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After digging my nes out and playing through a few games I realized that a lot of this stuff not only holds up, but is freaking fantastic. I’m not really a fan of most modern AAA titles so it’s fun to realize there is a ton of stuff I want to replay.
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May 21, 2020 22:38
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SeANMcBAY posted:Are you planning on getting to Sonic 3 and K? That’s definitely the best of the classic Sonic games. There’s even a fantastic hack called Sonic 3 Complete that enhances the experience. I wasn't considering it actually. I found Sonic 2 to be good, but it certainly didn't grab me enough to want to seek out more Sonic games. Adventure 2 worked its magic on me back in the day, but I'm pretty sure that's not really a good game. I must've grown up around too many Mario games, because I'll go back to the worst of those and still enjoy the experience.
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May 21, 2020 22:57
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If you want to combine the 2 there's a Streets of Rage 2 hack that makes Knuckles from Sonic 3 a playable character. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3tifEA0Xb0&t=90s
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May 21, 2020 23:10
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Happy Hedonist posted:As a result of this dumb pandemic I've reverted to playing the games I loved as a child and I think I'm going to put together a MiSTer instead of buying a ps5 or Xbx this fall. It should be a fun project to do with my son. I recently did a complete wipe and reinstall on my late-2015 gaming laptop, stuck a 1 TB SSD in it, and have been using it as a dedicated retro console with Launchbox/Big Box. I keep the thing permanently plugged into HDMI on my TV and just sit it right next to my PS4, and use 8bitdo SN30 Pro controllers. It's been fantastic, but I'm also thankfully one of those people who doesn't really feel any appreciable difference between a game that is emulated really well vs. playing it on an FPGA, so Launchbox is good enough for me. I easily play on this thing just as much, if not more than, my actual gaming PC. Playing through Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies atm. Drone fucked around with this message at 10:37 on May 23, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 10:20
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same with my Pi3 Lakka setup, the lil thing does up to PSX no problem, and it works great with my knockoff iBuffalo USB SNES controllers as well as my PS3 controller beat Symphony of the Night on that thing but had to switch to the SNES controllers, the PS D-pad is kind of awful and the analog stick was too imprecise
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May 23, 2020 10:33
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I'm just about finished with FF7. I'm on Disc 3. The Northern Crater is open, I've beaten the flying weapon, but I'm missing the two others. I quickly tried them and didn't manage. Everyone is mid-level 50's except for Cloud. Is it really worth my while to beat Emerald and Ruby weapon? I tried quickly and got crushed, and I don't know if I want to grind sufficiently to beat them. I'm still very excited to continue with these games and I'm eager to get to 8 but I feel like a long grind will kill that enthusiasm. If it's the sort of grind I can knock out in an evening MAYBE I'll take it up, but if the rewards are kinda poo poo or pointless (because you're so over-powered due to the grind you don't need them), then why not just beat it with the cheat mode, which means why beat it if it's just to cheat? I'll give my final opinion on which is better, 6 or 7, once I've beaten it.
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May 29, 2020 18:32
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100YrsofAttitude posted:I'm just about finished with FF7. I'm on Disc 3. The Northern Crater is open, I've beaten the flying weapon, but I'm missing the two others. I quickly tried them and didn't manage. Everyone is mid-level 50's except for Cloud. The prizes for beating Emerald and Ruby are items you can trade in Kalm for Master Materia (three Materia that give you pretty much every ability of their color) and a Gold Chocobo, respectively. If those are worth it to you, then go for it. Emerald is actually an interesting fight with some neat strats, but Ruby is just stupid so I cheese it with 4x Knights of the Round and a Mystile equipped. I'd suggest looking up guides on fighting them, because back in the day, I went in fully decked out against Emerald and kept getting stomped because of Aire Tam Laser (which deals 1111 damage for every piece of Materia equipped). I ended up just brute forcing it with Final Attack + Phoenix Materia, which is workable but kind of a slog.
