So to me, this one's a B b tier but it is a cool game well you you do get um names like king tycoon and x death in uh in final fantasy five that's that's a good point that's worth something i mean it's not nothing it's not

nothing i mean considering like before it's like cecilil, you know, like Kane, names of people. Kane is cool. But then like suddenly you're playing against. How many people do you know named Kane? I know one. There was a Fuso Ra. I think that was his name or Fuso Ya. What the hell is that guy's name in Final Fantasy 4?

Well. It's not the name ranking. Yeah, we're not ranking names here. That's a different podcast. We'll do it, but we're not doing it today. Okay. A or B? B.

B. B. I say B. I'm not trying to steamroll people here. No, no, no. I disagree. B. That's the way I put it.

I haven't played that one, so I defer to you too uh it's cool it's like you could you know like again like you could you could be a fucking class change to a time mage like that sort of shit is cool i'm waiting my way toward it i'm gonna play it yeah uh all right where was i going now we're in a difficult place oh six yes because all of the rest of the games are S tier like you're gonna

it's gonna be bad when I look at these games I'm like no that one's no yes that one perfect perfect perfect, perfect. Final Fantasy VI is S tier. Yeah, I think that's honestly the easiest S tier of this entire exercise for me.

No. It is for me. I have another one that is absolutely easy. Final Fantasy VI, I don't know of a game where I have played the opening three or four hours more than Final Fantasy VI. Because sometimes when I'm not feeling great, I'll be like, well, let's play Final Fantasy VI. And truth be told, I didn't play it at the time. You know, I didn't have a Super Nintendo. So I don't know when I came to Final Fantasy, then three, now six.

I know I have my cartridge. Like I have my Super NES cartridge, but I don't know if I got it in. Like, did I get it after college? Like, I don't know when the fuck i got it but man that game is beautiful it has an incredible soundtrack uh i bought the final fantasy 6 orchestral suite or whatever the fuck it was called in like the year 2000 and i've been falling asleep to it for 20 fucking years. Wow. Like, it's a great goddamn game.

And it's the last of the 2D Final Fantasies, correct? Yes. Yeah, and I think it's the perfection of that formula. I mean, I played this game at the time. I played this game when it was released. I returned to it several times. I think I played through it three times. I really, you know, like everything you're saying, aesthetically when it was released. I returned to it several times. I think played through it three times. I really, you know, like everything you're saying,

aesthetically, it's great. It's the best character design. It has the best story. It has moments of like storytelling that are just like, that are completely divorced from combat. Like infamously, like the opera scene is just like so, like that's just such a cool thing that it's comparable to the trial in Chrono Trigger.

It's just like, wow, you could do this with a game um and uh and and that that bit of innovation i think really puts it over the top over the other super uh super famicom era final fantasies it's it's also just like the most refined version of that combat system and we can spoil it now because it's like 30 years old, but like the world of ruin is such an unbelievable plot twist. Like I think for any kind of media, just like the idea of, of taking that huge fucking swing of just, you know what?

The rest of this game is going to take place in the end of Evangelion. It's just like fucking, that's wild. That's a wild thing to do and it rocks. Yep. Yep. It's a fucking S tier game, man. Alright, great. God, that's, just the opening like, the little mechs go

out on that bridge of ice or that cliff of ice and they're looking out and it's like, alright, let's head out and then that music kicks in and you're looking out and it's like, all right, let's head out. And then that music kicks in and you're just watching them walk through the ice. So fucking good. Also the mode seven scaling. So it feels like you're moving through.

It's so good. It's great. Well, I think that was, some of that was present in four when you get the airship. Yes, yeah. I could be wrong. I mean, it's not the first time.

Like, I think Secret of Mana uses Mode 7 to fly around. Yeah. But artistically, you were right. As an artistic use of that technology, it hits so hard. Yeah. Great game. All right, Final Fantasy 7. I think a lot of people would put this in S tier.

