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Final Fantasy 2 is still worse Let's get this page started right
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 16:23 |
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# ? Apr 24, 2024 23:48 |
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Doing the endgame stuff for FFX makes me think fondly on Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant and how it handled character-progression sidequests. There, you had to do extra poo poo to really power up your characters, but in that game, the sidequests are strewn throughout, and you complete them along the journey, until the very end where basically everybody's best power-up is protected by a cool dungeon and a tough boss. In other words, you don't have to put off beating the game to play Blitzball for fifteen hours!!!
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 16:26 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xyV-Rz5Jk Best FF3 theme, and really the only good thing I can say about that game. I guess it was the start of the job system too, so there's that. Zombies' Downfall posted:Final Fantasy 2 is still worse Also, this is fact.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 16:39 |
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Doing the endgame stuff for FFX makes me think fondly on Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant and how it handled character-progression sidequests. There, you had to do extra poo poo to really power up your characters, but in that game, the sidequests are strewn throughout, and you complete them along the journey, until the very end where basically everybody's best power-up is protected by a cool dungeon and a tough boss. Interesting point, bringing up the SH series. This whole time, I was trying to think of what other JRPG character Kimahri reminds me of, and it's hit me. Lucia. Both had their one little side-quest where they're necessary, and then they're pretty much non-entities for the rest of the game (and yet I keep them in my party for a majority of the time for really no apparent reason...) And on the topic of Lucia, that trading side-quest in order to get her ultimate weapon for free was BS without a guide. 'Oh, you want to trade for [random key item] I have, first guy I talk to (with no indication I should hold out)? Sure!'
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 16:43 |
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Final Fantasy 2 is still worse I would play an FF2 remake over FF3DS. And I love FF3 on the NES. ShadeofDante posted:Best FF3 theme, and really the only good thing I can say about that game. I guess it was the start of the job system too, so there's that. Also start of summoning, which for better or for worse has become the lynchpin of the series. First game to not have you attack air if you killed an enemy, too, that was nice.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 16:44 |
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Final Fantasy 2 is still worse FF3>FF2>FF3DS.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 16:49 |
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Kalenn Istarion posted:It's about $160mm in their pocket, $47mm is just the profit. IIRC, Sony's stake in the company was comprised of cash infusions used to grow Squaresoft and later stabilize the company after TSW and various growing pains. It was apparently non-voting since Sony and Squaresoft had a close very business relation revolving around various deals. For example, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was actually developed by a shell company called Game Designers Studio, Inc headed by Akitoshi Kawazu in order to sidestep exclusivity deals. Game Designers Studio, Inc. also received funding from Nintendo. Under Wada, the company moved to cross-platform development since he wanted to rapidly grow the company into a EA/Activision global mega-publisher. As for Sony, they're belt tightening since coming off from a string of heavy losses. They need the liquidity as well. Most of their divisions, even what appears to be a rebounding Computer Entertainment, aren't doing as well as they should since the burn rate from overhead is so excruciatingly high for an electronics company. They're in a strange position in that most of the products are considered premium brands. They're neither cheap commodity goods nor high margin luxury brand. It's very difficult to compete in this tier without solid cost control. However, Sony is operating at margins suited for a luxury brand against competitors coming from a variety of different tiers. While Sony's Financial division is the breadwinner, it needs the other divisions for cashflow. It's a conundrum that's slowly killing the company. They've made some gains in hardware sectors such as sensors but overall they've been very slow in culling failing divisions. They really should be a content and service company with a much lower overhead but their engineering background has too much historical inertia. You can look at Panasonic as a Japanese electronics giant that made drastic cuts before unprofitable divisions dragged rest of the company down with it. Anyway, I figured people would be interested in this article on Eurogamer. It's for FFIV:ARR and covers Naoki Yoshida's process of rebuilding FFXIV after its disastrous launch. While it's not a post-mortem, it gives you a good look into development issues during the creation of FFXIV 2.0 and how they approached these problems. It's why I still have hope for the company even with the new CEO appearing directionless and the old guard unable to ship games on time. quote:On 27th August 2013 Naoki Yoshida, over-worked, overtired and twitching on caffeine, paced backstage at a press conference in Shibuya, Tokyo. In a few minutes he was due to proclaim the arrival of Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn to the world in a live broadcast. It should have been a happy moment, yet Yoshida felt nothing but nausea. quote:The failure to supply a sufficient number of servers for the game's launch stemmed from Yoshida's belief that trust in Final Fantasy 14 had been irrevocably eroded. "That's how I felt so I assumed most other players would be too," he says with rare honesty. "I thought that perhaps people would only give the game a try after hearing something from a friend. But these conservative expectations were turned on their head with the response to the third phase of beta testing. Players flooded in. It was completely unexpected. Ultimately it confirmed my conviction that what is most important for a developer to bear in mind is making sure that the game itself is interesting and appealing." quote:Yoshida, whose career began at Hudsonsoft where he worked on Bomberman, is an avid MMO player. When he was brought in to fix the original Final Fantasy 14 (a game from which he constantly distances himself: "I was not involved with the original FF14 at all") he perceived what others had not: the game's problems stemmed from deeper issues at Square Enix. During his GDC presentation Yoshida explained that, during Sony's PlayStation era, the company had become "obsessed with visuals". It was a focus that had, he said, harmed its output. As an example of where the development effort had been mistakenly applied, he points out that, in the original Final Fantasy 14, a single flowerpot contained around 1,000 polygons and 150 lines of shader code, "the same amount as the entire player character model." quote:When Yoshida joined the team he made drastic and immediate changes. He wrote a list of more than 400 core design changes which he believed would bring the disparate parts of the game together and draw them into a coherent, aligned whole. He then allocated each of these areas to a trusted designer to implement and, in this way, began to rearrange the faulty game into something that worked. Each senior designer had their own team, and Yoshida encouraged competition between the various teams, who then presented their work to one another. Where management had previously been reticent to openly discuss problems with the game with staff, Yoshida cultivated an environment where both dreams and disillusionment could be freely spoken about. "It was so much healthier," he says. quote:While Yoshida's role in A Realm Reborn's success is indisputable, he would have been unable to deliver on his vision without the publisher's unwavering financial support. "Our efforts were backed up by the whole Square Enix group so nothing was impossible in terms of our ideas," he says. It's clear that the publisher was willing to invest as much money as was required in order to undo the damage the Final Fantasy brand had, according to the CEO, sustained. In the same month that A Realm Reborn released, the company reported financial losses of 1.6 billion yen. While Square Enix is yet to report whether the game has recouped its development costs, the company's financial report for the nine-month period ending December 31, 2013 declared a profit of 5.2 billion yen. The report stated that Final Fantasy 14's subscriptions and sales showed "favourable progress." http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-04-18-naoki-yoshida-final-fantasys-world-saviour EDIT: Gamasutra also has a great feature interview: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/215753/understanding_the_successful_.php?page=1 Sunning fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Apr 18, 2014 |
# ? Apr 18, 2014 16:52 |
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quote:On stage, Yoshida bowed his head and apologised. "I am really sorry," he said. "Our long journey is just beginning and I hope..." Then he broke off and broke down, bringing a hand to his face while the heads of the game's development team stood in awkward, stoical silence behind him. After a few moments someone in the assembled crowd called out: "Ganbare!" - "You can do it!" Another voice took up the cry and then another until there was a chorus of people cheering Yoshida on, each swell of noise adding to his grief. He regained his composure and continued: "I wasn't going to cry... Today marks our first step. This is only the first step."
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 17:08 |
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neongrey posted:And yeah the NES version's music is great, if you like NES music. The DS fucks even that up. It seems a lot more simple and catchy than most FF soundtracks. Was it a different composer, or did he just throw up his hands and yell "gently caress it, chiptunes"?
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 17:18 |
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Tempo 119 posted:It seems a lot more simple and catchy than most FF soundtracks. Was it a different composer, or did he just throw up his hands and yell "gently caress it, chiptunes"? I think it was just Uematsu really hitting his stride. He usually does that on the last game in the main series that's featured on the platform.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 17:21 |
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So...is resetting the data the only way to change the League prizes? There's a tournament with Jecht Shot 2 as a prize...if I get it, then reset, do I lose it too?
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:02 |
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Fuuuuuuck. Just missed the Sun Crest on FFX. I beat the boss, ran down the steps in the back, ran back up the other steps, somehow missed the chest and completely forgot that there was even a chest to miss until it was too late. And I am not prepared to be winning any fights against Dark Bahamut in order to get back in there. I'm at the point where I really need to grind, but I don't have the Key Spheres to let me hop over onto other Spheres.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:12 |
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BottledBodhisvata posted:So...is resetting the data the only way to change the League prizes? There's a tournament with Jecht Shot 2 as a prize...if I get it, then reset, do I lose it too? No, but unless Tidus has Anti-Venom 2 learned, he can't learn Jecht Shot 2 anyway.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:19 |
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Regarding the Sony/Square shares thing: Historically, Japanese companies have owned shares in their suppliers, customers, financiers/banks, etc (they call it "kieretsu"). Back in the 80s and 90s you could probably do a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing and link any two Japanese companies through holdings within like 3 or 4 hops. The whole 90s bubble crash kind of put a damper on the practice, but apparently it is still big in the auto industry. I'd wager that Sony bought the shares orignally not for strategic reasons, but because they were an affiliated Japanese company in need.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:19 |
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Doing the endgame stuff for FFX makes me think fondly on Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant and how it handled character-progression sidequests. There, you had to do extra poo poo to really power up your characters, but in that game, the sidequests are strewn throughout, and you complete them along the journey, until the very end where basically everybody's best power-up is protected by a cool dungeon and a tough boss. Blitzball is really fun though, and if you do it across the entire game you can gradually get Wakka's stuff pretty easily.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:20 |
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Dr Pepper posted:Blitzball is really fun though, and if you do it across the entire game you can gradually get Wakka's stuff pretty easily. It is fun, for you. It is not fun, for me.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:30 |
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Dr Pepper posted:Blitzball is really fun though, and if you do it across the entire game you can gradually get Wakka's stuff pretty easily. It's too easy to really be fun anymore. I basically win every match. Only the Psyches seldom manage to score even one goal against me.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:34 |
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Doing the endgame stuff for FFX makes me think fondly on Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant and how it handled character-progression sidequests. There, you had to do extra poo poo to really power up your characters, but in that game, the sidequests are strewn throughout, and you complete them along the journey, until the very end where basically everybody's best power-up is protected by a cool dungeon and a tough boss. You could have been playing Blitzball since Luca, taking it in smaller chunks. It's not the games fault you partitioned the game and the side-quests.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:46 |
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The thing is though, if you want to get through it as fast as possible, it's not really feasible to start until you have the airship.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:51 |
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Occupation posted:God loving drat that lightning dlc was hard as balls I just played that today, considering the Sentinel role is pretty much invincibility Ravager is the only mode he can hurt you in if you're paying attention. Now, I just have to do better than 20 minutes...
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:53 |
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Polsy posted:I just played that today, considering the Sentinel role is pretty much invincibility Ravager is the only mode he can hurt you in if you're paying attention. Now, I just have to do better than 20 minutes... You get points towards levels even if you lose - the whole thing is easily beatable at level 5/6, since by that point you don't really need to use Knight for his Ravager phase.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:55 |
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neongrey posted:I would play an FF2 remake over FF3DS. And I love FF3 on the NES. FF2's a weird situation where the game's either too hard or too easy, depending entirely on whether you know the intricacies of the battle system. Of course, past that, you still have high encounter rates with annoying monsters, and most importantly horribly laid-out dungeons with literal dead ends to force more encounters on you. The remakes just make it easier to grind and that's pretty much it while not really addressing the actual problems of the original game. Anyway, I'm more surprised it took them this long to port FF3 to the PC, considering they released it on the freaking OUYA of all things (even if it's just a slightly-modified Android port). I fully expect them to charge $20 for it and for the 3D versions of FF4 and The After Years to follow suit. Maybe even the ugly mobile ports of 5 and 6.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 18:56 |
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forbidden lesbian posted:It is fun, for you. It is not fun, for me. Ditto to the nth degree.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:01 |
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Instant Grat posted:You get points towards levels even if you lose - the whole thing is easily beatable at level 5/6, since by that point you don't really need to use Knight for his Ravager phase. Yeah, I found that out when I didn't block his 25k damage attack at level 1 and got 14 points out of it. But yeah, I just need to summon up the energy to give it another run through.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:03 |
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neongrey posted:There's not a lot of only-English-speakers who've played both but of those who have I'm prettttttty sure the universal consensus is that the NES version is better in literally every possible way-- including being less obtusely difficult, and when I say that realize that the NES version has the longest gap in the series between the last possible save and the final boss, and this includes six mandatory boss fights on the way. I thought Dorga and Une came out pretty alright in the remake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACA0tZ2_8Zk Then again, I played it long enough to get that far and might have been developing some kind of stockholm syndrome.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:13 |
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FFIII DS is the only main series FF game I've stopped playing with no intention to ever go back to it (I've beaten the NES version). I got up to the Goldor Manor.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:18 |
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Polsy posted:I just played that today, considering the Sentinel role is pretty much invincibility Ravager is the only mode he can hurt you in if you're paying attention. Now, I just have to do better than 20 minutes... You have to five star the first fight to access the second, which is where the dlcs difficulty shines Also at my community college the loudspeaker is playing the electric guitar version of the ffx sad theme on endless loop. This... This is what hell is
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:26 |
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Occupation posted:You have to five star the first fight to access the second, which is where the dlcs difficulty shines Ah, right, I assumed there was something hidden behind 5 stars, but I was hoping it was a reward. Looking forward to it already.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:29 |
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Wait there's an electric guitar version of To Zanarkand?
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:31 |
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I am literally going to murder another human being if I have to hear this goddamn loving ffx theme again
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:33 |
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To Zanarkand Final Fantasy X Guitar Cover: http://youtu.be/lDbt04y7Iuw gently caress YOU FAMILY JULES YOU gently caress
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:36 |
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Tempo 119 posted:The only thing I know about FF3 is that the battle theme on Theatrhythm is really cool. In FFXIV, the final boss of the game's only 24-man raid, the Crystal Tower, uses a orchestration of this theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs9-xbJYYKM
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 19:40 |
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I really, really wish I could like FF3. (NES, not DS. Never played DS version and never will) There's so many ambitious ideas and really good moments in the game, but there's too many annoying, bad ideas that tarnish it. I mean, I didn't mind the mini/frog dungeon stuff at first but the more they use it the more you realize it's a bad idea that doesn't add anything. There's a lot of straws that end up breaking your back in that game. To say nothing of how the dungeons ramp up to ridiculous levels in the end game. I still will never understand why the remake creators felt FF3 needed to be harder and more cumbersome. At least FF2's remakes try to make it easier, even if doesn't solve the main problems with that game. The thing is that FF2's issues lie at the very core of the game's design, and if one were to fix those problems it really wouldn't be FF2 anymore. I don't think that's true of FF3; a good remake could really rehabilitate the reputation of the game.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:00 |
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Instant Grat posted:You get points towards levels even if you lose - the whole thing is easily beatable at level 5/6, since by that point you don't really need to use Knight for his Ravager phase. Specifically, you get points for how long you survive, if you don't win: if you just want to grind up levels the quickest, survive for 2:30 minutes, which will cap your points if you lose, and then die. Of course you can beat it at level 1, or even level 0 (which you unlock after beating the DLC once).
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:01 |
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Camel Pimp posted:I really, really wish I could like FF3. (NES, not DS. Never played DS version and never will) There's so many ambitious ideas and really good moments in the game, but there's too many annoying, bad ideas that tarnish it. I mean, I didn't mind the mini/frog dungeon stuff at first but the more they use it the more you realize it's a bad idea that doesn't add anything. There's a lot of straws that end up breaking your back in that game. To say nothing of how the dungeons ramp up to ridiculous levels in the end game. To fix FF3 is really easy; remove capacity entirely, beef up magic damage, and add save points in dungeons. Remove the mandatory frog things (they're literally used to open a door and you can unfrog immediately after adding nothing to the game) and make it so there is only one Mini-dungeon. Minor improvements should include making it so the Invincible can do everything the Nautilus can so you don't need to switch between the two of them for end game stuff.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:03 |
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Well at least with Final Fantasy III being on the PC means people can probably make mods for it to fix the difficulty hopefully. Maybe also figure out a way to add "save anywhere" or at least a save point in the final dungeon.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:08 |
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Alright what the gently caress I'm on fayth Scar in X-2 i n chapter two and I'm on the map where on the upper right corner the wind blows ans YRP go like "It's a suicide" and I can't go forward. However, i can't leave the map. I. Can't. Leave. what the gently caress, did the game bug out or something? Where do i leave?
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:08 |
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Camel Pimp posted:I really, really wish I could like FF3. (NES, not DS. Never played DS version and never will) There's so many ambitious ideas and really good moments in the game, but there's too many annoying, bad ideas that tarnish it. I mean, I didn't mind the mini/frog dungeon stuff at first but the more they use it the more you realize it's a bad idea that doesn't add anything. There's a lot of straws that end up breaking your back in that game. To say nothing of how the dungeons ramp up to ridiculous levels in the end game. Honestly, don't bother with 3. FF5 is FF3 done right. Playing anything with a similar job system, and trying to go back to 3 is an exercise in tedium and frustration. It's a good game if you can get past the bullshit it throws at you (the DS game is certainly King of Bullshit Mountain, but the NES game is next in line for the throne), but there's really no point when there's games that do the job system a million times better.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:12 |
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Final Fantasy Dimensions is FF3 done right. FF5 is better still.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:14 |
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# ? Apr 24, 2024 23:48 |
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Bongo Bill posted:Final Fantasy Dimensions is FF3 done right. FF5 is better still. FFD and FF3 both have 4 warriors of darkness being good guys. I would love a 4 Warriors of Darkness FF game.
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# ? Apr 18, 2014 20:16 |