h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Modern Final Fantasy - A2589005
Author: LeonardQuirm - U715107

Hi, this is my first article on here. I couldn't find much about the Final Fantasy games from a search, so thought I'd do this general guide to the games that have been on the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2.
I'd be very interested to hear what people think! (although please no comments having a go at me for my opinions - like if you think FF VII is better than FF X - although obviously, if you think I've put too many opinions in, then say so and I may edit it)

I do indeed think you've included too many opinions; Edited Guide entries aren't supposed to include Researchers' personal opinions.

In terms of factual content, this is presently rather sketchy; which is hardly surprising given what you're trying to cover. Given that we already have the Edited Entries A665228 , A281512 and A412543 , you might consider applying to update the second and/or third, and give the other games separate Entries to themselves -- if you're up for that amount of work. I commend your scope, but I'm worried about the present lack of depth (and what reads as a rather dismissive atitude towards dedicated fans of the series).

The title is a touch unclear too.

A factual detail: Square Enix is what Squaresoft became when it merged with Enix, not a subsidiary of Squaresoft (which no longer exists as an entity outside Square Enix).

One other thing: regarding Final Fantasy VII, I recommend that you at least mention Advent Children: http://www.adventchildren.net

I've been rather critical, I know; actually I'm glad to see more attention being given to the series, and I think this could turn out well.

I just looked at your Personal Space; I didn't realise I was talking to a GCSE student (although I stand by my comments). I wish you the best of luck in the exams.

Hopefully these will help remove some of your confusion: C744 (especially the last item on the list).

You should probably have a look at these entries if you didn't come across them in your previous search. They could be worth linking to.

A665228 Final Fantasy - The Original
A281512 The Final Fantasy Series
A412543 Final Fantasy 7 - the Computer Game

I don't think that you need to worry about giving out the ending of FFX, because it's quite an old game now. If you mention in the entry that there is a section that might 'spoil' the game for those who haven't finished it, they can chose whether or not to read it. But if it will help with the FFX2 section, then I can't see it being a problem.

This entry has helped me to decide that I will wait for FFX2 to drop in price before I go for it, if it's not quite so good!

Only other comment at the moment, when you first mention the ATB, you should change it to Active Time Battle guage, and put the ATB in brackets to make it read a little easier. Then carry on calling it the ATB. Personally I didn't see much difference in waiting for a guage to fill up, or waiting for it to be a characters turn, but hey ho.

Sorry about the rather slow simpost there! There wasn't any other comments when I gave the same links as RFJS_.

As it's a review, there can hardly be no personal opinions - there are others in the Guide, it's the way they are written that makes the difference. Some of the Scouts might have an idea on whether there are too many here, or if they are too 'personal'. I didn't think that they were, but maybe I'm just biased as I like these games, and was happy to have some details of what the games were like.

Was this intended to be 'a review'? Or a factual entry with opinions included? We don't yet know the author's intentions.

I considered it a review, because that's what it looks like to me. amhappy to be corrected by the author if I'm wrong.

The first thing I notice about the entry is that many of the headers would look better if they had a line break beneath them, which would also be consistent with most of the other headers in the article.

I haven't played Final Fantasy myself, but I would argue: how can it be the 'final' fantasy when there are 12 in a series?(!)

When Squaresoft made the first, they were very short of money and it was make-or-break time; either the director or the producer -- I can't remember which offhand -- promised to take personal responsibility for the game's performance. So it nearly was his -- and indeed the company's -- final fantasy. Plus it was intended to be the ultimate -- or final -- fantasy.

Actually, the precise meaning of 'Fainaru Fantashi' probably doesn't bother Japanese gamers anyway.

Sorry, that should read 'Fainaru Fantashii'.

Right - I've taken these points into account, and implemented some of them so far. Thanks for the feedback.
I've put in the links where I felt they were appropriate, and altered a couple of the other points. For the moment, I think I'll leave it as a review (and I've changed the title to accomodate for this). Will this still be allowed in the Edited Guide? If not, I may try changing it into being more factual.

