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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 02-02-2012, 10:51 PM   #226
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Default Re: Final Fantasy Megathread

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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 12-24-2016, 01:09 PM   #227
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Default Re: Final Fantasy Megathread



Originally released in 1997 for the Sony Playstation, Final Fantasy VII is a series of firsts. It was the first Final Fantasy to not be released on a Nintendo console. It was the first Final Fantasy to utilize 3D graphics. And it was the first Final Fantasy (since the FIRST Final Fantasy) to not be re-numbered when released in America.

Final Fantasy VII has been ported to multiple systems over the years to remain available. It received a contemporary release on the PC (and was later re-released on Steam). It has also been ported to the Playstation 3 and 4. There is currently a full Final Fantasy VII remake in development.

FFVII focuses on the struggles of a group of rebels, known as AVALANCHE, against a corporation known as Shinra who essentially aim to take over the world. The main concern is Shinra's use of an energy source known as Mako, which AVALANCHE believes will destroy the world if abused. Both factions also have to contend with the return of Sephiroth, a villain with unclear motives.

Our playable characters consist of of:

Cloud Strife: A former member of Shinra's special forces known as SOLDIER. Cloud has left this group and now works as a soldier for hire. Throughout the game, Cloud struggles with coming to terms with his identity and the realities of his past.

Barret Wallace: The foul mouthed leader of AVALANCHE who fights with a gun attached to his arm. The only thing he loves more than the Planet is his adopted daughter, Marlene.

Tifa Lockheart: Cloud's childhood friend and member of AVALANCHE. Tifa's knowledge of Cloud's true past is the key to unlocking the secrets in his heart (I just got it).

Aeris Gainsborough: The last member of the Ancients, the ill-fated flower girl is not only Cloud's main love interest, but also the holder of the Planet's greatest hope.

Red XIII: Also known as Nanaki, Red XIII is a victim of the experiments of a mad scientist. Red XIII is a wolf-like beast and the warrior protector of his tribe.

Cait Sith: A robot cat who controls a robot "Mog", Cait Sith has a secret identity and confused loyalties.

Cid Highwind: The second Cid to be a playable character, Cid's dream is to explore space. He settles with helping save the Planet and captaining the group's airship.

Yuffie Kisaragi: An optional character. A teenage ninja who enjoys nothing more than stealing Materia,

Vincent Valentine: Another optional character. A vampire-like being with mysterious ties to Shinra's and Sephiroth's past.

Unique or new elements:

- The active party is limited to only three characters at maximum; down from the previous norm of four. Possibly due to graphical restrictions?

- FFVII is the first FF to utilize 3D graphics. The characters are 3D models who explore pre-rendered CG backgrounds. FMV cutscenes are often used to give the game a cinematic flair that wasn't possible before.

- FFVII utilizes the Materia system; possibly an expansion of the Magicite system from FFVI. Materia are crystals that can be installed in slots the groups weapons and armor. Materia allows that character to utilize various abilities including magics, summons, stealing, etc. They can also boost the characters stats.

- Limit Breaks are the extension of the Desperation Attacks from FFVI. Each character has a limit bar that fills up as they are attacked. Once full, the character can unleash a strong attack or other ability. They work differently depending on the character.

Cid Watch!



Cid Highwind is the second Cid to be a playable character. He returns to the Cid legacy of providing or piloting the group's airship. Cid Highwind is a pilot and mechanic who originally dreamed of going to space, but his dream were dashed when his launch failed and his funding was cut. Cid's surname is a callback to Kain Highwind from FFIV and Ricard/Gareth Highwind from FFII, both Dragoons. While FFVII does not strictly utilize the Job system, Cid does have similarities to Dragoons like using a spear as a weapon and several of his Limit Breaks being a jump attack.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 12-24-2016, 01:22 PM   #228
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With the release of Final Fantasy XV a few weeks back (I just finished it a few days ago), I've been thinking about finishing up my little series here.

Final Fantasy VII was the first Final Fantasy I played. I actually have a pretty great story about the first time I played this game. I typed it out one time on reddit; I'll just quote it here:

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I didn't have a PSX or FFVII myself, but my friend did and somehow I convinced him to let me borrow both for just a weekend. I have no idea why he agreed to it; he was only up to the battle with Dyne. Anyway, I only had the game for three days, so I had to really speed through it if I had any hopes of beating the thing. I made all kinds of poor decisions in the interest of expediency. I sold materia that didn't have any immediate use for equipment. I spammed my summons (but only the ones you naturally gain through the story; I didn't explore enough to get any of the hidden ones) to get through battles.; I wasted all of my elixirs and megaelixirs. I don't even know how I got to the end, really. There were a few battles where I'm pretty sure I just lucked out. Hojo comes to mind.

