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

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Final Fantasy Megathread: I, Jack, will knock you all down

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Ignis is the best waifu don't claim otherwise.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2020 21:02

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 13:48

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Endorph posted:

everyone typing 'waifu' is the least funny person they know btw

I wasn't trying to be funny. I love Ignis.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2020 21:10

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

I still think the orphanage twist would have worked better because the cast simply forgot due to the effects of time compression kicking in rather than due to GF usage. As it stands it feels kind of tacked on and pointless, but if Squall and co genuinely forgot they were friends as children because Ultimecia is trimming and compressing the existing timeline as is, then it could have tied into the main story nicely.

That's what's most frustrating about Final Fantasy VIII really. There's a lot of really cool individual elements but none of it ever gels into something cohesive.

# ¿ May 13, 2020 12:35

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Sakurazuka posted:

In the Sherlock Holmes games you play as Holmes

Sometimes you switch perspective to Watson though.

Anyway, Vaan and Penelo are basically Tahei and Matashichi from The Hidden Fortress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress

# ¿ Jun 3, 2020 10:32

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Augus posted:

It�s a matter of preference. The originals would be the most �authentic� way of playing I suppose, if you want to see the graphics the way they were originally meant to look. The Steam and Switch ports have a bunch of modern conveniences like a speed up button and a no encounters button. Switch has portability but Steam has mods. It�s up to you.

The ports of the PS1 games are mostly fine and have had any major issues patched out barring some small quirks that still persist. (The best music cue in FF7 is missing from the modern ports and nobody seems to talk about it!) All three games have an issue though where the pre-rendered backgrounds are still compressed just like they were in the PS1 days, so the high-res models stick out like a sore thumb in front of them and it looks a lot more like you're moving around a flat image than it did in the originals. It hardly ruins the experience but it is a notable blemish on the ports. The steam versions of FF7 and FF9 at least have huge fan-made mods that uprez the backgrounds and it looks a lot better, don't know if anyone's done that for 8 yet though.

8's is currently in progress but not quite finished yet.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2020 20:46

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

The 9 remaster on its own looks great, the neural net mod or whatever is a marginal improvement unless you really need to play it on a 4K screen and will be poring over the backgrounds.
The 7 mods that reject the chibi overworld models and try to cram in the battle models seem to miss the point imo, but whatever floats your boat.
The 8 "remaster" is very bad with the backgrounds (including non-talking NPCs being baked into the background art and blurred to nonexistence lol) almost to the point that I'm not sure a mod can actually help lol.

I wouldn't really call this a marginal improvement...

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/1JEMNNNU

# ¿ Jul 11, 2020 21:26

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Clive Barker's Hell Raiser series villain Pinhead would have a field day with Cleretic's posts.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 14:04

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Twelve by Pies posted:

Not the only western movie reference in the music either, one of the tracks from AC:F has a guitar riff almost directly taken from Once Upon a Time in the West:

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

Alter Code F is really good honestly, one of my favorite JRPGs. It might be kind of tough to find, Wild Arms has never really been a big thing outside Japan (it's decently popular in Japan I think, Michiko Naruke gets a lot of work too). It's easier to get a hold of the original PS1 Wild Arms game, since that's on PSN, and that one's pretty good too (ACF is a remake of the original which I feel is better than the original in most ways).

So the list of Wild Arms games and my assessment of them:

Wild Arms (PS1) - start of the series, doesn't fully commit to the wild west theme but the music has a lot of influences and a lot of the setting is definitely inspired by them. Moving around and stuff uses sprites, but the combat uses very early (and ugly) PS1 polygon models. Combat is fairly standard JRPG fare, with the addition of a Force meter that fills up as you deal/take damage and allows characters to use special Force powers that do things like extend an item to affect the whole party, ensure a character goes first in battle, or that an attack will be guaranteed to hit. Has a (mostly) silent main character in Rudy, who gets two dialog boxes in the game (one if you talk to him in Adlehyde as one of the other characters, and one in Volcannion Trap after he saves Jane). A solid game, definitely fun although I feel some of the later dungeons are a bit too big for their own good.

Wild Arms 2 (PS1) - This is also on PSN, it's a pretty solid game, like Final Fantasy the Wild Arms games aren't sequels to each other but all take place in different worlds with references sprinkled throughout. Wild Arms 2 is mostly good. The main character is literally a Kamen Rider, early in the game he gets possessed by a demon that allows him to transform in battle and use stronger attacks, he even gets a final form upgrade late in the game. The first game's story focused mostly on aliens destroying the planet, this one focuses more on wars between humans. But the game has a very bad translation. Lots of things translated very poorly or worded awkwardly, two of the characters are a manzai comedy duo with extremely literal translation to the point that sections of the game with them are barely comprehensible. As a game it's fine but it can be difficult to follow some story points.

Wild Arms 3 (PS2) - This one commits the hardest to the wild west theme, and it's also one of the best in the series. There's four characters and they're your team for the entire game, the plot has a few twists and is mostly good although it does have a bit of FF9's "who's the bad guy for this story arc" thing going on. Combat and character customization are vastly different from the previous games, with all four characters having ARMs (the in game term for guns) rather than just one, regular attacks use up bullets and each character has a weapon that focuses on different stats (like Clive has a rifle that only has two bullets at the start, but they're pretty powerful and he can Lock On to ensure a hit). You're also able to choose who can use which magic spells as they're associated with different Guardian tablets that you can swap between characters, rather than having a dedicated magic user like the previous games. Overall really fun, I'd say it rivals ACF as far as my favorite.

Wild Arms: Alter Code F (PS2) - Really good, highly recommended. It's a remake of the first game but refines the combat so every character is more unique (Rudy works more like the characters in Wild Arms 3 now; he no longer uses a sword for his regular attacks, he uses his ARM and regular attacks use up bullets, Cecilia is the only character who can Summon Guardians whereas every character could in the original). There's also five new playable characters, though two are only temporary (one joins for just two or three battles, the other joins for a while for story reasons and later leaves). Other things are added like the Encounter Skip system from 3, as well as a ton of new sidequests. Just really good all around.

Wild Arms 4 (PS2) - Pretty bland and forgettable. Most of the bosses are puzzle bosses, which is either good or bad depending on how you feel about those. The combat is drastically changed from simple turn based to a hex based SRPG type system which isn't terrible I guess but eh. None of the characters are particularly great, and the voice acting is particularly bad. I can't really remember any music tracks from it either, like I'm not saying the music is necessarily bad but it's forgettable for sure. You get some small bonuses if you have a completed save file from Alter Code F (after the credits roll). The wild west theme is essentially gone completely. Not a terrible game but not recommended at all.

Wild Arms 5 (PS2) - This one is pretty good but I never got far in it personally. I've heard positive things about it so I don't think it's bad but it probably isn't as good as 3 or ACF. It keeps the hex battle system that 4 introduced, and the characters are definitely more interesting, and the wild west theme is back, so that's a good thing.

Wild Arms XF (PSP) - So after 4 introduced the hex battle system, they decided why not just make a full on Wild Arms SRPG. And it's really good! It's definitely more challenging than the other games in the series and just solid all around. Highly recommended, though I can't say much more specific about it since it's been almost 15 years since I played it and I remember very little other than it was very good.

I think there's a mobile gacha game or something but it isn't even in English and even if it was it's a gacha game, but that's all the games in the series and what I think about them if you want to give one of them a try.

Jane, Emma and Zed are actually permanently playable if you do the right sidequests. They're just optional.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 11:43

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Evil Fluffy posted:

I'm going to laugh real hard if/when they add the missing content as paid DLC for their respective games.

I can see the logic of it not being there for FF1 and 3, since the extra content in the remakes of 1 was balanced around an entirely different magic system and the extra content in the 3D version of 3 frankly sucked rear end anyway. But for 4-6 the extra content should really be there

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 23:18

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

PringleCreamEgg posted:

Unrelated to the current conversation, but is FF7’s Jenova just a Lavos? Extraterrestrial being that crashes onto a planet and manipulates people into doing its bidding. The Cetra are kind of like Zeal. It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

Sort of. More like John Carpenters The Thing if it was also Lavos, since Jenova can impersonate and assimilate others with her cells unlike Lavos.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2021 12:22

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Is the Thief actually good now in FF1 or are they still garbage?

# ¿ Aug 1, 2021 19:44

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Nice, the first rebalance mod is out for FF1. Replaces monster stats and level growths with that of the NES version and can even optionally reactivate the pennisula of power. Good to know balance modding is possible.

Pablo Nergigante posted:

FF3 DS looks pretty nice but the gameplay changes suck rear end. What were they thinking???

It was headed by the same "genius" who did XIV 1.0. Pretty much says it all.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2021 14:44

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

pretty soft girl posted:

I want to say the same dude was also in charge of all the horror stories you hear about FFXI and literally none of the stuff people are actually fond of

Yup.

I mean, making Absolute Virtue unbeatable but trolling players into thinking it's possible actually is pretty funny but his response being to ban the players who actually managed to do it legit isn't funny at all.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2021 14:54

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

kirbysuperstar posted:

Well are you gonna link it or not

It's on a FF modding Discord.

https://github.com/Albeoris/Memoria.FFPR

You'll need to install this first, then join here and look under FF1PR mod releases.

https://discord.com/invite/bSnpVBV

# ¿ Aug 6, 2021 15:39

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Going back to FFXIV 1.0 chat, I always wondered if they could make an offline single player game using 1.0's assets to retell it's story. Like how Dragon Quest X is coming out with a single player offline version.

Just rewrite the story a bit so that the proto-scions, the Circle of Knowing join your party.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2021 16:04

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Nephzinho posted:

So much of the combat relied on setting up inter-player combos that I'm not sure how it would even work with AI party members without a major overhaul. I played a lot of 1.0 and it was not good.

Well yeah. The battle system and maps would have to be reworked and I'm not saying it should just be 1.0 as it was turned into a single player game. Just that a single player game using some of the 1.0 assets to retell 1.0 might work.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2021 16:11

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Mega64 posted:

If you can summon a loving city then why couldn't someone summon a loving anti-Sin gun to shoot Sin in the dick?

I was going to say that's because Yu Yevon would just turn the anti-Sin gun into the next Sin, but now I'm wondering why Yuu Yevon didn't possess Tidus considering he's basically an Aeon

# ¿ Aug 8, 2021 00:23

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

FFXI is a pre-WoW MMO so that kinda design was just expected for the genre at that time really. It's extremely different now, down to levelling up much faster and the trust system giving you AI allies that can tank, heal etc so you can solo everything.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2021 19:05

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 13:48

Selenephos: Jul 9, 2010

Bongo Bill posted:

Dragon Quest wasn't Square. Back then, Enix was a separate company.

Enix also just published Dragon Quest, it was Chunsoft (now Spike Chunsoft) who developed Dragon Quest V. As I understand it Yuji Horii fully owns the Dragon Quest IP, he just sticks with Enix and then Square-Enix to fund the games and since they're huge in Japan it's a no-brainer. The actual development of the games is usually contracted out i.e. Chunsoft for the first 5 games, Heartbeat for VI and VII, Level-5 for VIII and IX. Dragon Quest X and XI are the first games developed internally at Square-Enix from what I can tell but, they still subcontracted out work to Armor Project (who are returning for XII), Toylogic and ORCA Inc.

I think in theory, Yuji Horii could just find another publisher for Dragon Quest if it wasn't working out with Square-Enix.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 11:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Final Fantasy Megathread: I, Jack, will knock you all down