Putting Mog on the team with the Moogle charm helps a ton.
I liked how it looked like an unholy mess of steel, but you also ran into familiar rooms from your stint in Vector. It just gave the whole place an air of familiarity and character. Much better than a random technicolour pissing match. And while I like XIII and XIII-2, somebody on the design team must have some sick sexual fetish with lego's, because damn.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Didn't like the tileset, either. Though, to be fair, I don't like any of FF6's tilesets. Its honestly a rather ugly game, outside of the enemy battle portraits, which are a huge upgrade over 4 and 5. Well, okay, the battle backgrounds are good, too. Its kind of like 7, come to think of it. It looks really good in battle. Except its the tilesets instead of the characters that are blech.
Re: source code shenanigans, I was surprised to hear that Bluepoint actually reverse engineer the final code for their HD remasters rather than using the source code. 'Tis why their work has such a good reputation while stuff like the Silent Hill remasters struggle.
I'm 99% sure they still use the source code, they just reverse engineer the game first to see what the code is actually doing and help them understand the program. The other solution is reading through millions of lines of code and trying to figure it out as you go along, which can be a complete nightmare (and that's not even taking into account language barriers). Bluepoint are pretty awesome. Their three HD Collections are by far the best that've come out so far.
The no source code thing is bunk anyway. Fan patchers have been pulling apart and recoding games for ages (including ff7)
Nobody back then (or even now really) obfuscates code.
What? Just because fan patchers have been making changes doesn't mean they have the source code. They don't. Halkun used to talk about his work modding FFVII quite a bit and there were a lot of things that are just not possible to change, which is why most FFVII mods are just replacing the art assets.
Think I'm gonna have to go with the following order:
1. FFIV (all that equipment!)
2. FFVI (definite fan of the team splitting)
3. FFXIII (the visuals are really imaginative and neat, even if nothing makes any damned sense)
Didn't like the tileset, either. Though, to be fair, I don't like any of FF6's tilesets. Its honestly a rather ugly game, outside of the enemy battle portraits, which are a huge upgrade over 4 and 5. Well, okay, the battle backgrounds are good, too. Its kind of like 7, come to think of it. It looks really good in battle. Except its the tilesets instead of the characters that are blech.
I'm the opposite, I believe the FF VI tilesets were some of the best of the snes(though not the best), and in final fantasy. I like some of the more intricate detail in the buildings and other elements.
I've always felt like the final dungeon in FF8 was one of the better ones. I like both of the ones you mentioned, of course, but I think the FF8 one might be my favorite.
I'm the opposite, I believe the FF VI tilesets were some of the best of the snes(though not the best), and in final fantasy. I like some of the more intricate detail in the buildings and other elements.
I prefer the "upscaled 8bit" look of 4 and 5, by far. Its abstracted enough that I don't give it second thought. 6's bad perspective always bugs me. The character sprites never really feel like they "belong" in the world, though this obviously a personal opinion. I've seen others voice it, too, though.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
I forgot how damn cool the final dungeon in FF7 is. Probably the second best in both music and location, after 4's. Hell, the entire later part of the game is reminding me why this is up with my favourites. Unlike most in the series, I never dread the tedium of the final dungeon, too.
The only problem I have with the Northern Crater really is that your first time through (or 100th, if you don't use a walkthrough) you have no idea what the point of splitting the party is. You don't play as the other party, it's only function is to reward you with cool swag if you sent the correct characters down the correct path. I bet there's still a chunk of players who just take all the characters down the path they want. :P
Also, on someone's saying Dirge of Cerberus was good in here, I went and checked an LP out. Watched the whole thang.
the idea of an army living under Midgar is dumb. That they have been there all alone especially is dumb. Hated the character designs, even their names, just so baaad.
But then, I loved the overall story, once you got past that junk. FFVII's version of a final Omega WEAPON is as a lifeboat to carry them to a new world in the event of a catastrophe. Of course, to do that, they all gotta be dead. But that is an excellent way to slot such a big new part into an existing mythos. Got handled a lot better than the new Sephiroth like characters in Crisis Core, imo.
And Hojo's mind surviving via a computer gets some thumbs up too. ;D
Re: source code shenanigans, I was surprised to hear that Bluepoint actually reverse engineer the final code for their HD remasters rather than using the source code. 'Tis why their work has such a good reputation while stuff like the Silent Hill remasters struggle.
