Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Funny this thread should pop up now because I recently decided to play through the NES Final Fantasy. To my surprise it didn't age nearly as badly as I thought it did. I beat the PSX version already but even "Classic Mode" wasn't much of a challenge. If you have patience, I recommend you all give it a go! I'm near the final dungeon now without too much frustration, though I do strongly recommend using the Final Fantasy Wiki as a reference because a number of weapons and spells are bugged and do not function at all, so it would be good to not invest in them.

After that I'm going to attempt the Famicom Final Fantasy II. I couldn't even get through any of the remakes of that one :suicide:

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 17:30 on May 14, 2012

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Great, I'm at the final dungeon of the original NES game and only now does my Master class character show his glass axe syndrome :argh:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

The White Dragon posted:

My favorite part about the Master is that you can't give him any status defenses because equipping Protect Rings and Ribbons lowers his defense and attack strength like crazy.

Yup! Despite the fact that Ribbons have a weight value of negative one.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Mazed posted:

I mean, Yuna, Rikku, and Auron look fine. Tidus and Wakka look goofy. Lulu is just silly. :colbert:

Rikku's X outfit always seemed like a callback to Yuffie's to me. Her X-2 outfit is kind of dumb, but that goes without saying. Auron's main feature is his giant gently caress-off cloak and it doesn't really look out of place by Final Fantasy standards.

Yuna, on the other hand, always dumbfounded me. She just looks so normal. Just a lightly-colored kimono with a handful of ornate ribbons and jewelry is probably the most nondescript design of any character in the series to date. Hell, real kimonos tend to be more colorful and covered in patterns than the one she's wearing. It really makes her seem so bizarrely out of place in a party of what looks like bad cosplay enthusiasts.

Then they shat all over it in X-2 and balance was returned to the universe.

Though, if we're talking about ridiculousness of outfits, Amano wasn't exactly immune to this either. After all, he designed the worst-dressed character in all of Final Fantasy: Kuja.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Schwartzcough posted:

You might not like his codpiece, but at least it had symmetry and was not offensively covered in non-functional crap. No, the designs in X and X-2 and (shudder) Dirge of Cerberus still take the cake.

How many people in Dirge, X, or X-2 wear their purple metal thongs outside of their clothes? :colbert:

NikkolasKing posted:

Don't all the Genomes wear a similar outfit? Kuja just pimped his out which kept in line with his narcissism and individuality.



Two varieties wear a less-ornate yet similar shirt, but their pants/whatever and shoes are a little less stupid. The center outfit looks fairly normal in comparison.

quote:

I know a lot of people have problems with Garnet's outfit in IX. Eiko's too.

Yeah, Eiko's outfit was pretty dumb as well, but Garnet just wore a plain orange leotard with a white shirt underneath or something. Not fashionable by any means, but I wouldn't call it terrible... that is, until she hits Trance:


:stonk:

Her Amano design is classy as all hell though:

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 17:59 on May 17, 2012

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Schwartzcough posted:

You're honestly asking that? Go look at your average X or X-2 NPC; thongs outside their clothes is standard apparel. Or look at Dirgo for a guy with a jock strap on his FACE.

I'm... just going to have to take your word for that :gonk:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

ManSedan posted:

It's amazing what a simple shirt will do for someones design.



Ah so that's where Steiner's greaves went.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Pesky Splinter posted:

If we're talking about Bowie and glam-rock inspirations, well:


Is that the Emperor?

quote:

Even better is that Amano has artwork for the Thin White Duke himself.


I would play the everloving poo poo out of this Final Fantasy (Square, make it happen)

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Calaveron posted:

Have you seen his hatless FFXIII-2 design? That bandanna is a godsend, I tell you what.
Hahaha, yeah. Speaking of David Bowie....

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

NES Final Fantasy trip report:

The Four Fiends of Chaos were a joke the first time I fought them (though Kary/Marilith gave me a bit of trouble if not only because of her infuriating dungeon), but god drat they are kicking my rear end in the Chaos Shrine. Worse still is that they are recurring. I can't just beat one and leave to heal because I'd have to fight them again :gonk:

They also reward you with lovely exp and no Gil! :argh:

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 19:50 on May 17, 2012

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Dr Pepper posted:

Frankly if they were going to give them portraits they should at least have made new ones that matched their sprites.

