Fabulous Final Fantasy Franchise Discussion Catch-all

Pointless complaining, but here goes: the US and EU versions of Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD won't have X-2 included on the cart; instead, they'll be a single-use download code. Capcom did this with Resident Evil Revelations, Nintendo did it with Bayonetta 2, and it's really obnoxious. Why even sell the damn thing on a cart if the additional download is single-use?

Thankfully, the Japanese and Southeast Asia carts will include both games, so it looks like this'll be another one I import. At least the carts are region-free and use universal binaries.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Thankfully, the Japanese and Southeast Asia carts will include both games, so it looks like this'll be another one I import.

I didn't know this bit, that's a great tip! Thanks!

That's the way it was on the Vita. Guess they didn't get too much guff about it if they're doing it again.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Thankfully, the Japanese and Southeast Asia carts will include both games, so it looks like this'll be another one I import. At least the carts are region-free and use universal binaries.

As I'm not one to sell my games I typically don't mind the extra download, but in this instance I'm actually starting to run low on memory and need to clear some stuff out. If it can fit on one cart then why not use both? It seems unnecessary and silly to do it differently in different regions.

ccesarano wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Thankfully, the Japanese and Southeast Asia carts will include both games, so it looks like this'll be another one I import. At least the carts are region-free and use universal binaries.

As I'm not one to sell my games I typically don't mind the extra download, but in this instance I'm actually starting to run low on memory and need to clear some stuff out. If it can fit on one cart then why not use both? It seems unnecessary and silly to do it differently in different regions.

Cost. The higher capacity cartridge is more expensive to produce, so if they can get away with a lower capacity cartridge in some regions that includes a download code, they will. Digital releases are more accepted in the West, which is why they're more likely to do digital-only or hybrid releases here than in Japan.

For some reason I thought all the carts were uniform in size. I forgot that this became a thing right at the system's launch.

Does the download get tied to your account? So if you get a new system, you can at least redownload?

Yes, they link to your account. It's been like that for ages.

Nintendo Life has an interview with Virtuos, the company handling the port. While it's largely an inside-baseball sort of fluff piece, it did have this comment that I think folks will appreciate.

We’ve taken the “quick recovery” feature from PS Vita to Switch in order to take advantage of its touch screen. Finally, we’ve also integrated the “key mapping” system into both Xbox One and Switch versions in order to give more control flexibility to players around the globe. This is the first time we brought it to consoles (PS4/PSV don’t have it, only PC has such functionality).

I have no idea what the quick recovery is, but being able to map custom controls seemed like something folks might enjoy.

ccesarano wrote:

Nintendo Life has an interview with Virtuos, the company handling the port. While it's largely an inside-baseball sort of fluff piece, it did have this comment that I think folks will appreciate.

We’ve taken the “quick recovery” feature from PS Vita to Switch in order to take advantage of its touch screen. Finally, we’ve also integrated the “key mapping” system into both Xbox One and Switch versions in order to give more control flexibility to players around the globe. This is the first time we brought it to consoles (PS4/PSV don’t have it, only PC has such functionality).

I have no idea what the quick recovery is, but being able to map custom controls seemed like something folks might enjoy.

While not in battle you can tap the left side of the screen and drag right for a small menu. It has two options: Recover by Magic, Recover by Items. Pick one and it'll use whatever's the most efficient way to blow mana bringing everybody up to full HP, or starting with the weakest potions to bring everybody up to full HP. It's really handy.

So I'm reading some interviews on Shmupulations from FFVI's development, and this particular quote got me chuckling and therefore wanting to share it.

Inazawa: As Oota said, towards the end of the development there’s always bugs and other problems, but it’s also a really lively time at the office. I remember hearing Sakaguchi singing from accross the room, and when I listened closer, he was improvising some lyrics to Terra’s theme: “Another buuuggg… has been founnndddd…” (laughs) I guess he got the “singing” bug, hah. At that point, there’s little you can do but laugh.

In actual game playing talk, I'm halfway through World of Final Fantasy, at least based on chapter counts, and... I can understand why I dropped the game. It's not uninteresting, but it also just sort of feels like a game. It's a weird bit of fan-service that I can tell appeals to a specific sort of fan, and a lot of care and time went into it, but it's not a particularly impressionable game for me. There are some elements that I think are better than how Pokemon handles the monster catching, but the structure of the game also has me less invested in "catching them all". I think this is partially due to the game having reskins of enemies just like a typical Final Fantasy, which lends a sense of disposability to some of them.

They also seemed to misunderstand the big attraction of evolving a monster. You can "transfigure" different creatures, with the benefit being that you can fit them to whatever stack type you need (with your characters sized Medium or Large). However, only some abilities seem to make the transition, and there's no real... well, transformation. While I know many players will skip evolution animations for their Pokemon, I always enjoyed it, no matter how primitive or silly. No such animations exist in World of Final Fantasy.

As a result it's feeling like a cute game, but I don't feel particularly invested.

I'd almost prefer if WoFF was just cutscenes and battles. The rest of it feels like busy work.

But I still really enjoyed it. It's cute and silly with a fairly unique battle system and tons of the right kind of fan service. I don't even hate the annoying the-characters.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Thankfully, the Japanese and Southeast Asia carts will include both games, so it looks like this'll be another one I import. At least the carts are region-free and use universal binaries.

As I'm not one to sell my games I typically don't mind the extra download, but in this instance I'm actually starting to run low on memory and need to clear some stuff out. If it can fit on one cart then why not use both? It seems unnecessary and silly to do it differently in different regions.

Cost. The higher capacity cartridge is more expensive to produce, so if they can get away with a lower capacity cartridge in some regions that includes a download code, they will. Digital releases are more accepted in the West, which is why they're more likely to do digital-only or hybrid releases here than in Japan.

Following up on this: it looks like physical copies of FF X|X-2 in Japan include two carts instead of both games on one cart. So it's not a matter of paying for higher capacity carts so much as paying for a second run of carts.

Either way, this'll be one I import.

So a question to anyone else playing World of Final Fantasy.

Champion summons.

I got some medals equipped and all, but no matter what condition I'm in during combat, the option is greyed out. The Tip Jar just says "Fill it up with the required number of stars to summon". Still greyed out.

how duz i summon

Happy 20th anniversary, Final Fantasy VIII!

If FF8 were a person, they'd be super relieved when FF13 came out ten years later and took over the crown of everyone's least favorite Final Fantasy game.

Hopefully it takes solace in the fact it's still my second least favorite Final Fantasy game.

If Square Enix were busy reverse engineering the game without the source code as best they could so they could port it, this would be the year to release.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Happy 20th anniversary, Final Fantasy VIII!

If FF8 were a person, they'd be super relieved when FF13 came out ten years later and took over the crown of everyone's least favorite Final Fantasy game.

Or bummed because now it really has nothing and nothing matters and everyone is annoying and why can't they leave me alone?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Happy 20th anniversary, Final Fantasy VIII!

If FF8 were a person, they'd be super relieved when FF13 came out ten years later and took over the crown of everyone's least favorite Final Fantasy game.

I think FF2 actually still holds on to that crown.

Nah, people have to actually play a game for it to generate the kind of hate FFs 8 and 13 have.

Honestly, I feel like FF2 has been rehabilitated in part by fans of Akitoshi Kawazu and the SaGa franchise. Whenever I see people talking about FF2, it's almost always in context of viewing it as a prototype of the kinds of gameplay and ideas that Kawazu would continue to mine in the SaGa series for decades. No one likes Final Fantasy 2, necessarily, but it's become an historical artifact and curiosity. FF8 and FF13 are, I think, largely seen as dead-ends for the franchise, with FF13 also being blamed for problems across the franchise and across Square-Enix as a whole.

I honestly wonder what, in the long run, the impression of Final Fantasy XV will be. I can't help but wonder, as time progresses, it will be viewed with ambivalence. "Yeah, that's the one they never finished" kind of a deal. I still have fond memories of it and am hoping to revisit it soon, but there's no denying the fact that it just doesn't feel like a complete package even after all the DLC.

I wonder if, really, it just comes down to which game was such a change from that era's expectations from fans. If you'd been a fan since NES or SNES, then VIII felt like a major departure. A lot of those older fans may have given up by 13, but those that had only come on board by PlayStation 1 or 2 would find it too drastic a shift.

...then again, wouldn't that have been 12? Or did 12's story redeem it? I didn't have a PS2 at that point, but I recall seeing the gameplay and assuming that Square just gave it the FFXI combat system to kill two birds with one stone, just modified to be single player.

What a weird franchise.

ccesarano wrote:

I honestly wonder what, in the long run, the impression of Final Fantasy XV will be. I can't help but wonder, as time progresses, it will be viewed with ambivalence. "Yeah, that's the one they never finished" kind of a deal. I still have fond memories of it and am hoping to revisit it soon, but there's no denying the fact that it just doesn't feel like a complete package even after all the DLC.

I wonder if, really, it just comes down to which game was such a change from that era's expectations from fans. If you'd been a fan since NES or SNES, then VIII felt like a major departure. A lot of those older fans may have given up by 13, but those that had only come on board by PlayStation 1 or 2 would find it too drastic a shift.

...then again, wouldn't that have been 12? Or did 12's story redeem it? I didn't have a PS2 at that point, but I recall seeing the gameplay and assuming that Square just gave it the FFXI combat system to kill two birds with one stone, just modified to be single player.

What a weird franchise.

XII did get finished, and there was enough of it done by the time Matsuno exited that it was mostly a matter of just bringing it all together. XV was more like it never really knew what it was at any point and in the end had to settle for an approximation of what a FF should be. I enjoyed both; XII is my favorite, and XV was just a happy occasion because it got released to begin with. It makes me with that XV had begun work as a proper FF title from the get-go and not gone through so much... but if we think about it, it was a long decade of mutation and transition for S-E, where they have kept trying to recapture the magic of many of their past glories yet they seem not to actually understand their own product well enough, if at all.

Well, keep in mind it was also just Nomura being Nomura, coming in after seeing Les Miserables and saying "Let's make the game a musical". You don't just say that one day in the middle of development. The transitions Square Enix were experiencing certainly didn't help, but Nomura was just not doing a good job of managing that project.

ccesarano wrote:

Well, keep in mind it was also just Nomura being Nomura, coming in after seeing Les Miserables and saying "Let's make the game a musical". You don't just say that one day in the middle of development.

Man, but what if you could.

One day at Bioware:

"Team, let's make Anthem a musical!"

Iridium884 wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Well, keep in mind it was also just Nomura being Nomura, coming in after seeing Les Miserables and saying "Let's make the game a musical". You don't just say that one day in the middle of development.

Man, but what if you could.

One day at Bioware:

"Team, let's make Anthem a musical!"

I get the feeling that BioWare would go the Buffy's Once More with Feeling route before seguing into Les Mis, and not just jump into that from the start (which I could actually see them doing, and really want that Salarian production of Space Pirates of Penzance).

I mean, I'm not against a Musical game, I just think you start with that rather than changing your mind mid-development.

I couldn't get into FF15, I even watched the movie. I also liked FF8 and 13 so my tastes are terrible

Fastmav347 wrote:

I couldn't get into FF15, I even watched the movie. I also liked FF8 and 13 so my tastes are terrible

No need to feel shame; I liked VIII - am constantly wishing for an HD treatment a-la-VII (or IX) - and didn't totally dislike XIII, either (definitely wouldn't play it again, though). XV was enjoyable, but lacked all of the weight of any of the previous games in the main series.

Reminder that they did recentishly re-release FFVIII on Stream, same as VII and IX. That's how I played it a few years ago and it worked pretty much perfectly, as I recall.