I'm 99% sure they still use the source code, they just reverse engineer the game first to see what the code is actually doing and help them understand the program. The other solution is reading through millions of lines of code and trying to figure it out as you go along, which can be a complete nightmare (and that's not even taking into account language barriers). Bluepoint are pretty awesome. Their three HD Collections are by far the best that've come out so far.
The no source code thing is bunk anyway. Fan patchers have been pulling apart and recoding games for ages (including ff7)
Nobody back then (or even now really) obfuscates code.
What? Just because fan patchers have been making changes doesn't mean they have the source code. They don't. Halkun used to talk about his work modding FFVII quite a bit and there were a lot of things that are just not possible to change, which is why most FFVII mods are just replacing the art assets.
...no duh? Hence I said they're pulling apart the code. Hence mentioning obfuscation (which is hiding compiled code behind a layer of obfuscation. Astoundingly.)
There are mods for 7 that go far beyond just the art assets. Like you know, the entire menu overhaul. Then there is the white docs for game formulas.
Too much work for a couple fans, maybe. An actual studio could tear 7 apart in a month.
It may not been in a usable state, but they can most certainly use that retail disc for making a high quality re-master. Huelett's team at Konami and Egan's team at Sanzaru were both working from source code provided by either the publisher or the studio that originally made the games they were in charge of re-mastering, while O'Neil's team at Bluepoint went back to Santa Monica only for certain assets. Using legacy code is not always be the best way to create the best possible HD re-master. Bluepoint's track record with God of War, Metal Gear, and Team Ico's game shows that their method might be preferable: Don't use old code, use the finished game itself.
"We don't use archive data," says O'Neil, "We take retail discs of the game and reverse engineer them. That way we can be 100% sure we have all the final retail data and that it matches up. That takes a lot time. Then to get it working, we basically have to go in and change every single piece of data. We get the code and we use that to build a PC version of the game. It's not something meant to ship, so a lot things don't work. It doesn't have sound for example. The engine though is the same, the data layout is the same, so we get that working first. If you have a lot of stuff coming through the VU assembler [with a PS2 game], you need to do lot of super detailed work to convert it all. We don't emulate any of this stuff, we hand convert it."
I really wish there was a way to see how well the game would run before I shell out that much for it
Buy the game, install it, then play it for about 10 minutes to see how it runs. That should be long enough to get through a bit of it.
If it runs terrible, just go to the play storefront, press the menu key, go to my apps and select the game then hit uninstall & refund. If its within 15 minutes of purchase you can get a refund automatically.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
I really wish there was a way to see how well the game would run before I shell out that much for it
Buy the game, install it, then play it for about 10 minutes to see how it runs. That should be long enough to get through a bit of it.
If it runs terrible, just go to the play storefront, press the menu key, go to my apps and select the game then hit uninstall & refund. If its within 15 minutes of purchase you can get a refund automatically.
Fo real real? I might actually buy this then. I really wish it was FFVI instead of FFIII though.
I really wish there was a way to see how well the game would run before I shell out that much for it
Buy the game, install it, then play it for about 10 minutes to see how it runs. That should be long enough to get through a bit of it.
If it runs terrible, just go to the play storefront, press the menu key, go to my apps and select the game then hit uninstall & refund. If its within 15 minutes of purchase you can get a refund automatically.
Fo real real? I might actually buy this then. I really wish it was FFVI instead of FFIII though.
Oh wow, yeah, that's fantastic. I had no idea about that policy! This will give me some Final Fantasy goodness until FFVII PC is released!
Re: source code shenanigans, I was surprised to hear that Bluepoint actually reverse engineer the final code for their HD remasters rather than using the source code. 'Tis why their work has such a good reputation while stuff like the Silent Hill remasters struggle.
I'm 99% sure they still use the source code, they just reverse engineer the game first to see what the code is actually doing and help them understand the program. The other solution is reading through millions of lines of code and trying to figure it out as you go along, which can be a complete nightmare (and that's not even taking into account language barriers). Bluepoint are pretty awesome. Their three HD Collections are by far the best that've come out so far.
The no source code thing is bunk anyway. Fan patchers have been pulling apart and recoding games for ages (including ff7)
Nobody back then (or even now really) obfuscates code.
What? Just because fan patchers have been making changes doesn't mean they have the source code. They don't. Halkun used to talk about his work modding FFVII quite a bit and there were a lot of things that are just not possible to change, which is why most FFVII mods are just replacing the art assets.