Or, you know, make sprites that reflect the original portrait design. I know there are resolution/palette limitations, but I'm sure they could have at least given Locke a full-covering bandanna for example.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

pw pw pw posted:

Dude take another look at that tidus.



That is God-awful character design. Like, laughed-out-of-a-job-interview bad.

It reminds me of what Yahtzee said about War's design from Darksiders:

Yahtzee posted:

It looks like someone started drawing him and never loving stopped.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

JoeyJoJoJr Shabadoo posted:

The only part I hate is having to level up at the end of the game in order to have a chance at killing Sephiroth. I distinctly remember spending a month getting my characters up to level 99 so that I could one-shot him.

If I remember right, Sephiroth's HP is scaled to your level. I had about the same amount of trouble killing him at level 56 as I did at level 86. Apparently he becomes ridiculously tough to kill once all of your dudes are at level 99.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

p.crestmont posted:

but XIII just rocketed back into the abyss.

With the exception of Sazh and Fang :colbert:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

p.crestmont posted:

Lightning was cool too, though her outfit made no sense of course. But Hope, Snow, meaningless words like fal'Cie and Cie'th or whatever, and walking in a boring straight line were the reasons I could only make it through a few hours of play before trading it in. It just reeked of juvenile anime (and not the fun kind).

By the end of the game I still didn't know the difference between a Fal'Cie, Ceith, and L'Cie or however the poo poo you spell those dumb words. I will admit, I had fun once I got to the Archylte Steppe, but that was twenty god drat hours into the game. The final dungeon where you're inside the Internet or whatever the gently caress it was is confusing as all hell too. Nothing in that game made any loving sense.

Also I spent some time grinding turtles and to do it required Vanille's Eidolon and her unique move (Death). Having to watch/hear her moan every time her Eidolon knocked an Adamantoise down was unsettling as hell.

XIII still had one of the catchiest tracks in the entire series though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_li0VJisNk

:allears:

Ragequit posted:

While we are on the topic of art, I took a picture of my old Versus Books FFVII guide poster last night for the FFVII LP Thread. Thought you guys might enjoy it as well. Bonus: Wild Arms 2 poster!


Click for huge.

I was staring at this way too long before realizing that what I thought was a Link cameo was actually Aerith.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

Always wondered why Cid didn't make the cut for the poster!

Yet Cait Sith did :negative:

Feel like I'm flogging a dead horse here, but another thing I liked about VII's designs is that most of them seem perfectly logical. Cloud's outfit was a military uniform and it clearly looks like one. Aerith is just a flower girl from the slums, so a red vest over a pink dress works fine for her. Meanwhile, Barrett seems like the kind of guy that doesn't give a poo poo about fashion, so a brown vest and shorts works for him.

Yuffie? Really aside from that dumb gauntlet thing and metal garter (:psyduck:) her outfit is probably the most normal of them all. Red and Cait Sith are non-human, which tend to be wildcards for designers. Cait Sith aside, I like that they didn't go overboard with the tribal poo poo on Red; just a modestly-ornamental head dress and a few tattoos and scars. Tifa, on the other hand, I feel is pure fanservice. Even so, her clothing looks perfectly normal.

Of course, all characters have their dumb gauntlets and bangles and whatnot (like Aerith's metal sleeves, for example), but the designers still had to fill their anime quota somehow :v:

EDIT: I forgot about Cid and Vincent. Cid's a pilot, so a bomber jacket, goggles, leather gloves, and scarf is about as good an outfit as you can get for him. Vincent seems like your token goth emoboy and I don't really like him, so I can't really say much.

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 17:48 on May 18, 2012

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

W.T. Fits posted:

No, I mean the actual design of like the face, build, posture, hair, etc. Like Dr. Pepper was saying earlier, even though Tidus's outfit is horrible to look at, if you were to see the character in silhouette, you'd still be able to look at it and go, "Oh yeah, that's Tidus from FFX."