I was only in my low 30s when I got to Safer Sephiroth. I got through Jenova and Bizzaro Sephiroth easily enough, but Safer Sephiroth always just demolished me. Again and again I worked through the first two battles to just get creamed by the third battle. I had no idea if I was even getting close to beating him.

I looked up strategies online, but they always seemed to rely on me having Omnislash, or KOTR, or at least some fairly basic skills and items that I sold long ago. I couldn't go and get KOTR since I had sold my chocobo materia. I think I made an attempt on Omnislash, but it was going way too slow for the time I had left. I returned the game and system without having beaten it.

A few years later I got a PS2 for Christmas. I was actually more excited to get to play some of the PSX games I had missed than any PS2 games, but the top of my list was buying and finally beating FFVII. I left nothing to chance. As soon as I could I began racing and breeding my way to a Gold Chocobo in order to get KOTR. Sephiroth didn't have a chance.

I finally returned to the battle that had defeated me so along ago. I selected KOTR confident that I had just won in one swift stroke. Before it got cast, though, Sephiroth tossed up that stupid barrier that I hadn't planned for. KOTR did only half damage which didn't kill him. I fought hard, but my strategy had depended entirely on not having to actually fight and I lost. Again.

Then I fought him again and made sure to dispel the barrier before I cast KOTR and I won. Finally. Years later.

As an epilogue to this story, I remember playing Kingdom Hearts and finding the ??????? section in the Hercules world. I selected it, curious what it was. One Winged Angel began to play. "No," said, beginning to shake. "It can't be." Sephiroth appeared. "No, please," I begged the game. He absolutely demolished me. "Noooooooooooo!"

I still haven't beat him in that.
As an aside, I have since beat him using Omnislash and also without either KOTR or Omnislash. Still haven't beat him in Kingdom Hearts, though.

One thing about FFVII is that when I really think about the game, I often think it is slightly overhyped. The graphics have not aged well at all. The story is hampered by a sub-par translation. The gameplay isn't really that big of a leap over FFVI; just a little flashier. I think some of the things FFVII is known for was actually done first (but not necessarily better) by FFVI; mainly thinking about adding more technology to the series and even some of the cinematic quality the series has since become known for.

Still, there is something about FFVII that draws me to it again and again. I don't know if its just nostalgia from the days when I could literally play a video game without stopping over a weekend or what, but I am never not enjoying myself with this game. I've actually played it through again since my marathon this thread was originally about; this isn't true about almost all of the other games in the series. If I try to rank the series, I almost always include VI, IX, and X above VII for various reasons, but those games just don't pull me in like this one does. Its odd.

As an aside, I am very hesitant towards the impending remake. While I was definitely hoping for one at some point, I was really just hoping for a graphical upgrade. I don't even really want it to be up to today's standard, or even the standards of 2004 or 2005 or whenever it was the rumor train started rolling for a remake. I would be just fine if the game looked as good FFIX. For me, the issue with the original FFVII (that would be fixed with a remake) are about the consistency of the graphics and the translation. Its very jarring to go from the polygonal mini figures of the overworld to the much more detailed battles figure, back to the mini figs, and then to an FMV. The translation just needs to be done over and with a more professional touch. I worry the remake is overdoing it. C'est la vie.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 01-05-2017, 01:27 PM   #229
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Default Re: Final Fantasy Megathread

What did you think about FFXV? I finished it a few days ago.

Personally I thought it was not very good.

The storytelling within the game was atrocious. If you didn't watch the Kingsglaive movie and the Brotherhood anime, you would most likely not know what is going on at the beginning of the game.

And then throughout the rest of the game, even if you watched that stuff, you will very quickly not know what is going on. Nothing is ever explained. You can learn some tidbits by reading some books that are laying around or turning on the radio in diners, but even then it's vague, and it's ridiculous that a story driven RPG would rely on something like that to convey its story.

On top of that, the side quests are awful. On top of just being fetch quests, there's no interesting story or characters surrounding any of them. It all involves running mundane errands for people who are too lazy to do their own work. Even the main characters in the game talk about how annoying the tasks are to do.

I've seen a decent number of people talking about how beautiful the world is and it's the best Final Fantasy to explore yet, but I think those people must not have played FFXIV.