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May 29, 2020 20:56
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Takoluka posted:The prizes for beating Emerald and Ruby are items you can trade in Kalm for Master Materia (three Materia that give you pretty much every ability of their color) and a Gold Chocobo, respectively. If those are worth it to you, then go for it. Emerald is actually an interesting fight with some neat strats, but Ruby is just stupid so I cheese it with 4x Knights of the Round and a Mystile equipped. I'd suggest looking up guides on fighting them, because back in the day, I went in fully decked out against Emerald and kept getting stomped because of Aire Tam Laser (which deals 1111 damage for every piece of Materia equipped). I ended up just brute forcing it with Final Attack + Phoenix Materia, which is workable but kind of a slog. I'll think about it. I feel like if I'm just following a guide then it's just kinda defeating a purpose. I used a guide to get a Gold Chocobo, after losing patience with the Guru guy, and I don't feel bad about that since the leg-work to get one was interesting and involved enough. Master Materia sounds interesting though, is there no other way to get it though? I just feel if I grind Knights of the Round (among other things) I'll be so powerful that the benefit of the Master Materia is kinda pointless.
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May 29, 2020 22:10
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100YrsofAttitude posted:I'll think about it. I feel like if I'm just following a guide then it's just kinda defeating a purpose. I used a guide to get a Gold Chocobo, after losing patience with the Guru guy, and I don't feel bad about that since the leg-work to get one was interesting and involved enough. Master Materia sounds interesting though, is there no other way to get it though? I just feel if I grind Knights of the Round (among other things) I'll be so powerful that the benefit of the Master Materia is kinda pointless. Emerald and Ruby are super bosses that aren't even in the original JP release of FF7, so they're extremely optional. The Master Materia is really good and cool, since Master Command gives you nearly every single ability that isn't Enemy Skill all at once, but it's a novelty in the long run. What they give you is simply a reward for overcoming bosses that are harder than the final boss. I would suggest seeing what you can do against Emerald if you really want to give it a shot. Of the two, Emerald actually feels like a big boss. Ruby's gimmick is that he removes two random characters from the fight, making it a 1v1, so the general starting move is to enter the fight with two dead party members, ensuring you keep Cloud to beat him up. It's not a fun fight. The main thing I noticed with him is that if you cast KotR on him, he'll counter with Ultima. If you equip a Mystile, depending on the rest of your loadout and stats, Ultima will just miss most of the time, and you can eventually just beat him down. It's not great.
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May 29, 2020 23:00
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I think I'll revisit the weapons at a later date. I went for it and beat the final boss and watched the final cinematics. It was a thoroughly enjoyable game, and I didn't think the my initial motivation would hold through most of the play-through. Coronavirus helped since I started the game only 22 days ago (x3 speed also did a lot leg-work, my goodness!). I think it's pretty much the perfect length. It doesn't over stay its welcome and it's charming all throughout. I get why it's so revered. Massive Spoilers coming up if you haven't played FF7 and want to keep things unrevealed. TLDR: FF6 is better than FF7. --- I think FF6 is the better of the two. Honestly, I don't think there's a lot of point in comparing the two because they're both excellent and their mediums are rather different, but for the sake of the classic argument I will. 6 has the better story. It's simpler but that's necessary since never really felt engaged in 7's "save the Planet" thing, and the I never quite found Sephiroth to be a particularly good villain. I do like the use of classic ultimate Black and White Magic, Meteor and Holy, to be major plot devices, that was a neat reference to how magic is applied in the world. The story stumbles probably because it was incredibly ambitious. The desire to make use of the new visuals probably took them all over the place, and then they compounded that with the unreliable narration of Cloud. However if the story is weaker, I think that both games have incredibly good characterization. I really liked the cast in 7, most of them are incredibly entertaining, particularly Yuffie and Cid, and quite a few of them have real depth to them. It's a bit disappointing when otherwise good characters had their arcs told too quickly, Red XIII is particularly sadly forgotten after his arc is done, and a couple others are so annoyingly cliché, they just suck (Barret and Vincent). Cait Sith sits in an odd position of being an interesting character but just awful to play with. Yuffie, is also a walking cliché, but an enjoyable one in my opinion. Cid's very interesting because he's