Stand by [Final Fantasy] and FFXV (FF9 on Steam *NOW*, FFXV release 9/30/16)

silence1186

This is the thread for talking about Square Enix's flagship series, Final Fantasy, originally released in 1987. For a while they decided they didn't like releasing new games, and kept porting old games to new platforms, but things are looking up. But before we get to that,

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

MAIN SERIES

They've made FOURTEEN main series games and over fifty spin off titles. Here's what the fans says about them.

I love Final Fantasy because you have to start somewhere.

I love Final Fantasy II because I like hitting myself for stat ups.

I love Final Fantasy III because it allowed me to stop being a hippy and get a job for the first time.

I love Final Fantasy IV because I don't have enough versions of it yet.

I love Final Fantasy V because I can play it for charity.

I hate Final Fantasy VI because I'm a soulless monster without any redeeming qualities.

I love Final Fantasy VII because it's getting remade, naturally.

I love Final Fantasy VIII because I'm a Triple Triad cardshark. There was a fun minigame about saving the world included too.

I love Final Fantasy IX because "Steiner, please, look behind you!"

I love Final Fantasy X because the HD version is out.

I love Final Fantasy XI because it keeps Square Enix in business.

I love Final Fantasy XII because I'm Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg of Dalmascaa.

I love Final Fantasy XIII because I can't get enough Lightning.

I love Final Fantasy XIV because Heavensward!

SPIN OFFS

Every time profits are down SE makes some more FF games. There are a lot of them, too many to list them all so I'll just continue the theme with the more popular ones.

I love Final Fantasy Tactics because I love grid based movement.

I hate Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles because I have no friends.

I hate Final Fantasy Mystic Quest because it's too easy and I don't like having fun.

I love Final Fantasy X-2 because it really is the ultimate expression of both ATB and the Job system. Also I understand math so Sphere Breaker ain't shit.

I love Dissidia because it's included in its entirety in its sequel.

I love FF XIII-2 because monsters are great at parties.

I love Crisis Core because I need to get practice for Type-0 in.

I love Theatrhythm because Square Enix has the best music.

I love Final Fantasy Tactics Advance because just one more turn.

I love Dissidia Duodecim 012 Final Fantasy because you can settle which Final Fantasy is best for all time with your fists.

I love Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 because more of the same is exactly what you need when the same is fantastic.

I love Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns because it was either this or no new games at all.

I love Final Fantasy Dimensions because I love Final Fantasy V.

I hate Final Fantasy Record Keepers because it became a monster unto itself.

WHICH VERSION IS BEST?

There's a version of almost everything for almost everything these days. However, avoid the PSX version of FF5 unless it's your only option.

THE PRESENT

Square Enix has managed to get their shit together long enough that they've started releasing new content

FF Type-0: Was Final Fantasy 13 Agito, changed to Final Fantasy Type-0, and came out on the PSP in Japan only. Fans clamored for this one for a long time, and finally the West is getting a localization... as an HD version for consoles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bedq4m8a_8U

Update: They also fixed the nausea inducing camera blur, so if that was holding you back, give it another shot!

It came out, and it's pretty sweet. I highly recommend picking it up. It's an Action-RPG with a new and interesting story (and direction) for the Final Fantasy series. Also, day 1 copies of the game come with a demo for...

FF 13 Versus: Wait, no, some things happened, and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3xKbPooKAo

It's now FF XV. It still doesn't exist, but we got a playble trailer, and by metrics it kicks ass. It's reinvigorated interest in this game, which is impressive since it was announced at the end of the Ps2 life cycle. So it MAY actually come out at this point. Look for more info at E3, hopefully.

Update: The FF XV demo was patched with additional content, so if you've played it, give it another go!

Update 2!: The FF XV Uncovered event happened, bringing with it a huge amount of new content, including two new trailers, Stand By Me covered by Florence + the Machine as the theme song, a gameplay trailer, an environment trailer, a tie-in anime (free online), a tie-in full length CGI movie, a tie-in mobile game, a new demo (free and available now), and the release date (9/30/2016). Definitely check it out, there's too many trailers to list them all here. I'll leave this though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2MnEGK44is

THE FUTURE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kznek1uNVsg

I've had a little time to process this, so no more yelling is required, but yes, the long awaited, long asked for remake of Final Fantasy VII has been confirmed. Of all the times Square Enix has asked us to be excited, now would be the opportune moment.

