Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Final Fantasy VI is one of my very favorite FFs and one of my favorite games in general, but in some ways my feelings are a little mixed. Let me expand.

The World of Balance is nothing short of a masterpiece. The music, the characters, the tone, the story, the gameplay. All of it just really comes together to create something special. I actually played FFVI pretty late. I played a ROM briefly after I played VII, but it wasn't until it was re-released on the PSX that I played it through. Even playing the ROM, though, it felt really familiar and timeless. I don't know, there's just something about it.

If I were to pick some grievances they would be thus:

1) "Generic" character moments. On those occasions where you can any character with you, so the game chooses to just have generic dialogue that could be given to any character. It might have been system limitation, but I would have liked more character specific dialogue that changed depending on the characters chosen.

2) Some of the character back history moments felt out of place. They were good on their own, they just didn't mesh well with the rest of the story in terms of pacing and placement. They just happen, I guess. It feels odd sometimes.

Those are nitpicks those. Small complaints. Otherwise, the World of Balance is a masterpiece.

The World of Ruin, though, doesn't exactly live up to its name, but isn't quite as good. I enjoy the vignettes each village/character brings and its fun to get some actual non-linearity to an FF game. However, being able to choose who you recruit and bring along means you've got those generic character moments all the time. Once you get past a character's moment to shine you could almost forget their place in the story, you know? Celes starts out as the leader in the WoR, but by the time we get to Kefka's palace I've almost forgotten she was there (as an example).

It also really kills the pacing. I just don't feel the sense of urgency or anything like I did in the WoB. Like I said, the individual moments are good. It was just, by the the time I reach Kefka it feels like just an item on my list. Without a real "Okay let's do this scene" it kind of falls flat. Especially since you can come and go as please, really, with no consequence.

But really, its still a great game. I just think its a little top heavy with pure awesome, if that makes sense.

Another thing I find interesting is the lack of a real definitive "main character." Pretty much every FF game after IV (including III's remake) has one except for this game. Sure, you start with Terra and she's the traditional choice, but you don't really stay focused on her for that long. Soon you're jumping all over the place. Then she's not even accessible for a period of time. You could say Terra's the main character because the story, if not the gameplay, focuses a lot on her, but all bets are off once the WoR hits. Celes fits the role of a main character more there than anyone else. She's there from the beginning and starts to gather everyone up for the assault on Kefka's tower. Sure, she doesn't specifically do anything once you can switch her out, but its possible everyone would have stayed put if Celes had killed herself or just stayed on the island or something. Terra isn't even required to be recruited in the WoR. Her specific role ends with the WoB.

Although, really, most of the characters could be the "main" character if the Square had chosen to focus on them. This is cool, because it really shows how many of them had been fleshed out pretty well.

Anyway, that's really all I have to say on VI.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Woah, he really looks like these villains in Fire Emblem Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn:

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Bumpity bumpity bump!

My (not so) regular triumphant return to GT is here!

I've been in the FF mood recently.

I never did finish my playthrough of FF2, but I still have the save. It's for the PSP remake version so it's technically easier, but I don't think I can fault myself too much. My characters can only take so many beatings to the head to get their HP up. Last I checked I was outside of Mysidia and I have both of the masks. Where the story progresses to afterwards is beyond me.

I had been reading a great Final Fantasy retrospective article from socksmakepeoplesexy.net and it went over all (or most I should say) of the FF games all the way up to XIII. It also included the (meh) Mystic Quest for SNES and the fantastic Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation (not the War of the Lions remake, he's got an issue with the retranslation, and I can't say I blame him, they went kinda exaggerated with some of the new dialogue, although it is easier to understand this time around). He had huge issues with the series starting from VIII and it's a slow fall down, and then it's a quick thud for him once X-2 shows it's face.

My mood for FF was rekindled when I remembered that I purchased Final Fantasy XIII, played it for about an hour and put it back to play something else and never looked back. So I decided I was gonna go balls in and play it for hours and hours at a time. I have the time over the summer because I'm not working in the evenings and I knew that in the hour that I played I was getting nothing of what the battle system was truly like, or the character advancement either, which for me didn't start happening until around the two and a half hour mark or so.

I think considering that XIII's director was very highly involved in X-2, XIII doesn't leave as bad of a taste in my mouth. I mean, the story could have had some pretty interesting potential if Gran Pulse were more involved (or at least appear to be more involved; I'm only 15 hours in so I haven't been there yet) since there's an interesting conflict between Cocoon and Pulse. I have a hard time liking any of the characters that aren't Sazh. I really do. Well, maybe Fang. I saw way too many resemblances to the beginning of Final Fantasy VII in the beginning of the game. Lightning isn't very likable because she's got the Squall attitude towards everyone and it all seems unfounded, the situation with Serah not withstanding. Hope is a whiner, Vanille is on the outskirts of lolitown with a stupid accent, and Snow is way too involved in a romance plot that I don't really enjoy watching when the flashbacks come around, or when he goes on and on about Serah.

