Vanish+Doom has come to the [Final Fantasy] Thread.

Xenogears of Bore

Crystals representing the classic elements of Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind. Princes, Princesses, Kings, Queens. Dragons. Doom. Lining up to take your beatings like a man/woman/whatever Quina is. Airships.

ALL THIS AND MORE


MAIN SERIES

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

I hate Final Fantasy because I never knew about the Peninsula of Power.

I hate Final Fantasy II because I never took the time to think outside the box and give it a shot.

I hate Final Fantasy III because quadruplets are creepy and like half the jobs suck.

I hate Final Fantasy IV because now there is a version I can play without buttons.

I hate Final Fantasy V and its disjointed meteor graphic.

I hate Final Fantasy VI because the upcoming iOS version will ruin my precious memories of the game.

I hate Final Fantasy VII because it was popular in the late 90's and basically kickstarted JRPG localization.

I hate Final Fantasy VIII because I never fit in at my high school either and they never assigned me a memory eating monster.

I hate Final Fantasy IX because I'm still not done with the first battle I started in 2000. Also Tetra Master is legit terrible.

I hate Final Fantasy X because the HD version still isn't out...yet. 12/26 in Japan!

I hate Final Fantasy XI because it is still making new expansions.

I hate falling asleep while not playing Final Fantasy XII. Also I never played the International Zodiac Job System.

I hate Final Fantasy XIII because it's the only non iOS game SE makes anymore.

[strike]I hate Final Fantasy XIV because I have good taste.[/strike] THEY FIXED IT. It's a really good MMO now!

I preemptively hate Final Fantasy XV because it will take another seven years to come out.

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 hate Final Fantasy Tactics because the Advance series is so much better.

I hate Final Fantasy Adventure because it's actually a Mana game/really is an FF spinoff (It's called FF Gaiden in Japan!)

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 hate Final Fantasy X-2 because it is pretty princess dress up and female empowerment scares me. Also I'm no good at math so Sphere Break is right out.

I hate Dissidia because IT'S NOT MY DADDY'S FF. Alternatively I don't like stupid names.

I hate FF XIII-2 because of preorder DLC, stupid time plots and...(to be continued)

I hate 4 Warriors of Light because of its dumb auto-targeting and it's too old school.

I hate Chocobo Dungeon Wii because I am tone deaf and excellent music angers me.

I hate Crisis Core because I am LOVELESS.

I hate Theatrhythm because I can't spell or pronounce it.

I hate Final Fantasy Tactics Advance because Matsuno worked on this more than he did on FF 12.

I hate Dirge of Cerberus because I have good taste in action games.

I hate Dissidia Duodecim 012 Final Fantasy because of its stupid name. I never actually got around to playing it.

WHICH VERSION IS BEST?

A new segment to the FF Hate thread OP. This is the definitive version list by me, XoB.

FF1: Released on...well, just about everything. NES/Wii VC is the go to platform for the original experience. As far as the upscaled ports go you have PSX, GBA, PSP and iOS. I like them all, but while PSP and iOS have one extra dungeon and new spiffy graphics, those said graphics just seem unnatural to me. Like a newgrounds game. Still they have everything the PSX and GBA versions have, only more EXCEPT for the PSX's option for an old school difficulty level. So it's sort of a tossup here. I like the GBA version the best because of it's compromises, but what I really suggest is for people to play the original NES version.

FF2: Released on, the same platforms as FF1, usually bundled together. The lone exception being the NES, as this was one of the last games in the series to come out here. Also unlike the NES version being the best of FF1 for that old timey feel, the ports get it right with much needed balance fixes! Play one of them instead. If you like the PSP/ios Graphics, get that one, if not, GBA or PSX is fine!

FF3: Released on the Famicom, DS, iOS, and now PSP in Japan, though it has the same translation and is the same damn game as the other two English released titles. These three versions are almost exactly the same and none of them are quite as good as the original.

FF4: Released on SNES, SFC (TWICE!) PSX/PSN, GBA, DS, PSP, iOS. SNES version is easy to ignore these days as its translation is bad and its based on Easy Type. PSX version is a port of a Wonderswan Color version (so are the first two FF ports actually) and the rest of the versions are based on that one, though again with new translations. GBA version is the first one with new content but the NA version has an ATB bug which pisses some people off. PSP version is the latest one and it includes the mobile phone/Wiiware sequel The After Years which some people including me dig, but it has that crappy Newgrounds Flash game looking art. The real winner here is the total remake FF IV DS. 3D like FF III but with a new augment system, harder fights, brutal optional bosses, and a ton of fleshing out of the story. iOS is IV DS but with worse graphics and no buttons.