Update: Combat sneak peek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHDoYM3CVK4

Some FF7 remake (FF7r) rumors courtesy of Professor Snugglesworth

Confirmed
-Will not be a 1:1 remake, will have story deviations

-"New story scenario" written by Nojima

-Development started in 2012, in-game assets beyond CG trailer exist

-Will retain some of the classic "humorous" elements; Cloud's dress is in

-Battle system will not be the same

Rumored:

-Will run on Unreal Engine

-CyberConnect assisting with development

-Console exclusivity currently in talks, may never come out on XBox One

-Aiming for T rating

-Next major update this Winter

-Original game will get new translation

Also if you want a quick laugh search Youtube for "FF7 remake reactions." There are some choice ones out there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_No3HEjvLrw

Final Fantasy in bite-sized form. What exactly this is remains unclear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK-3vmgXyok

There is a new Dissidia coming out. It will be available in Japan in arcades for about a year, and then they're planning on porting it to console to tap other markets (such as the West). Expect it maybe in 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qUHccbHgqY

Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius is the next big Mobile game coming out by SE in the Final Fantasy franchise. Not sure if it will dominate the discussion like FFRK has, but news about it is welcome here, but the main discussion should be in the Mobile Final Fantasy thread.

Wait, what?

Final Fantasy Record Keeper/FFRK

Its popularity has grown so much that it's been dominating most discussion in the thread. As such it (and all mobile F2P Final Fantasy games) have been given their own thread here.

KINGDOM HEARTS

Is vaguely related to Final Fantasy, but has its own thread here.

BRAVELY DEFAULT

Is everything you might want in a Final Fantasy, and you can talk about it here.

FF5 FOUR JOB FIESTA

xenogears of bore wrote:

Do you have what it takes to play what is quite simply the most fun and addicting alternate game mode of any RPG ever? Do you want to help out sick children by raising money for the greatest charity in the world? Do you want to watch RK sleepily make his way through Neo-Exdeath with quite a sub standard party? If this sounds even remotely interesting well then, do I have a website for you.

The deal is you get four jobs from the normal set of 20+ and you can only use skills from those four. As you gain new job sets one job is randomly assigned to you and each assigned job must be equipped at all times on at least one party member. You get the wind job, you get four of those, you get the water job, your party must be made up at least one from your water job and one from your wind job and so on. There are variations

http://fourjobfiesta.com/

What do you need to start playing?

1. A copy of FF5. PSN version is cheapest and worst. SFC version is pretty cheap but in Japanese, GBA version is best but expensive, iOS version is a lot cheaper than that but has the issues standard with playing a game on iOS (easy screencaps though!)

2. A twitter account. Yeah I hate twitter too but I made some dummy accounts just for this.

3.Then all you do is sign up at the website (with any of the optional run ideas) and you can play from whenever RK beats the game until the end of August!

Where does the charity come in you say? Well, you can either pledge money to change whatever jobs RK is assigned for his inaugural run (1 dollar=1 extra vote for a job!) or you can pledge money for doing various deeds. If you can't donate money you'll notice that you can still earn money from other people's pledges by completing their goals (usually beating the game with a certain class, beating the two optional bosses,etc.) It's just like getting sponsors for a 10k back in school! You play, everyone wins.

Credit to @xenogears of bore for cannibalizing most of his OPs.

Cirira

Woo new thread smell! Copying this from my post in the last thread.

Just a friendly PSA for those doing the current Forbidden Treasures Event. Make sure you have no more than 4 Lithographs at the end of this stage. We should get 2 more Lithographs when the final stage starts which will put you at 6 and there are only 6 stages to use them on. Even using them on a shitty adamantite reward will get you 1 Mythril as well. I'm assuming any leftover Lithographs are just lost to the ether.

Enlong

Doink?

lionheart_m

Yay, I'm actually excited for the future of Final Fantasy. Explorers coming soonish, waiting on the next 14 patch and maybe by this time next year we might play FF15!

