Final Scantasy - A Replacement for Phantom Scanlon?

So it was mentioned in a recent UPF that drew should play through all of Final Fantasy... ... YES PLEASE.. as someone who loves a few of these games and would love to see him suffer through the craziness that is some of the more recent ones (13 oh lord and 13.2 gah) I would buy years worth of premium subscriptions for these. Who is with me? What else would you love to see him play?

I would love to see him play through all of the Phantasy Stars - the various iterations of Hylide would be great too.

Playing through all or any Final Fantasy is just a task and half with the unfortunate thing is there's little in between a few scenes unless you play FF13 but most people hate FF13 and do not care for joining Drew on that journey, infact I am not onboard for joining Drew on any of these ideas and I AM A HUGE PHANTASY STAR FAN! Since I know the game I know that for Phantasy star 1 its get lost a little then go into the dungeon get lost a little get out get lost a little and eventually get to a proper dungeon and get completely lost. Phantasy star 2 its start of not lost report in get Nei get out of town and then get lost a little then maybe a lot then go into the dungeon you're supposed to and have to heal alot and get battered and then get utterly utterly lost, die then start aaaaaaaaallllllllll over again. Unless you grind outside which....thats grinding...not good streaming content. Add repeat for the others as well.

MGS works cos crazy story and gameplay is popping off all the time, Persona 4 worked cos crazy story was often happening, FF or PS do not have the same credits to their name.

Now you can have more of an argument with FF15 or FF7 remake as those will be faaaar more exciting in story delivery and content for people to watch aswell as new however going back to old FF or PS is a terrible idea those are too long and too boring for people to watch. Fun to play but can still have their boring points.

I'd potentially be interested in watching them play through one Final Fantasy game. But just one, the idea of doing them all is ludicrous. If they were to do something with Final Fantasy I'd suggest choosing one of the highest profile entries (IV, VI, VII or X) and then leaving it at that.

The concept of playing an entire series cover to cover like MGS and VinnyVania is interesting and has some obvious upside, but playing through every FF (or any JRPG series really) is such a massive undertaking it almost certainly wouldn't be worth the time investment. Looking at average completion times for each mainline, non-MMO Final Fantasy shows a total of 457 hours. If you add X-2 and the two XIII sequels, the hour count is 555. These are pretty conservative numbers as they only account for playthroughs with no side content completion. It would take years and years, and it would almost certainly become extremely tedious at a point.

I think it would be neat to see some of the earlier, prominent ones, like the SNES era games. The modern ones seem like they might be pretty dull to watch though.

Ehhhh... I dunno. Watching other people grind through random encounters for a long period of time doesn't seem particularly entertaining.

I know, I know, there's the Persona 4 and Chrono Trigger ER's, but both of those games break away from the traditional JRPG mold when it comes to battles. Persona 4 has long stretches where you're just hanging out, talking to people, getting up to some crazy antics in your small town, and Chrono Trigger doesn't have random encounters. Final Fantasy, especially the early ones, have a high encounter rate and some grinding - maybe not the best game to watch other people play.

All of them? Hell no. They would not survive that. Nobody would!
One of them (preferably one of the shorter ones), maybe. Sure, why not.

Don't hold your breath. Even setting aside questions of how entertaining the feature would be, the time commitment alone is more than any sane person would reasonably undertake. We're talking HUNDREDS of hours of poor Drew's life here!

I could see them, maybe, ERing one Final Fantasy game, but it's not something I'm especially clamoring to see.

I was just thinking the same thing. Well, if they start now and did two hours a week and never took a week off, they might finish somewhere towards the end of 2021.

Eh ok how about xenogears then - has the crazy story and I do mean CRAZY story, and interesting but not to hard gameplay. Could guest star Austin who could try to explain it...

Xenogears would be an absolute bore to watch. Like even not taking into account the second disk, a large portion of that game is endless babble and bullshit broken up by awful dungeon design. JRPGs don't make for exciting things to watch and the first person to go "BUT PERSONA 4 ENDURANCE RUNNNN" is getting bopped.

That's too much Final Fantasy for anybody.

Can't imagine them going back to the 16 bit era, CT is probably more of an exception. 4 is a grindfest, 5 could be interesting but probably low interests level, 6 is great, but I don't feel any of the bombcrew cares enough about it to want to know about it.

When/if 7 remake ever comes out it might be interesting to have someone who played the original and someone who hasn't to go though it and compare notes.

8 and 9 are probably too low key among the crew to worth mentioning, I don't think they want to go anywhere near 10.