...no duh? Hence I said they're pulling apart the code. Hence mentioning obfuscation (which is hiding compiled code behind a layer of obfuscation. Astoundingly.)
There are mods for 7 that go far beyond just the art assets. Like you know, the entire menu overhaul. Then there is the white docs for game formulas.
Too much work for a couple fans, maybe. An actual studio could tear 7 apart in a month.
"No duh"? Didn't you just call it bunk? That makes no sense.
And yes, I know what obfuscation means (it has no relevance here at all) and that there are mods that go beyond art assets (hence why I said MOST VII mods) but they're still very limited. As far as I'm aware, Halkun and his friends were the furthest along and they've been working on creating a FFVII engine virtual machine by completely reverse engineering FFVII for the last 6-7 years.
I forgot how damn cool the final dungeon in FF7 is. Probably the second best in both music and location, after 4's. Hell, the entire later part of the game is reminding me why this is up with my favourites. Unlike most in the series, I never dread the tedium of the final dungeon, too.
The only problem I have with the Northern Crater really is that your first time through (or 100th, if you don't use a walkthrough) you have no idea what the point of splitting the party is. You don't play as the other party, it's only function is to reward you with cool swag if you sent the correct characters down the correct path. I bet there's still a chunk of players who just take all the characters down the path they want. :P
Also, on someone's saying Dirge of Cerberus was good in here, I went and checked an LP out. Watched the whole thang.
the idea of an army living under Midgar is dumb. That they have been there all alone especially is dumb. Hated the character designs, even their names, just so baaad.
But then, I loved the overall story, once you got past that junk. FFVII's version of a final Omega WEAPON is as a lifeboat to carry them to a new world in the event of a catastrophe. Of course, to do that, they all gotta be dead. But that is an excellent way to slot such a big new part into an existing mythos. Got handled a lot better than the new Sephiroth like characters in Crisis Core, imo.
And Hojo's mind surviving via a computer gets some thumbs up too. ;D
One really cool theory I saw regarding Omega Weapon and Jenova that I subscribe too.
Re: FFX-2. It starts out being all poppy and stuff, which is actually kind of cool. They should have done the whole game like that. It would have been fun and not very serious. Then they come in with the Vegnagun plot which is a tonal shift that just does not work at all. Once you have Dresspheres and bubblegum pop and massages and spa scenes, I am not going to take you seriously, game. Especially when you then try to keep a straight face while singing a ballad in the Lightning Plains.
Also, the most hidden that secrets should ever be, if they affect the gameplay at all is, "findable through a thorough search." FFV and VI are loaded with hidden shit, but if you are thorough and talk to people, and explore, you will be able to find it. Bullshit like the Zodiac Spear and large portions of FFX-2 annoy the crap out of me.
Also, with the exception of Sphere Break, I just could not bring myself to give a shit about any of the characters or sidequests. I never beat it, but throughout my time playing it, I just wanted it to be over with.
The fights are okay, but it's the same deal as Grandia III. It doesn't matter how good the fights are if the story is bad enough.
I've always looked at it the other way. They started out with the pop almost jammed down your throat, but then backed off and settled down into standard storytelling mode. Which is why I've always felt that if anybody ever bitches about X-2 being all J-pop happy fun time, then they just outed themselves as somebody who only played the game for 3 and a half minutes. The same length of time the opening FMV is. Not that the game isn't lighthearted here and there. It's not Grrl Powah. It's just regular girl power.
X-2 had some pretty interesting writing with Nooj, Gippal and Baralai (Paine was just kinda there). The main story is constantly dumb though. Hot springs, massaging LeBlanc, Disasteriffic, Poopie.
It had some really interesting themes with stuff like the summoners and New Yevon adapting to a world where their doctrine has been debunked and their reason for living removed, but that didn't really get the screen time it deserved (And remember, the ruins of Zanarkand will be waiting!)
God I have so many ghastly soundbites from that game stored forever.
X-2 had some pretty interesting writing with Nooj, Gippal and Baralai (Paine was just kinda there). The main story is constantly dumb though. Hot springs, massaging LeBlanc, Disasteriffic, Poopie.
It had some really interesting themes with stuff like the summoners and New Yevon adapting to a world where their doctrine has been debunked and their reason for living removed, but that didn't really get the screen time it deserved (And remember, the ruins of Zanarkand will be waiting!)