crotchety and abusive, but as the game goes on, and eventually after his arc in space closes, he also becomes somehow the most optimistic and heroic, if only because he's achieved all he ever wanted. Tifa is frustrating because she has particularly great moments, among them her personal pain and resignation of being seemingly pushed aside for Aeris time and time again, but despite being this really kick-rear end character (I love monks generally speaking) she has a lot Damsel-in-distress moments that's a bit out of place. Aeris is terrific all-around and I like her relationship with Cloud, even if his relationship towards her isn't quite as good. Cloud himself is weird. Generally, I enjoyed his character and the weirdness about him is born out of the complexity of his narrative, but I think they managed it pretty well all things considered. The thing is 6 also has an excellent cast and excluding the secret characters and Mog, they're all really entertaining and surprisingly well-rounded. They have their clichés, I know Edgar is supposed to be the classic womanizer for example, but they don't seem to fall victim to those tropes, like Vincent or Barret, probably because of the limitations of the system or script. I think the cast in 6 is probably better just because they don't seem to be quite as cliché as 7's and also because I vastly prefer Kefka as a villain to Sephiroth (though the Turks are pretty great comedic relief unlike Ultros). 7 does have the better production values/presentation. 6 is the peak of Square's sprite-work but as clunky 7's polygons are, they really conveyed a lot more action and emotion. The cinematics and cutscene/plot moments are awfully long at times but they make for quite the spectacle. 7 also has the better soundtrack. There are some amazing songs in 6 but I think the quality of soundtrack is topped by 7. That said 6 is certainly better scored. 7 reuses a lot of its tracks, which is very understandable (so does 6), but aside from some character themes and the boss theme, which always rips, 6's music seems to match what's happening on screen better. If anything the strength of 7's music can actually make the scenes lose impact because they can be rather overpowering, if that makes any sense. I had been saying that 7 had the better gameplay. I think its negligible now. Materia is good and I do like how it lets you use whatever character you want but it really is just the Magicite+Relic system of 6, rebranded and streamlined to some extent. You find the combo/move you like and then you just go hog-wild, not unlike 6. They pretty much play the same. I think the thing that really sets 6 apart though is the World of Ruin. Beginning it is an incredible moment of scoring and scripted gameplay, and while you can tell that Disc 2 and eventually Disc 3 were supposed to give you that feeling, what with Meteor looming over everyone (and the music!), it's really not the same. 6 destroyed the world, in 7 it's still functioning before destruction. 7 is also paced kind of poorly, again due to the bloated story, whereas I felt 6 moved at a pretty respectable pace and gave you plenty of moments where you could jump off the rails and explore. 7 keeps you on rails for significant portions of the game. You can tell that 6 was the culmination of the experience 1-5 had brought whereas 7 was a successful and accomplished jump into 3D but one filled with the mistakes of a first attempt. It's why I'm very excited to start 8 in a week or two. I don't think you could compare it anymore to 6 but I want to see how they evolved after 7 because it's an incredibly promising game.
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May 30, 2020 18:49
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I used to be someone who thought FF7 was good but overrated, but after replaying it earlier this year, I changed my mind and think it's accurately rated. I appreciated it a lot more than I used to. I still think FF6 edges it out since it's the pinnacle of that era rather than a rocky start for a new era. FF7 could have been an absolute disaster if anything was off. It's amazing they were able to pull off something on that scale and ambition first try.
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May 30, 2020 20:10
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I think in FF6 it really shows that its development was basically throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. A lot of it is self-contained episodes and there are so many characters that only a few really get developed. That's pretty normal for SNES, but I thought FF4 got away with it because everyone outside the main cast was bugfuck crazy which made them memorable enough, and FF5 had you stick with the same team almost the entire game so you had ample time to get to know everyone. Same for espers, who are supposed to be a big storyline thing in FF6, but basically only Maduin and Ramuh actually matter. For me the ultimate expression of FF6's spirit is the opera scene. Extremely pretty, with unique sprite animations, but it comes out of nowhere and fits into Celes's arc... not at all. It's been a long time since I went through (most of) FF6, so I might be forgetting stuff, but I remember it as a very compelling and a very pretty mess.
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May 30, 2020 20:33
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Aithon posted:I think in FF6 it really shows that its development was basically throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. A lot of it is self-contained episodes and there are so many characters that only a few really get developed. That's pretty normal for SNES, but I thought FF4 got away with it because everyone outside the main cast was bugfuck crazy which made them memorable enough, and FF5 had you stick with the same team almost the entire game so you had ample time to get to know everyone. Same for espers, who are supposed to be a big storyline thing in FF6, but basically only Maduin and Ramuh actually matter. Well that sure reads like a back-handed compliment. I don't actually know the development structure of 6, but I think it comes together quite well since despite, or because, there are 14 or so main characters they were able to divide plot-lines and character arcs effectively among them. The 3 Main characters of Locke, Celes, and Terra have some interesting interplay and Terra of course has her pretty great stand-alone story (as do the other two). The issues between the Figaro brothers are well-done but again they have really decent interactions with other characters. The Thamasa Trio of Shadow, Relm, and Strago is really interesting as well, and often the least well-known because of Shadow's dumb dreams, this plot is the most isolated, and the these characters don't really mingle with the others. That leaves Cyan, Gau, and Setzer as ancillary to everyone else but they play their supporting roles very well. Mog is a (charming) mascot character and Gogo and Umaro really don't count. The open-ended, "gather your friends" of the World of Ruin was an excellent way to make the individual characters matter to the player and the group. Kefka, as I've been saying, is also a terrific villain who gets a lot of screen-time as well. The Opera scene is the most famous, but honestly the end of the Floating continent and the beginning of the World of Ruin is the best sequence in my opinion since you enjoy Kefka's madness (I adore how he goes about just moving the statues) and Celes desolation with that loving song and an empty world. Having replayed it recently that's easily one of my top 5 video game moments period. Detective No. 27 posted:I used to be someone who thought FF7 was good but overrated, but after replaying it earlier this year, I changed my mind and think it's accurately rated. I appreciated it a lot more than I used to. I still think FF6 edges it out since it's the pinnacle of that era rather than a rocky start for a new era. FF7 could have been an absolute disaster if anything was off. It's amazing they were able to pull off something on that scale and ambition first try. Yeah, 6 may be better but 7 is genuinely excellent. I'd say it was a defining moment for 3D like Ocarina of Time or Mario 64. Everyone should play it and the Quality of Life in newer versions help smooth out some of the edges of that era. It's a very fun game.
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May 30, 2020 21:29
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Re development woes, I read somewhere that Floating Continent was supposed to be the end of the game, but then they just kept going. For kid me, it was the point that I got completely lost because of the sudden lack of direction, but I've seen a lot of people praise the gameplay and tone shift, so they clearly did something right there! The new world map music is definitely excellent. Fake edit: I found the interview: http://www.onemillionpower.com/25-years-since-the-release-of-final-fantasy-vi-looking-back-at-the-passion/. Now I can actually contribute to the thread instead of just griping!  I also found another one while searching. http://shmuplations.com/ff6/. Enjoy the stories and the devs being adorable dorks.
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May 30, 2020 21:58
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drat game would have been super short at the floating continent.
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May 30, 2020 22:04
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Just started FF8. It's super weird and feels both really small (you're in school?) but also very grand and ambitious (look at the GLOBE world map and it's all so pretty). That opening cinematic was a trip. Junctioning is weird as all heck, but I think I'll manage it ok. I only just beat Ifrit but these were my first impressions before going to bed. I spent way too long just walking through Balamb garden talking to people, failing at cards, and just shocked at how much there seems to be of seemingly little importance. I know very very little about this game so I think it's going to be a good time. I do not like Squall however, he's made a bad first impression. Quistis seems ok aside from awkwardly hitting on her students. I do not approve of that. The girl you help around the school and who wants to make a band seems cool. I hope she becomes a party member but since she hasn't got a name I doubt it'll happen.
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Jun 13, 2020 00:09
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This thread made me decide to play the original FF7 over the remake. Feels like I’d get more out of the remake if I played the original, plus I think I’d rather wait for it to be completed. I put my brand new unopened copy for sale in the SAmart buy/sell/trade thread if anyone’s interested. By the time that it’s complete I’ll have nostalgia for playing the original in 2020.