Ianator

FFRK is taking me a long time to feel like I'm making progress. I see all this talk about RM2s and mastering the event Elite ++ battles... Meanwhile, my parties barely break Lv31 and I've never gotten a single Memory Crystal.

If anyone's got tips for getting over this, I'd love to hear them.

Dehumanized

Ianator wrote: »

FFRK is taking me a long time to feel like I'm making progress. I see all this talk about RM2s and mastering the event Elite ++ battles... Meanwhile, my parties barely break Lv31 and I've never gotten a single Memory Crystal.

If anyone's got tips for getting over this, I'd love to hear them.

just keep on trucking through the classic dungeons and do as much of each event as you can when they come up. the game's difficulty progresses more or less like an escalator until you're at the very hardest stuff

just keep using that stamina and you'll keep getting stronger

A duck!

Ianator wrote: »

FFRK is taking me a long time to feel like I'm making progress. I see all this talk about RM2s and mastering the event Elite ++ battles... Meanwhile, my parties barely break Lv31 and I've never gotten a single Memory Crystal.

If anyone's got tips for getting over this, I'd love to hear them.

Make a Retaliate party. Some of the upsides are:

• You need very few high level skills, in fact really nothing above 3*. 1 well honed Retaliate (2*), 2-3 well honed Double Cuts (2*), Armor Break (3*) and whatever other shit you need to keep yourself alive
• You don't need any really good armor, since 4 people are in the back row and your main guy is deflecting any single target attacks coming at him
• You only need one good weapon, or an okay weapon with Synergy
• If you've honed Retaliate well enough you can get through garbage rounds with one application, saving a lot of fatigue

Retaliate pulled me through a lot of dungeons that I'd have otherwise had absolutely zero hope on.

A duck!

So after striking out on 130 mythril worth of pulls I scraped together 5 more and did a single draw, and RNJesus rewarded me with the Storm Staff. Praise be to you!

EDIT - I just realized I don't actually have Garnet! OH WELL STILL GOOD.

silence1186

Cleared all of Golbez's event. New stuff tomorrow, but I think I'll push it to Saturday because I need to replenish my dark Orbs after honing two bioras to r4.

UrQuanLord88

Thanks to the soul break celebration i now own a 5* harp
go me

El Fantastico

UrQuanLord88 wrote: »

Thanks to the soul break celebration i now own a 5* harp
go me

Wait, a 5* harp, but not Edward's?

SyphonBlue

FFV is coming to Steam



The biggest question is what the fuck is that UI?!

Shadowfire

Looks like a UI designed for touch interfaces.

SyphonBlue

There's so much wasted space. Why is there a giant blue box around a tiny tiny enemy's name?

Enlong

The answer is that the UI was ported directly from the iOS version of the game, which had considerably less space for that name box.

Why they didn't update the UI or just port the GBA version is beyond me.

At least it's not a port of the PS1 version, I guess.

Fleur de Alys

Huh.

Well, I really love FF5 and want to play with the shiny new features, but I don't think I can bring myself to play that on my desktop.

One of these days I'll own a tablet. Guess I'll get it then?

shoeboxjeddy

It would take work, but they should absolutely be using the Record Keeper style of graphics. That just looks like shit.

Enlong

Yeah, their character spritework for that style clearly improved with VI mobile.

...after regressing from Dimensions...

Dehumanized

gross

Ilpala

So I worked my way back up to 50 mythril today. Debating one more crack at this banner or waiting for XIV stuff.

Dunadan019

so question,

For my first 4 star summon Vaelfor or Carbuncle? I see Vaelfor as useful eventually but carbuncle seams to be an OP summon throughout various events and levels making certain bosses trivial. I also don't know if either of these ends up being a reward for something or if I missed my chance already.

Also, I can right now craft any of the 4 star BMs, Curaja, various other 4 star abilities pretty easily and probably hone one to R3 or 2 to R2. is there a priority? I assume Thundaja is more important?

A duck!