Nick's not going to? No, I think this absolutely belongs in S tier. I'm just like, I, you know, is it my favorite of the PlayStation Final Fantasies is the question. It's obviously the one that has the longest legacy, that has the most fandom. But I do think it's a great game. It's a great game it's it's a great game i think final fantasy 8 is the is the and i'm gonna say a really controversial huge heavy take here i think final fantasy 8 is the game they were trying to make with 7

hell yeah and I think that the I think that the different like I think that the conceit of having these you know super

deformed is the name of the style it's not the not how i would you those are words that i wish i didn't have to say to describe the style but that's what it is um these super deformed versions these chibi versions of the uh character uh interacting in the in the the space. And then there's like three versions of the character designs in Final Fantasy VII. There's the map version, the interactive cutscene version, and then the regular cutscene version. And I think that in Final Fantasy VIII, it was like, no, one version effectively across all of those things. Squall always looks like a high school student to the best of our rendering ability. Right?

Yeah. Like, he doesn't change shape and his shoulders don't get crunched when he, like, exits a cutscene and, like and begins to be playable again. So I think that Final Fantasy VIII is the game that Final Fantasy VII was aiming at, which is interesting to consider. I mean, I think that's certainly, Emily, possible from a tactical standpoint. I think that, yes, you are right.

It is a thing when you pop out to like Chibi Cloud. And sometimes Chibi Cloud will be like in a cut scene. And that's jarring too. A lot of that, I think, was just them figuring out how to do a 3D Final Fantasy. That said, some of the decisions they made, like using the PlayStation era technology, deciding to like, okay, from an art direction standpoint, we're going to use pre-rendered cut scene, or I'm sorry, pre-rendered cut scenes, yes,

but pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed cameras with, you know, 3D character models moving within those, like that makes it look so much better than it would have if they tried to do a fully 3D environment with that level of polygon pushing. So I think that was like, you know, that was really a clever solution that obviously a lot of other games did

that they retained for 7, 8, and 9. I mean, I think the music's great. I think it has one of the top 10 all-time plot twists in gaming, and it sticks the landing. Yeah, I think this is an S tier.

Matt, do you have any any other thoughts i just remember my uncle playing this game when i was a little kid and i didn't have like the language to uh like describe why i was bored by what he was doing so i would and i would forget what it was called so i would call it the boring game how dare you do we want to put it ahead of final fantasy 7 but then also then where does six go in relation to let's let's not worry about that right now because that's going to be a whole thing but i yeah i i like six more but let's not worry about that i thought we were talking about seven we were talking about seven okay because matt just put eight up on the s tier yeah very bold

stroke to take oh i thought we were talking, I thought we were talking about it. We'd been talking about seven, but we can move on to eight. Okay. Seven stays in S tier. I think eight, I think eight joins it honestly. Can I say one thing,

which is that one of my most treasured things in my whole is, uh, I have a pre-order poster that is made out of translucent cardboard, translucent paper. I don't know what the fuck. It's translucent media. So it could be put in a light box in a store window and lit from behind. And it is my Final Fantasy 7 pre-order poster and like having that poster and like cloud with the sword looking up at midgar and people not knowing what it was

that they were pre-ordering i mean the demo had come out and like there was this you know the the vague sort of pop culture enthusiasm was starting to like crescendo. But like still that poster to me is like, it's like the Star Wars teaser poster. It's like, this is going to be 20 plus years, 25 years of media is going to come out of this game. So. And such a consequential game in terms of gaming history.

Yeah. Like, obviously the migration of Square And such a consequential game in terms of gaming history. Like, obviously, the migration of Square and ultimately Square Enix away from Nintendo, you know, to Sony shifts the console wars so much. It's such a system seller. I bought a fucking PlayStation 1, a thing I did not expect myself to do because of Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil. So, all right. Final Fantasy VIII, look, Heather, people might be mad at us. I like VIII more than VII. I have such a fondness for this game. I think that the combat system is maybe not as great, and it's maybe a little narratively uneven, but I just find it so, like I find the world so appealing and despite its flaws,