A recognizable/unique character isn't necessarily indicative of a well-designed character.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Zombies' Downfall posted:

I think it's really quite good, despite the weirdness going on with his feet (all of Amano's drawings have kinda weird feet).

In this particular case he's supposed to be facing back and to the left with his head/torso turned.

Dr Pepper posted:

Then there's his "fantastic fantasy outfits" from FFX, Kingdom Hearts, etc that people don't like.

Wait, he did Kingdom Hearts too? What the hell is up with him and poofy shorts?

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

It's done. The original NES Final Fantasy is now behind me. The ending dialogue was weird as hell. It just repeated the same three slides of text over and over again, except worded differently. Though, I do miss the good old days when video games congratulated you for beating them :allears:

Does anyone have any tips for the Famicom Final Fantasy II before I dive into it? Last I remember that game was a grindfest that could give Korean MMORPGs a run for their money. I was thinking of using Gabriel Pope's LP as a guide for the sake of my own sanity because he mercilessly breaks the game in half.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

The White Dragon posted:

Yeah, don't play it. Do Dawn of Souls or even that ugly-rear end looks-like-it-was-drawn-in-Flash super deformed PSP remake, but stay far, far away from the NES one.

Not an option :colbert:

I'll just rip the game to shreds like Pope did. I didn't care much for the DoS version and the Origins version fixed the fun bugs while maintaining the bad ones.

Mazed posted:

Honestly, the only bothersome thing I found about Tifa was why she didn't just roundhouse Scarlet off the top of that cannon rather than get into a slapfight.

One of my favorite lines in VII happens during this scene: "Stuck-up bitch!"

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 20:30 on May 18, 2012

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

ImpAtom posted:

I honestly don't get the complaining over Vaan's design when Ashe exists. I mean loving seriously.



Look at that disaster.

I think her outfit looks okay. v:shobon:v Well, aside from the bandanna she's wearing around her hips, of course.

The problem I have with that CG render there is her pose. Isn't Ashe supposed to be the "tough, independent girl" character? That image just makes her look timid.

Dr Pepper posted:

Then you see the CG renders and realize that there's barely enough cloth on her to be able to be called clothing.

Don't forget this promo poster! :suicide:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Yeah, Mog (FF6) and Umaro are the two greatest characters to grace the series. I will not hear otherwise :colbert:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Mrs. Badcrumble posted:

You know what I miss that was handled really well in FFX and FFX-2? Weapons and/or equipment that are clearly 'ultimate' and definitively better than basically anything else you could be using. It'd have been so easy to do that in XIII and XIII-2 and it's disappointing that they didn't.

Pretty sure I only upgraded Lightning's and Vanille's weapons (not even to their :siren:ultimates:siren:) in XIII because it's literally inconsequential if you don't. Grinding for all the screws and poo poo you need to do it is a frustrating timesink anyway.

Oh hey something else XIII has in common with VIII :downs:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Pesky Splinter posted:

I more inclined to think it's fake.


The numeral next to the Japanese text in the lower right looks more like a XIII than a XV. Of course, it's blurry as gently caress, so it's not really compelling evidence.

It's a white square.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

That loving Sned posted:

The Wii U uses blu-ray discs, doesn't it?

Haha, not a chance. Nobody loves proprietary media formats more than Nintendo does. It's just a disc of similar capacity to actual Blu-Rays.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

Could have just said no, but thanks for the wall of text. I'm not registering for Twitter to use it once.

Wow, you certainly seem to have some strong, cutting-edge opinions about Twitter and the people suggesting you use Twitter to make a single post!

It's too bad I hadn't beaten FFV yet (still working on FFII), otherwise I'd be interested in doing this. This better be up again next year, because I'm diving in!

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

So I finally got my mitts on Final Fantasy V (Advance) and working my way through it. I have two questions:

1: Is there any sort of "Point of No Return" when it comes to getting Blue spells or certain treasure? I'm at a point in the game (just when the huge gently caress off castle bursts out of the ground south of the desert) where I'm noticing every god drat thing I do gets some town or dungeon destroyed in some way.