I started with Thundaja, and I've heard Waterja as the second most useful, due to a smaller amount of resists. I'm also I'm the Valefor/Carbuncle boat, and I'm probably going with Carbuncle. I feel like I can get other ways to deal damage, and while Carbuncle is niche it does enable strategies sometimes.

The Dude With Herpes

Dunadan019 wrote: »

so question,

For my first 4 star summon Vaelfor or Carbuncle? I see Vaelfor as useful eventually but carbuncle seams to be an OP summon throughout various events and levels making certain bosses trivial. I also don't know if either of these ends up being a reward for something or if I missed my chance already.

Also, I can right now craft any of the 4 star BMs, Curaja, various other 4 star abilities pretty easily and probably hone one to R3 or 2 to R2. is there a priority? I assume Thundaja is more important?

IMO Carbuncle.

There are far more fights where Carbuncle can make it go from frustratingly hard to trivial, with a single summon. Vaelfor is great for trash/dailys and the occasional element resistant group boss fights (not too many), but in those situations there are far more viable options to get through than the times you'll wish you could just toss a mass reflect up at the start of combat and just laugh and laugh while a boss is completely trivialized.

For 4 star black magic, I'd say some of the unique spells like Quake, Break, or Death will provide more overall benefit than any of the -ja's, at least initially. You need to hone -ja's to be able to really benefit from them as the -gas are far easier to hone and 6-8 casts of Thundaga is gonna be far more useful than 2-4 casts of -jas, and depending on the magic of your caster and the particular fight, it's generally pretty easy to hit 9999 with the appropriate element/breaks with a -ga anyway.

-jas really come into play with no vulnerability harder bosses where you're not gonna hit the 9999 with a -ga, or and every bit of damage counts. Quake, Death, and Break, on the other hand will be more immediately useful in a variety of fights and situations. And can turn some bosses, or boss phases from a frustrating half dozen turns of dealing with incoming damage and getting enough damage out, to just straight up killing them. Quake, not for bosses so much, but with a BLM RM2 you get a 'free' cast every battle, so for many dailies and trash stages it's just a gimmie for not losing action medals.

lionheart_m

Carbuncle has been REALLY useful and I've been getting fine without Valefor. That been said, I'm targetting Valefor since I missed out on him; you really can't go wrong with either.

Bluecyan

Dunadan019 wrote: »

so question,

For my first 4 star summon Vaelfor or Carbuncle? I see Vaelfor as useful eventually but carbuncle seams to be an OP summon throughout various events and levels making certain bosses trivial. I also don't know if either of these ends up being a reward for something or if I missed my chance already.

Also, I can right now craft any of the 4 star BMs, Curaja, various other 4 star abilities pretty easily and probably hone one to R3 or 2 to R2. is there a priority? I assume Thundaja is more important?

Carbuncle, no question. It will win you battles against the likes of Seymour who use single target magic attacks.

Vaelfor probably has more application as AOE non-elemental is useful in any situation, but only having one or two charges will rarely be the difference on win or lose and usually would be better replaced by an -aga, -aja ability. The only upside I see for Vaelfor is mob clearing if you have the Summoner spring materia. Most 4* summons require 5* orbs to hone, not sure about Vaelfor but I DO know carbuncle is one of the exceptions.

lionheart_m

Valefor helps for saving medals on trash during higher elite dungeons if you have crappy weapons or no RS.

A duck!

4* summons show up in the events a lot, though. I missed a few, but I got Phoenix and Quetzalcoatl in the last two, and they're clearing trash nicely.

Edit - never mind, I guess the last one we may get for a while is Cactuar, which is not great.

Dunadan019

Also, I did one more 5 pull to try for the grimoire because... why not.

ended up getting a Kaiser shield which looks like a free protectga?

not sure how I feel about it other than /shrug

silence1186

As far as 4* abilities are concerned:

R1 Protectga, R1 Shellga, and R2-3 Slowga are super helpful at reducing incoming damage in boss fights. I usually bring two of those three. Add in Power/Magic Break(down), and boss's damge will be manageable. I don't think Curaja is useful, even in the Japanese verison. Maybe if you have everything else honed and still have spare 4* orbs. For the most part, a healer with decent mind will do fine with Curaga.