SeANMcBAY fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 00:25
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SeANMcBAY posted:This thread made me decide to play the original FF7 over the remake. Feels like I’d get more out of the remake if I played the original, plus I think I’d rather wait for it to be completed. I put my brand new unopened copy for sale in the SAmart buy/sell/trade thread if anyone’s interested. I only just found out that the Remake was being done in fits and bursts and my friend describe the bonkers plot. But I suppose it's a Remake meaning that's technically allowed. The original game is well-worth playing through and I'm sure I'll revisit it one day. I'm super curious to see how 8 met the high-standards post 7. So far graphically (yes it's the remaster but still) it really feels like they went all out. Never having been one to care about graphics it is pretty neat nonetheless to go from chunky polygons to people. I don't care for the battle UI, I'm not really ever sure who's attacking yet, though it doesn't feel like it really matters, the first "dungeon" was more than doable enough.
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Jun 13, 2020 00:43
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FF6 is the first RPG I played that had that level of ambition, tons of side and secret content, and a story that explored personal relationships in a more realistic way like the writing doesn't compare to some games that have come since, but it was a lot more introspective of a game than, say, FF4's melodrama imo (and way more than the western CRPGs like the TSR Gold Boxes; this would be a couple years before I played Fallout) a while back I dated someone abt seven years younger than me whose first and favorite FF game was FF10, and they didn't quite get the appeal of 6- it's kinda incredible how those kinda micro-generational differences exist, but makes sense; my family got an SNES when I was about the age they were when they got a PS2 and they don't have a memory of being blown away by the 16-bit era's music and visuals
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Jun 13, 2020 00:50
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6 is definitely on my list to play but I feel like I should play 7 first. I wish they’d release 6 on Switch but then again it would probably be that hideous “HD” one.
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Jun 13, 2020 02:02
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I feel like square neglects ff6. It was my first and it’s still up there for me. But yeah the graphics are way better on ff8 compared to 7, just the player models alone outside of combat look much better.
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Jun 13, 2020 02:29
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I used to think the low-poly FF7 models looked like poo poo even back around when it was newer but they look charming to me these days.
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Jun 13, 2020 02:30
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The graphics on seven are very charming. The range of emotion they get is really great where in six it often just felt comedic as opposed to anything else.SeANMcBAY posted:6 is definitely on my list to play but I feel like I should play 7 first. I wish they’d release 6 on Switch but then again it would probably be that hideous “HD” one. It’d be interesting to go back to six after seven seeing how seven is clearly meant to be an upgrade on it in many ways. Six is certainly the tighter experience.
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Jun 13, 2020 08:35
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Yeah, the town NPCs and their little subplots are honestly the best parts of VIII. It does a great job of selling the world, and IX does more of that! One bit of advice I have is to manually assign skills for GFs to learn. By default, they'll learn +SumMag skills, which boost summoning (very slow and falls off quickly). Instead, start with RF (refinement) skills, they're basically crafting and will let you mess with your collection of loot to get fun magic. If you get into TT, learn Card at some point, too, it's a requirement for Card Mod which is how Triple Triad lets you get items. e: sorry for rushing in with unsolicited advice, but I've heard a lot of people complaining about Draw without ever learning about the good sources of magic. I love that mess of a game to bits but it does *not* explain some of its mechanics. Aithon fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 09:23
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Aithon posted:Yeah, the town NPCs and their little subplots are honestly the best parts of VIII. It does a great job of selling the world, and IX does more of that! I read the whole information/help section in-game last night (about 40 minutes of my hour of game time!) It does explain it, but it doesn't reveal why it's terribly useful aside from a couple of things. I forgot to set my Skills before the first dungeon so 33 AP got tossed into +SumMag, but... whatever. I'll learn the other things soon enough. I hope I'll enjoy Triple Triad. Some of the Rule sets sound neat, but I have such lovely cards right now, the most I've been able to do is tie. Anyway, I am looking forward to diving into it. I just finished the school year, but now I'm raring to go back as a student! But seriously Squall feels like a cool jerk. I miss the happy-go-lucky heroes of the previous games.
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Jun 13, 2020 10:41
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I'm all in on FF8. I just got past the opening battle for the SeeD examine (I know I know I'm barely at the beginning). Zell is fine, I'm glad I know Selphie, Quistis is actually a fun and badass jerk, Squall's warming up to me. The battle gameplay still doesn't make much sense but I get the impression you can draw A LOT of magic so I think I'll spend a few minutes just doing that with some of the more basic spells. I need to get better cards to see if I like triple triad but I think I will. Game is good. And what a spectacle! I'm not much of a graphics guy but this stuff is nearly cinematic. It also works with full models way more than 7 did. Enjoying a lot so far. I'll stop updating it because I feel like I'm coming back after every minor event.