12 and 13 are probably the only ones that are visually exciting to do with the movement in combat and is tangentially close to the release of 15 so it might spark some level of interests but I don't think the fanfare of 12 is big enough, and 13 is more of a downer among these parts even though Brad had said the original is totally fine with some questionable pacing issue.

As much as I love XG I don't think it is a game many people can stomach.

I think there's someone out there who could make playing through every single Final Fantasy game entertaining, but on paper that sounds like it would get very boring, very quickly.

Like others have said, I think all of them, or even more than one is too much. Also, part of what made Metal Gear Scanlon so fun was that Drew was partnered with someone who's intimately familiar with those games, and there really isn't anyone on staff who is like that with FF games that were created after the SNES era(at least on the west coast), and I think picking anything from the SNES is a mistake.

If I had to pick a FF game, I would probably say 9. I don't remember having to do too much grinding; I feel like I was able to mainline that game pretty quickly, and it's a solid entry in the series.

If you want to expand this to the JRPG genre in general that would probably be more interesting and they would obviously have a greater deal of choice in what to play, but once again we're at a loss when it comes to that partner. We wouldn't have someone that is equivalent to Dans role in the MGS series, so they would either choose someone who has a history with JRPGS to provide some general guidance, or they would pick someone with as little experience as Drew. In the case of the second scenario, they have to pick someone who is as willing as Drew to get invested in something they very well may not like. Dan is (somehow) the best fit in that case.

Why is it more I think of this. the more it makes me think it will be just like Betting the FarmVille......we never got a finale.....

That sounds absolutely terrible. I'd rather watch Dan have to play a Drew game. Maybe a flight club with Dan at the controls

Based on the reactions people had to Chrono Trigger, hell naw.

They should do SuikoDan instead

I really don't think FF would work well for a video series.

I would much rather have The Legend of Zeldrew: Link to the Brad, or something. Drew playing Zelda, with anyone but Dan. The Drew-Dan bromance is alright, but they always have Demo Derby also.

Totally. Let's mix in a Drew & Brad or Drew & Jeff playthrough of something, that would be excellent.

Playing through FFVIII could be pretty fun, because it's a fucking crazy game.. But honestly Solid Scanlon has earned his rest.

Maybe playing a specific one would be interesting but the last thing I'd want anyone to do is play through every Final Fantasy. That journey would end at FF 2 which is a truly awful game.

Final Scantasy sounds dirty as fuck. Playing them all would be absurd, not to mention if Drew can barely get through MGSV, a long RPG might cause him physical pain. You know Brad has mentioned before that he wanted to play FFV. That could be neat. Or even Jeff playing IV since it's the only one he seems to talk about positively. But we all know what we really want.

Final Dantasy X-2.

On the surface this sounds awesome

but this feature would take yearrrrs to finish. I can't see Drew digging this, especially the ones that might require some grinding.

While I mentioned in another thread that I'd very likely enjoy watching a new playthrough of some game with Dan and Drew, I'd actually take a regular, weekly Demo Derby over that any day.

Everyone would through a tantrum if this was the Final Fantasy ER that GiantBomb provided, but Final Fantasy X-2 would literally be the only Final Fantasy game that they could play that would provide anything resembling entertainment value. There are many great Final Fantasy games, but they are hard as hell to make funny for someone watching them. Chrono Trigger had a lot more fun moments in it than the average Final Fantasy game and even that was a major struggle at times during that Endurance Run.

This would be a one way ticket to pain. Don't do it. Drew deserves better.

I'd love to see an older style Resident Evil. Between REmake, RE2, and OG RE1

If you want Drew to develop a hatred for Final Fantasy, yeah sure, make him play through them all on video. I don't know if I'd even want to see him play one for the site. He'd have more fun if he tried one of the better games on his own I think.

Knowing how Drew tends to mainline things, i don't think it would be a good idea. Eventually he gets stumped at something and will need to grind for hours to catch up.

Dan and Drew should play all the Kingdom Hearts games instead

it'd be too time consuming of a process, also I don't know the extent of Drew's jrpg experience but if it's something he won't enjoy then I wouldn't want to watch it.

Why's poor Drew always the one who gets volunteered for this stuff? Let's see Brad and Jason play through all the Dragon Quest games.

Why does it have to be a mainline entry? Why not have Crystal Chronicles multiplayer, Secret of Mana Multiplayer, Kingdom Hearts, or TWEWY? Those would be more interesting to watch as well as easier for the crew to play and not want to kill themselves.

You are not wrong. Kingdom Hearts would fit the format better. The problem is Kingdom Hearts 1 is extremely light on the crazy insanity. It's like 3 hours at the beginning and end of that game of actual Kingdom Hearts plot. The rest is pretty much Disney retelling. The rest of the series though is up there on Kojima level story telling. Just to see them get to the final twist of 3D would be priceless. It might be the single most insane plot twist I have ever seen. It outdoes the entire MGS series.

I wouldn't submit Drew to all of the Final Fantasy games (just like they've skipped M.G. Acid and other "side-story" Metal Gear games), but having him play the watershed moment ones like the SNES versions of IV and VI, the PSX versions of VII, Tactics, and the PS2 version of FFX is plenty for me. Maybe even a Kingdom Hearts 1 bonus episode. And maybe don't even make him play all the way through. Maybe just until he decides they make him miserable and then he moves on to the next one, like how they do with the Demo Derby stuff.

One thing I am certain of, however, is that if they do a Final Scantasy, they DEFINITELY don't want to use Dan (sorry, @danryckert), as he will definitely just shit-talk the JRPG genre the whole time (probably for good reason a lot of the time).

I think the important part, just like with Metal Gear Scanlon, was this aspect of having someone who was an expert on the series and had appreciation for them all or at least the most notable games in a series essentially "guide" (*cough* Jason *cough*) Drew through each of the ones he plays to answer questions and perhaps sometimes explain why something was significant or not for the time it existed.

In any case, this is something I think I'd enjoy, as Drew seems pretty open to trying out this sort of stuff he maybe missed out on or wasn't necessarily interested in with an open mind and seems to be genuinely appreciative of games for their historical importance, both in the literal sense of history (WW1 games for example) and in the sense of how they changed aspects of the gaming industry itself in various ways.

Would be genuinely excruciating to watch and not in a fun way like Mario Party Party.

Hell yes to Kingdom Hearts, it's the only video game series I can think of besides maybe Drakengard that tops MGS when it comes to anime insanity.

Final Fantasy games are real long though, especially some of the later ones. Also keep in mind that playing all the FF games includes 13, 13-2, and Lightning Returns which would probably be the video game equivalent of waterboarding Drew.

I want Dan to play Persona 3 with Jeff. I know, I know, breaking up the dream team. I just want to see how Dan reacts to Persona weirdness.

Can we just let Drew be?

The internet as we know it would be gone by the time Drew gets halfway through the series.

I'd be totally down to see him just play one though. It can only be one of two games, the very first one or the most beloved.

Playing through FF7 would be great to set up Drew for the remake! And the PS4 version has a lot of good modern updates like fast forwarding through combat which would make grinding much less of a hassle. It's also a fairly easy one that you don't really even need to grind if you're just mainlining the game.

And FF7 also happens to be a really fucking weird game with iconic mistranslations that I'm sure would translate to great entertainment.

I was wondering how long it'd be after it got mentioned on UPF that a thread would start.

I don't think it'd really be that entertaining. There's a lot of very dull grindy parts in the games and nobody on the GB team has an active interest in them or a deep knowledge of them that can spice up the duller parts. With MGS, you've Dan who loves the games, warts and all, and throws out information and anecdotes about his time with them and how he approached them vs how Drew does it. There'll be none of that with Final Fantasy.

Even with the latest series, MGS V can get a bit dull when there's nothing going on except "we need to kill time/grind stuff". Now imagine that over and over in Final Fantasy games because between the story beats there's nothing particularly of note happening and unlike with the wacky moment to moment stuff that can happen in MGS V, there is none of that in FF. The actual gameplay is pretty boring.

If you'd like some entertainment of someone suffering through a Final Fantasy go read @zombiepie's entries about Final Fantasy 8 here.

You know what? They should give the whole "Endurance Run" thing a rest.

Honestly you would need a hell of a dynamic duo (or trio) to make playing through an entire FF game (much less 15 of them) very entertaining for viewers. Unfortunately, there's no one at GB who I think would sincerely enjoy watching/playing through one of those games at this time, so now it's a doubly challenging effort.

A Vinny/Alex/Austin JRPG romp sounds much more doable/realistic/fun to me than any West Coast version.

For the love of Odin let Drew play a series more in tune with how he plays games.

I don't think playing the entire series would be fun for either Drew or viewers. However, as he's said several times he wants to try one, maybe there could be a consensus on which one he'd like the most/is the most accessible and that's the one that gets played. I don't know who would play with him though, as there's no one I can think of on the staff that's a big fan of the series.

Edit: Oh, and I'm totally on board with "Final Scantasy" as a name.

Why make Drew do it when you can make @zombiepie do it?