I just have such affection for this game. I would say that my love for 8 is colored by nostalgia, sure. But then I remember things like, oh yeah, they go to space. Yes. They go to space in this game. they go to space yes they go to space in this they go to space like that you you fly around in your school building and then they go to space because

monsters if you read the like there's like a full wikipedia on the on the like school computer systems and if you read that you know that they think the monsters are coming from the moon. So when the game's like, we got to go to space, you're like, ah, fuck yeah. I read the supplementary material because I was a good student

and I studied. I studied for my test that you have to take like within the first 20 minutes of the game. It also has, and this is nothing to shake a fucking stick at, it has Triple Triad, which also on its own is a fully fucking great game. So, 8 goes in the S tier. Yeah, I think so. It also has Fisherman's Horizon, one of the best tracks ever made in these classic uh

yeah all right that track along with the ballam garden theme it's like to me those two in of themselves but the the track the the the soundtrack holistically is like one of uematsu's best it might be my favorite final fantasy score i i i think this game is great people are gonna be mad at us but it's fine that's tier all right final fantasy nine hell yeah a lot of people thought there was a bit of a backlash to eight and nine they went in a more you know sort of like it's kind of honestly kind of akin to 16 of just like it's a little bit more of a traditional high fantasy sort of feel to it it's my least favorite of the PlayStation Final Fantasies.

But I still think it's awesome. Nine is, when I was playing Nine, all the way up until the end, I was like, this is my favorite Final Fantasy game. This is it. This one, it knocks all the others down a tier. And then the ending wasn't satisfying to me. Not a great ending. And I was like, oh,

but in the last game, like Squall was in like a, a liminal space and had to remember his friends as like triumphant orchestral, like music played. And then like you saw, like you couldn't remember his faces. And then,

and then eyes on me starts screaming out over your speakers and it's all mo-capped and it's incredible and then this one i think is just like she runs down a flight of stairs and says i love you fucking yeah it's it's a little and also i feel like vivi the black mage character fucking Phoebe rules. It's such a great character design, cool character, but it feels like it's, I don't know, it feels like they weren't willing to commit to the tragedy that that character's existence implies in the endgame. That said, that's not the only issue I have with it. I do think it's really good, but I just found it's like by this point I felt like the formula had been perhaps a little bit exhausted. And

yeah, I think pacing-wise I was just less engaged by this game. But also maybe it's when it hit me. Yeah, I'm gonna say but that fucking music is so good. Nine has such the fucking music is so good nine is such another great score fucking music am i i mean no it's an s it's an s game it's yeah put an s here let me let's not fuck around

that's amazing great uh i haven't played that one but uh i'm excited to to get to it all right here comes a hot a hot take final fantasy 10 b tier how dare you b tier here's why it's don't make me laugh like titus that's why that is exclusively why that's exclusively why. And not that scene, but the production value of the dubbing of this game. The game is like, they fucking shout from the rooftops. Here it is, a voice acted Final Fantasy game. And it, for me, ruined my ability to enjoy the game. Because the direction and the production values of that it sucks it's fucking terrible

it's awful it doesn't bump me as much as it bumps you partly because you're sick fuck I'm a sick fuck no I was just I think that era had so much bad voice acting. Sure.

That it was not like anywhere near the most egregious example. So I just kind of took it in stride. And some of it is okay. Some of it is embarrassing. A lot of it, I think, just came from the way it was produced and the actors not having a lot of context for what they were doing based off some of what I read about this game. I'll say character designs, I think, are great. I think this is, like, the best-looking party, I think, of any Final Fantasy game.

I just think, like, the array of different looks that we have are just so fucking good. I really like... I mean, I enjoy the gameplay. I don't love Blitzball, but I think the idea of Sin as just like an entity and as like a thing that's giving this game narrative thrust is like fucking fascinating and it's a legit such a moment anytime Sin shows up uh and uh and Rex House to me this is an S-tier

game and this is at times this has been uh you know people made fun of me for this but at times this has been my favorite Final Fantasy I think maybe Heather we meet in the middle and we put this in A tier for now I could make a case maybe for A too I've played a good chunk of Final Fantasy 10

I borrowed it from my uncle cause I and I played it probably after I had played the first Kingdom Hearts. So I just have like a different familiarity with the characters because a few of them are in it a little more. And I remember getting to the Blitzball section and just being at an age where I was like, this is kind of cool. Like I was the exact age to think what they did with that was a good idea uh maybe in hindsight it it's not good but um i didn't have a problem with it when i originally played it it's a little clunky i don't love it but i do love the world i do love like kind of i

do honestly love it just being like a uh what's it like scarif from rogue one like a beachy sort of environ is just such a cool place to set something that's that's kind of that's the that's that's fantasy and then also and and unexpected and i like the sphere grid system yeah sphere grid is fun let's put it at here we can adjust Okay. What do we think? Are we doing Final Fantasy X-2? I think we skip it. We skip it. Okay. I don't know. We could.

I don't know. I like that it exists. It's the first direct sequel to one of these. I don't think it's above a B tier. Because some of these other games have sequels too. Like there's like a couple of different Final Fantasy 13, I think, sequels. And some of them have expansions. So I wasn't sure.

I didn't want to include expansions, right? Because that's like its own thing. Yeah. Let's stick with mainline games. All right. Final Fantasy 11. I didn't play 11. All right.

Here's some reasons why XI is S tier. Wow. One, it is the first massively multiplayer perpetual Final Fantasy XI, okay? But you might be thinking to yourself, well, just because it's the first doesn't mean that it's good. Counterpoint, this game is still

online 20 fucking years later you can still play final fantasy 11 and i i want to share because the um i believe the website needs to be accessible from inside the game. So the website, which has, I've just put it in our chat, like our text chat. The website has dates that are seemingly visually in conflict with the design of the website, which is fully buried in 2003 web design. Oh, man. Yeah, this is angel fire shit so that you so that you can access it within the game but the dates on the game are like hey the the new uh hot vanadil knights campaign is is launching on june 28th 2023 they're still fucking providing content to this game. Like, I played more. Is this official?

Sorry, is this official support or is this fan support? No, this is official support. Wow. I played, I think I spent, oh God, I wish I remember the amount of time. I think I spent five real world months in Final Fantasy XI, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is when you consider that I was playing for like two hours a day. Yeah, it sounds like a lot. That five months of my life are memories of a virtual space. That's a lot. Yes, that's a lot. That like a lot that five months of my life yeah are memories of a virtual space that's a lot yes that's a lot that is a lot um it's kind of like more than a lot it both sounds like a lot is a lot i i i was living in amsterdam when this game came out and i imported because like who the

fuck knew when it was going to. So I brought I imported a PlayStation, imported the hard drive, imported like I played it on my laptop. But my laptop was like setting itself on fire in order to play the game. So I was like, well, the only way I'm going to be able to play this fucking game is if I get a PS2. So I imported a PS2, imported the hard drive, imported the game and was like, I imported a PS2, imported the hard drive, imported the game, and was like, I hope that this fucking machine can log into servers,

and it could. It fucking could. And I played Final Fantasy Online. It's S tier game. S tier game. It wouldn't still be running if it wasn't S tier. I'll defer to Heather because I never played Final Fantasy Online. We'll put it in the S. Great.

Final Fantasy 12. S tier. in the S Final Fantasy 12 S tier this is an S tier here's the thing about 12 this was like I think this one is a really important Final Fantasy game because they kind of were like okay the existing

formula is not sustainable forever we can't just have the same sort of, you know, exact same sort of turn-based encounters combat system that we've been doing for, you know, for the game's run up to this point. And they really mixed up the formula, which in and of itself has kind of become a convention of Final Fantasy now. Like, how do we change up the formula? How do we update it? How do we make it more approachable for modern players? And I think they hit it out of the park. I also just, like, love the world.

Like, I think, like, the world design is fucking awesome. And then the definitive version they released of this, what was that called? The Zodiac Age. Zodiac, yeah. I mean, it's just, like, it's such a refinement of everything. And, yeah, one of the best final fantasy games i for for a window of time final fantasy 12 was my favorite final fantasy game i was i was like man i don't think it gets better than that

one uh i love the combat system i love the music which was not done by nobuo Uematsu. It was done by a different artist who had also done Final Fantasy Tactics, whose name escapes me. I'll bring up the name. It's great. And it was the first voice acted Final Fantasy game that I felt like was treating me with a little bit of dignity.