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Jun 13, 2020 13:04
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Oh, forgetting to set skills isn't such a big deal. It's not a hard game by any measure and in any case you'll get enough AP to master everything on your starting GFs easily. It just lets you access some fun toys slightly earlier. I find Drawing in battle terribly boring compared to just refining magic, but whatever works! Just remember to check bosses' Draw lists, sometimes they have rare magic or even new GFs to steal. I'm glad you're enjoying the game! Yeah, it has a lot in terms of spectacle and cool ideas.
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Jun 13, 2020 13:38
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Last thing I want to say, again I haven't played much but the music is really really good. It feels to be better scored than 7 (7 has excellent music, if not some of the best, but I don't find it's always fitting to the scene at hand), which was something that is for sure true of 6.
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Jun 13, 2020 15:14
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Just finished Final Fantasy 8 and I think I'm going to need a Final Fantasy break. It's an ambitious game and I feel like they had to do something that wasn't 7 (or hell, 6 for that matter, they're not that different). So we get 8. I had no idea it featured Time Travel which is super tricky to do well and well... they didn't. The classic moral of Love and Friendship will overcome everything! felt particularly trite with how awful a character Squall is. Now, I can see what they want to do with his arc, and it's not a bad idea, but they let an improbable romance and the realization they all grew up together do all the heavy lifting. Had there been a proper choice of romantic partner among the cast (or better a sort of dating mechanic between Squall and his team-mates), then maybe that could've worked, but hardly anyone in the game gets any real development or personality. I ended up liking Selphie the best just because she's chipper and Quistis is the closest we get to an interesting person, with her different roles. Worst of all, the Main Villain is by far the worst villain I've seen in the series to this point. They have no real motivation and what they do makes little sense. Kefka is still the best in this regard, and even if 8's villain seems to have chaos as a goal, it's never really stated or portrayed. Actually, Laguna and co. are the best characters in the game, and we hardly ever see them. His track, is arguably the best song in what is the game's strongest point. It is magnificently scored. Hands-down best soundtrack between 6-8, and the songs fit their situations to a tee. The Esthar theme is so weird and perfect, Laguna's battle song is so freaking good, the only downside is probably the overworld track, the airship track, and the normal battle/boss themes, which definitely pale in comparison to 7 and 6. The credits gave me a thrill when the traditional FF theme crept into it near the end. Its other strong point is its presentation/graphics. Again, I don't care about graphics (the in-game CGI is as good as it has to be to impress me, today's outstuff looks good but is wasted on a plebe like me) but it genuinely looks so much better than 7, which was an impressive improvement to the great pixel-art of 6. There are some great set-pieces like the Battle of the Gardens and in general the military sequences are very good. But that's the thing, it's a lot style over substance. Junctioning is a super-neat mechanic that fails because it breaks the game too easily and it feels intentional. There's no real progressively getting good, you can just be super strong out of the gate, or maybe super-weak. If you forget to use the mechanic or fight only via summons I can imagine getting very bored and frustrated very fast. I only got a game-over at the final boss, because I hadn't bothered to fix-up my less used characters. Once I did that the only risk was the obligatory attack that takes you to 1 HP, which is a kind of poo poo move. Unfortunately, this cool gameplay mechanic isn't refined enough to carry the terrible writing in the game even with all the fancy graphics and amazing music. I can only see someone liking this one if it's really their first, or if they dive-hard into junctioning and training GF's, and even then. It was a smart decision to have enemies level up with you otherwise you would overpower everything more than you already do. The world never quite felt as developed as it does in 6 or 7 maybe because it's so big but empty. And ultimately it's hard to like these characters, which is what makes the two previous games work so drat well. I had intended to play 9, so I could make a comparison of the series evolution on the Playstation, but I need a break, FF8 just didn't thrill me like 6 and 7 had. Still I think 6-8 is a reasonable trilogy to play because they definitely share similar themes and worlds and in that regard I think their takeaway for 8 were all the wrong lessons, atmosphere-wise, from 6-7. And so we got 8. It's very different, it is undoubtedly ambitious, and it's a fine game, but not quite up to the pedigree of the series as a whole.
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Jun 26, 2020 23:12
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It's two days shy of two months of when I beat FF8, and I've just finished FF9. The summer's about to end and I'll be back to work on Monday, in a week's time. I intended to play through the Playstation iterations of the series this summer, the quarantine gave me a chance to get a jump on it and let me even include FF6 to compare them all together. By itself Final Fantasy 9 is a really good game. It's standout features are its presentation, in that the game looks great for its time and the style, while not my favorite aesthetic (the humans look like gelflings), it's both unique and effective. The music is very good, even if it's not the best of the 4, and I would argue it's the worst soundtrack of the Playstation era, even if the Airship theme and the final boss themes really are very good and in itself it's a fine fine soundtrack. The main theme of the game, that medieval faire sounding thing is good and in that regard the game is well-scored. It's many songs fit their environments well, better than 7 and not as well as 8 (or 6). The story of the game is surprisingly good. I didn't think much of it at first but it grew on me as it developed. I'm pretty impressed they managed to shift the standard tale at the beginning into the philosophical quest it would later become. The cast is great. Vivi is obviously a stand-out character but I also really liked Freya's tale and Eiko's. Zidane's personal story was surprisingly good too and I didn't mind him and Dagger all that much, not as much as I did Rinoa and Squall. Quina makes for decent comedic relief and has some very poignant moments as well. Really only Steiner and Amarant, especially the latter, kinda suck, unfortunately Amarant is an incredibly useful character so I included him more often than I liked in my parties. The character's plots didn't resonant with me as much as they did in 7 probably because the game is presented like a story that you experience as opposed to an adventure you take part of. Even if the main and side characters get more screen time here than they did in 7, I didn't connect with them as well. (The less said about 8 the better, it has by far the worst story and just an awful cast of characters.) Still, what 9 does well is world-building. I do rather like 8's cities and environments, they were huge and it helped make everything feel very large and overwhelming. 9 has a much smaller scope but the towns feel very lively. The sidequests the game throws at you are a huge part of that, in particularly Mognet and Chocobo's. It just made the whole world feel like there were things and stuff to do. I would've hated Chocobo Hot and Cold had I been unable to speed up the game, but it's a fun game and most of the sidequests/mini-games were. It had the best ones in the series by far. Talking about speed it's one of the biggest problems I had with 9. It's incredibly slow. Not the plot or the pacing, that's actual pretty quick. The actual movement of the game is slow. You move slowly, battles take forever to begin and resolve, and just everything seems to be covered in a thick coat of molasses. I used x3 speed more than care to admit, but while that made things almost too fast, it's clear that something should've been done with the basic movement speed in the base game. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded the speed were the gameplay actually interesting. This is the biggest point against the game, but it's just kind of boring to play. Compared to the customization granted by Espers and Relics in 6 and their improved iteration in Materia in 7, 9 is way too rigid. You choose a character and a power you like/find effective and just spam that. There's not a lot of customization you can do outside of some messing around with some abilities, and some characters are more interesting in that regard than others, but that is another problem with the game. Tying acquiring abilities to items was a horrible decision. You end sticking around with weak items for longer than you'd like, or you miss out on skills because they take a long time to get acquired, especially considering the pace of the battles. I feel like a similar system was used in FFTA and it worked out better there. They would've been better off just tying off abilities to levels. Making Trance just build up and disappear also ruined the cool Limit Break system from previous games, in particular 8. I didn't mention 8 earlier because as flawed as that game's mechanics are, the more I think about them, after having played 9, they're very interesting and ambitious systems. 8 encourages semi-customization of GF's and wants you to use them instead of your main characters, which adds a layer to combat (disregarding their animations taking forever). Added to that system there's also the Magic/Stat system where you could risk losing stats to use a strong spell instead, or the really cool "gamble" mechanic of staying in low health and using Limit Breaks or dying. Now all those different mechanics are easily cracked over your knee for a lot of different reasons, but at least there was an attempt to make something interesting. 