Valefor and Carbuncle were both rewards from past events. They're probably going to keep releasing damaging summons, so R1 Carbuncle is probably your first stop on the summon train. That said, Valefor is probably one of the strongest damaging summons. He's helpful for clearing 100+ difficulty trash with Summoning Spring II refills. Alexander, Maduin, or even Shiva are a good second summon along with Valefor for damage dealing.

Quake was the first AoE ability available, so it was the first 4* black magic I crafted. (Back in my day we ran the Sector 7 collection event until our eyes bled for Greater Earth Orbs). More things these days resist Earth element, but it's still super helpful, at least until Ruinga comes out in October-ish. Break and Death are niche, but when they're good, they help a lot. There is Break Strike and Pressure Point as well for those effects. Finally, -aja magic does about twice as much damage as -aga magic, so -aja magic isn't necessary until you can get it to rank 3, especially when you're bumping against the damage cap anyway. Waterja is the easiest to hone, since it needs to least number of absolute orbs. Less things appear to resist Water compared to Fire/Ice/Lightning, as well.

For me, I'd probably go Protectga->Shellga->Quake (R1)->Carbuncle->Slowga->Quake (r2 or R3)->Waterja R3 to start.

shoeboxjeddy

I did two 15 mythril pulls (across different days) trying to get some of these great older relics. 100% 3 stars. Yeah going back to 50 mythril pulls only, what a waste.

Ianator

Hrm. Retaliate party may still be a ways off for me. I only have one Double Cut and just barely have enough Orbs to R2 it.

silence1186

Ianator wrote: »

Hrm. Retaliate party may still be a ways off for me. I only have one Double Cut and just barely have enough Orbs to R2 it.

Double Cut just increases your damage. The only thing you really need is a R4 (and eventually R5) Retaliate.

Dehumanized

silence1186 wrote: »

Ianator wrote: »

Hrm. Retaliate party may still be a ways off for me. I only have one Double Cut and just barely have enough Orbs to R2 it.

Double Cut just increases your damage. The only thing you really need is a R4 (and eventually R5) Retaliate.

Even at lower ranks of retaliate, it's still useful. You might have to rely on your party being able to clear the trash without any ability uses, though. I had R2 retaliate for a long time, because I didn't want to bother with farming lesser power orbs while I had a bunch of classic/elite dungeons I could easily clear.

Javen

Do Memory Crystals only really show up in events? I'm finally beefy enough to start getting them starting with the golbez event, but are with none of the characters I've got soul break weapons for yet.

I've also been spending the majority of my resoures/money on upgrading weapons, but how effective is armor at really mitigating damage? I remember in actual FF games where armor seemed to suffer from way more diminishing returns on lowering damage than weapons had at increasing offense.

Dehumanized

Javen wrote: »

Do Memory Crystals only really show up in events? I'm finally beefy enough to start getting them starting with the golbez event, but are with none of the characters I've got soul break weapons for yet.

I've also been spending the majority of my resoures/money on upgrading weapons, but how effective is armor at really mitigating damage? I remember in actual FF games where armor seemed to suffer from way more diminishing returns on lowering damage than weapons had at increasing offense.

Some memory crystals are available in classic/elite dungeons, but for all the characters introduced in events their memory crystals are also in events.

The Dude With Herpes

Why does the Relic Banner announcement say "Grant Protect and Regen to the party" for Vega?

Did they mix it up with the Fabled Harp description that says Shell and Haste?

lionheart_m

OMG RNJesus thank you! Yes it isn't a suuuper relic but I got my boy Squall his Shear Trigger. Back to the bench Lightning, this Lion is back!

Ok yes I'm a Squall fan.

A duck!

lionheart_m wrote: »

Ok yes I'm a Squall fan.

Wh...what?

silence1186

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

Why does the Relic Banner announcement say "Grant Protect and Regen to the party" for Vega?

Did they mix it up with the Fabled Harp description that says Shell and Haste?

Yes. Vega is Shell and Haste. Fabled Harp is Protect and Regen.

A duck!

This boss rush can fall in a well and die, by the way.

silence1186

All the bosses have awful counters.