Final Fantasy Megathread: I, Jack, will knock you all down

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Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

If someone had never played a Final Fantasy before and asked for my recommendation, I would probably tell them to play Chrono Trigger. 6 is my absolute favorite but I think that CT holds up a bit better.

If they don't want something from the 16 bit era it's harder to recommend something solid but I would probably go with 7 (with a few caveats) or Lost Odyssey.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2019 18:41

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 18:34

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

MikeJF posted:

I got into Final Fantasy starting with Chrono Trigger, I further that recommendation. Start with CT, then follow that with 6.

It's almost too good to play first. God drat it's such a good game.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2019 03:57

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Detective No. 27 posted:

I don't play MMOs so I get annoyed every time a mainline numbered entry in a series like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest ends up becoming one. Instead going with Final Fantasy XI, they should have called It Final Fantasy Online, and then gone with Final Fantasy Online 2 with XIV. I got multiple ways of playing every Final Fantasy except for XI and XIV. And since they're MMOs, there's going to be content that is lost to time because servers shut off/events end/reboots. It's even more annoying with Dragon Quest X since they never even brought it over here.

Just youtube the story bits because the gameplay is the same lovely "push buttons, wait for cooldowns, repeat, reposition sometimes" as every other MMO and the only thing vaguely Final Fantasy esque thing about the gameplay is the job system.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2019 18:10

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

ZenMasterBullshit posted:

It's legit one of the few FF games with fun gameplay/encounters that were thought through at all and that level of reductionism can be said about literally every rpg.

But actually no.

Detective No. 27 posted:

No that sucks.

Forever a mystery to you then I guess. I thought playing 1-50 was entertaining enough to be worth a month or two sub but ymmv.

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Mar 29, 2019

# ¿ Mar 29, 2019 18:20

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

If they released a single player RPG that had MMO combat, I'd be all over that. More action and movement than menu based games, better combat than hold X. Throw in gambits to control your party members, and it would be solid. You even get a good selection of abilities without going apeshit on the hotbar.

Drop latency and poo poo out of the equation, and you can even action it up a bit with better dodging and mechanics.

Hell yeah man, I also really enjoyed Final Fantasy 12 and the Steam version is a great port.

:haw:

# ¿ Mar 29, 2019 18:48

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

FFXII doesn't have MMO style combat though. If it did, it would have been a vast improvement.

Gross no. Gambits were good though.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2019 19:27

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

I think after playing through most of it, I don't really like FF13 but I love the soundtrack. It's real good y'all.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2019 03:56

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

Due to how 12 and 15 handled music 13 sticks out musically unlike the others and Sunleth Waterway is a surprisingly good track.

I love FFXVs walz theme but the drat thing doesnt play at any sensible or understandable times and seemingly ends just as randomly but its a real good song.

I actually really liked 12's soundtrack a lot also, but it seems to suffer from not having as consistent of a leitmotif and it's lows are much lower than anything in 13.

e: Finally getting around to 5 after picked up a cheap GBA copy and now this game fucks.

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Apr 1, 2019

# ¿ Apr 1, 2019 04:02

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

The Florence and the Machine tracks from FF15 are loving great. I don't really remember the soundtrack beyond that but those are really something else and drat if I wasn't blown away by a Final Fantasy game kicking off with a rad cover of Stand By Me.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2019 04:33

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

I think the biggest reason I don't remember much from.15 other than the Florence tracks was the fact that I spent like 90% of my time with it cruising around with my Bros and listening to the soundtracks of Final Fantasy games I liked better. And Nier: Automata.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2019 05:25

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

What I have decided about trying to play FF13 a bunch of times and getting burnt out on it is that I have come to appreciate and love all the characters and just wish they were in a better game. So I'm pretty stoked to wrap it up and move on to 13-2 and LR.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2019 22:41

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

zedprime posted:

It was a huge downer about how our lack of environmentalism and esoteric spiritualism is going to doom the human race and the 15 minutes of cool Final Fantasy action stuff was entirely spent in the trailer and the rest was being in your face heavy about why the planets dying Cloud.

Man I should watch it again as an adult, that sounds entirely my jam these days.

This is why revisiting FF7 and the Division this year was really good. I am feeling the nihilism really hard and it was like two sides of the same coin in a pretty twisted way.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2019 20:07

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Jesus FF13 has some ridiculous spikes in difficulty. It's really balanced loving stupidly, where you can be cruising through a portion of the game and then just get your rear end stomped into the ground no matter which combination of paradigms you try. Chapter 11 is sucking any desire to finish this loving game out of me.

Maybe it's just a matter of getting good but the game is so loving stingy with money, upgrade mats, and CP at this point that I don't think it's something I'm expected to grind past or get stronger to do.

I keep going back and forth on whether I like the game or not and I think I really just like the art and music, game itself I think is pretty much rear end.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 06:27

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

Ch11 Gran Pulse is when it opens up so you can run into stuff that you aren't supposed to fight until lategame or postgame. Just do the easier missions if you want then continue on with the main story.

No no, I'm just continuing the story and ran into some loving mini boss that just wipes the floor with me. It's technically a mission but I'm pretty sure I have to do this to proceed.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 06:32

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

Im assuming its the Phalanxes/Bellows? The large armed dudes who buff their robot buddies? Protip theyre not immune to deceptisol.

Lmao I haven't seen a shroud in 20 hours because this is the stingiest loving game when it comes to consumables. Just for shits I decided to burn a summon the last time and killed the two robot buddies but did gently caress all damage to the big boy, and then when my summon went away he summoned like 5 more robot buddies who proceeded to piss in my cornflakes. Fight sucks.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 06:42

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

Im legit surprised youve used all your shrouds and assume youve already spent all your money on upgrading weapons and gear so you have none left to buy more.

If youre still having troubles the trickier but itemless easy-win stat is that they arent immune to stop. If you can survive the initial onslaught (say sen/sen/sab or sen/med/sab) you can just stop lock them all and destroy them that way.

They are unironically the hardest fight in the main story

That does make me feel a little better about it I guess.

And yeah, the early game throws a bunch of them at you in the optional chests and I assumed it would keep it up, so I used em pretty liberally, anytime it looked like a fight with a tough enemy was coming up. Then like halfway through my current playthrough I just stopped seeing them at all and I have essentially no money. The FF13 economy is hosed to all hell.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 14:44

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Ventana posted:

There's plenty of chests althroughout the game, it's porb just cause Chapter 11's area is so huge that they spread out the chests very far. In a lot of ways, Chapter 11 is designed for people to explore a lot, even though most people just end up following the hallways for the story anyways.

If you have no money you should probably start selling things. There's probably a bunch of equipment you don't really use/need and there's probably a lot of enemy drops or treasures that sell for a bunch. You fight a shitton of soldiers through the story so you likely got a bunch of chips from them which are very good for selling.

You very assuredly have the equipment/stats/paradigms to handle what the game is throwing at you. The game does ramp up the difficulty as you go but you don't need to grind at all to beat the game. If you do still need to grind, then just go back and do missions to get stuff since you get a lot of good stuff (and access to easy grinding) from the missions. That and you'd unlock the teleporting save points to make traveling easier.

It's not so much that I stopped finding chests, more that they stopped having shrouds in them. And it would be nice if the game told you what to sell and what to keep for upgrading. I sold all the chips I got because those explicitly say they are to be sold for money. But I don't really get the rest of the upgrading/economy system because the game never bothers to ease you into it despite the first twenty hours of the game being a glorified tutorial. I've probably burned a bunch of sellable stuff by slapping them into upgrades hoping for a bonus multiplier.

Barudak posted:

Basically every game design decision involving items, money, and equipment in FFXIII is the wrong one. I love FFXIII and its my favorite FF game but I could talk your ear off about its various issues.

That fight is such a difficulty because theres no iteration on what you need to learn to do to beat it prior to that and it operates on basically the same rules as a player party. What defeats you the player is messing with your ability to get setup and your limitations in targeting multiple foes, so the solution is either alpha-strike them with deceptisol or debuff into stop-lock* neither of which youve ever needed to do before and wont need to do again**.

Theres a boss a little while later that similarly fucks with a gameplay system, the stagger bar, and usually shithouses players the first time they trigger its particular behavoir around it.

*Post game sucks because the thing you need to kill roughly a million of can randomly do this
**Theres another post game foe whose a real piece of poo poo about this in additiont to inflicting the only none resistable starus effect but by then you have death magic and can just reload fights till it dies.

The funny thing is that it IS a harder iteration of a similar enemy that you fight in some caves a bit earlier, but in that one the big guy wasn't rushing my leader and knocking off like a third of a health bar per hit, which makes a pretty substantial difference. I've been trying to start by buffing/debuffing but my characters just can't take any hits whatsoever.

What do I do with all the "ites" in my inventory? I thought they would be upgrade mats but they are always greyed out in the upgrade screen.

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Apr 8, 2019

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 16:16

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

DACK FAYDEN posted:

V GBA is best V, though. Since you didn't explicitly say it. (the PC/mobile port fixes some bugs, but most of those bugs are tilted in the player's favor for stuff like Four Job Fiesta challenge-esque runs, and it doesn't change the translation or actual play experience)

The PC port is hideous and not that the GBA version is much better but at least I'm playing it on a tiny rear end GBA SP screen so it's not nearly as noticeable.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2019 20:09

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

I decided to go back and do some more hunts and come back to the hardest fight in the entire game later. It was a slog getting back out to the archlyte steppe, but I did a few more of the hunts and unlocked the most bizarrely limited fast travel system I have ever seen in a game. I guess the completely serviceable one from 12 where you could just teleport via certain save points was a little too user friendly so they had to take it down a notch. Another thing that is brought into focus by the giant open areas is how terrible the map system is. Rotates rather than fixed point, which isn't a big deal when running through the game's story corridors, but is problematic when trying to navigate Gran Pulse. Also, why the gently caress do you just get a small glimpse of the world in the map screen, and why are you unable to see adjacent areas? It would be really helpful since the hunts are all listed by area. What a cluster gently caress of bad game design.

On the positive side, I've been spending more time trying out different paradigm combos and different combat strategies, and killed my first King Behemoth. The game still feels wildly unbalanced as some enemies will be a cakewalk in a given area while others remain quite difficult no matter how much grinding I do (no I'm not talking about the big super enemies you're not supposed to fight yet shut up). But at least I feel like I'm sort of making progress?

Oh I did one hunt that created a big shiny orb that I couldn't interact with in any way, what's up with that?

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 15:49

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Ventana posted:

Some enemy groups will be harder than others but for the most part it'll just get better from you trying different/more efficient paradigms or team setups. The game mostly led your hand till now with forced parties and now it's up to you to factor in all the combinations that can make fights easier or harder.

And don't worry about the shiny orb, it's supposed to appear and you'll see it later if you keep doing the missions. But you can't do anything with it till then.

Yeah, my biggest stumbling block right now is that I feel intense pressure to always have at least one of each role available, which means either running Lightning/Hope/Snow or Vanille/Sazh/Fang. I do have all roles unlocked now but it's so expensive to level a fourth role that it seems like a trap/grind sink.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 18:53

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Fister Roboto posted:

Yeah you're not meant to invest in secondary roles until you're done with your primary ones for the most part. Getting Ruin from Hope's commando tree is a good idea though.

If you're still having trouble with the Ambling Bellows, it's susceptible to Pain, which completely shuts it down. Make Vanille your party leader and spam it until it connects, then the rest of the fight should be easy.

That's really loving good to know because I don't think I had unlocked Pain the first time around. I am pretty much maxed out on unlocked abilities at this point until more role levels open up so I will eventually make my way back and hopefully show Ambling Bellows what it's like to come back swole. Going to try and unlock as much fast travel as I can first though because good lord is Gran Pulse massive.

I do absolutely love the sense of scale you get when you pop out onto the Archlyte Steppe and see those big loving turtle things stomping around. And then the last time there was some massive dude walking about, just loving towering over those guys. They nailed that in FF15 too, but they also gave you a car so you can get around faster which was nice.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 19:15

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Wait a second. Once I beat this Final Fantasy game, it let's me keep playing? :wtc:

And you can't even complete the crystariums until you do???

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 15:50

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Admiral Joeslop posted:

http://www.onemillionpower.com/25-years-since-the-release-of-final-fantasy-vi-looking-back-at-the-passion/

Jesus Christ.

Hoooooooly poo poo that's incredible.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 17:11

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

Fang+3 TP+something to numb the pain = Enough turtles per minute.

I mean, thats pretty common for FF games that there is a post game. They added it into the old games too, FFV for instance has a massive sprawling post game dungeon and unique garbage post game class.

I guess? I know there's usually optional hard content but I have never been able to continue on after beating the game. Always have to load a save up from before the final boss or whatever. In fairness these are the Final Fantasy games I have beaten: Final Fantasy 3 on the Super NES, also the Steam port, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 12. I have a lot of work cut out for me in my goal of playing and beating them all.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 17:46

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

I mean, technically you load your save out front the final boss in FF13 once you beat the game just like the old games, you just get a powerup and a teleport point before being set free on the postgame content.

That does seem like a pretty big difference, because not being able to "complete" your character builds until after you beat the game seems a little novel if weird and counterintuitive (which I guess you could say for a lot of 13).

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 17:52

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

I mean, you are completing your builds during the game. Its not really any different from games like FFIV withholding superior items to the post game or FFV holding onto classes for the post game. These are things that would make you stronger than the main game is designed for and is a reward for beating the game so the post game still provides feelings of progression. FF13 just has less leeway to let you overlevel versus old games so it has to control your level cap, which is why it gets raised post game.

Yeah I don't think it's necessarily bad or anything, but was that true in the OG versions of 4 and 5? Or just starting with the GBA versions? I'm only belaboring the point because "post-game" describing optional end game content seems different from being literally "post-game" as in only unlocking once you have completed the game. Like I said, not necessarily bad, just different from the way other Final Fantasy games I have played did it.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 18:03

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Fister Roboto posted:

FF13 had the right way of doing it, because being able to beat the optional superbosses in all the other games meant that the actual final boss of the game was trivially easy.

If I've gone through that much trouble I want to coast to the end, honestly, I don't care how easy the last boss is. The way FF7 did it sucked, where it made the last boss progressively harder the more you had leveled. I am leveling to make things easier for myself, not harder.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 20:18

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

I think if you are going to break the game's combat system over your knee then it probably doesn't matter which final boss you get. I'm not really sure who is playing FF7 blind in 2019 but it seems like it wouldn't be that hard for an average person to level past the "easy" version of the fight and wind up with one of the harder ones and still have quite a challenge. Not that it's a bad thing or anything, just that it could be a thing.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 22:09

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Final Fantasy 13: If mashing the 'a' button after selecting my actions doesn't do anything, why does my idiot brain keep making me do it???

# ¿ Apr 11, 2019 02:18

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

All I know is it makes me contemplate the futility of one's actions in the face of the universe and thus must be doing something right. Next, I'll

# ¿ Apr 11, 2019 02:33

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Well finally made it past chapter 11 in FF13. Back to the plot corridor but now it's just a tremendous slog. Holy poo poo does this game feel padded as all hell and THEN the game starts throwing poo poo like double Humbaba fights at you. Lordy, just let me get to the end already, game.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2019 01:36

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Elephant Ambush posted:

The only part that felt like padding to me is the maze/gauntlet right before I the final boss. It was dumb and annoying and I couldn't just zip through because my idiot brain needs to go exploring and find all the chests.

I dunno man chapter 12 feels very uh. Oh look, it's Cocoon but now there's a bunch of pulse monsters! I mean it's interesting at first but it just feels like it went on and on and on with nothing much happening. Maybe it has a lot more to do with the plot of the game being so front loaded and relatively sparse in the back half.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2019 02:54

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

What you didnt like them resurrecting a dead guy to kill him again off screen because ~~the cutscenes were made first~~ read the data logs?

Afaict it was two dead people but I'm gonna be real honest I have a very tenuous grasp of the plot at this point. However in true Final Fantasy fashion I am stoked to head out and kill a god or two.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2019 03:14

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Ventana posted:

Personally I liked Chapter 12 since it had a bunch of good encounters and I liked the Proudclad bosses a lot. They are kinda long hallways but that's the norm anyways in the game so it never got to me much.

As far as the story goes, the initial cutscene and the general setting are kinda cool, but the cutscenes definitely become draining with Cid being resurrected uselessly or Nora dudes coming back to do basically nothing.

You're probably thinking of Yaag Rosch, who LOOKED like he died at the end of Chapter 7 (cause he was shot point blank with that assault rifle and fell backwards in slow-mo with slow ominous music playing, etc). But he's didn't actually die; his datalog entry would've said so like it does for the other characters who died but it just acts like nothing happened, and then he just comes back outta nowhere in Chapter 12. It's really loving dumb I know, and confused me at first, but it's only Cid who gets the dramatic-death-but-is-revived-later-for-no-reason treatment.

See at first I was excited to see the Nora folks because they were people that I actually gave a poo poo about. But then they just hopped back on their space motorcycles and flew away. So uh, great. Maybe it would have been better to actually show them evacuating civilians or something?

And yeah, you're right, I was thinking of Rosch. Speaking of which I did not enjoy the Proudclad fights because the game spends a bunch of time impressing how important buffs/debuffs are and then you can't debuff at all and it becomes an annoying battle of attrition and heal checks.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2019 14:36

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Okay well I finally loving beat FF13 and I think the only thing that will satisfy me now is an edit of Barth sinking into the liquid crystal doing the T2 thumbs up.

E: oh loving God dammit there's still another boss battle left??? This loving never ending dungeon slog

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Apr 15, 2019

# ¿ Apr 15, 2019 00:54

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Phew the real final boss was easy as hell anyway, luckily.

e: Okay not getting any crystarium points for those last few bosses was a kick in the dick though.

Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Apr 15, 2019

# ¿ Apr 15, 2019 01:21

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

I will say that despite having a loving stupid as hell plot, 13 stuck the landing of the ending about as well as it could have. I really came to like all the characters by the end of it and it pretty much worked. Although, uh, I thought maybe the beginning of 13-2 would make more sense after going back and beating 13 and that's a big ol nope.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2019 03:49

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Artix posted:

Gonna level with you chief, I legitimately love 13 and all of its assorted nonsense but the games actively make less and less sense as you go on, to the point where knowing more about what's going on makes them harder to follow.

Yeah uh, I just fired up 13-2 for the second time in my life and I think it makes less sense in the wake of finishing 13. :psyduck:

Oh well embrace the insanity I guess.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2019 04:47

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Man I sure love the tease of getting to play as a rad version of Lightning before the game shoves this derpy Kingdom Hearts reject on me. I think I would have preferred literally any of the party members from 13 over this doofus.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2019 06:28

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 18:34

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Barudak posted:

Eidolon fights can be stupid difficult since they play unlike other fights in the game, dont necessarily blame yourself.

Also in order of quality its BoneX copy of 13, PC copy of 13, all other copies

I played the bonex 13 but switched to Steam for 13-2 so I could mod in the n7 and rear end Creed outfits that Square no longer has rights to and I don't think it's worth it. Game looks way worse running at 1440p natively than using a bonex supersampling to a 1080p display. I guess I am just going to have to deal with not having fun cosplay characters.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2019 06:54

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