God I have so many ghastly soundbites from that game stored forever.
One thing I love is that during the final battle you have Braska, Jecht, and Auron making random bad-ass comments.
I still desperately want a FFX prequel where you play as them.
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physi_marcPositron TrackerIn a nutshellRegistered Userregular
Are dark note music tracks supposed to be random? Because I've got 10 dark notes, but I'm already getting triplicates and quadruplets. If I have to play through XII's ending theme again... well I will, because it's a pretty cool song. But fucking hell, give me something different.
edit: Ugh, Zanarkand again...
double edit:
Atma Weapon music from VI!!!
All is forgiven.
The instructions manual mentions that the Dark Notes are randomly generated.
I've put the unlockable music in spoilers, just in case. Personally, I was ecstatic when I unlocked
Re: source code shenanigans, I was surprised to hear that Bluepoint actually reverse engineer the final code for their HD remasters rather than using the source code. 'Tis why their work has such a good reputation while stuff like the Silent Hill remasters struggle.
I'm 99% sure they still use the source code, they just reverse engineer the game first to see what the code is actually doing and help them understand the program. The other solution is reading through millions of lines of code and trying to figure it out as you go along, which can be a complete nightmare (and that's not even taking into account language barriers). Bluepoint are pretty awesome. Their three HD Collections are by far the best that've come out so far.
The no source code thing is bunk anyway. Fan patchers have been pulling apart and recoding games for ages (including ff7)
Nobody back then (or even now really) obfuscates code.
What? Just because fan patchers have been making changes doesn't mean they have the source code. They don't. Halkun used to talk about his work modding FFVII quite a bit and there were a lot of things that are just not possible to change, which is why most FFVII mods are just replacing the art assets.
...no duh? Hence I said they're pulling apart the code. Hence mentioning obfuscation (which is hiding compiled code behind a layer of obfuscation. Astoundingly.)
There are mods for 7 that go far beyond just the art assets. Like you know, the entire menu overhaul. Then there is the white docs for game formulas.
Too much work for a couple fans, maybe. An actual studio could tear 7 apart in a month.
"No duh"? Didn't you just call it bunk? That makes no sense.
And yes, I know what obfuscation means (it has no relevance here at all) and that there are mods that go beyond art assets (hence why I said MOST VII mods) but they're still very limited. As far as I'm aware, Halkun and his friends were the furthest along and they've been working on creating a FFVII engine virtual machine by completely reverse engineering FFVII for the last 6-7 years.
Yes, them not being able to do a remake due to no source code is bunk.
Because they can just rip the retail disc.
And yes, if a game is compiled obfuscated, then it would be relevant, because then you couldn't do that
But, you know, they don't. Still don't in almost every case. So there is no excuse. Except laziness.
And, again, PS2 emulation and software is about 100x worse then PSX. Yet Bluepoint ripped apart MGS2 and 3 just fine. They even explain their process of ripping games from retail disc. This is not a new thing. Just because some amateur hobbyists have wasted years and made not great progress doesn't mean a team of professionals hasnt done the same thing for half a dozen games on a far more complex and difficult to work with system (PS2 vs PSX.)
I mean hell people have been working on saturn emulation for... what, a couple decades now? Yet one of the very first to come out was the best and people still haven't made one as good.
Talent, eh?
SE is just being lazy. There is no other reason. Claims of any other type are just people lying to themselves because it makes it easier to cope, or something.
SE is just being lazy. There is no other reason. Claims of any other type are just people lying to themselves because it makes it easier to cope, or something.
No, you're being silly. You honestly think they know they could make money off this, and aren't doing it because they (the company, the execs, the programmers? Who, exactly?) is being lazy?
I don't think the question is whether or not SE can reverse-engineer their old games. I think SE's dilemma is that they would want a 7 remake to be on par with 13's overall production quality. 13 wasn't a huge success and Versus is still in development after 6 years. They are probably (understandably) hesitant to go all big budget on ANOTHER game, a remake of their most popular game, when they can't reliably make new stuff that meets their own standards of quality.
Re: source code shenanigans, I was surprised to hear that Bluepoint actually reverse engineer the final code for their HD remasters rather than using the source code. 'Tis why their work has such a good reputation while stuff like the Silent Hill remasters struggle.
I'm 99% sure they still use the source code, they just reverse engineer the game first to see what the code is actually doing and help them understand the program. The other solution is reading through millions of lines of code and trying to figure it out as you go along, which can be a complete nightmare (and that's not even taking into account language barriers). Bluepoint are pretty awesome. Their three HD Collections are by far the best that've come out so far.
The no source code thing is bunk anyway. Fan patchers have been pulling apart and recoding games for ages (including ff7)
Nobody back then (or even now really) obfuscates code.
What? Just because fan patchers have been making changes doesn't mean they have the source code. They don't. Halkun used to talk about his work modding FFVII quite a bit and there were a lot of things that are just not possible to change, which is why most FFVII mods are just replacing the art assets.
...no duh? Hence I said they're pulling apart the code. Hence mentioning obfuscation (which is hiding compiled code behind a layer of obfuscation. Astoundingly.)
There are mods for 7 that go far beyond just the art assets. Like you know, the entire menu overhaul. Then there is the white docs for game formulas.
Too much work for a couple fans, maybe. An actual studio could tear 7 apart in a month.
"No duh"? Didn't you just call it bunk? That makes no sense.
And yes, I know what obfuscation means (it has no relevance here at all) and that there are mods that go beyond art assets (hence why I said MOST VII mods) but they're still very limited. As far as I'm aware, Halkun and his friends were the furthest along and they've been working on creating a FFVII engine virtual machine by completely reverse engineering FFVII for the last 6-7 years.
Yes, them not being able to do a remake due to no source code is bunk.
Because they can just rip the retail disc.
And yes, if a game is compiled obfuscated, then it would be relevant, because then you couldn't do that
But, you know, they don't. Still don't in almost every case. So there is no excuse. Except laziness.
And, again, PS2 emulation and software is about 100x worse then PSX. Yet Bluepoint ripped apart MGS2 and 3 just fine. They even explain their process of ripping games from retail disc. This is not a new thing. Just because some amateur hobbyists have wasted years and made not great progress doesn't mean a team of professionals hasnt done the same thing for half a dozen games on a far more complex and difficult to work with system (PS2 vs PSX.)
I mean hell people have been working on saturn emulation for... what, a couple decades now? Yet one of the very first to come out was the best and people still haven't made one as good.
Talent, eh?
SE is just being lazy. There is no other reason. Claims of any other type are just people lying to themselves because it makes it easier to cope, or something.
a) You didn't say that, you said that the "'no source code' thing is bunk", which is not true at all. That's what I was reacting to.
b) Ripping the retail disc? Well if it's that simple, why don't you do it?
c) Obfuscation doesn't make code impossible to reverse engineer, it just makes it harder. And it's irrelevant because, as far as I'm aware, no-one bothers with it in games.
d) What does PS2 emulation have to do with anything?
e) PS2 software was only as complicated as the developer wanted it to be. The God of War's were said to be insanely simple and well documented, which makes them easy to port. Other games are complicated messes. Your point here is completely irrelevant.
f) That "amateur hobbyist" helped create the PS1 emulator that Sony now uses in all their devices.
As for the BluePoint quotes, I didn't reply to that post until now because they looked familiar but it wasn't because of that 1UP article. Well, I found out where 1UP blatantly stole them from, Edge (Nov 2011 issue). They do detail quite a few more things (Shadow of the Colossus was originally built using Linux machines, so they had a ton of difficulty getting it to run, let alone add 3D) but don't really go into how they reverse engineered them, so I can't really comment on that. I suspect they used some of Sony's tools to decompile the games into assembly code and then ported that over. They did mention that they had to have guys with a ton of experience with Assembler (15 to 16 years) to work on them, so to write it off as easy is ridiculous.
Edit: To actually say something that's relevant to the thread, was it public knowledge before that the PS1/GBA versions of FFI-VI weren't ports at all but actual remakes? Same assets and everything but new engines. I didn't know this before but apparently, after the FFVII PC port mess, Squaresoft realised how important version control was and remade the old games, making sure they kept them this time around.
That is correct. They decided after FF VII PC to start to keep better track of their source code and when Square was in financial peril due to the Spirits Within debacle and decided that it needed to monetize the back catalog so they got TOSE to remake 1-6. 1 and 2 and 4 started on the Wonder Swan as the first of the remakes (PSX 4-6 which were also handled by TOSE were basically romhacks of the SFC versions run in a bad SNES emulator.) and then from there they proceeded to redo 5 and 6 on the GBA with a port of 4 (with all new content)
So now 1-6 excluding three are all up to 16 bit level graphics and sound and are running on more or less the same engine.