I do find the battle system to be entertaining, even if it's more automated and a little detached compared to the other previous games. What I dislike is the game completely gets rid of resource management with the healing of all your characters after each battle, and the fact that the enemies don't drop gil, and sometimes drop components. The weapon customization is weak, and I'm hard pressed to waste time upgrading weapons or accessories and spending gil on accessories or components as well.

Any gripes aside, I still find myself firing the game up to see what happens next in the extremely linear game. That's how it feels to me. It's almost even more restrictive than X, and X you could even backtrack. Maybe I haven't spent enough time, but I'm past the 15 hour mark, so I would think that takes too long.

My FF mood has also been kicked in thanks to FFIV, but I'll get into that in my next post. This has been a wall of text brought to you by magus113.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection for PSP.

It's yet another Final Fantasy IV remake for yet another console. It's been remade...four times now? Let's see:

SNES Original (1991)
Playstation as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles along with Chrono Trigger (2001)
Wonderswan Color in Japan (2002)
Game Boy Advance with new script and some added content (2005)
SNES Original on the Virtual Console (2010)
PSP as the Complete Collection with FFIV: Interlude and remade FFIV: The After Years (2011)

...that's a lot of remakes. To be fair we never saw the WSC version here in America, but it's still another remake. I wonder why though? The game is good, that's not the problem. It's just not great. I can understand how it had so much appeal back in 1991 considering what the Final Fantasy games were coming from on the NES, but VI was a much better game (I should know, having completed it last year, finally). Even so, I do have somewhat of a soft spot for this game, even though I've never finished it, or tried playing it as much as I have other Final Fantasy games in the past.

I went and I spent the money for the Complete Collection on the PSP not just for the fact that there's essentially two full Final Fantasy games for the price of 23.99 (when I bought it), but I think it was a nice way to update the game but still keep it true to the original. I liked the DS remake, don't get me wrong. I have it. It just feels different. It doesn't have the same kind of goofy aesthetic that the 2D versions of the game have, like the character sprites jumping around, although the voice work was great, and it didn't detract from the overall game since it stayed true to the source material and it wasn't done for every single cutscene. It made the pacing nice for a portable outing.

It's just fun for me I guess to play through the game in 2D with updated, higher definition sprites and backgrounds, but still being able to have the option of listening to the old SNES music as opposed to the new (and sometimes nicer) arranged version of the BGM.

Sometimes I'm just more of a purist I guess. Supposedly they did make the first half of the game easier, which I might have to call BS on. I'm about to go through the Lodestone Cavern to get the Earth crystal in Troia and I'm getting my ass handed to me by the battles in the area. Go go Gadget grindfest.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Final Fantasy 4 was all about some kind of massive grind in pretty much every area.

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I can def. agree with this. Well, maybe not so much with the FF2 SNES release. I think the NA one was really dumbed down in difficulty and they advertised the future remakes as having a newer, raised difficulty. I believe the DS remake is the most difficult of all of them, since the PSP one was made a little easier for the first half, or so I heard.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

So I finished the Tower of Zot and opened up the way to the Underworld.

The grind to pass through the Tower of Zot was decent enough but I can't help but feel like getting to the fight with the Magus Sisters and Barbariccia was more difficult than the actual fights with the Magus Sisters and Barbariccia. Strange.

I pulled a four to five hour session with FFXIII and I'm past the 20 hour mark. And NOW is when they decide to let me switch members of my team out. What the hell?

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Is it just me or does the difficulty for FF13 jump up a lot when you get to Gran Pulse?

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Sort of. I don't think the difficulty over all increases. I think they just throw a whole bunch of different monsters into that area. Some of them are too powerful for you to defeat or defeat easily, so you have to avoid them until you're stronger. I don't think the game overall gets more difficult, though if that makes sense.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

No it does make sense. I'm in the Tower of Babil now, and it seems like a much easier climb than the Tower of Zot was.

I love this game.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Are we talking about IV or XIII...?

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Talking about IV. I'm kinda between both. I take IV with me on the go cause I have the Complete Collection for PSP.

I spent idk how long in XIII backtracking because I'm on Gran Pulse and I found out I was missing some stuff before I decided to try and barrel through an area I probably shouldn't have been. It's still entertaining though, I'll give it that, even if it's not my favorite by far.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Actually the DS remake is fairly simple compared to other versions. Perhaps the PSP remake is the same, but basically when anyone dies in the remake you can acquire their special skills if you do it right. There's a whole FAQ on it, but basically you can equip skills like Twin Magic, for example, on someone who isn't the twins.

If you do it right you can gather the entire set of character special skills in a playthrough (Well almost). It really wasn't that hard to figure out that if you put a skill on a character you get it back when they die + their skill.

Oh... I guess massive spoilers, everyone dies in FF4. EVERYONE.

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Yeah, and then the one guy who's right next to a damn BOMB WHEN IT EXPLODES is found in an infirmary bed.

A bomb.

When it exploded.

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You can survive anything when you're a spoony bard.

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Edward was just a pussy and fell off a boat. He ended up in some town laying in bed.