2: Is there a way to switch to idling characters in battle? I'm sure I remember being able to do it in FFIV by hitting the X button and I don't recall the feature being removed from the GBA port. I know VI (SNES/PSX versions, at least) and onward let you do it somehow.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

W.T. Fits posted:

That said, there are two Bard songs that can be missed because the towns you pick them up in can't be re-entered later on in the game. One's in Bartz's hometown, and the other is in Istory.

Already got those covered.

W.T. Fits posted:

And there's one late in the game that's only available for a very short window of time. Top of the Library, before you clear the Pyramid.

Good to know, thanks!

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

THE AWESOME GHOST posted:

Also, Bravely Default is the best FF game in ages.

I actually started playing Final Fantasy V because my girlfriend is really into Bravely Default right now. It seems really fun, but I have no 3DS (let alone the game) so I settled on playing what seems like Basically the Same Game.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Is it me or does the Find Passages skill in FFV completely lose its utility very early in the game? :confused:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Barudak posted:

Theres a few scattered about where its nice to have but, honestly, you don't need a single thing behind them.

Saigyouji posted:

There's hidden passages right up until the endgame, so. I'm not sure if it works on one of them, though.

Schwartzcough posted:

But overall it's not a very useful skill to have, especially if you have access to internet maps.

It helped me get a few chests in the Pyramid of Moore, at least.

Speaking of the pyramid: It is a really awful dungeon and I loving hate it :argh:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Vil posted:

What I dislike most about the Pyramid is that - due to my self-imposed "try to keep everyone relatively equal" - I basically skip everything the first time and then have to make a second trip with Lenna to actually loot the place.

What sucks is that Lenna was given the role of combination Black/White Mage throughout most of my game and now I have to get through it without her. I'll try making one of the other girls a Bard or something to deal with those rear end in a top hat "The Damned" enemies that guard every loving chest. Why make an enemy undead if they are resistant to fire and immune to Death-by-Phoenix-Down? :arghfist::(

Fedule posted:

Nah, none of that does anything. The only things that change the ending are the Hammer and the Save the Queen.

Huh. I always thought that was a dumb rumor. What changes do those items do to the ending?

Sex_Ferguson posted:

The worst thing Square ever did was the FF7 Tech Demo

The worst thing for fans of the game, yeah, but I bet Sony was pretty glad they did it :v:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Sunning posted:

The biggest strike against is the augment system.

The biggest strike against the FFIV remake is that you're only allowed limited New Game + runs (three, I think), making some Augments permanently-missable across multiple playthroughs IIRC. Or, at least that was the case in the DS version. Once I discovered that I stopped playing after the first run.

More FFV trip reporting: The boss of the Island Shrine wins the award for Easiest yet Most Annoying Battle. Jesus.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Jesus Christ.

Those of you yet to play through FFV: Never, ever even think about venturing into the final dungeon without any Holy Water. One of my characters got Zombied on the last floor, just before the Necrophobe battle. I had to walk all the way out of the last area and Teleport back to the world map. To make matters worse is that she was holding a Wonder Rod, which casts a random spell when attacked with.

Holy gently caress this entire grind is pissing me off.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

ZenMasterBullshit posted:

If you had to Grind in FF5 you hosed up somewhere.

I mean the grind (i.e. tedium) of going through the final dungeon :geno:

kalonZombie posted:

It's been years since I played FFV, but I remember not liking it too much. Then again this was before an official english version was out, so it's been a while. I don't really get the appeal, but I should probably play it again.

I tried the RPGe SFC version many times and got nowhere, but the GBA version is okay I guess. The game would be bland as hell if it weren't for the job mechanics, though. The only interesting characters are the villain's right-hand man and a god drat turtle. The only protagonist I consider even remotely likable dies partway through the game. Otherwise the dialogue, plot, and character personalities are about as engaging and sensible as those in Final Fantasy II (the Famicom game). I guess most of the team's focus went into the battle mechanics and job system, because all of that is stellar.



