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Which had the best character development system in your opinion..

It definitely has to be FF5. The job system was very fun and interested me to keep playing the game even further. Bare would become the best job ever along with Mimic if you master all jobs.

Second it would have to be FF2j. The Mastery was fun to make your characters' weapons stronger to defeat those damned hard enemies

And third it would have to be FFVI's Espers and Relics. Espers improved character stats permanently at level ups and gave magic aswell.

My favourite is the sphere grid from 10. In ways, it is similar to the Esper's, so they'll go second. FF2's i haven't really got into yet, i'm not very far.

I voted for FF8... It's always going to have a soft spot in my heart for being easy to abuse, and really, really power level (with the right spells at least).

In a close second, would probably be FF4. Very very straight forward, and it didn't require you to go off the beaten path... just train, that's all.

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In the FFIV board, you can probably find several posts by me pointing out how much better the individuality the system of IV has than the other FFs.
Next would be FFII, then IX (which would be little higher if it wasn't so overboard with the abilities).

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

While I personally prefer, for my own RPG design, the learn-spells-by-levels format of FFIV, the one system that has captured my...mind (not heart, since I had quite a lot of fun strategizing) is FFV's system of character classes, class abilities, and 'empty space' enabling interesting class combinations (e.g. summoner with quadruple-attacks).

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voted FFV. all the variety, and i like how you can play each game with a different combination of job classes.

FF IX. Long-ish post ahead, may want to stop reading now if one is lacking in attention span.

FF IX's learning-through-equipment and ability selection systems added a new dimension of strategy to character setup and equipment customization, while also doing a decent job of keeping higher-level abilities confined to their appropriate sections of the game. However, what I believe is the best part of FF IX's system is that the characters retain their individuality while still keeping a degree of freedom of customization. Having heterogenous characters makes parties of different characters actually behave and strategize differently, while in many other FF games (V, VII, VIII, and X, I'm looking at you guys) very nearly every single important ability could be used by any character, save limit breaks/criticals/overdrives. Under such a system, players will often use the same strategies for every single battle, and what characters they are using won't make a difference. FF IX has elements of FF IV's differentiated characters and of FF VI's shared learnable ability stem, so characters have specific roles with customizable abilities and styles.

FF VI's Esper system almost certainly my second-favorite, with Magic as a shared ability and each character with their own unique abilities; it's another example of great balance between the extremes of FF IV and FF X.


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The Sphere Grid for me. It allowed for characters to evolve however one wanted them to, and, while this isn't new, it was a system that moved at quite a constant rate and tailored to the needs of each player. It allowed newer players to build effective characters, and crafty veterans to create unique characters.

You know what, I'm going to say FFVIII. I think it's the customization. Laslow pointed out that it IS possible that the system would make you rather lazy, and every character would be a bit of tank/nuker/whitemage/blackmage all in one. BUT if you don't allow yourself to be lazy, you can set up your party however you like, thats what I enjoy. Of course some characters have stats and battle styles that suite a certain class but with the right GF Junction that can become whatever you need them to be.

Runners up our FFVII's Materia system, and FFT's class/weapon skill system.

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I voted other. The Job system of FFT allowed endless combinations of abilities and skills that you can use in battle. It was also fun to toy around with, too.

Runners up is FFX's Sphere Grid, FFV's Job system, and FFVI's Espers.

Edit

Fixed a punctuation error.

This post has been edited by Shadow Monroe on 23rd June 2005 18:06

I prefered IV's system. I don't want characters being able to do everything the other characters could. If a character starts as a Mage, I want them to end as a Magic-Wielder.

I just think that it can take away from the character's personality. And the game doesn't make the changes needed if your character is a different class. Someone once said something like, "You can have Ramaza as a White Mage, and the game will still say 'Draw your sword, Ramaza!'"

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Could you repeat that?

The munchkin in me goes with the sphere grid in FFX, but the rest of me chooses

FFT's Job/Ability system

Final Fantasy VI
- Strategic Spells -
- Strategic Relics -
Both of these aspects could be used to create the ultimate team (or in my case Sabin). The only problem was once you catch on to some of the holes in the game you can kill each boss (even god Kefka) in one turn.

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Quote (Dark_Kain_24 @ 2nd July 2005 01:12)

Final Fantasy VI
- Strategic Spells -
- Strategic Relics -
Both of these aspects could be used to create the ultimate team (or in my case Sabin). The only problem was once you catch on to some of the holes in the game you can kill each boss (even god Kefka) in one turn.

The only equipment that's actually strategic is stat gaining from espers.
If you're talking abour Vanish-Doom/X-Zone, then that would technically be two turns. And there are plenty of bosses that can't be vanished, and that probably includes Kefka (someone confirm this).