9 is incredibly boring in that regard, and it's made worse by how slow the game plays. It was one of the reasons I had to stop playing it for a couple of weeks after getting to disc 3. Still I'm glad I picked it up because the story really does get interesting. It doesn't quite hit the ecological moralism of 7, which is fascinating in its own right, and like so many other games that try it doesn't manage to portray the despair of 6's World of Ruin, but that's fine. It didn't have to do much, and its twists and turns are perfectly reasonable. It only had to be better than 8 in that regard and it managed that easily. TLDR: 9 is good. It's got a better story and characters than 8, it's presented better than 7, and has a very lived-in world. Unfortunately, even if it mechanically plays well, in particular compared to 8, it's also rather boring to play. Thankfully the cast and story motivate you to keep going. It's an interesting counter-point to the more advanced societies and plots presented in 6 and 7 (8's plot is so stupid that it's not worth mentioning), and worth a play. I still think my favorites go 6 and then 7. Then I'd put 9 over 8, even if 8 had more memorable moments for me and even if its a game with a lot of ambition. 8 has the best music/soundtrack hands down and has some spectacular set-pieces but it's so so so dumb and its characters just suck so much. 9's music never quite hits those same moments as 8 and its set-pieces are way more reasonable, the only outrageous sequence being Zidane's Sonic-like scene when he goes looking for Kuja at the end, but it has a good cast and I appreciated the time I spent with the game. I'll keep X and X2 for next summer but now I need a good long break from JRPGs.
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Aug 24, 2020 19:31
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Hungry Computer posted:If you want to combine the 2 there's a Streets of Rage 2 hack that makes Knuckles from Sonic 3 a playable character. Good ole dick punchin’ Knuckles. Punchin’ everyone in ‘th dick.
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Sep 1, 2020 02:04
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Heyyyy, I just wanted to say that I don't want this thread to die, and I'm up for keeping it going if y'all are too.
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Nov 3, 2020 04:26
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Keep going.
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Nov 3, 2020 04:46
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Hell I'll even buy that Sega games piecemeal on Steam if we need participants. As far as old games are concerned I started playing Fire Emblem 7 and Deadly Premonition from 2003 and 2010 respectively, but I don't get the impression that's retro enough. I also ran through DKC 2 but yeah. I'm game (fake edit: no pun intended!).
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Nov 3, 2020 18:59
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Absolutely no need to kill this thread off, keep it going!
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Nov 3, 2020 19:18
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Ok, awesome. I'm neck deep in a project right now (soundtrack for a game!  ) but that's all over and done with on Nov 20th.Maybe I'll kick up another rental post for then. One of the benefits of being away from this thread for so long is that there have been a number of (old) games put on NES/SNES Online. Not nearly enough, but some!
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Nov 3, 2020 20:47
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In the meantime, I'm going to just lob out a quick suggestion for an old favourite of mine, Streets of Rage II, to tide us over the following week. Yeah sure I'd bet that many of us have already played it to the extent where we're more than acquainted with the whole affair, but it's also simple enough for the uninitiated to just satisfyingly bash through on Easy, followed by a reasonably deep brawler on Normal, and then offering a (surprising) layer of further complexity for anyone who wants to go at it on Hard or Hardest difficulties. Because why the hell not?! 
ZogrimAteMyHamster fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 05:03
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Hey, I recently realized that I don't want this thread to die, so I won't let it. There'll be an update soon.
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Apr 30, 2021 13:15
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Hey, I recently realized that I don't want this thread to die, so I won't let it. Well, that was an unintentional lie, but now that we've got N64 and Genesis/MD games going, who's up for some more posts about easily accessed, officially available retro games?
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Mar 29, 2022 20:05
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Well, that was an unintentional lie, but now that we've got N64 and Genesis/MD games going, who's up for some more posts about easily accessed, officially available retro games? YES. I'm still wrapping up the pre-final dungeon sidequests of FFX and I just realized how this thread is the particular repository for my Lockdown FF play through which is very cool to see. Especially now that I'm doing FFX and convinced it's the best game of the first ten games. But if we're definitely doing this then I think I'll get the expansion pass. Playing games with alongside people is way too much fun.
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Mar 29, 2022 22:09
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