And the load times. Holy moly the load times. If there was nothing else wrong with the game, the load times alone would be enough to knock a few points off its score. I feel like I spent 20% of my time just waiting for the game to load.

Then there's the voice acting. The four main characters, Ardyn, and Regis are fine. Every other character in the game has terrible voice acting. It sounds like they are literally just reading off of a piece of paper. From the moment you meet Cindy (who's design is an abomination) she says, "I'm Cindy, Cid's grease monkey granddaughter!"

I legitimately think they accidentally had her read the character description from the top of the script and put that line in the game.

And the whole game is just full of stuff like this. Characters come and go with no introduction or explanation as to who they are or why they are important. Most of the important action of the story happens off screen.

I mostly slogged through it because I thought the post game dungeons might be fun to do.

They aren't. They're just dozens of copy-pasted rooms that take hours to go through killing the same enemies over and over.

The more I think about it the more I struggle to find any redeeming quality that justifies this game's existence. The one small thing I can say is that its badness actually inspired me to play some older JRPG's to remind myself they were probably good games.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 01-08-2017, 06:59 PM   #230
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Default Re: Final Fantasy Megathread

I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of your points, but I also don't feel quite so harshly to it. I enjoyed the combat for the most part and while I agree that the sidequests were uniformly pretty terrible, I did enjoy the world and some of the dungeons that were involved. I think there is a good story hidden somewhere in the game, but agree its pretty terribly told. I was actually insulted at the few occasions where its obvious the season pass content will be plugged in. All in all, I enjoyed it more or less while I was playing it, but was definitely ready to be done by the end.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 04-30-2020, 05:56 PM   #231
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Oh man, I started this thread just over ten years ago. It was already feeling like late stage Gametavern at that time and we've added another decade on to it. I say that, but of course the earlier pages on here are a lot more active than anything could hope to be in this new and scary decade.

Coincidentally (I swear!) I started playing through the Final Fantasy games again about a month ago. I spent a lot of time going through the MSQ of FFXIV the latter half of last year and all of callbacks and references to prior titles really got me jazzing to play through the series again. Of course I also played VII Remake which just came out which maybe the hype around that contributed as well.

For most of these games this has been or will be the first time I've gone through them since 2010 or 2011 - I think I've gone through VII (the original) and X since then and also maybe started up a few others, but didn't finish.

I have gone through I and II. These were the Origins versions, though emulated this time since my PS2 broke. Regarding I, I actually appreciated more this time how it parses out the game to the player. The first half of the game is pretty simple since it keeps you constrained - its easy to keep track of where you've been and what you need to do. Its only when you need to get the airship that I think it goes a little off the rails and a FAQ really is needed to figure it out.

I did not recall from before that II has you go back to the same village again and again. It kind of separates the game out into distinct missions rather than an ongoing journey. You're given a mission, go out and complete it, and then report back and debrief. What I thought was most impressive about this is how the game utilizes this structure effectively for immersive storytelling.

(spoilers for this 30+ year old black sheep of FF incoming)

Throughout the game you're checking back in at this same town: your home base. It becomes second nature so even when you reclaim the kingdom and your HQ moves, you still feel drawn to visit this town. You wrap up an incredibly long and draining dungeon (second maybe only to the final dungeon) and the most natural stop to rest and recuperate is your old home base on your way to the castle. But as you reach the town you notice the world map icon is destroyed and you can't even enter it. The town is gone. If you go and check some of the other towns you've likely frequented when out in the world you'll find all them in the same area have also been destroyed.

There's no cutscene. We don't see the heroes in the middle of the decimated town square and cry out for revenge as doleful music crescendos. We just experience it ourselves - our own loss at this familiar and welcome refuge. Not to say the more cinematic touch the more modern games take is bad or ineffective at all, but I think this approach really conveys the emotions effectively utilizing the technology that was available.

A masterful stroke.

I'm currently playing III via Steam. I enjoy having real characters and a slightly beefed up story, but I'd really prefer to have a nice 2D remake with beautiful sprite art rather than ugly mid-life DS graphics. After this I'll have a crossroads on whether I want to play IV via the Steam version (with slightly better mid-late-life DS graphics) or emulate the PSP version (since my PSP's battery blew up)?
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 05-06-2020, 05:24 PM   #232
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III would be a lot better if it did less to discourage experimenting with the job system. Job Levels means that a job you use more will be stronger which highly encourages sticking with a job for longer. There's a transition period that weakens a new job for X amount of battles after you switch penalizing you for trying out a new job. There are no save points in dungeons so if you whiff on a boss you can't just swap out jobs and try out that new strategy; you have to slog your way back through the whole dungeon to get back to them.

Finally, except for a couple of instances the game isn't really designed in a way to encourage messing about with jobs. I was negative about the few times it does this last time I played (and the time before that), but now I think it could be really cool if it were emphasized more and the above points were corrected. The focus would become less on grinding levels and more on figuring out the right team for the right situation.

Anyway, III defeated me this time. I got right near to the end of the game in the World of Darkness and died to one of the minibosses as his strong attacks came too often and on just the wrong characters. I reviewed my prior take on the game from 2010 and I see now that my characters were stronger before, so maybe I could have spent a night grinding and got through it just fine, but I don't have that kind of time anymore and I was anxious to get to IV.

Speaking of IV, I have decided that, when considering the first four games back to back, IV feels like I-III were games and then they made a Final Fantasy animé with an original story that was then adapted into a video game and that is Final Fantasy IV.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 05-09-2020, 04:23 PM   #233
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I am now on Final Fantasy V. Started just yesterday. Further evidence of my apparent FF biological clock: I was looking on GameFAQs for a good walkthrough (don't want to miss anything and ain't nobody got time anymore for exploring) and I found my thread from last time I was looking for a good FAQ: dated 5/6/2010.

Lots of people back then recommended one by a person name Djibriel, but advised I would need to wait a few months for him to finish. Didn't use it then, but now I've given it a few months (or a small gross) and am using it now. Hope he had enough time to wrap it up.

First re-impressions of V is that it does fix a lot of the concerns I had with III. Jobs are viable now as soon as you jump into it and advancing in a job usually does more to power up other jobs by carrying abilities over to them encouraging the player to switch around and try out different combinations. The only box it hasn't checked for me is treating bosses like a puzzle with a particular combination or jobs most effective. There are a lot of viable options. This is very good in a lot of ways, but it gives a bit of analysis paralysis.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 05-14-2020, 02:28 PM   #234
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Default Re: Final Fantasy Megathread

What are you playing FFV on?

The last time I played it was on the GBA and that was a pretty great version. The job system is really fun.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 05-14-2020, 03:25 PM   #235
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I'm rocking the Steam version. There are a lot of concerns out there about how the mobile/Steam versions of V and VI look and in some cases it is obvious the Steam version was based off a mobile release, but I'm okay with the overall look. I think it looks good. And you can trace it back to the GBA version, so a lot of the enhancements that one had and more is in here.

I actually had originally booted up the Steam FFVI with some mods to tweak some of the mobileness of that game, but ultimately decided to go back to the beginning. Now that I've played the vanilla Steam FFV, I'm wondering if the mods were really worth it in the first place for VI.

I'll probably still keep them in place when I get to it, though.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 05-18-2020, 02:30 PM   #236
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Knocked out Final Fantasy V Friday night. Looking back at my prior post from 10 years ago, I was more positive on V than I recalled being, so I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed playing it this time. I guess I was misremembering my experience. The Job system in this one is a lot of fun and it really doesn't take that much time to build up a job, especially later on. I would like if they added a fast forward feature (at least) like I understand they have in some of the re-releases of the later games. It kind of feels like some of these earlier titles have gotten short shrift in the PC port department compared to the PS titles.

Speaking of, there is a lot grousing around the internet about the visuals of the FFV and VI, VI in particular. Having now played through V and a good portion of VI (I basically marathoned my way to the WoR over the weekend) I'm okay with it. They don't look as good as FFIV does in the PSP complete collection, but I wouldn't say they are unfaithful. My biggest issue is really the UI which was very clearly built for mobile phones. You get used to it, but I would definitely prefer they made these ports with a controller in mind rather than a touchscreen.

As mentioned, I did fiddle about with the A World Reborn mod for FFVI that is meant to make it look "better", but ultimately I disagree with how they went about it. You have the option to use the original SNES sprites, which are fine, but I don't think they are necessarily better than the new sprites outside of nostalgia. Otherwise, they do more to change the artistic vision rather than just, say, bump up the resolution or fix actual issues. Some may prefer their redesigns, but I do not. The UI, although differing somewhat aesthetically, is ultimately still the designed for mobile phones version regardless so I found no use in the mods in the end.