RFJS_ - what exactly did you mean the "second and the third"? FF 8 and 9? I could probably put some more detail into them with their workings and stories (although I currently do not have my copy of FF8 installed - I have the computer version). I had intended to keep all the entries to that sort of length, but got a little caught up with FFX, because I like it so much.
I was thinking of possibly using this as a starting point, then adding more in-depth articles for the seperate games which could be linked off this page.
And I'll change the references I made about "nostalgic fanatics" - now you mention it I see what you mean - when I have a little more time. Along with possibly more details about FFX-2 - although these may go in the more detailed page if I do these.

'Second and third' meaning the second and third links in the order I gave them.

The plan to link to more in-depth articles sounds fine; a core Entry to link to other Final Fantasy-related entries would be good (although it could require regular updating, depending on how many such Entries got written in the future; and I wonder how well it could combine the functions of being a core Entry in such a group and consisting of reviews). I was just worried that, if you didn't go into (objective) detail, others who might have done would be put off doing so (owing to the risk of duplication).

By the way, the Advent Children link I gave you wasn't to the official website; there is an official site, but there isn't much on it, and since it's almost entirely in Japanese you probably wouldn't be allowed to link to it anyway. Sorry if I inadvertently misled you.

Okay...working in progress...
How do you apply to "Update" pages? It's not just these ones; I'm also a big fan of Jasper Fforde, the author of the Thursday Next books, and was looking to try and update the pages on him and the books - although possibly I'll wait until book 4 is out, due in late July.
Also, I may change it so that the opinions are moved into seperate review pages, which is also linked off the main factual page. Would it be possible for me to write a different main page with the facts, then change this page into just reviews and have it linked off?

The Update Forum at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/UpdateForum (also accessible via a link at the top of the Peer Review page) will hopefully tell you all you need to know.

I'm inclined to think that A412543 and A281512 could both profit from updates, should you wish to apply for them; the Researchers of both seem to have left the building (meaning that they haven't posted on h2g2 for at least two months; more colloquially and vaguely, they've 'Elvised') long ago, so those Entries are probably up for grabs. I'm not sure how a review format would fit in alongside factual content, though; the Entries as they stand are essentially factual, so if you're planning review Entries it might be better to submit new ones -- such as this -- than to replace the existing ones. I'm inclined to suggest waiting a short while before applying to update anything, so as to give other Researchers time to give their views here.

(By the way, if I appear to keep vanishing, it's probably because I've been experiencing technical problems at my end.)

For 'update anything', please read 'update anything FF-related'; my comment wasn't intended to apply to anything else you might want to update,

OK, I've now written a new, pretty much objective page about the games. Probably not an amazing amount of factual knowledge, but what else is there to put? (If any suggestions, I'll be more than happy to try and find out the stuff and stick it in). After I've put some further touches to it (possibly putting in an explanation for why the name when there are so many, and more importantly, the various links to other pages), I'll submit it for the Edited guide. The page is A259112 (not sure how to put links in conversations).
My plan is to have this page as the sort of base, then from this links to reviews (the ones already existing and this article that I've written), and more detailed pages about each of the games (well, from FFVII to FFX-2) which include stuff about the mechanics of playing the game and the story, once I've done them. Any others around or that are going to be written, especially of FF VI and before, I will also link to. How does this sound?

h2g2 Entry codes are converted to links automatically (as are URLs, as long as they're given in full: ' http://... '), but you seem to have left the final digit off A2591129 , so what you typed didn't get converted because there's no Entry it refers to. (Whereas anything that looks like a URL will get converted whether it links to anything or not.)

The other Entry you've created looks pretty good as a general overview.

So I had.
Glad you think so. I'll submit it for the Edited guide, work on it a little as I get comments, and rework this article so that it's more definately my reviews of the games rather than trying to be factual (e.g. remove my info about Square and so on).

Okay.