They fear that a full HD remake from the ground up of VII would kill the franchise off because they can't surpass the lofty bar that game set.
They don't want to re-make FFVII until they make a Final Fantasy that's "better" than VII. And y'know what? Out of all the ridiculous statements they've made about how it would take them 10 years or how it can't be done with current technology, I'm okay with that. I'm happy that S-E has admitted that the franchise hasn't been performing up to snuff for a long time now. That means there's actually a chance they'll fix the series. Besides that, they can't be trusted right now to remake the game and Wada knows that. After the XIII turned out to be, I want them to find again the magic that makes Final Fantasy Final Fantasy before they even so much as touch VII again.
Honestly, it doesn't matter if they had the original source code or not. Remaking the game using any of the original assets would be suicide in this day and age. S-E simply can't risk fucking up the remake. It would be the death knell of the company. The flames from their fans would be so great that it would burn the company's headquarters down by proxy.
But they will never do that. FFVII was not as successfull as it was due to the game itself, as much as the circumstances around it's release. And I'm fairly sure those circumstances won't repeat.
That is correct. They decided after FF VII PC to start to keep better track of their source code and when Square was in financial peril due to the Spirits Within debacle and decided that it needed to monetize the back catalog so they got TOSE to remake 1-6. 1 and 2 and 4 started on the Wonder Swan as the first of the remakes (PSX 4-6 which were also handled by TOSE were basically romhacks of the SFC versions run in a bad SNES emulator.) and then from there they proceeded to redo 5 and 6 on the GBA with a port of 4 (with all new content)
So now 1-6 excluding three are all up to 16 bit level graphics and sound and are running on more or less the same engine.
Interesting. Pity they didn't move the 3 remake over to the PS1, as I've heard nothing but good things about the original version. Though I guess they may've ended up making that as bad as III DS anyway.
III DS is still a good game. People like to complain about it but it ended up fixing more than it hurt. It's the graphics that hang people up the most.
I'd love a TOSEfied verion of III for completionist sake.
So, beat 7. Just as I remembered; great endgame, ridiculously easy bosses (Jenova and Fishy Sephiroth might as well just kill themselves for you), terrible ending with cheesy hollywood-esque music queues.
Pretty cool that I beat the final battle with everyone at 1 hp, though.
Game is overall just as good as I remembered it, although it is slow for quite a while after Midgar. I'm going to have to agree with those who argued that, though I think it picks up substantially from around Nibelheim on, all of which is more compelling than the Midgar opening, in my opinion.
I don't know what to play now, though. I got through that fast. 28 hours.
Another FF game, maybe? IV is always good. I haven't beaten X in a decade. I have never beaten IX (gotten to memoria though).
III DS is still a good game. People like to complain about it but it ended up fixing more than it hurt. It's the graphics that hang people up the most.
I'd love a TOSEfied verion of III for completionist sake.
I'm fine with outdated graphics, it just bored me to tears. I quit shortly after the Mini part.
The PSP version of III would've been a really good opportunity to come up with a 2D version, as it'd fit right in with 1, 2 and 4.
I don't think the question is whether or not SE can reverse-engineer their old games. I think SE's dilemma is that they would want a 7 remake to be on par with 13's overall production quality. 13 wasn't a huge success and Versus is still in development after 6 years. They are probably (understandably) hesitant to go all big budget on ANOTHER game, a remake of their most popular game, when they can't reliably make new stuff that meets their own standards of quality.
I know this will never happen, but if a full HD FF7 is out of the question (since as they've stated it would require as much work as a new HD game) it would be nice if they down converted it to a classic 2d sprite game. They've already basically fully redone all the graphics for FF 1-4 through various rereleases so it should be feasible from a financial perspective and its not like its remembered fondly for the blocky character models.
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And then Umaro is Umaro.
I liked how it looked like an unholy mess of steel, but you also ran into familiar rooms from your stint in Vector. It just gave the whole place an air of familiarity and character. Much better than a random technicolour pissing match. And while I like XIII and XIII-2, somebody on the design team must have some sick sexual fetish with lego's, because damn.
The team they give you is solid.
What? Just because fan patchers have been making changes doesn't mean they have the source code. They don't. Halkun used to talk about his work modding FFVII quite a bit and there were a lot of things that are just not possible to change, which is why most FFVII mods are just replacing the art assets.
1. FFIV (all that equipment!)
2. FFVI (definite fan of the team splitting)
3. FFXIII (the visuals are really imaginative and neat, even if nothing makes any damned sense)
Why do you have to bring Phantasy Star IV into this?
I'm the opposite, I believe the FF VI tilesets were some of the best of the snes(though not the best), and in final fantasy. I like some of the more intricate detail in the buildings and other elements.
I prefer the "upscaled 8bit" look of 4 and 5, by far. Its abstracted enough that I don't give it second thought. 6's bad perspective always bugs me. The character sprites never really feel like they "belong" in the world, though this obviously a personal opinion. I've seen others voice it, too, though.
The only problem I have with the Northern Crater really is that your first time through (or 100th, if you don't use a walkthrough) you have no idea what the point of splitting the party is. You don't play as the other party, it's only function is to reward you with cool swag if you sent the correct characters down the correct path. I bet there's still a chunk of players who just take all the characters down the path they want. :P
Also, on someone's saying Dirge of Cerberus was good in here, I went and checked an LP out. Watched the whole thang.
But then, I loved the overall story, once you got past that junk. FFVII's version of a final Omega WEAPON is as a lifeboat to carry them to a new world in the event of a catastrophe. Of course, to do that, they all gotta be dead. But that is an excellent way to slot such a big new part into an existing mythos. Got handled a lot better than the new Sephiroth like characters in Crisis Core, imo.
And Hojo's mind surviving via a computer gets some thumbs up too. ;D
...no duh? Hence I said they're pulling apart the code. Hence mentioning obfuscation (which is hiding compiled code behind a layer of obfuscation. Astoundingly.)
There are mods for 7 that go far beyond just the art assets. Like you know, the entire menu overhaul. Then there is the white docs for game formulas.
Too much work for a couple fans, maybe. An actual studio could tear 7 apart in a month.
I really wish there was a way to see how well the game would run before I shell out that much for it
It's fucking insanity. Even in the 1990's hard drive space could not have been worth THAT much.
Buy the game, install it, then play it for about 10 minutes to see how it runs. That should be long enough to get through a bit of it.
If it runs terrible, just go to the play storefront, press the menu key, go to my apps and select the game then hit uninstall & refund. If its within 15 minutes of purchase you can get a refund automatically.
Fo real real? I might actually buy this then. I really wish it was FFVI instead of FFIII though.
Oh wow, yeah, that's fantastic. I had no idea about that policy! This will give me some Final Fantasy goodness until FFVII PC is released!
And yes, I know what obfuscation means (it has no relevance here at all) and that there are mods that go beyond art assets (hence why I said MOST VII mods) but they're still very limited. As far as I'm aware, Halkun and his friends were the furthest along and they've been working on creating a FFVII engine virtual machine by completely reverse engineering FFVII for the last 6-7 years.
One really cool theory I saw regarding Omega Weapon and Jenova that I subscribe too.
Agree totally.
It had some really interesting themes with stuff like the summoners and New Yevon adapting to a world where their doctrine has been debunked and their reason for living removed, but that didn't really get the screen time it deserved (And remember, the ruins of Zanarkand will be waiting!)
God I have so many ghastly soundbites from that game stored forever.
One thing I love is that during the final battle you have Braska, Jecht, and Auron making random bad-ass comments.
I still desperately want a FFX prequel where you play as them.
The instructions manual mentions that the Dark Notes are randomly generated.
I've put the unlockable music in spoilers, just in case. Personally, I was ecstatic when I unlocked
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Yes, them not being able to do a remake due to no source code is bunk.
Because they can just rip the retail disc.
And yes, if a game is compiled obfuscated, then it would be relevant, because then you couldn't do that
But, you know, they don't. Still don't in almost every case. So there is no excuse. Except laziness.
And, again, PS2 emulation and software is about 100x worse then PSX. Yet Bluepoint ripped apart MGS2 and 3 just fine. They even explain their process of ripping games from retail disc. This is not a new thing. Just because some amateur hobbyists have wasted years and made not great progress doesn't mean a team of professionals hasnt done the same thing for half a dozen games on a far more complex and difficult to work with system (PS2 vs PSX.)
I mean hell people have been working on saturn emulation for... what, a couple decades now? Yet one of the very first to come out was the best and people still haven't made one as good.
Talent, eh?
SE is just being lazy. There is no other reason. Claims of any other type are just people lying to themselves because it makes it easier to cope, or something.
No, you're being silly. You honestly think they know they could make money off this, and aren't doing it because they (the company, the execs, the programmers? Who, exactly?) is being lazy?
Tell me you're kidding around a bit here please
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A lot of Sabin's Blitzes, especially his more powerful ones are keyed off the magic stat.
Unless I'm being stupid and you mean magic as in spells in which case, you're right.
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b) Ripping the retail disc? Well if it's that simple, why don't you do it?
c) Obfuscation doesn't make code impossible to reverse engineer, it just makes it harder. And it's irrelevant because, as far as I'm aware, no-one bothers with it in games.
d) What does PS2 emulation have to do with anything?
e) PS2 software was only as complicated as the developer wanted it to be. The God of War's were said to be insanely simple and well documented, which makes them easy to port. Other games are complicated messes. Your point here is completely irrelevant.
f) That "amateur hobbyist" helped create the PS1 emulator that Sony now uses in all their devices.
As for the BluePoint quotes, I didn't reply to that post until now because they looked familiar but it wasn't because of that 1UP article. Well, I found out where 1UP blatantly stole them from, Edge (Nov 2011 issue). They do detail quite a few more things (Shadow of the Colossus was originally built using Linux machines, so they had a ton of difficulty getting it to run, let alone add 3D) but don't really go into how they reverse engineered them, so I can't really comment on that. I suspect they used some of Sony's tools to decompile the games into assembly code and then ported that over. They did mention that they had to have guys with a ton of experience with Assembler (15 to 16 years) to work on them, so to write it off as easy is ridiculous.
Edit: To actually say something that's relevant to the thread, was it public knowledge before that the PS1/GBA versions of FFI-VI weren't ports at all but actual remakes? Same assets and everything but new engines. I didn't know this before but apparently, after the FFVII PC port mess, Squaresoft realised how important version control was and remade the old games, making sure they kept them this time around.
So now 1-6 excluding three are all up to 16 bit level graphics and sound and are running on more or less the same engine.
They fear that a full HD remake from the ground up of VII would kill the franchise off because they can't surpass the lofty bar that game set.
They don't want to re-make FFVII until they make a Final Fantasy that's "better" than VII. And y'know what? Out of all the ridiculous statements they've made about how it would take them 10 years or how it can't be done with current technology, I'm okay with that. I'm happy that S-E has admitted that the franchise hasn't been performing up to snuff for a long time now. That means there's actually a chance they'll fix the series. Besides that, they can't be trusted right now to remake the game and Wada knows that. After the XIII turned out to be, I want them to find again the magic that makes Final Fantasy Final Fantasy before they even so much as touch VII again.
Honestly, it doesn't matter if they had the original source code or not. Remaking the game using any of the original assets would be suicide in this day and age. S-E simply can't risk fucking up the remake. It would be the death knell of the company. The flames from their fans would be so great that it would burn the company's headquarters down by proxy.
Edit: Quote added because I was slow.
I'd love a TOSEfied verion of III for completionist sake.
Pretty cool that I beat the final battle with everyone at 1 hp, though.
Game is overall just as good as I remembered it, although it is slow for quite a while after Midgar. I'm going to have to agree with those who argued that, though I think it picks up substantially from around Nibelheim on, all of which is more compelling than the Midgar opening, in my opinion.
I don't know what to play now, though. I got through that fast. 28 hours.
Another FF game, maybe? IV is always good. I haven't beaten X in a decade. I have never beaten IX (gotten to memoria though).
Yeah, I meant spells.
Basically just to refute the idea that you had to grind to learn spells with loads of people to prepare for the three party finale.
I'm fine with outdated graphics, it just bored me to tears. I quit shortly after the Mini part.
The PSP version of III would've been a really good opportunity to come up with a 2D version, as it'd fit right in with 1, 2 and 4.
Ridiculous.
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I know this will never happen, but if a full HD FF7 is out of the question (since as they've stated it would require as much work as a new HD game) it would be nice if they down converted it to a classic 2d sprite game. They've already basically fully redone all the graphics for FF 1-4 through various rereleases so it should be feasible from a financial perspective and its not like its remembered fondly for the blocky character models.