Regarding FFVI as a whole, even though I haven't yet beaten it once more I've played it enough times in the past that I don't have any particular new thoughts. I guess I could say my perspective has shifted some. If I were to categorize these games into eras previously I probably would have just stuck with console eras, but now I think differently. FFI-V come together as one era with common themes and design philosophies (with maybe II being the exception). Each game (minus II) deals with elemental crystals and has the Job system in some form - either directly involved with the player's choice as in I, III, and V, or ingrained directly into the story and characters in the case of IV. There is a clear line of progression through these games.

VI breaks from that line and, I would say now, starts the era that stretches on through VII, VIII, IX, and maybe X. There is a clear escalation in the cinematic ambitions of the series starting with VI. The game stretches the seams of what was possible with the SNES and reaches out with all its might to grab hold of what would soon be possible with the new disc based consoles. There are multiple scenes in VI that are screaming for FMV treatment and you can feel the frustration of the developers at being limited by the technology. I can practically how they might have intended some of these scenes to play out in 3D.

Further, the magicite system is much more reminiscent of materia, of the Junction system, or abilities in IX than it is of the Job system from the prior games. A clear break from tradition. There are still some holdovers with some character still aligning pretty well with Jobs, but overall it is in this game where we see a lot of those abilities disassociated from jobs and added into equipable items like, in this case, Relics.

I'll probably have VI beaten by this weekend, but can't say for certain. Looking forward to VII and going back through that one since I finished the remake. In this case I do think I want to try out some mods. I don't want to get too crazy, but there's a retranslation mod (Beacause) I'd like to try as that is my main concern with the original game. There's a couple of mods out there that upscales the FMV backgrounds. I had thought about doing something with the character models, but I think I'll leave that alone. That presume too much regarding the artistic intent, similar to my concerns about the FFVI mods.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 05-26-2020, 03:26 PM   #237
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Beat VI. Moved on to VII. I did try on PC first. I installed the Reunion mod with another mod that most people refer to as "Satsuki's Fields" although I'm not sure if its technically called that. First impression was A+. The game looked great. The AI enhanced backgrounds looked amazing and the new character models outside of battles also looked good. These mods did really well at addressing some of the visual issues of the game while still keeping it feeling like a PSX game, if that makes sense. The new translation was alright although I didn't get to some of the more infamously muddled scenes.

Unfortunately, I experienced a crash after a battle in the train graveyard. No big, expected something like this to happen a little more often than usual, no big. Then again after fighting Hojo's monster in the Shinra building. That was frustrating as it was right after a boss battle, but it was a long while since the previous one and everything worked again after rebooting the game, so okay. But then again after fighting the robots in the elevator.

That was too high a frequency for me to ignore, so I looked it up and alas this is a known issue with the mod. There's a chance of a crash after every single battle. I researched a bit to try and see if there was some workaround. Maybe if I disabled the new character models that would do it, or something. But then I saw that there's another glitch that makes Cosmo Canyon impassable somehow due to the new translation. Well a better translation was 87% of why I wanted to mess with the mods in the first place, so I gave it up at that point. These issues would be fixed eventually, but I wasn't going to wait.

Still wanted to play through the game, though, so bought it on PS4. The 3x speed and power boost is really nice. Using that, I was able to speed through all of Midgar in just over 2 hours. Once I caught up I've tried not to abuse it, but it has made some of more menial tasks much more bearable (stealing items, walking through some of the longer passages, etc.)

I really wish we could get a Definitive version of the original FFVII at some point. Unfortunately the Remake seems to make that less likely anytime soon (not that it was ever very likely for some reason). Just a retranslation at least would make me happy but especially something like FFVIII Remastered (which I will be playing next) would be very nice.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 06-02-2020, 10:34 AM   #238
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Have moved on to VIII. I actually knocked out VII pretty quickly, so have been working on VIII for a bit; I think I'm nearly done.

Originally, I did not like VIII. I think the first time I played it I ended up giving up partway through (IIRC, I think it was near the end of the game, TBH) as I brute forced my way without really understanding the Junction system and got stuck in a point where I couldn't beat a boss and couldn't go back to fix my Junctions. 10 years ago may have been the first time I actually beat the game and understood the system; I don't recall if that was second or third time playing it through.

The Junction system really isn't all that difficult to use, but it is a lot and that is very intimidating coming into it for the first time with expectations set by previous games. There are just a lot of differences and ripple effects those differences have on how to really play this game. Equipping summons to learn abilities doesn't sound that different from FFVI's magicite system or even FFVII's materia system, but there is so much more. Boosting your stats with magic makes levelling up less substantial which is increased by monsters levelling with you. This means you are discouraged to have random battles and you can get access to abilities removing random battles pretty early (one of my mistakes in my first playthrough was not working towards that ability because I didn't understand monsters would get stronger as I did).

Having an inventory of magic rather than MP and needing that magic to junction with makes you less likely to cast spells and more reliant on items. But not fighting battles would limit how much money you earn (battles being the traditional way to earn cash in RPGs) so instead you have a salary based on how well you play the game (although the mechanics of this are very hidden and don't always make sense, particularly in the context of an RPG). Equipment is also no longer a thing. You can upgrade your weapons, but honestly I don't know if I've ever just naturally gained the items needed to upgrade my equipment even one time. I always need to refer to a guide to figure out where I can get those items in order to upgrade, and the bonus isn't even that big.

There's just a lot.

Ultimately, FFVIII just really isn't my favorite Final Fantasy. The Junction system is fine once you get the hang of it, but I prefer the more traditional experience. I'm not a huge fan of the story either. It is famously supposed to be this grand love story, but I don't think Squall's and Rinoa's relationship is that big of a deal until all of a sudden it is. It feels like it comes out of nowhere and isn't really earned. There are several other romances in the series I prefer.

Unrelated: In the course of playing the series this time I've learned my kids are graphic snobs. They enjoy watching 3D games more than the 2D games and my son made a comment about how VIII was his favorite so far as it the Remaster looks so much nicer than any of the other games. My daughter also made like an "ugh" sound when I moved from the modded VII to the original VII when she saw the downgrade in character models and backgrounds.
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 06-11-2020, 03:07 PM   #239
Vampyr
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Default Re: Final Fantasy Megathread

Kids these days.

I feel like you are moving through these pretty fast. Have you used any emulators or anything speed up battles and whatnot?
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Re: Final Fantasy Megathread
Old 06-13-2020, 11:45 AM   #240
Ginkasa
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Default Re: Final Fantasy Megathread

The newer releases of the game have "boosters" that really helps make going through much quicker. You can speed up the gameplay, turn off random battles, and keep your team's health at 100% and fill their Limit Breaks/Trance/Overdrives, etc. I haven't kept these things on the whole time, but it has helped cut down on grinding and some of the minigames. Chocobo Racing in VII is a lot quicker at 3x speed, for example.

I also haven't really had much else to do. With the COVID situation we aren't getting out, so we're just kind of chilling at home. I play Final Fantasy, the wife plays Animal Crossing, the kids play Animal Crossing or Mario Party or we also got the Clubhouse Games.

********

Speaking of moving quickly, I'm now on X. VIII goes by very quickly when the game itself encourages you to bypass random battles. Drawing would usually take in that time space, but at 3x speed and turning on invincibility I was easily able to nab 100x of each spell without a sweat. Stats at near max and enemies at low levels and I breezed through.

IX took me a little bit longer. I beat VIII right after my last post and IX only yesterday, so a little over a week for IX. IX has always been one of my favorites. It just overflows with character in everything. There's clearly a lot of love put into that game. If I have a complaint about IX, its that taking time to learn each ability from weapons kind of holds you back from using new equipment. Its fine if things flowed along well, but I feel like you get new weapons with new abilities at a much quicker pace then you learn abilities. You could just skip abilities, but that feels wrong. Small complaint, but its there.

**************

Having reached X, I was thinking again about the structure of the series. I feel confident you can clearly define an era of the series from I-V and VI-IX can also definitely be group together in the same way. Its harder to say whether X should be included in that group, or lumped in with XI-XV (or some other way.

X was a big departure for the series ditching the traditional level up system (for the first time since II) in lieu of using the new Sphere Grid system. It also ditches the ATB system introduced way back in IV for the first time and introduces the one-time only CTB system (with that said, the CTB system in a lot of ways feels like the ATB system, just instead of waiting for bars to fill it just figures out ahead of time whose turn would go when). With that, it would be easy to mark this as the start of the modern era. Moving forward from here, its a lot harder to draw a clear line of progression in each game as the series moves from single player to MMO and back and again and different gameplay systems are introduced and dropped with each iteration. You also have a lot more sequels and spin-offs than before (again, something introduced with X).

With that said, X also just feels a lot more like a classic Final Fantasy game than anything that came after. Maybe its the random, turn based battles. Maybe its the characters have clearly defined roles (if not necessarily evoking the old job system as clearly as IX did). I also have to consider that maybe I think of it this way only because it was the most recent game that had been released when I first really dived into the series. Final Fantasy was, in its entirety, I-X when I first really experienced the series as a whole and I have to admit that this experience may bias me into demarcating the series into X and before and then later.
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