Fabulous Final Fantasy Franchise Discussion Catch-all

Jonman wrote:

Err, I feel like you've just given an excellent justification for the existence of rose-colored glasses, right there

You're right, our expectations of games have changed. That's precisely what rose-colored glasses are about, dude.

Look, I'll be right there with you singing the praises of FFVII as a landmark game that we're still feeling the reverberations of today. But to play it today means you have to overlook the enormous steps forward that the craft of game design has made in the last 16 years. That's like, nearly half the lifetime of the industry. To play it today is kind of painful, you're all too aware of how much more streamlined and slick gaming has become, and all too aware of how clunky it used to be.

I feel that the statement "Oh, yeah, well, if you'd experience it under a completely different context, you'd feel differently!" which let's face it, is what Rose Colored Glasses is saying, is a stupid and obvious thing to say, in addition to being a cheap and lazy dismissal. If I had ulcers, I wouldn't like spicy food like I do. But, I don't, so....what?

shoptroll wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

EDIT 2: Thanks for the impressions, shoptroll. I'm confused on one point from the Amazon page - Is the link you provided all the books, or just one of them?

All three hardbound books in a box "slipcase" cover

Wow, that's a smashing deal for $56. I'm sold!

Stele wrote:

Can't decide if I want to try that, or just put off my replay until someone tweaks the mods to work without disabling that stuff. I only played to the first save point last night just to make sure my controls were working and everything. So I won't lose but a few minutes restarting.

Poked around that site some more and found this. HQ Models for Unconverted STEAM/SE FF7 It's basically any of the models and stuff that are just replacement files, and don't require editing of the .exe file. It's still Work In Progress, so maybe not ready for prime time, and seems that it might actually require you to manually install some stuff with their LGP file editor... but I'm definitely considering it. I like the achievement pop and the cloud saves, just in case. But this should slap a fresh coat of paint on, especially the character models.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Err, I feel like you've just given an excellent justification for the existence of rose-colored glasses, right there

You're right, our expectations of games have changed. That's precisely what rose-colored glasses are about, dude.

Look, I'll be right there with you singing the praises of FFVII as a landmark game that we're still feeling the reverberations of today. But to play it today means you have to overlook the enormous steps forward that the craft of game design has made in the last 16 years. That's like, nearly half the lifetime of the industry. To play it today is kind of painful, you're all too aware of how much more streamlined and slick gaming has become, and all too aware of how clunky it used to be.

I feel that the statement "Oh, yeah, well, if you'd experience it under a completely different context, you'd feel differently!" which let's face it, is what Rose Colored Glasses is saying, is a stupid and obvious thing to say, in addition to being a cheap and lazy dismissal. If I had ulcers, I wouldn't like spicy food like I do. But, I don't, so....what?

So, we're agreeing with each other? I'm not sure, because the bit where I'm told that I'm saying stupid things and being cheap and lazy suggest that you're disagreeing with me. Or just agreeing with me in a really disagreeable fashion?

My supposition is simply that Rose Colored Glasses is an empty statement, and should be avoided. Sorry if it sounds disagreeable, but saying it's cheap, stupid, and lazy seems to me the best way to express that it's lazy, stupid, and cheap.

It's more like seeing the game through nostalgia than rose-colored glasses, anyway.

Wow, is modding the music in FFVII PC really as easy as copy-replacing some ogg files? I'm so glad I bought this on the steam sale now.

I would love a FF game where in the menu, you could select what battle and boss battle music you wanted, out of all of the titles. I'd be torn between FF4 and FF7, personally. Would make me enjoy FFX battles, for starters.

kexx wrote:

I would love a FF game where in the menu, you could select what battle and boss battle music you wanted, out of all of the titles. I'd be torn between FF4 and FF7, personally. Would make me enjoy FFX battles, for starters.

*Casual whistling*

ahrezmendi wrote:
kexx wrote:

I would love a FF game where in the menu, you could select what battle and boss battle music you wanted, out of all of the titles. I'd be torn between FF4 and FF7, personally. Would make me enjoy FFX battles, for starters.

*Casual whistling*

But that's not a game. That's just colors and light flashing nonsensically.

In all seriousness, I saw two FF7 characters fighting to FF7 music. I never cared for Dissidia, so is that an actual feature? Selecting battle music? I meant like, in a real game, a real numbered title.

Ooh. Played:
FFI
FFIV
FFVI
FFVII
FFVIII
FFIX
FFX
FFX-2
FFXII
FFXIII
FF Tactics
FF Tactics Advance
FF Tactics A2
Chocobo Racing

Beaten:
FFI
FFVI
FFX
FFXIII
FF Tactics Advance

I'm really looking forward to XV, and X-2 HD. I love the 8/16 bit era ones and the PS2/PS3 ones. The PS1 era does nothing for me, except for FFT.

kexx wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:
kexx wrote:

I would love a FF game where in the menu, you could select what battle and boss battle music you wanted, out of all of the titles. I'd be torn between FF4 and FF7, personally. Would make me enjoy FFX battles, for starters.

*Casual whistling*

But that's not a game. That's just colors and light flashing nonsensically.

In all seriousness, I saw two FF7 characters fighting to FF7 music. I never cared for Dissidia, so is that an actual feature? Selecting battle music? I meant like, in a real game, a real numbered title.

What?!?!? I mean, I know Dissidia is more the Action part of ARPG, but I'm a bit surprised that such an ardent FF fan can come down so hard on it.

Am I also the only one here who liked Crisis Core?

Dissidia was probable my favorite game on the psp. Really deep rpg elements, with a fun combat systems. Very strange to learn but it makes for some beautiful and dramatic fights.

master0 wrote:

Dissidia was probable my favorite game on the psp. Really deep rpg elements, with a fun combat systems. Very strange to learn but it makes for some beautiful and dramatic fights.

It's my 2nd favorite, right after Crisis Core, and just above Valkyrie Profile. I agree it is a bit odd to learn, but amazing once you grok it.

EDIT: So huge thanks to Stele for posting those mod links. Turns out it's super easy to mod the models in the game (and the music) without requiring that you change the .exe (and thus lose cloud saves/achievements). Here's the gist of it:

1 - Follow the 2nd link Stele posted (re-posted here). Download the lgp packing utility this guy links, as well as all the mod files he links to (there are 2 for models, and 1 for music).

2 - Before you go rebuilding any lgp files, go and download additional models you may want. I recommend this Cloud one, and then pick whatever you want from the list that Tifa's Bootleg uses. The mods indicate which folders their files need to go in, copy them into the corresponding folders from the first set you downloaded (called HQModelsCloudplay2.1 or something).

3 - Use the lgp utility and follow the instructions from the Cloudplay modder to rebuild your lgp files. Back up your originals, put the new ones in place, and launch the game.

4 - Voila! Shiny new, high res, high quality models, without the need to rebuild your exe or anything.

Seriously, this is absolutely worth doing. It's almost like I'm playing an updated version of the game.

EDIT: One more thing, if you use the high quality models I linked your battle.lgp file will become very large. As in 2GB very large. Plan accordingly.

FINAL EDIT: To give you a taste, this is what Cloud looks like in my game now...

IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576744021329602163/564AB9C47686F81F8C66C52B26B41A62234512B1/)

I really liked Crisis Core. I was going to make a post a while ago about notable spinoffs but figured we should get the main series stuff through the paces first.

I wasn't very fond of Dissidia 2, as I never quite grasped the systems or why they worked the way they did.

I keep meaning to play Crisis Core and either Dissidia. It would help if I could remember where I packed my PSP or if I didn't have a giant pile

Crisis Core was great! I finished Dissidia as well but was never really very good at it. Just brute forced my way through the game with a very high leveled Cloud since his moves were the easiest for me to pull off for some reason.

kexx wrote:

I would love a FF game where in the menu, you could select what battle and boss battle music you wanted, out of all of the titles. I'd be torn between FF4 and FF7, personally. Would make me enjoy FFX battles, for starters.

Theatrhythm!

(Dissidia was pretty good too, even if it is nonsensical)

Played a little more VII this afternoon. Think I missed the Steal Materia and am going to have to do that whole cross-dressing mansion section over.

Darn you guys. I really shouldn't be replaying old games with the size of the pile. Yet FF VII with the graphics mods and achievements feels fresh in a lot of ways. So a few more hours disappeared tonight, several more screenshots are on Steam, and I took a break in Shinra tower tonight. Fun stuff.

Anyone put much time into Final Fantasy Dimensions?

More VII progress. Out of Midgar, and flashback done.

Stele wrote:

More VII progress. Out of Midgar, and flashback done.

Wow. That's great. I'm chasing Ultimate WEAPON all over the damn place. He won't hover still.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Anyone put much time into Final Fantasy Dimensions?

Not yet. I keep meaning to try it and Chaos Rings out but they're both low on my priority list. I think I've heard Dimensions is at least decent and they dropped the price on the episodes once they hit a million downloads or some other arbitrary metric.

Almost finished another run through of VII, courtesy of its Steam re-release... Oooh, shiny!

edit: and done. Always like that last scene.

And that's Final Fantasy V wrapped up.

I finished with everyone at Lvl 40 or 41. Did the final battle with 2 freelancers for melee and 2 mimes for magic. I'm glad I put in the time to gain Dualcasting, as the boss battles in the Rift would have been much more grueling. I had to do the final fight twice, not because my party wiped, but because Bartz was Confuse'd and cast Return, resetting the battle back to the beginning.

I enjoyed the Job system in this one, even though I didn't really understand how it worked until a significant way into the game. I like how the abilities from one Job benefited others, and most of them all had interesting abilities to play around with. It seemed like Black Magic wasn't as important as other Final Fantasy games, at least in the normal sense. Rather, Black Magic summons, or Black Magic Spellblade effects tended to be more effective. It was more rare for me to cast Thundaga or whatever by itself.

The difficulty of the game was fairly offputting, though. It wasn't just that monsters could mete out lots of damage. It's that there was so much hidden in the game that seemed nearly required to find in order to have a chance of making your way through the game. Special weapons and armor were frequently rare steals that a person playing normally would have little chance of finding on their own. While several Summons were found during the main story, many of the most helpful ones could be easily missed. Blue Magic was really important in this game, but discovering which monsters had which learnable abilities would have been a huge chore on my own. I think playing without a guide would have seen me give up pretty early on, confused as to what I was missing and why I was having such a hard time. Also, in the last dungeon, I found that after a party wipe, pressing Resume on the main menu takes you back to the room you died in. I wish I had known that way earlier.

It seems like the kind of game that would have been easier if you were playing with a bunch of friends, discussing and exchanging strategies and discoveries. There was a lot of community engagement around discovering everything Demon's Souls and Dark Souls had to offer when they first came out. Now new players are just told to go look at the respective wikis for each game. FFV feels like a similar kind of game in that sense. I finished playing with 45-50 hours played, but I'd expect a couple hundred hours required to finish the game on your own without help.

I didn't end up doing most of the optional bosses, nor did I do the GBA dungeon. I don't feel like I needed to do so, as the final dungeon was tense, but not an impossible task. It's unlikely that I'll go back and do them, but I won't delete the game off my iPad anytime soon either, so I'll still have those saves for any urge I get to increase my completion rate.

Overall, enjoyed the gameplay a lot, wasn't a fan of the overall difficulty. Now for Final Fantasy VI to hit iPad and I'll continue my way through the series!

That sounds brutal. Seems like they dialed it back a bit for FF VI.

Although without a guide in that one, you'd end up missing half the treasures in the game, with all the chests that turn into something else, and sometimes something else again!

Jumping in way late to the conversation to say... well, something off-topic.

My roommate has Dissidia and played it hooked up to a television a bit, letting me get a look at it. I found it comical and absurd in how they took what seemed like rather "subtle" in comparison fantasy battles and turned them all into some crazy fighting anime. I mean, people fly. All the time. All of them. They can all fly.

But it got me thinking about trends in Japanese and Western entertainment, and I think it's actually rather curious. I feel like Western society shows power in very different ways. Our strong characters tend to look strong. They're bigger, more muscular, and powerful weapons are similarly large. But when two strong characters fight, it's very down to Earth.

Then you get the crazy anime fights, and someone skinny and frail looking can be the strongest person on the planet. Fights are bombastic and sprawling. sh*t gets destroyed unless you fight in the middle of nowhere.

Granted this isn't always the case, particularly since the popular modern entertainment in Western culture tends to have guns more than martial arts, but it just seemed a curious contrast.

In any event, I'm thinking of replaying Final Fantasy Tactics. Not that this is anything new, as I'd be replaying that game constantly if I never bought new games.

I've finished VII, IX, X... and that's it!

Have played VIII, X-2, XII & XIII though, would really like to go back an finish them one day when I have time (ie. never). Except for VIII, I found that mostly pretty forgettable.

I'm actually playing through IX again on my Vita and I have very nearly finished it again, it's probably still my favourite by far, certainly thematically, I think X is probably superior from a gameplay mechanics and pacing standpoint.

Lightning is perhaps my favourite protagonist though, so I'd love to try to get through the XIII series of games at some point. The first is such a slog though, especially at the beginning.

I'm really hoping they'll rerelease XII on the Vita at some point, that's definitely the one I've most want to go back and attempt to finish, but I really don't want to have to dig out my PS2 to play it.

ccesarano wrote:

My roommate has Dissidia and played it hooked up to a television a bit, letting me get a look at it. I found it comical and absurd in how they took what seemed like rather "subtle" in comparison fantasy battles and turned them all into some crazy fighting anime. I mean, people fly. All the time. All of them. They can all fly.

So this stuck out to you as comical and absurd. What about Kefka ripping a continent in half in FF6? Cecil et al flying to the moon in a whale? Squall turning Balamb Garden into a literal flying city?