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

I like FFX's Sphere Grid the most and VI's Esper system comes at a close second. Just the fact that Lulu can deal more 4000 damage with either magic or attacks is something comforting...

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I voted for FFVIII's junction/draw battle system partly because it was my first FF game and partly because it was easy to master. The characters' junctioned GFs learn the abilities for the character to use and the character utilizes those abilties as well as learn their unique Limit Break attacks and skills by using items or reading magazines and what-have-you. FFX's Sphere Grid is a close second because not only do the characters have their own set of skills on their initial Sphere Grid path, they can unlock different nodes to learn another character's set of skills. Both junction and spheres are easy to abuse and real fun to play with.

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Hard to say. I throughly enjoyed IX's learning off equipment, but at the same time the vast combinations of FFT were something to enjoy. FFII's method was so very fun to abuse since you could just beat the snot out of your own party members to create godly characters at the start of the game.

So I can't really say, I enjoy getting a lot of time out of my games, and the job system is best for that.

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thats a tough one, but in the end i'd have to say -- - the job system on FF5 it makes you r people more customizable and it makes the game more interesting.

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tough decision.. all of the FF development systems were great in one way or another. I'd have to say IX's ablities in equipment and VI espers were the best, with V's at a close second.

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"To be forgotten is worst than death." Freya , FF9

"How do you prove that you exist...? Maybe we dont exist." Vivi, FF9

my favourite way is either the materia or the abilities off ff9 yeh i think its ff9 all the way

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Im with Laszlow on FFIX's, it is the best of them all, but Tales of Symphonia's S and T-type rules, allowing you to learn different tecchs, and if youre real good both types.

FFIX's ability system was the one thing I liked about the game.



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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

6 years, and I still think that the Sphere grid is my favourite method of character development. I also really liked 9's - you could go through the game blissfully unaware that you were missing out on opportunities to get some really vital abilities earlier on in the game by stealing from bosses - incidentally my favourite game for stealing things (minus Hilgigas). That being said, I think Job systems are in a class of their own (no pun intended), being able to build a hybrid of two jobs is really cool, and both Tactics and V do this really well. Of the two, I think Tactics has the better system, letting you customize how you build your jobs as well as characters.

I think I should go and play Tactics again.

I love how much FF5 is winning the poll, considering that no more than six people worldwide are known to enjoy the game.

The Sphere Grid, simply for it's sheer "Wow, this is NOT something you see everyday" factor, and the ability system in IX is in a close second.

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Quote (Tiddles @ 25th July 2011 18:26)

I love how much FF5 is winning the poll, considering that no more than six people worldwide are known to enjoy the game.

Well it IS generally cited as the best part of FFV. FFVI's plot and FFVII's plot and fandom generally overshadow their skill development systems.

Since I last posted, I've played Tactics Advance and I must also say I like their system. It's similar to FFV's, except your skills learned are tied to your equipment--giving equipment a role other than stat-tweaking, for once--and you get more slots for abilities. Two action-ability slots, one reaction-ability slot, one support-ability slot, and one combo-ability slot. I definitely like that larger number of ability slots more.

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Quote (Tiddles @ 25th July 2011 15:26)

I love how much FF5 is winning the poll, considering that no more than six people worldwide are known to enjoy the game.

There's a distinct possibility that the FF5 option garnered a few votes from people who loved FFT and voted for it based on a more-or-less shared system. (I think when I participated in the initial vote years back, that's what I did.)

IX to the bitter end. It's the only FF game where all the abilities actually fit the characters. IV had a similar system but I found that the individuality and balance was less than IX. Two different teams in IX made up of different characters is a completely different play style, where as with IV it seemed to be a lot less of a change.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 26th July 2011 06:42

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Personally, I think tactics is my favorite, but since I didn't want to vote "other," I went with FF6's system of Espers and Relics. Being able to equip two different relics was great and most other FF games only allow one accessory (not sure if any others let you use more than one). The Esper system allowed for customization of characters but also limited you because all characters leveled up as you played so you couldn't train everyone the same way. Each character also retained their own skill sets which grew on their own like in FF4, and I particularly like the way each character feels like an individual. In many of the later FFs, I feel like each character is really just an aesthetic choice.

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Wha? Thanks to me?

Re each character seems like just an aesthetic choice: Their stats are pretty vastly different, and in some cases, their equipment.

Equipment might matter more in FFVII and later than in FFVI, though, since I distinctly remember Barret being unable to attack something when I was playing FFVII due to the fact that he had equipped the melee weapon "cannonball" rather than a long-range weapon. That said, I don't know how often that comes up in the game.

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )