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I gave Maria black magic and daggers and put her in the front row and she ended up passing Firion in HP and did the most damage with some of the really good daggers you get. You're usually only weakness targeting so the mild penalties from daggers and cuirass aren't noticeable. Accuracy problems with your support skills seem a lot milder. If they exist, they are easily fixed by casting spells multiple times. So my white mage got armored and decked out with axes. Ultima doesn't seem to be affected by equipment penalties as much if at all so if the calculation uses both white and black spell levels, the lowest effort spell caster character is problem one focused on obsessively casting buffs all game and then throws monster Ultimas. At the end of the game you're probably just hasting someone with the blood sword to throw the requisite 16 hit kills in a couple rounds in spite of accuracy so magic is gonna be hard to compare to that.
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Sep 13, 2021 23:39
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I'm only about a quarter of the way through FF2 so far but honestly I think a lot of the hate for it is a bit overblown. I'm actually enjoying it more than FF1 so far. I think part of it is that the FF1 characters felt too much like a blank slate - sometimes I'm in the mood for that, but one thing I've always liked about the FF games is how you get actual characters with personality, even when you're switching up their jobs and roles. And granted 2 is pretty slim on the personality part so far, but from the very beginning it feels like a pretty bold attempt to do a grand narrative that breaks away from the more generic DnD feeling of 1. There's a lot more of the connective tissue and general aesthetic landmarks that comes to define the series here, and especially the political struggles that always end up being the backdrop for the story feel more compelling than 1's storyline. I don't even really hate the leveling system so far, aside from how opaque the magic system is. It honestly seems like it was kinda ahead of its time in attempting to do a progression system similar to what the Elder Scrolls games ended up doing, and it does make sense - there's something satisfying about getting better at something by actually doing it rather than arbitrarily assigning skill points after a level up. Maybe I'll change my mind as I get deeper into the game, but so far I haven't felt like I really need to do any grinding or go out of my way to get stronger. If anything, it's neat being incentivized to use spells and stuff more proactively, since most FFs have conditioned me to save my magic for when I really need it (I never really need it). Especially coming from 1 where the MP limits were so severe that it felt like I could never afford to use spells to clear trash or top up after a fight. I dunno, I'm digging it well enough so far and I'm definitely glad the remasters are happening so I can play some games that I never really got to try, or only got to try with ugly as poo poo graphics and horrendous UI.
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Sep 14, 2021 03:10
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Twelve by Pies posted:As an aside, while I love Link to the Past and it's one of my favorite Zelda games, I can't help but wonder how much more amazing the game would've been if it had been a late system game instead of one of the first ones. The dungeons might have looked more unique and interesting instead of all using the same tileset and maybe there would have been more unique music for them. yeah it's a real shame we didn't get a late-SNES zelda as a companion to LttP. the system could have supported two of them like basically every other nintendo system has Grizzled Patriarch posted:I'm only about a quarter of the way through FF2 so far but honestly I think a lot of the hate for it is a bit overblown. I'm actually enjoying it more than FF1 so far. I think part of it is that the FF1 characters felt too much like a blank slate - sometimes I'm in the mood for that, but one thing I've always liked about the FF games is how you get actual characters with personality, even when you're switching up their jobs and roles. And granted 2 is pretty slim on the personality part so far, but from the very beginning it feels like a pretty bold attempt to do a grand narrative that breaks away from the more generic DnD feeling of 1. There's a lot more of the connective tissue and general aesthetic landmarks that comes to define the series here, and especially the political struggles that always end up being the backdrop for the story feel more compelling than 1's storyline. ff2 is definitely a step toward the same character-focused grand narrative style we would later see in 4, 6, and 7+. i can't say i think it succeeded in its ambitions but it tries, and that's basically the description that best fits the whole game. the mechanics are ambitious and work for a while, it just all starts to fall apart later when you run into quirks of the system like flare being worse than your grinded-up fire2 unless you also put the time into grinding it up. the magic levels really needed to be sorted into categories like weapons are - fire, ice, lightning, cure (including esuna, which is horrendously effective at high levels but which you must grind to make progress in), status effects, that sort of thing. there are just too many spells for them to have individual levels. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 03:15
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wafflemoose posted:Not gonna lie the N64 broke my Nintendo fanboyism since it didn't have any good JRPGs on it. Bought a PS1 just to play FF7. Extremely  bought an N64 with the money I scrounged up as a kid and while I got good games for it, ultimately I was disappointed I picked that over a playstation.
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Sep 14, 2021 03:42
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Having younger siblings meant I could get a PlayStation for the JRPGs and also play all the essential N64 games.
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Sep 14, 2021 05:48
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I'm only about a quarter of the way through FF2 so far but honestly I think a lot of the hate for it is a bit overblown. I'm actually enjoying it more than FF1 so far. I think part of it is that the FF1 characters felt too much like a blank slate - sometimes I'm in the mood for that, but one thing I've always liked about the FF games is how you get actual characters with personality, even when you're switching up their jobs and roles. And granted 2 is pretty slim on the personality part so far, but from the very beginning it feels like a pretty bold attempt to do a grand narrative that breaks away from the more generic DnD feeling of 1. There's a lot more of the connective tissue and general aesthetic landmarks that comes to define the series here, and especially the political struggles that always end up being the backdrop for the story feel more compelling than 1's storyline. The magic thing bugs me the most, leveling individual spells is a loving chore and a half. Should have just been white magic/black magic imo. It feels extremely weird to have an elder scrolls esque skill system in a final fantasy game, and particularly in a final fantasy game that old and on the NES, but it's definitely an intriguing concept poorly executed here.
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Sep 14, 2021 06:13
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Professor Beetus posted:The magic thing bugs me the most, leveling individual spells is a loving chore and a half. Should have just been white magic/black magic imo. It feels extremely weird to have an elder scrolls esque skill system in a final fantasy game, and particularly in a final fantasy game that old and on the NES, but it's definitely an intriguing concept poorly executed here. I'd break it down a little further than that. Attacking magic, healing magic, support magic (Blink, Protect, Shell), debuff/status magic (Toad, Berserk, Break). Because status effects being SUPER good when you put the effort in is great, and it becomes less fun when you get that payoff basically for free.
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Sep 14, 2021 06:28
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Cleretic posted:I'd break it down a little further than that. Attacking magic, healing magic, support magic (Blink, Protect, Shell), debuff/status magic (Toad, Berserk, Break). Sure yeah, that's a reasonable compromise. The current system is just too user unfriendly, but then again, if the reports are true, that's the way the game director wanted it to be or something like that.
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Sep 14, 2021 06:59
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https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Ultima_(Final_Fantasy_II) We got hidden mechanics and also bugs. quote:When Final Fantasy II was originally released on the Famicom, the Ultima spell, which was difficult to acquire, was practically useless. It was initially meant to grow in power relative to the level of other spells the caster had, but due to a bug, did just around 500 damage at the most on a single target. Thanks, I hate it. It’s the 80’s and they don’t have a dedicated QA staff, much less anyone recruiting kids off the street to get their opinions. Coffee Jones fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 07:19
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I'm in the same boat with ff2 just further along in the game. Magics so clunky to use but boy howdy can you light things up with weaknesses or status effects. PR has a nifty auto save feature every time you change areas/floors and that's nice. Comes in handy when a pack of malboro show up and say "stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself" until you wipe.
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Sep 14, 2021 07:28
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Evil Fluffy posted:Just use that mod earlier in the thread and buy them. Grinding for obscenely low drop rates on questionably useful stuff like that is a terrible waste of time and bad game design in a single player game like this. Didn't realise it had already been posted, thanks!  EDIT: I can't seem to figure out how to actually mod the files at all, the guide in Github doesn't help. I think I might have gotten it to work now. Vichan fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 07:30
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Professor Beetus posted:Sure yeah, that's a reasonable compromise. The current system is just too user unfriendly, but then again, if the reports are true, that's the way the game director wanted it to be or something like that. i mean kawazu's not an unreasonable guy, if the game had had a little more time to bake then i'm sure he'd have realized magic was kinda hosed up and made a few changes. he certainly never repeated most of the mistakes of ff2 ever again despite designing more complex systems for the SaGa games that immediately followed but ff2 was released right at the height of competition between FF and DQ on the famicom so i'm sure there was a ton of pressure to just ship the thing asap
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Sep 14, 2021 07:50
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Coffee Jones posted:https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Ultima_(Final_Fantasy_II) If the stories are to believed that was intentional and the person that did it encrypted it so no one else could fix it.
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Sep 14, 2021 13:49
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I have a soft spot for FF2 (hell, notice my SA name), but keep in mind that you're playing the most quality of life version of it. The NES original was janky as gently caress, and in the PS1 version you could actually lose stats, which was frustrating. The hate for the game has some context.
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Sep 14, 2021 15:38
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Yeah. Magic's weird and kinda crap in FF2. Status magic is ok but needs a lot of grinding to stick and is kinda redundant in the face of instant-kill magic which comes in like forty flavors but are probably the most useful spells in the game once leveled- pick two, one of the dozen or so Matter-elemental ones then one of Death/Fear because they're the only two that aren't. Attack Magic is terrible and even worse with how multi-targeting guts it's damage, and usually does less then a decent weapon hit from a similarly-powered physical beater outside specifically hitting weaknesses. Buff magic is great but doesn't really need lots of levels- Berserk by itself generally lets someone hit something physically-resistant harder then most mages could hit a weakness by level 5. Ultima in it's fixed state could be good looking at the raw numbers, but it's an attack spell and someone casting lots and lots and lots of magic to power up Ultima is probably got there casting Black Magic... except Ultima is a White Magic spell running off Sprit and about the only 'spammable' White Magic spells are the instant kills, Cure, and Holy (and Holy sucks) so womp womp. Also, your character needs to forgo most equipment and why would you do that when you can just punch poo poo to death so much easier while also being super-dodgy unkillable tanks using shields and whatever stat-boosting armor you can swing without tanking your evade?
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Sep 14, 2021 15:42
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In FF3 you buy the spell, equip the spell, then cast the spell. The less maths the better.
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Sep 14, 2021 15:49
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It's kinda funny how much trouble FF has had finding a good place for magic - you can obviously get a lot of use of out white magic, but for black magic it felt like outside of a few niche cases you were almost always better off just hitting stuff across most of the series. 5 is probably the first one where it's arguably worth having an offensive / utility caster around instead of just smashing everything (and even then you can choose not to without hampering yourself at all), and then it takes until, what, 9 and 10 for that to happen again - and there it's because the casters are basically locked into their roles and can't just deal more damage by smacking things.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:03
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Palom and Rydia do more damage than most party members casually, and that's discounting Summons. Nuke and the x3 spells are really good, and Stone/Break can wipe entire encounters. Outside of a few abilities at certain level ranges, magic in 6 is also the superior offensive choice for most party members as well. One of the chief complaints about 6 is how good magic is and how it homogenizes the otherwise diverse toolset for everyone.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:13
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Magic is also way better than physicals up until the endgame in FF7. I think a lot of young gamers just didn't use magic very much because they were afraid of running out of MP. Once you get into the mindset of actually using your resources, it gets really good.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:21
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I'm only about a quarter of the way through FF2 so far but honestly I think a lot of the hate for it is a bit overblown. I'm actually enjoying it more than FF1 so far. I think part of it is that the FF1 characters felt too much like a blank slate - sometimes I'm in the mood for that, but one thing I've always liked about the FF games is how you get actual characters with personality, even when you're switching up their jobs and roles. And granted 2 is pretty slim on the personality part so far, but from the very beginning it feels like a pretty bold attempt to do a grand narrative that breaks away from the more generic DnD feeling of 1. There's a lot more of the connective tissue and general aesthetic landmarks that comes to define the series here, and especially the political struggles that always end up being the backdrop for the story feel more compelling than 1's storyline. The subsequent ports added so much quality of life stuff to FF2. Playing it on NES can really get to be a drag what with how your characters can suffer from losing stat points (ie; raising physical stats means magic stats can fall) and other tedious stuff that has since been sanded over.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:23
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Fister Roboto posted:Magic is also way better than physicals up until the endgame in FF7. Definitely guilty of that, but yeah by the time I felt like I was getting strong summons / spells like Ultima and stuff it was way faster to just quad cut everything to death. I actually had the opposite experience with 6 so that's interesting that overpowered magic is a common complaint - I felt like my strongest party was almost always physical. Edgar and Sabin just have incredibly strong special abilities and clear trash faster than magic users, and Locke can do insane single target DPS from the back row. I usually brought along a caster for support and healing but until the endgame where I could just spam double Ultimas and stuff they always felt like more effort for the same outcome. Srice posted:The subsequent ports added so much quality of life stuff to FF2. Playing it on NES can really get to be a drag what with how your characters can suffer from losing stat points (ie; raising physical stats means magic stats can fall) and other tedious stuff that has since been sanded over. Ah ok that makes a lot of sense, losing stats would piss me off too. I was under the impression that the remasters were pretty faithful to the originals outside of a graphical rehaul / better scripts but that doesn't seem to be the case. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 16:31
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There's an interesting balancing act to be had with FF2 that I think makes it nearly impossible for it to be a good game: one of the strongest selling points of FF2 is how well it sells a hopeless situation through its story and music in conjunction with its gameplay (especially for such an old game), but there's something about that vibe that gets diminished when the game is made to be, well, playable. There's something so thematically appropriate to FF2 about going through such difficult trials to learn Ultima, which is supposed to save the war effort, only for it to be confusingly worthless. FF2 for the NES is my favorite final fantasy game that I'll never play again.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:34
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Now that 4PR is out, time to yell about where 5PR is.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:43
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I might buy that if Ultima was actually intended to be worthless but the game absolutely does not acknowledge that. But ultimately I guess I just don't buy the premise that a game has to have miserable mechanics in order to sell the hopeless feel. Like that atmosphere is exactly why Majora's Mask is still my favorite Zelda game, and that game doesn't play any worse than Ocarina of Time
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Sep 14, 2021 16:44
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Nihilarian posted:I might buy that if Ultima was actually intended to be worthless but the game absolutely does not acknowledge that. Well yeah, I didn't say ff2 was a series of good game design decisions, that just happens to work really well
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Sep 14, 2021 17:00
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The PR was the third time I played through FFII, and that time was the one where I realized just how bleak the situation is for everyone. I guess with the previous runs I was too focused on figuring out where to go and how to level to pay attention. At the end of the game, there are like four towns left standing, and the Emperor seems even more proactive towards omnicide than Kefka!
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Sep 14, 2021 17:04
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Sesq posted:The PR was the third time I played through FFII, and that time was the one where I realized just how bleak the situation is for everyone. I guess with the previous runs I was too focused on figuring out where to go and how to level to pay attention. At the end of the game, there are like four towns left standing, and the Emperor seems even more proactive towards omnicide than Kefka! Well at least those towns still had functioning economies, I was always able to find a place to stay and goods for purchase.
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Sep 14, 2021 17:29
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Sesq posted:The PR was the third time I played through FFII, and that time was the one where I realized just how bleak the situation is for everyone. I guess with the previous runs I was too focused on figuring out where to go and how to level to pay attention. At the end of the game, there are like four towns left standing, and the Emperor seems even more proactive towards omnicide than Kefka! Kefka kills everyone for kicks, Mateus kills everyone and they end up in either Heaven or Hell, both of which he also rules!
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Sep 14, 2021 17:30
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Mega64 posted:Plus she's the best person to make your frontliner since she as the highest starting Agility. Strength is much easier to grind up. This also makes her the easiest character to solo the game with
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Sep 14, 2021 17:46
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BisbyWorl posted:Kefka kills everyone for kicks, Mateus kills everyone and they end up in either Heaven or Hell, both of which he also rules! Ff2 has the only bonus content that I'll miss not being in PR. Taking over heaven is such a boss power play
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Sep 14, 2021 17:48
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Ultima being bad in FF2 is really funny to me. Yeah it's ancient magic but that doesn't necessarily mean it's great!
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Sep 14, 2021 17:53
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I actually had the opposite experience with 6 so that's interesting that overpowered magic is a common complaint - I felt like my strongest party was almost always physical. Edgar and Sabin just have incredibly strong special abilities
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Sep 14, 2021 17:58
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I am waiting on a remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics for PC so that the mod scene can go absolutely nuts with it. These PRs are great and appear to be pretty dang modifiable.
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Sep 14, 2021 18:03
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I just finished Final Fantasy III and I'm very impressed by how much an improvement it is over its two predecessors. The world expands and changes, the supporting cast while simple have their own personalities, the PCs despite being interchangeable frequently speak and emote. The story too is more interesting. The villain needs to be beaten not because Darkness is bad, but because the balance of Light and Darkness must be maintained. Light itself once grew to strong to catastrophic results.
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Sep 14, 2021 18:05
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Hogama posted:Pedantically (I know you're talking about the Magic command) Sabin's specials are almost all magic-based except for Pummel and Suplex. He's a muscle wizard! I had actually forgotten how many of them were magic!
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Sep 14, 2021 18:08
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Srice posted:Ultima being bad in FF2 is really funny to me. Yeah it's ancient magic but that doesn't necessarily mean it's great! RIP Minwu sacrificed his life for some trash.
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Sep 14, 2021 18:08
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Electric Phantasm posted:RIP Minwu sacrificed his life for some trash. Worst part is, if there's anybody who could use Ultima with any effectiveness, it would BE Minwu. RIP Minwu, died unsealing a spell only could use, the dumb nerd.
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Sep 14, 2021 18:15
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Mr. Locke posted:Worst part is, if there's anybody who could use Ultima with any effectiveness, it would BE Minwu. A wizard that died unsealing he own spell, a shameful wizard
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Sep 14, 2021 18:27
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Fister Roboto posted:I think a lot of young gamers just didn't use magic very much because they were afraid of running out of MP. Once you get into the mindset of actually using your resources, it gets really good. Sure, if you don't participate in the true endgame which is maximizing how many ethers and elixirs are in your inventory when you kill the final boss  seriously I always just hoarded them until "I absolutely need them or I wipe" and a lot of times that just never happened lol
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Sep 14, 2021 18:47
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Snow Cone Capone posted:Sure, if you don't participate in the true endgame which is maximizing how many ethers and elixirs are in your inventory when you kill the final boss But what if there is another boss after the final boss and you need all those elixers?
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