FF5: Released on PSX/PSN, GBA, iOS. Get the GBA version. It's the only thing the thread agrees on. iOS version is a fairly close second.

FF6: Released on SNES/Wii VC, PSX/PSN, GBA. I like both the SNES/Wii VC and the GBA release. PSX has shitty sound effects, load times, a slightly uncensored but very little other altered script, and two cinematics that you can youtube. GBA versus SNES is a fight between new and old script, acceptable sound versus orgasmic sound, bug fixes or weird ass bugs, bad font versus awesome font, new content versus original. I love them both. The upcoming iOS version is destined to ruin your childhood. They've even hinted at coming for VII next.

FF7: Released on PSX/PSN, PC. PSX. The PC version had to be built from the ground up and has terrible sound but has some better models here and there. The minigames hate being run on modern machines. If the new version is up to spec in all ways then this might change (it really isn't.)

FF8: Released on PSX/PSN, PC. PSX is the version to get. FF8 is rare as hell on PC and while it does better than base FF7 PC it's still not perfect.

FF9: Released on PSX/PSN. Done.

FF10: Released on PS2. Done. HD version might come out eventually. If you want to be pedantic about it, get the Asian version of FF X International.

FF11: Released on PC, 360, PS2. PC version for obvious reasons.

FF12: Released on PS2.

FF13: Released on 360/PS3. PS3 is one disc, better cutscene resolution, better music. PS3 version.

FF14: PC, PS3, PS4 upcoming. It's been Reborn.

THE FUTURE

We've got a decent slate of games on the horizon.

FF Type Zero: AKA Awesome FF game for PSP that will never be released in the west because the PSP is dead. Though they did in fact just say it was coming. Somehow. Getting a smartphone prequel in Japan.

FF XIII Versus: Still not a fighting game. Also never coming out. This time, really not ever coming out. It's XV now.

FF XV: The real deal. This is what the Kingdom Hearts team and Nomura have been working on (or not working on) all this time. First announced as a PS3 exclusive action RPG story told in the fabula nova crystallis theme back in 2006 (someone could really run with a Duke Nukem Forever type of post here, this is getting ridiculous) it is now a PS4/Xbox One game with a nebulous release date. Does look good though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Rbwm-mzm5QA

FF X/X-2 HD: Also qHD on Vita, though you have to buy them separately. Good games, international versions no less, no solid release date outside of Japan which gets it the day after Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptg2bhLcoRY

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy: THE LORD AND SAVIOR OF THE SERIES...if it was still a part of it, shame really. For the Sequel drops in Japan and Europe in December and early 2014 in North America. Is a suped up as all hell international version with English/Japanese audio, a mountain of game play changes that bring it in line with the much hinted at sequel and some bits and bobs of microtransaction stuff that you can ignore as you can generate it on your own.

KINGDOM HEARTS

Is light. Talk about it elsewhere. namely here

In fact I want to try and keep this thread on topic as much as possible. No random DQ or Neir rants, or other SE RPGs that they are never going to make again unless it is relevant to the discussion at hand.


Only eight months until the start of Job Fiesta 2014!

silence1186

New thread smell. Though I much preferred:

Xenogears of Bore wrote:

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

Xenogears of Bore

I was getting hungry and dinner smelled good so instead of changing them all I just went with the ones that hadn't been done in awhile. I'm pretty sure I've done that I hate since the original I hate FF thread.

The vitriol over FF VI iOS is going to be something else.

Enlong

going to be?

Xenogears of Bore

For right now it is just Potential Vitrol. Who knows, they might just remake the game into something special. FF IV DS had an actual budget and was developed by the same group and is the superior way to play that game. Greatest smartphone JRPG of ALL TIME???

It's still going to control and look like crap and I'm going to hate it.

Enlong

Xenogears of Bore wrote: »

Greatest smartphone JRPG of ALL TIME???

Naw, that'd be Song Summoner.

Vincent Grayson

New LR footage makes me so much more excited now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BfDvU-ORJk#t=405

Alice Leywind

So....final fantasy dimensions is nearly unplayable on my phone because it's goddamn TINY. It should not be incredibly difficult to tell the word "Item" apart from "Doom"

Enlong

What phone do you have?

Alice Leywind

An "LGE LG-L38C" Not a terribly good phone. I wish there were a way to zoom it though.

KiTA

Oh hey, new thread.

VeritasVR

So based on the last thread, I fired up FF8 and did the No-Level run with a ton of card playing because apparently I wasn't doing it right.

Although the gameplay mechanics made more sense and the enemies were much easier, I still wanted to stab it in the eye.

Fleur de Alys

I can't fathom any way in which the mobile version of FFVI could be worse than the original. I guess they could ruin some of the music?

Also the LR footage was ace. I'm not quite sold on moving around in battle (I'm betting it will be awkward and mostly pointless except for certain enemies where you have to do it just so to dodge and win), but everything else just looks genius. Three ATB bars with class-switching might surpass the Stagger bar in terms of greatest ideas to hit RPGs in recent times.

Still waiting for details on the power-up system. That's definitely the area where XIII and XIII-2 fell short the most. The quasi-job system of LR offers some hope for turnabout.

Xenogears of Bore

Worse graphics, worse controls, this nonsense they've talked about making the game easier.

You could probably find a way to microtransaction it if you really wanted to.

Enlong

They could screw up the music, make fights even easier, Inplememt Blitz horribly, make the Colosseum even more annoying...

There are a number of things that could be horribly botched, with varying degrees of likelihood.

KiTA

Yeah, the "Make FF6 Easier" (when FF6 is already piss easy after a certain point) thing really adds to the whole "god, whomever is in charge at SE thinks moderm gamers are fucking morons" thing. See also: FF13-1's map design.

Lucid

I think the 'easier' part of that interview is perhaps being interpreted differently than how it was intended, since nearly every time it's mentioned it's in the context of supposedly being just like the other ports. It's probably just auto battle.

joshofalltrades

Final Fantasy VI, in its original form, is arguably one of the easiest games to break ever made.

Like, you don't even have to try very hard.

If you have a finger (singular) and at least five working brain cells, VI is beatable. Hell, you could play the game with your face and still win.

Anything above and beyond one functioning digit and five brain cells is just gravy and makes the whole thing easier.

Vanish+X-Zone/Doom/etc., Gau's Stray Cat, Edgar's Auto-Crossbow/Chainsaw, Sabin's Bum Rush, Terra/Relm period, Genji equipment, Hermes Sandals+Gigas Glove, Quick+Gem Box, Offering+Master's Scroll, Economizer+Ultima... I can go on and on.

Seriously, if you have trouble beating Final Fantasy VI you need to get some help.

Disclaimer: VI is still my favorite game in the entire series. But it doesn't need to get any easier.

Darlan

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/here-s-a-narrated-gameplay-demo-of-lightning-retur/2300-8072/
This may be old news, but this somewhat new clip looks pretty cool! I'm still wincing most times a character opens their mouth to speak, but an open world FF with a dynamic job switching system may just finally give me the first mainline FF I enjoy since, like, X.

Enlong

I would love VI to get more difficult, in the vein of FFIVDS.

Delzhand

joshofalltrades wrote: »

Vanish+X-Zone/Doom/etc., Gau's Stray Cat, Edgar's Auto-Crossbow/Chainsaw, Sabin's Bum Rush, Terra/Relm period, Genji equipment, Hermes Sandals+Gigas Glove, Quick+Gem Box, Offering+Master's Scroll, Economizer+Ultima... I can go on and on.

Yeah, but you know about those things because you know the game.

Darlan wrote: »

I'm still wincing most times a character opens their mouth to speak

The older I get, the more I realize this will probably never not be true. I don't know if it's just Japanese culture, or Japanese storytelling, or maybe it's contained in videogames, but there is almost never a scenario in a JRPG where I think "yes, this is what a rational person would do/say given the information available to them." It hardly seems fair to compare JRPGs to something like The Last of Us, but, well, this is what's on the table now.

Edit: Notable exceptions to this are, unsurprisingly, FFT and TO

Enlong

I like the story in Xenoblade.

There are bits where Shulk does something very illogical, but that all gets explained later on.

Lucid

Delzhand wrote: »

joshofalltrades wrote: »

Vanish+X-Zone/Doom/etc., Gau's Stray Cat, Edgar's Auto-Crossbow/Chainsaw, Sabin's Bum Rush, Terra/Relm period, Genji equipment, Hermes Sandals+Gigas Glove, Quick+Gem Box, Offering+Master's Scroll, Economizer+Ultima... I can go on and on.

Yeah, but you know about those things because you know the game.

VI is the easiest of the snes trio. There isn't a lot of strategy needed for most boss fights. V had some bosses with various tricks to them. VI also gives you a number of overpowered items and magic without a significant amount of time or effort invested. Even some of the basics like Edgar's drill, Sabin's aurabolt, Shadow's shurikens, are all early game free(or cheap) powerful attacks.

joshofalltrades

A lot of the things I listed don't require any knowledge of the game at all. Auto-crossbow will be relevant through some of the World of Ruin and you get it on literally your third non-temporary party member, less than 20 minutes into the game.

Squidget0

I think if you're not using weird cheesy tricks (ie: Vanish/Doom, Relm, or other really glitchy stuff) VI is probably a little harder than VII. Which is to say it's not 'hard' exactly, but there are a couple of tricky fights where you'll probably die a couple of times on your first run through. I remember at least one of the Ultros fights being difficult, and I think there are a couple other bosses that can be a problem.

It also gets a lot harder if you don't pick the 'right' people for your party. Umaro sucks, Cyan sucks, Locke is weak for most of the game, Strago isn't that good, ect.

Does the iOS version of FFVI have any new content? Or have they said?

Lucid

Even the non top tier characters in VI are still usually able to handle most boss fights without too much trouble.

VI is kind of weird with its move set progression. Like, in V to get stuff like dual wield or powerful no cost attacks, you had to progress further down a job path usually obtaining them when you mastered the job. In VI you get some of that stuff early(genji glove, Sabin and Edgar's skill sets). Weaker characters like Cyan have a free damage multiplier for no cost or charge time in his initial sword skill. Strago is decent, it's just that by the time you get his best blue magic, esper/eidolon magic has made it kind of pointless.

Character growth is probably the weakest part of the game. It's not that difficult to find a team that dominates, even in the earlier parts of the game. V made you work for it more, especially being new to the game. I guess VI is more accessible in that way, though inversely maybe it challenges you more to create your own difficulty in low level/no magic/etc games.

Squidget0

Well, difficulty in FF games is weird in general. Part of the problem is that the easiest solution to any difficult fight isn't to think about your build, but to grind a couple more levels fighting endless hordes of trash mobs until the fight is easier. Not fun, and kind of takes away any incentive for the developers to make challenging fights.

I think the best model is to make the core game pretty simple with a few challenging fights, but include some optional boss fights/dungeons that scale the difficulty up a lot. VI has a little bit of that, though the optional stuff in VI (Kefka's Tower, ect) is pretty lame overall. VII had some challenging optional content, but unfortunately late-game combat in that game is pretty much just spamming a spell that has a 1-minute cast animation over and over until the target dies.

Fleur de Alys

None of the games are "hard" if you're willing to grind (with the possible exception of XIII due to its caps on both character leveling and item transformation). But VI is by far the easiest one if you play "normally" (without grinding or using intentional exploits). There are a couple fights that can trip you up if you aggressively underperform (such as the airship fights after the capital), but for the most part it hands you victory built in to your characters' core ability sets and readily-available items.

Add to that how easy it is to accidentally exploit and how grossly imbalanced the characters and esper/eidolon setups are and you have a real mess of a game. Only VIII had messier mechanics, and at least it offered a toy/tinkerer kind of appeal.

I don't envy the team their task in porting this to mobile devices. What do you change? What do you fix? How do you fix it without angering the nostalgic legions?

Xenogears of Bore

Just opening chests and getting the equipment in them is enough to break FF VI wide open. Not to mention the espers you get without searching hard, all the fun stuff you can buy (Drill, throwing items) and the fact that almost every character has something they can do with 100% power from the back row.

Hell even ignoring magic Locke, Cyan, Shadow, Edgar, Sabin, Gau, Mog, Relm, Strago and of course Gogo all have fun things they can do from the back row for full damage.

KiTA

Darlan wrote: »

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/here-s-a-narrated-gameplay-demo-of-lightning-retur/2300-8072/
This may be old news, but this somewhat new clip looks pretty cool! I'm still wincing most times a character opens their mouth to speak, but an open world FF with a dynamic job switching system may just finally give me the first mainline FF I enjoy since, like, X.

Is my connection shitting itself, or after about a minute (as they use the shop) does the video shit itself and never quite recover?

Oh, there it goes, as combat ends. That actually looks really good.

Edit: Oh wow, it looks like they really nailed the customization. Holy shit, I'm actually... hyped for this.

... Fuck.

Xenogears of Bore

I'm excited as hell for LR. It looks fun, the story is going to be a mess and its graphically worse than either of the other two XIII games but man, something is there.

Dehumanized

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_-HKoUO9ow

shoeboxjeddy

Delzhand wrote: »

The older I get, the more I realize this will probably never not be true. I don't know if it's just Japanese culture, or Japanese storytelling, or maybe it's contained in videogames, but there is almost never a scenario in a JRPG where I think "yes, this is what a rational person would do/say given the information available to them." It hardly seems fair to compare JRPGs to something like The Last of Us, but, well, this is what's on the table now.

Edit: Notable exceptions to this are, unsurprisingly, FFT and TO

Nier is one of my current gold standards for NOT being like that. So of course it was reviewed poorly for a series of dumb reasons. And then the studio got killed too. :?

vagrant_winds

I wouldn't call the main characters of Nier rational. They're very much the opposite: They're emotional.

They are, however, emotional in tie same way that actual human beings are. 'Fuck your logic and arguments, I'm doing this for my daughter's/comrade's sake.'

Delzhand

Oh yeah, Nier should definitely be on the exception list. So clearly Japanese devs can do it. Maybe it just takes really good voice actors.

vagrant_winds

I wanna argue that FF10 has a lot of characters acting like actual facsimiles of human beings the most out of the FF games.

But I'm on my phone right now so... I don't want to thumb type it out.

shoeboxjeddy

vagrant_winds wrote: »

I wouldn't call the main characters of Nier rational. They're very much the opposite: They're emotional.

They are, however, emotional in tie same way that actual human beings are. 'Fuck your logic and arguments, I'm doing this for my daughter's/comrade's sake.'

I totally agree with you, but sometimes I also admired (mostly in the subquests) how they would logically think things through and not just blunder into stupid situations. Or they would go into that situation, but with full knowledge of the likely result. Anyway, I guess Nier isn't technically on-topic despite being SE, so I'll stop.

As far as actual FF games go, I actually love the genre Lightning Returns (seems to be) in (openish world action RPG), but every trailer makes the writing sound worse and worse.

(and worse and worse and worse)

Erios

I'm surprised people think VI is the easiest in the whole series. I usually give that title to VII. I can't think of any major roadblocks where a person could just get crushed by a storyline boss in VII. VI, on the other hand, had Atma/Ultima Weapon (Atma was a much better name, but I digress), at least 1 Ultros fight (the first one was tough if you don't know about the back row, and I didn't at 8, since he could KO Bannon pretty easily), Doomgaze if you get unlucky and others. For some reason, I have a recollection of Tunnel Armor having pretty high stats, the Magitek factory being rather challenging and a few early WoR fights being somewhat difficult. Hell, the whole end of WoB is pretty tough. If you manage to avoid breaking the game completely open, don't grind and are a child, the final battle can be a bit of a hassle, I guess.

Edit: Ugh, Dullahan. What a jerk to me in my childhood.

Xenogears of Bore

VI is the start of the major easing of the series difficulty. VII-VIII-IX are all pretty friendly. X can be brutal on certain fights especially when they get a lot of turns in a row but you can just load up the summon cannon for most fights and cheese em.

XII-XIII are more of a return to form; easy if you know what you are doing.

Enlong

I used to be slaughtered by Atmaweapon.

But these days? Now that I know how to fight? I've yet to see Ultima Weapon ever use Flare Star, Full Power, or Mind Blast.

Fleur de Alys

VII is easy if you grind or really know how to set up Materia properly, but that's a general statement true of most FFs (V+ anyway).

In addition to the above, VI's WoB is easy if you have Edgar in your party and visit shops on occasion.

It's a decidedly lower bar.