Sure. So by comparison to Final Fantasy X, I was like, fuck, this game is fucking great. It was also insanely detailed spaces. Like there's, I remember a time where you're walking through like a market and there were people in the market. And like, you'd like walk around people

and like you could see wares out on the in these outdoor market spaces and i was like god damn i don't even know how you do and now that sounds stupid that me saying there was stuff in the stalls sounds like a dumb idiots like take on a game but at the time i was like this is the most detailed thing i've ever seen yeah so final fantasy 12 also great logo fucking no i think a fantastic logo i think you're absolutely right in terms of like oh this world feels inhabited and populated this doesn't feel like a video game environment and you know that's that's again i mentioned the world that's part of it like uh the hitoshi sakimoto is the composer i should know this name and i'm going to retain this name because not only did Sakimoto-san do the score for Final Fantasy XII,

also Final Fantasy Tactics, as you mentioned, and one of my favorite games of the PlayStation era, Vagrant Story. Oh, there you go. Yep. Yep. There you go. Where are we at now? Final Fantasy XIII.

XIII. All right. Okay, so here's where my whole ass hangs out. I did not play Final Fantasy 13 or Final Fantasy 50. Holy shit. So those are big gaps in my knowledge. Final Fantasy 12 was the last mainline Final Fantasy I played until 16, which I was considering. Wow.

I was like, am I going to play this one too? Wow. 13, you know, it came out at a time where I didn't really have time to play it. And it also had, like, I think the worst reviews of any mainline Final Fantasy. And I was like, you know what? Maybe this is the one I skip. You know what? Maybe maybe this is the week I don't watch the new Simpsons episode.

And so I didn't watch it. And then when 15 came out, I was like, well, shit, I really should play 13 before I played this, even though they're not related. So as as such, I haven't played either game. 13. So I'll defer to Heather. 13 is having a renaissance online right now people are returning to 13 and they're like fuck this game is fucking great yeah much like lightning i saw a really good joke uh about that which is that i don't remember who wrote it, but somewhere on Twitter I read the name Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII.

Sounds like she's bringing the game back to Best Buy. But so I liked Final Fantasy 13 at the time. I was like, okay, it was much more linear than Final Fantasy 12, which made it feel like a step backwards because Final Fantasy 12 had these huge play environments where you could like run around and, and like fight monsters you weren't supposed to, which as we know is one of my greatest thrills in a video game. Yeah, Final Fantasy 13 was extremely linear. But because of that, the environments are gorgeous.

The music is gorgeous. The character design is fantastic. Oh, man, I think it's an a-tier game wow same level as final fantasy 4 and final fantasy 10 for final fantasy 13 it's a tier it's a tier game wow it's a tier game but the the drink was really good there's a really good drink oh okay if all these games had drinks this ranking would be different i really like the battle system in 13 battle system is fucking great i gotta just play it i gotta play the fun i i'm saying this now and i don't know if i'm gonna be able to keep this up but i want to play through all of them uh i would like to say that i've done that i think i'm gonna try and do it that can just be your life

yeah like you can just be like i'm gonna do that the problem is then you have to choose other things not to do and that's what i run into yes because well right now the thing that i'm looking at is the release calendar and like i know what's coming up the rest of the year but i think if i maintain a two game sort of thing and have my console game be whatever big experience i'm doing. And I don't think there are any big switch games coming out until like the end of the year or the beginning of next year that I'm like switch could be final fantasy. And I think I can play through all the final fantasy games on switch. Wow.

Until I get to like 15, obviously, cause that's not on there. Um, but I think I can do it. I mean, that, that, the mean that that the the switch version of the pixel remasters is a really nice package i'm loving it so far um but 14 is next and i know that we all threatened at one point to play this game together and we have not done it um no i also have

i got it deep on sale because there was a period of time where you could get all of the expansions and the base one for like $30. And it was like 90% off or something. So if you bought all the expansions at full price, it would have been expensive. But at $30, I was like, let me do it. And then another expansion came out.

Well, hold on though uh-huh are we talking about final fantasy 14 or are we talking about what is effectively the sequel a realm reborn final that's a great point oh i i think the original final fantasy 14 it was you know there, there's a reason they destroyed the world. Literally, like there was a world ending event and then they rebooted it. I didn't know this. 14 on its own is an F tier game. Wow. Like. All right, jam it in there.

Put that, put the, let's get something in the F tier. Like Realm Reborn. Incredible game. Loved playing it like great music, great fan service. Fucking great. But fan service. But no, I mean, like fan service for people who play Final Fantasy 14 was such a catastrophe that people weren't even leaving Final Fantasy 11 to play it. Wow.

Like it was like, why would I waste my time on this? Like there's a famous press conference where like Square Enix apologizes like by like deep bowing and being like, we're so sorry we fucked up. And then they bring out and then they, they, they have a meteor hit the game inside the game. Destroy the world. Everybody's waving to you,

Mary. Hi, Mary. Hi, Mary. Hi. Destroys the world. So a meteor flies in, in-game, destroys the world, and the whole thing is completely reborn with an absolutely new story, everything. And that's

the Final Fantasy XIV that everybody loves. We shouldn't play it on the show because we don't have time, but I put the video in the chat, Matt. You should watch it later of the end of Final Fantasy XIV when they destroyed the world. And it's great

because everyone is just standing around watching this meteor come towards them, just like awaiting oblivion. Yeah. I'll check it out. I don't, I also don't know that there is any, like, okay, depending on how Phantom Liberty goes, like for Cyberpunk,

I can't think of any game that has had such an arc of repentance. Is that a word? Redemption. Redemption. Sure. Yeah. like has gone from one of the biggest laughing stocks of all of Square Enix's library to a tried and true, massively successful RPG. And I can't think of any any other time that a game has gone from zero to hero. No Man's Sky, I think, is the other recent example.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Just like as initially released, there's a huge backlash and they've updated it so much and given so many free updates that people love it now. So we can't publish this list as is because it looks like we're putting Final Fantasy XIV in F tier,

but I did just for our purposes, Final Fantasy XIV, the original version is going in F tier and then A Realm Reborn. A tier. Which they don't have as a separate thing on the

tier with where where i have it but i can find it and put it in i i'd make that an a an a or an s tier game okay people are gonna be so mad if 11 is s and 14 is a just Just saying. All right. All right. So they're both S tier. That's fine. I have no skin in this game. All right. That takes us to Final Fantasy XV again. S tier. S tier.

You put that in S tier. I platinum to that fucking game. Wow. I got to play it. I'm really excited to play it after 16. I platinumed this game and opened up an account on Coleman Japan to import the camping gear that the boys use in Final Fantasy 15 so that I could set up my actual camps. It is some of the best music of the entire series. I think the battle, I've played the battle theme in our battle tier, like our battle theme tier ranking shit. That's right.

Yeah. Yes. The fucking, it also has relationships that like actually work as opposed, I mean, they're like're like sure all these boys are tropey but the relationships work and it fucking sticks the ending i i think especially if you take all of the side stories and shit like if you you do like Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition, which is all of the supplementary content all packed into the package as was intended, but could not be released upon

because originally this game was a spinoff of Final Fantasy XIII called Final Fantasy XIII Versus. And after like 15 years of development or some shit, like 10 years of development, they finally were like, this isn't going to be happening. Nobody cares about

Final Fantasy XIII anymore. We have to make it its own game. We're going to retain some of the elements of this original story, scrap all the rest of it. There is such a behind the scenes drama like meta commentary

that happens because of the way this game shifts internal power dynamics at square enix people have argued that elements of kingdom hearts 3 are direct criticisms of Final Fantasy XV. All that being said, game fucking rocks. It fucking rocks. The animation's incredible. The music's incredible. And I love my boys. And also, I want to say, when it was like, oh, it's four boys on a road trip,

you could not have found a less interested person. Like, I was like, Jesus, that sounds like it sucks. And then I played it and I'm like, nope, this game fucking rolls. All right. I think this is a pretty good listing. I think, you know, probably something the D tier should not be vacant. There's probably some things we should shuffle around, but we don't need, Heather, you've gotten out, we've got to keep moving here. I will say that overall, just to recap,

we are saying that pretty much the entire series from 6 on is S tier. So there you go. Which is what Heather predicted. We put X and 13 in that tier. Yeah, in A.

But they're still great games. We're still putting them in A tier. Yeah. Fuck. Are we doing any of these other boys? Any of these other... Why do I keep calling everything a boy today? If there's anything else you want to toss in there real quick,

but I think we haven't touched on any of the spinoffs yet. I feel like it's probably easiest just to keep it as a mainline thing. Unless there's something you feel really strongly about. Well, I was going to say Final Fantasy Tactics, S tier. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, S tier. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, C tier. C.

Because of the remake. If it was because of the remake it would be F but C tier because you can hook up your game boys and you play it all together but ultimately it's not a perfect game I'm not going to lie to myself what else we got

scroll down Final Fantasy 7 remake S tier S tier yeah Stranger of Paradise S tier I wish you guys would play it. It's fucking great. I have it, and it's not on my list to play through.

Oh my God. It is so funny. It is so funny. It's, it's, okay, keep going. Let's just,

let's just shout through these. I mean, there's so, we can't do all of these. There's too many. We don't have time. We don't have time to talk about Chocobo's Dungeon.

Yeah, or Dissidia, Final Fantasy Drop. Dirt of Cerberus. We can't talk about Final Fantasy Record There's too many. We don't have time. We don't have time to talk about Chocobo's Dungeon. What about Dirge of Cerberus? Final Fantasy Drops. Dirge of Cerberus. We can't talk about Final Fantasy Record Keeper. Dissidia. There's just too many. There's too many.

Final Fantasy Dimensions, never even heard of that. Record Keeper, holy shit. You love Record Keeper. I used to, yeah, I spent some money on Record Keeper back in the day. What about Final Fantasy the First Soldier, which was my entry point into the battle royale genre, which because of its existence, the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog is in prison.

What do you think? Is that F tier? Because of what it did to you? I don't know. There's just a lot. There's so many. I think we're very comprehensive. All right, great.

All right, let's move on. That was Tears of the Kingdom Final Fantasy. I got a segment. There's a new segment. Oh, a segment. I forgot you have a segment. This one is called Button Mash. Like the arcade and dining dining place in los angeles

yeah i guess like that but it's a term that predates that but it's a it's button mash this is button mash button uh this is this is a controller based quiz and the way this will work is there is one question regarding a controller for each console generation in chronological order. This might be too hard. In fact, I'm going to just say this is too hard, but I think this will be fun. All right. So we understand. I'm going to ask a question about a controller, buzz in, and answer.

Okay, great. First up. Okay, great. First up, the Magnavox Odyssey controller has two paddles and one button. So it's a little box with two paddles and one button. What is the button labeled? Beep, beep, boop. Heather.

Play. It's not play. Matt? Is it start? Heather. Play. It's not play. Matt. Is it start? It's not start. The one button on the Magnavox Odyssey controller is a reset button. They were figuring it out. All right. Next up, jumping ahead to Gen 2.

What color was the button, the one button on the Atari 2600 joystick? What color was the button? Beep, beep, beep, beep. Red. It is a red button. Matt is on the board with one point. All right, next up. This is a Gen 3 question.

You can get two points here. The Sega Master System controller had an 8-way D-pad and two buttons. Name those buttons. 8-way D-pad and two buttons. Oh, my God. Heather. Button 1 and 2. You are correct.

You get two points for that. Bonus points. What is the alternate label of the 1 button? Alternate label. I want to say select. It's not select, Matt. Is it A? No, it is one slash start.

It's a dual function button. Do you know that the master system, the controller also came with a tiny joystick you could screw into the D-pad? Yes, I remember that because my friend had one and it did not work well. No, it sucked. Really clunky. I had a PC,

I had like a Gravis game pad that had that too. I don't know why they thought people would want the mini stick. Whatever, they're figuring it out. Next up, skipping ahead to Gen 4. We're in 16-bit land now. Heather has two points. Matt has one. The Super NES face buttons were two shades of purple.

The Super Famicom, which was released in Japan and PAL territories, face buttons were four different colors. Red, green, blue, and blank. Heather. Yellow.

You're correct. It is a yellow button. Bonus points. Which button was the yellow button? Heather. Go ahead, Heather. A. Not A.

Is it? Well, you said there's, how many buttons are there? Four. Four buttons. Four face buttons. Red, green, blue, and yellow. What color is the yellow, or what label is the yellow button? Y?

It's not Y. It is the B button. The B button is the yellow button. Oh, wow. All right. Next one. Gen 5. Namco bundled the PlayStation 1 port of Time Crisis with a light gun.

Name that light gun. Oh, man. Oh, man. I know it. I know it. Nick, this is hard. This might be too hard. I had one of these, so I know this.

I don't remember I know it though I cannot it had a pass through so you could you take your RGB or you take your you know

the yellow video input cable and it would pass through to the light gun so it would be like a really precise aim it would be like

pixel perfect don't remember it anyone want to take a guess I can't even I can't even think of what it could be called can't remember it was it was the namco gun that's it fucking shit the gun but then you hear that and you're like oh yeah like yeah i remember god damn it The gun con coming to the Toyota Center in July. Next up, Gen 6. The GameCube controller had an asymmetric design with only three shoulder buttons or triggers.

Which side of the controller had two shoulder buttons? Heather. Heather. That would be the right side. You are correct. It was the R button and the Z button were both on the right side. Heather has four. Matt has one.

Heather's doing really good. Skipping ahead. Gen 7. Also staying with Nintendo. There was a small button in the dead center of the Wii remote bordered by minus and plus buttons. Heather. What is the button between minus and plus? Heather.

Home. That is the home button. Heather plus heather home that is the home button heather has five points all right uh matt playing for personal pride now uh jenna eight which i have none on the xbox one controller what is the position in the diamond of the Y button. It's Matt. I heard Matt. It's the top of the diamond. It is. It is the top.

You are correct, Matt. Matt has two. Heather has five. Nicely done, Matt. And final question. Caught up to modern times. Gen nine. In U.S. dollars, what is the current retail price for a playstation 5 dual sense controller

matt i believe it's 69.99 you are correct yes it's a lot of money for a fucking controller god fuck that's so much. Heather five, Matt three. You did well. Hey, we did good. You collectively got like seven or eight of the nine questions. We forgot about gun con. Yeah. Yeah.

How could we forget? So near and dear to our hearts. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe I got rid of my fucking gun con. That was so fucking cool. Nick, it wouldn't work for what you're trying to do with it. That's this week's Get Played.

Our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, DeadAreaAlexG on Twitter and Instagram. And also, we got Get Animated, our paywalled show. You know,

Stitcher Premium might be going away, but you can still find that on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Get Played. Heather, we're still working our way

through Haruhi Suzumiya. Yeah, we're in the final few episodes of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which is the mid-2000s mega hit anime that inspired dances all over the world, including prisons. They were dancing in the prisons. They were dancing in the prisons to Haruhi. So please check out us on patreon.com slash get played that's right if you're on Stitcher Premium and you're

like well hey where's all this content going well you know what you can find it all on patreon.com slash get played we got our whole archives of all of our animated episodes going back to when we started things out off by watching through all of Evangelion so check that out we'd love to have you over there. Rest of your content

DVD we'll find out and then So check that out. Well, we'd love to have you over there. Rest of your content? DVD. We'll find out. And then, oh, the episodes that we're watching of Haruhi Suzumiya this week are episodes 27 and 26, in that order. Yeah, we're watching it in broadcast order. don't just hop on crunchyroll and start with episode one because you'll be disoriented huge mistake guys it's been fun hanging out with you what a blast what and i want to say all the way from amsterdam that you both got played. Oh.

Still stings.