I've actually had this come across before. People ask me what my website's about, I say "RPGs", and they say "what's that?" Here's the best I've come up with so far.

"Well, every game is different. Basically, there's a set story, and you advance the story by wandering around and fighting monsters, getting stronger, getting more skills and more stuff, and viewing cutscenes which bring the story further ahead."

Of course that sounds trite and doesn't do a bit of justice to any of it. But if you'd have to summarize The Lord of the Rings in one sentence ("Nine people have to throw an evil ring into a big volcano to defeat a huge bad guy before he destroys a few countries") it's just as stupid-sounding. You can *never* express what you like about something fairly complicated while summing up what it actually *is* in the same paragraph.

If I had a bit more space, I'd say something along the lines of this. "It's really interesting to feel like you actually have a hand in what people are doing and where they're going. Besides for the intellectual and (sometimes) physical challenge, it draws you in so you feel you really are the character (hence "role playing"). And the exploration factor gives you a great feel of the unknown. And since FF in particular has certain things that keep coming back (Chocobos, for instance) while having completely new worlds and characters, it's a great mix of familiarity and newness."

There you go.

--Cidolfas
http://www.ffcompendium.com/

Alright, here's the first 'concise' description of Final Fantasy that came to mind.

The Final Fantasy gaming series is largely equivalent to the Twilight Zone TV series.

Here's how:

Each game is completely seperate from the other, as is each Twilight Zone episode. Each cast of characters is different and each story is different. There are a few minor similarities between games, as there are a few similarities between the shows; such as themes, and recurring characters (ex. Cid and Rod Serling for Final Fantasy and Twilight Zone, respectively, although with different narrative purposes altogether). One could play a Final Fantasy game alone without knowing anything else about the series the same as someone could watch one single Twilight Zone episode without knowing anything about the show.

Some episodes of the Twilight Zone are light-hearted and comical, albeit with a serious undertone. The same goes with some games in the Final Fantasy series. Some episodes of the Twilight Zone are altogether dark and often dreary, again the same as some installments of the Final Fantasy series. However, despite the independence of each episode/game, both series are best understood and appreciated when looked at from a total point of view, seeing/playing as much of the series as possible.

That's the simplest, most concise way I can explain it. I tried to think of a good analogy of the battle system, but I really couldn't, other than pinning it with each game being different. Because, when you consider it, from a nongamer's point of view, the Guardian Force System next to the Materia System next to the Job/Ability System are three VERY different gameplay devices that even I, a lifelong gamer, needed to actually experience to understand.

Mike Drucker

This was going to be rocky. The new boyfriend hadn't played a console game since the original Legend of Zelda, and had never so much as heard of our sacred cow, the center of the entrenched RPG gamer's universe.

At the time I didn't have an answer; I'd been trying to explain this for 10 years or more to assorted unsympathetic ears with no success. So I thought I'd take the approach Square themselves is so often accused of these days, and just stuck in FFVIII for him so he could watch the opening cinema and be blown away by the evolution of videogaming in general. After all, it was either convert this innocent or offer to just be friends.

But round about "I'll be waiting. . . . " I realized that by showing him the pretty pictures, I wasn't showing him FF. How could I illustrate what my kind loved so dearly about this franchise with the increasingly laughable name? What could I say, or better yet, what snippet of gameplay could I show him that would distill it all into one digestible definition that would convert him or at the very least make him understand our obsession to some small degree?

It's easy enough to explain the turn-based, menu-driven combat even to a neophyte, yeah--although they may think it sounds hideously boring unless the first thing you show them is a no-Holy War battle with Omega Weapon or something. But it's difficult to just tell someone how we all felt when Rydia, all grown up, saved our asses from Golbez, when Gilgamesh gave us all his blessing and went kamikaze on our behalf, when Celes, with the tune of her opera aria twinkling, decided to leap to her death rather than face the post-apocalyptic World of Ruin, or when Aerith met her infamous end at the hands of one of the most effectively villainous bastards in gaming history.

I shut off the PSX just as Seifer was giving Squall his trademark scar. I thought for a moment as to the whereabouts of my SNES and disappeared into the other room. Shortly thereafter I returned with it, FFII, and my single surviving controller, which I pressed into his hands.