Cid was the one that blew the bomb up to seal the Underworld. Maybe his epic beard helped him stay alive.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

.Oh I thought he was like next to a bomb or something. It's been a while.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

So I'm in the final area (I think) of FFIV. The enemies are so annoying that right it's literally just me walking around and running away from everything because it's more worthwhile for my resources to do so. I think I pretty much did everything there was to do.

Also if I'm forced to battle I'm just spamming Bahamut and Curaja. It's a fun time.

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So I got to Zeromus.

Turns out I'm not ready. At all.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Just finished Final Fantasy IV. Zeromus is ridiculous. I'm glad I finally finished it after so many years of trying to finally finish it. Now there's just the "Interlude" thing and The After Years to fire through. I'm going in blind with both of these games so I can only imagine how this is gonna go.

I still have yet to do some more work with XIII but i'll be showing that some love since I got OoT and the man FFIV game out of the way.

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I realize I'm the only one posting in here but I DON'T CARE.

In the two hours I've put in to FFIV Interlude, it's only been pretty much this:

Something's wrong here!
I guess we have to go, don't we?
Yes, let's go!
*walk to airship and talk to airship captain*
Cecil! Ready to go? *Yes*
Watch airship slowly fly to destination.
Do whatever you're supposed to do at this area, return to airship. Rinse, repeat.

Definitely feels tacked on, and I read somewhere that Interlude takes 15 hours to complete. Really?

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I'm currently replaying FF3 (Super Nintendo version) on my phone.

Also recently played through Mystic Quest, but that hardly counts as Final Fantasy.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

I once started FFV (random choice) on an emulator. I enjoyed it but the game got stuck in a glitch (somwhere on foggy ships, can that be right?).
I saw my brother play several FFs, he mostly enjoyed X (because that's his first one?)
I own FF:CC but I've never played it. I might have tried the intro, but then it didn't pull me in.

So there's my experience with FF.
(Of course not counting having seen the [decent] movie.)

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Crystal Chronicles was an odd beast. I wanted to get into it but it felt bland. Then I found out it's supposed to primarily be a multiplayer game using the GBA link cables and it made more sense.

The guy that made Crystal Chronicles and the SaGa games however actually acknowledged that none of the games he's made are actually good. I can find the interview and quote it right now as a matter of fact.

http://www.largeprimenumbers.com/article.php?sid=saga

Well it wasn't an interview, but more of a review of Romancing SaGa, which (hey! Guess what?) sucked too.

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I'm home for a few days (as in 4-5), and decided to try and revisit FFXIII with the expectation that it is not a typical FF game. I think my nostalgia for VII-IX got in the way of my enjoyment of my first abbreviated play through of XIII.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

Just finish it already, it's linear as shit.

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My brother and I had a really good time with Crystal Chronicles. Spent a bunch of time grinding for artifacts.

Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
 

But you had someone else to play with, that's the thing. I never really did. I could try something however. We're gonna do an epic Four Swords Adventures party. Here's how it works.

Four smaller TVs, each with a GameCube+Game Boy Player add-on and a GBA to GCN link cable, all connected to a Wii's controller ports (or GameCube it doesn't matter) that's "hosting" the Four Swords Adventures game. Add booze and food and you've got yourself a party.

It could be done for Crystal Chronicles and Pac-Man Vs. too so that could be something else to throw out if Zelda gets boring or something (hah!)

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I went in expecting that they were gonna chew the fat, and I got over a lot of the things that people were complaining about because even if it is kinda linear it actually is still pretty fun.

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I started my FFXIII game back up as well. I am on Chapter 11, in the Maw of the Abyss, where I just spent a few hours grinding.

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I'm getting a replacement PS3 today, so hopefully I can just pop in my old hard drive. I don't know if I'll have the drive to go through those 30+ hours I put into the game again.

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I'm trying to speedily get there (that's mission 7, correct?). Currently somewhere in Chapter 7 I believe.

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Well I have to wipe my hard drive so that's 32+ hours of my life I'm never gonna get back. I hate my life.

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Quick! Play around 10 hours and we'll be in roughly the same spot. ;)

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Personally I loved FFXIII. I sort of wish I hadn't sold it, because I never realized the potential in re-playability.

I never had a problem getting into the game, personally. It was one of the best FF experiences I had, because I didn't let the nostalgia get in the way. I took it for what it was - a linear storytelling, where you play everything inbetween the dialogue.

Just like I enjoyed the MK storyline where all you do is fight between dialogue. Like an interactive movie. I thought it (FFXIII) was really well-done when I played it. Plus it's got some decently challenging boss battles (Unless you're one of those people who don't like challenges, and immediately look up the best character combinations so you can plow through the game without making your own choices).


Why did you have to wipe it? Couldn't you just copy your data to an external HD? Or were all of your files corrupted?

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I can't get past the Midnight Reaper. This is seriously embarrassing.

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I just 0 starred Midnight Reaper. Good thing no one will ever know.


Oh wait...

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Vanille almost ruins the game for me, but other than that I like it.

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I couldn't start up my old PS3 to do the data backup thing, so when I put in my old hard drive I couldn't use it until I wiped it because Sony is a piece of shit sometimes.

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I'm up to Chapter 10 now. I originally stopped at Chapter 11 during the "open world" part. This will be interesting...