Favorite Magic System

[MooglePeru]

Topic. Vote for your favorites magic systems here. Personally, I prefer the FFIV/Chrono Trigger/Pokemon one.

[Spec]

By materia (:

[Cheetah]

None of them, to be honest with you.

[Tallulah]

I am partial to the Junction system in Final Fantasy VIII, but unless you have the patience of a saint, you leave yourself open to uneven attributes. For instance, Zell and Squall kick ass, but the rest of them hit like girls (including Irvine!). Plus, Squall is the only one with HP above 3000.

So given the flaws of that system, I would have to go with FFVII materia, even though I have not played in AGES!. :)

[Shned]

Materia gave you complete customisation, where learning from equipment did not. Each character was a specific class, whereas you could mix and match through Materia. Same as drawing, I guess, although I was not a fan of the Junction system. At all.

So yeah, Materia.

[Roger]

I personally liked the idea of the equipment option - it wasn't very broad in it's scope, but it allowed simplicty when the focus really was on it's superb storyline.

My favourite however is the License Grid from FFXII. Not only does it allow for excellent customisation of individual characters, but every ability, magic and armour has to be bought, so it means you have to loot enemies like a mo'fo to pay for it all. Which means more leveling up. Which means more satisfaction later on.

[CosmoKing]

I'm not that sure really as I can see benefits and flaws in all of the systems-however, I probably slightly prefer the FFXII system: you can have one character master ALL magics, rather then just having seperate mages do different things or having each character master limited and different spells because one character cannot master them all.

[Sioux]

Well, If I had posted here maybe ten days ago, I would've said Drawing magic from enemies for the Junction system.

Now however, my whole perspective has been changed.

Final Fantasy XII is turning out to be not only my new favorite, this whole License grid situation and the magic it allows for is my new favorite. The level of customization here is unprecedented in the Final Fantasy universe and brings a whole new level of depth to the game and to the series.

Also,

The Materia system was terrible and is terrible. That's just my angry two cents there.

[DarkAngeal]

I liked getting them through the 'License Board' mainly because - as Sioux has stated, it brings a whole new depth to the game which I really enjoyed.

[Mig]

I personally liked the idea of the equipment option - it wasn't very broad in it's scope, but it allowed simplicty when the focus really was on it's superb storyline.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I really preferred the learning from items system as it was quick, easy, and simple to keep track of. Materia and Drawing annoyed me as soon as I needed to change it for one character, it meant going through everyone and adjusting pretty much -everything-.

I mean the endless lists and lists of stuff and trying to figure out who has that one piece of mastered cure materia that you desperately need for this next boss battle but can't find because you equipped it to some character you hardly used... it was frustrating. To me, at least.

I'm a pretty big fan of the FFXII system, though.

[MooglePeru]

Materia sucks. Natural-level gained abilitties always worked. It worked in FFIV, one of my favorites FFs-ever. It worked in Chrono Trigger, one of my favorite RPGs ever. And it worked in Pokemon, absolutely one of the best multiplayer franchises ever.

[The Dark Paladin]

Materia wasn't all that bad, IMO. Drawing was annoying and is annoying, who wants to spend hours drawing magic for junctioning? License Board was good, but it made the game too easy and took all of the challenge from the game, once again, based only on my opinion. Level up to learn was good, but Moogle, in CT, they didn't learn it by level, they learned it by the amount of (AP? Magic Points?) earned at the end of battle, like FF VI. FFVI was possibly the second best of the options, but still made the game too easy for the ability to master magic by all characters. No, I prefered the weapons learning from FF IX and FFTA. That gave you very little mastery, but still gave you the want in buying or synthesizing more of the wepons. Buying magic was okay, but FF II was just wrong on so many level IMO that it was disappointing to play.

[KoFF]

All of them, really. They all bring something interesting and unique to the tables. I couldn't be happier about the wide array of ways to gain magic and skills as you progress. They're all great in their own ways. Wouldn't rather one than another.

[get_mik]

I would go with the mixture of buying and learning at levels/earning the right to use it.

One of the problems starting back in FF6 (well, it could be said about FF2 but eh) was that everyone could learn every spell, everyone pretty much became the same character.

True there were different stuff they each could do, but if you have let's say enough econimizers and what not, I'm pretty sure everyone would be casting ultima instead of doing their "other attacks".

One of the main reasons why FF4 will forever be one of the best FF games is because it had a great storyline with each character actually having a reason to be the class they were and each class was very distinct. More true to the notion of a real rpg, rather than I'll be a fighting mage wielding the Excaliber sword while casting Ultima and everyone is also a healer too.

Custimization is actually ruining the class system. Custimize the teams, not what each person on the team can or cannot do.

The reason why FF5 was fine with doing their job system was because they could only at a max do two jobs, so they could be white and black mage but not a fighter and such, it created a balance to it.

Mik

[ImThaSpaz]

I stand as the lonely vote for 6's system. I liked the magicite, specifically for the permanent boosts it gave your characters. And.. yeah, all characters could learn all the spells. :P
But CT's system (Which was Tech points by the way) would have to be the close second... and it's still similar to 6's. Materia was just a ginormous headache to me. I preferred the Draw and Junction system to materia.

[get_mik]

If they had done it differently for FF8 to where you didn't equip your magic to your stuff the draw system would of been much better IMO. Also they should of had monsters drawing from you. The system would need a LOT of revamp work to correct it.

I hated not being able to cast spells because it would affect my stats... >_<

Mik

[The Dark Paladin]

I stand as the lonely vote for 6's system. I liked the magicite, specifically for the permanent boosts it gave your characters. And.. yeah, all characters could learn all the spells. :P
But CT's system (Which was Tech points by the way) would have to be the close second... and it's still similar to 6's. Materia was just a ginormous headache to me. I preferred the Draw and Junction system to materia.

Wow, seriously? Materia was a bigger headache than Junctioning? That's strange. For Materia, all I had to do was buy the basics for everybody, Fire, Lightning, Ice, Restore, Heal, Steal, and Revive, then they leveled up with the person I bought them for. I'd split Summon materia up evenly depending on magic power and personallity (Aerith got Shiva, Barret got Titan, Red XIII got Ifrit, etc.) and the other materia, like Contain, Seal, Comet, E. Skill, Ultima, Mystify, Transform, and Poison went on random split people to make at least one person have one of each of those named (Like Tifa having Poison or Barret having Mystify, although I had three different E. Skills and I put them on the team I was going to use at the end battles.). It was fairly simple.

The junctioning was a fiasco though. If you wanted to make sure every character had Junction for almost every stat in the game at the end, you had to know what each one was going to have before you got them or you had to use a lot of amnesia greens. You had to Junction your high leveled magic to get anything good (Like Full-Life to your HP, or at least Curaga) in your stats and your characters constantly had problems with either switching junctions or splitting them evenly. Not to mention either the funds to buy items to transform into various magics or the amount of time and patience it took to draw. THAT was more of a headache to me, I never even set the Magic option in my combat menu. Not to mention that the only characters in that game with good Limit Breaks were the guys (Rinoa's was good too, but far too random.)