I couldn't tell him; I was going to have to show him.

~Zedelia, missionary (and that's nothing to do with bedroom preferences)

Which brings me to the FFXI footage. The environments look really nice, good bit of topographical variation there guys, but when I saw the rest of it I raised an eyebrow and it stuck. I just looked in the mirror and it's still raised the next day.

The battles look... turn based? The damn critter just sat there while generic Joe took a swing at him, and the camera actually rotated during a spell? I was hoping to have direct control over my character... am I going to have to wait for the camera to stop gyrating for someone's summon animation before I can make an attack or heal myself? I'm none too pleased on first impression. They'd better do some innovative ATB stuff (multiple actions at the same time perhaps) and have some cool game systems if they want me to shell out for this thing. I was so much more excited about it before I saw this trailer.

Continuing to bitch, what the hell is up with the aesthetics? Is that scrubby looking dragon Bahamut's mentally deficient bastard cousin Lenny??? I fail to see any semblance of anything Final Fantasy here... the characters themselves look way too generic. I was hoping for Red Mages and Dragoons... instead the only classes represented were "dorkass with sword" and "fat guy". Bah.

Who knows how it will turn out though. Here's hoping it's better than the trailer. I think I really want more of a Seiken Densetsu/Secret of Mana online. We'll see how it turns out I guess.

Mosquiton

Apparently, this exact question came up, asked by a professor, at a recent barbecue held by the Physics dept. here at Swarthmore College (the question was in fact spurred by the movie, apparently). My Physics-studying, _Final Fantasy_ playing friends tell me that one guy replied by saying (approximately): "Well, _Final Fantasy_ is all about sticks. You run around killing bad things with sticks, and you get bigger sticks to kill bigger bad things. Oh, and also as you kill bad things you yourself get bigger. The goal is to eventually be the biggest you can, have the biggest possible stick, and beat the biggest bad thing."

Guy in question should have watched me and brother beat Zeromus for the first time many years ago with a level 45 (at most) party. We were _nowhere_ near the biggest we could be then ;-).

---Vierran of House Guaranty

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AfroMan

*enter one dark and erie room, the only thing seen is Chrono and your party*

*one by one torches are lit, circling a central*

*Your party tries to focus their attention*

*cue a single violin, high and distant*

*focus on a dark Vampire of a man, Magus*

Magus: Time to die

*cue the ultra-savvy Tango music*

*the fight begins*

You see its not that Magus is the typical RPG antisocial, dark, evil, but somehow end up on side of good person. Its that he's the only typical RPG antisocial, dark, evil, but somehow end up on side of good person that choreographs his own fights to catchy Latin beats.

Lates,

Calypso, the only guy who thinks Magus was the FIRST dude Livin La Viva Loca.

Gunstarheroz

Final Fantasy is Square's cash cow.

-Fares

Unfortunately no one can be told what Final Fantasy is...you must play it for yourself.

~Cloud, unable to resist the temptation to make easy "Matrix" references.

I've tried this before, and I have got converts, so I guess it works:

FF has 9 different games. You'll only be able to play it from 7 because the rest are all on consoles we never bothered with (FF6 for SNES was never released here). It's got good-looking guys and good-looking girls. Oh, and one of these has that Faye Wong song! I'm not telling you, you'll have to play all the games to see for yourself.

Seriously, friends played FF7 and 8 to find where "Eyes on Me" was. It doesn't tell much about the game, but it just gets people to play it.

DMJ

I wouldn't. There have been many times in the course of my life I've attempted to expound on the majesty of the Final Fantasy games and of RPGs in general, and I've always come up short. Trying to cram roughly 11 years of wonder and adventure into a few sentences isn't really something I'm capable of, and my deeply rooted fanatacism only widens the gulf. For me, at least, it's not something I'll ever be able to properly describe to the uninitiated (avoiding the m-word...). It's a shame, becuase I have tried in the past to do Our Lord's work (Our Lord being Thunder God Cid) and spread the faith to others. I've succeed with only one person, my younger brother, and that was due mostly to the fact that I started on him young, and that he was willing to play the games himself. To everyone else, I just shake my head and say "I'm sorry, there's no way I can." And the sad thing is, most people don't care enough to ask why.

Super Saiya-jin.