EDIT:

Saigyouji posted:

There's a save point in the castle area, in the bottom left prison cell.

:confused: I know that, but how would it have helped me at all?

Schwartzcough posted:

Also, bringing a stock of restorative items into the final dungeon is kinda RPG 101. I've forgotten to do it myself, but it's not like getting hit with nasty statuses at the end of the game is unique to FF5.

Yeah, but the unique thing about Zombie is that it's the only status ailment that cannot be cured by magic. Holy Water and only Holy Water can cure it, so it's easy to overlook remembering to stock up on it, especially considering how uncommon the Zombie status tends to be.

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Mar 2, 2014

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

1st AD posted:

Don't tents cure status ailments?

Not Zombie! :sun:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Livingtrope posted:

Look buddy, if you don't like the cross-dressing pirate I don't think we can be friends.

I don't know if you've played FFV Advance at all, but they completely killed Faris' pirate accent in that version :v:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

oswald ownenstein posted:

So I just found out that my all time favorite FF game was released on the IOS (FF6) but boy am I disappointed in the character sprites.

There's just something off about them - almost like oil paint smeared by a greasy thumb. Everything else looks gorgeous - the backgrounds, the portraits, etc.

The problem with the sprites is that they look incredibly flat. They decided to make them high resolution and somehow completely killed the color depth. The original sprites (at least left-right facing ones) were sort of angled; you can see more than just the flat sides of their face, body, and one leg while idle and it made them look way less like paper on a backdrop, but that was also ruined by the new sprite designs.

I'm pretty sure they're based off the iOS FFV sprites, which were just as ugly but clashed less with everything else.

Speaking of Final Fantasy VI, I've started playing the GBA version of that one as well. It has a few minor issues with sprite clipping (one part during the opera looked extremely goofy as a result), but so far it seems way better than the SNES version. One thing I completely forgot about is the Esper micromanagement. I couldn't even beat the game so many years ago when I first played it because I played favorites with the characters and hardly bothered changing up their Esper configurations to teach them spells. I'm smarter about it now, but it's kind of annoying.

I also decided to try to keep Cid alive for the first time ever and holy poo poo does it take a lot of patience. :psyduck:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Saigyouji posted:

Honestly, FFVI is so easy that you don't really have to micromanage Espers at all. You can just leave them on until all the spells have been learnt and then swap them, if you feel like it.

Yeah, that's exactly what I didn't do all those years ago. I was kind of bad at this game, but now I'm finding it incredibly easy as all Final Fantasy games are once you discover their proverbial Win Button.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

TL posted:

When I played through FFVI a few years ago with my little sister (she would've been 8 or so at the time), I loved her reaction to that scene:

Sis: What's wrong with Cid?
Me: He's dying.
Sis: What are we going to do?
Me: Stuff him with fish until he gets better or dies.
Sis: COOL!

Did he make it? If not, how did your sister respond to Celes' heartwrenching suicide attempt?

ApplesandOranges posted:

But I do enjoy VIII. Part of it is I'm sure due to nostalgia, but its soundtrack is decent, the characters are... memorable if nothing else, and it gave us Triple Triad.

I know I'm beating a dead horse when I say this, but there's a bit of a problem when characters you use for specific, short scenes only a handful of times throughout the game are more interesting than those in the main game. Except Selphie, of course, because I'm pretty sure she's an actual psychopath.

Even before I knew the ins-and-outs of the game mechanics I really liked Final Fantasy VIII. I admit it was almost entirely because the game's presentation (animation, cinematics, and music) was extremely impressive when compared to its predecessor and contemporaries. I remember being particularly impressed with the assault on Dollet and the Galbadia vs. Balamb conflict. I was kind of disappointed that IX didn't have any action-packed cinematic-heavy scenes like that.

I didn't know how to play it very well, though. I spent most of my time summoning GFs over and over again until things died. Then I got stuck on the Adel fight, as someone already mentioned. Now when I play it I card-mod the poo poo out of everything I can and become a party of unstoppable demigods led by a brooding whiny Ashton Kutcher.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply