Fabulous Final Fantasy Franchise Discussion Catch-all

Stele wrote:

And then crazy Zanarkand cutscene. Mind blown a bit. Guess we'll see where that goes. Onward to more mountain I think...

Probably my favorite twist from any Final Fantasy game, right there.

Now you're in the best part of FFX

The hype for FF14: Endwalker has me interested in replaying Final Fantasy IV. What are my options for legally playing a 2D version on PC? I have the 3D version on Steam that they ported from the 3DS, which I'll play if I have no other options. But I'd prefer the 2D sprites if possible. I'd also like to potentially stream it, so PC is a requirement for that reason.

Is the FFIV Complete Collection not on Steam? Thought it was...

Apparent not. FWIW, I think the 3D version is a better, more modern product overall.

Oh I forgot to talk about sphere grid in FF X. Did the standard since it was my first time. Rikku got to the end of her path first. Seems weird since she joined late but I guess her path is shorter because of that? Anyway I jumped her back in her own path to a level 2 lock near Yuna, and I'm sending her that way for some magic, secondary healer. Saw it suggested a few times. We'll see.

Tidus finished his next and I jumped him over to mid Wakka, and heading up towards the end of that. Trying to pick up more accuracy mostly, and then move naturally into Auron for strength

Auron also finished and I used my one level 3 lock right there, so he heads into Tidus area. Guess I'll have all three of the physical attackers go through each other's area eventually.

Lulu just hit the end of hers tonight. Doh I forgot to try Flare the last couple of fights after that! Anyway I'm waiting for Yuna...

She's got 3 more levels to get to Holy. Then I'll do some kind of swap with her and Lulu. Friend sphere for one, teleport for the other I think. Start with Flare/Holy and work their way backwards in each other's paths.

Kimahri... sucks. He's fine for more stealing. And some of his overdrives seem nice. But I tried the taking him into Lulu path after grabbing steal early and his magic is just so far behind hers. He seems awful. After his solo battle recently, I've thought about just abandoning him. I think going physical down Auron path, since he gets piercing weapons too, might have been the better idea. But it's not like there's a respec in this old game. So he might be done for this playthrough. Too much work to try to shift him now. And even if I grind some, finish Lulu path, and take him through Yuna for more magic, he won't measure up to either of the ladies. Oh well.

I did the same thing as you with Kimahri on my first play through and he was permanently hobbled. On my second, taking him down Auron or Wakka’s path turns him into an absolute destructive force.

I've heard taking Yuna down Auron's path can be effective because the Aeons stats are also affected by things like strength, so you can turn them into real powerhouses. Maybe only useful if you want to go after the Dark Aeons, but I like the idea in theory.

One of the very few things I remember about FFX was sending Rikku down Auron’s sphere grid and having an insanely fast and hard hitting monster.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Is the FFIV Complete Collection not on Steam? Thought it was...

Apparent not. FWIW, I think the 3D version is a better, more modern product overall.

I fired up the 3D version and was surprised at how much it had been updated since I had played it on the DS years ago. There's a decent amount of voice acting, and the cutscenes are nicely dynamic (maybe they were always like that, I just don't remember). The 3D art style still doesn't really do it for me, but there are a lot of options on PC now for resolution and window type, so playing in a window at 1080p or less will probably look nicer to me than blown up all the way to 1440p.

I rather enjoyed the 3D FF's on DS... Always hoped for V and VI to get the treatment.

I played FF4 DS and thought they did a really cool job mechanically, making just enough changes to keep things interesting while staying true to the spirit of the original. The designers of FFVIIR, incidentally, could stand to have taken more notes on this approach.

I just plain don't like the bobble-headed, Precious-Moments-doll aesthetic of the character designs, though, and would not want it applied to the best Final Fantasy.

hbi2k wrote:

I played FF4 DS and thought they did a really cool job mechanically, making just enough changes to keep things interesting while staying true to the spirit of the original. The designers of FFVIIR, incidentally, could stand to have taken more notes on this approach.

I just plain don't like the bobble-headed, Precious-Moments-doll aesthetic of the character designs, though, and would not want it applied to the best Final Fantasy.

Why would XIV need bobbleheads?

Vector wrote:

I did the same thing as you with Kimahri on my first play through and he was permanently hobbled. On my second, taking him down Auron or Wakka’s path turns him into an absolute destructive force.

Where were you a month ago to warn me?

Blind_Evil wrote:

One of the very few things I remember about FFX was sending Rikku down Auron’s sphere grid and having an insanely fast and hard hitting monster.

I have read the same about strength. I'm just planning to get Flare and the -aga elementals from Lulu path. Could jump again after that.

It would be easy to just aeon everything but I have to give everyone else some AP somehow. Hah it feels like the rest of the party is unnecessary most of the time. But those few boss fights where aeon gets banished, it's nice to have Auron hitting for 5k+ and Lulu dropping 9999 spells sometimes.

I’m glad to see you’re finding meat in X. It’s the only game in the franchise that I haven’t touched since finishing it for the first time in the PS2 era, aka high school. I’m likely playing it this year at some point and you’ve got me stoked for it.

hbi2k wrote:

I played FF4 DS and thought they did a really cool job mechanically, making just enough changes to keep things interesting while staying true to the spirit of the original. The designers of FFVIIR, incidentally, could stand to have taken more notes on this approach.

I just plain don't like the bobble-headed, Precious-Moments-doll aesthetic of the character designs, though, and would not want it applied to the best Final Fantasy.

THANK YOU!!
I cannot stand the PS1 era 3d graphics. I'd rather have my pixels.
I really like Bravely Default and part of that is they just barely crossed my threshold of a graphical acceptability with 3d characters.

Stele wrote:
Vector wrote:

I did the same thing as you with Kimahri on my first play through and he was permanently hobbled. On my second, taking him down Auron or Wakka’s path turns him into an absolute destructive force.

Where were you a month ago to warn me? :D

Stele, you're not a true fan of FFX until you do three things:

1. Consider (however briefly) getting all six character to 100k health and 10k mana. (You don't have to actually do it, just truly consider it for at least a moment)
2. So thoroughly erase the scene of Tidus laughing that you can replay the game 10 times and not understand what people are talking about when they bring it up.
3. Realize just how badly you mishandled Kimahri in your first playthrough. In all subsequent playthroughs he'll be a character you rarely remove from the party.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I’m glad to see you’re finding meat in X. It’s the only game in the franchise that I haven’t touched since finishing it for the first time in the PS2 era, aka high school. I’m likely playing it this year at some point and you’ve got me stoked for it.

We'll see where it ends up overall but I think the battle system is my favorite of the ones I've played (1-7). The switching out teammates and playing with turn order is a lot of fun.

I'm not sure I've ever used Haste as much in any other game.

Quick update from lunch play time today: Lulu is a goddess. I picked up a weapon for her that her had magic boost (+50% dmg, double MP cost) and 2 magic % boosts on it plus an empty slot. Thanks to that stupid chocobo race I won with the chests I had enough items to add One MP Cost to the last slot of that.

So now Lulu does Flare for 2MP to every enemy for 9999 damage so far today. Hehehe.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I’m glad to see you’re finding meat in X. It’s the only game in the franchise that I haven’t touched since finishing it for the first time in the PS2 era, aka high school. I’m likely playing it this year at some point and you’ve got me stoked for it.

It's supposedly showing up on Xbox via Game Pass at some point this year. My plan is to jump into it then.

Stele wrote:

So now Lulu does Flare for 2MP to every enemy for 9999 damage so far today. Hehehe.

Let's talk again once you break that damage limit. Time to dodge some lightning!

Blind_Evil wrote:

I’m glad to see you’re finding meat in X. It’s the only game in the franchise that I haven’t touched since finishing it for the first time in the PS2 era, aka high school. I’m likely playing it this year at some point and you’ve got me stoked for it.

I have great news for you: you've saved the best for last and it will probably hold up way better than you expect.

(This was absolutely the case for me when I replayed it a few years ago.)

Grenn wrote:
Stele wrote:
Vector wrote:

I did the same thing as you with Kimahri on my first play through and he was permanently hobbled. On my second, taking him down Auron or Wakka’s path turns him into an absolute destructive force.

Where were you a month ago to warn me? :D

Stele, you're not a true fan of FFX until you do three things:

1. Consider (however briefly) getting all six character to 100k health and 10k mana. (You don't have to actually do it, just truly consider it for at least a moment)
2. So thoroughly erase the scene of Tidus laughing that you can replay the game 10 times and not understand what people are talking about when they bring it up.
3. Realize just how badly you mishandled Kimahri in your first playthrough. In all subsequent playthroughs he'll be a character you rarely remove from the party.

1. I did read some how to the other day on the sphere. So I guess I've considered haha.
2. It wasn't that terrible. The walkthrough I was using made fun of it, I guess expectations matter. Or maybe you had to be there in 2002 to really hate it?
3. I've only played 1, 4, 6, and 7 more than once. 6 the most times. But yeah I'm actually wondering if I will have time to play this again in a year or two. Going to roll right into X2 and soon as I'm done and see where that takes me.

If XV was a Boy Band Road Trip, X2 is 90's Jpop Group Takes on the World('s problems)!

edit* And regarding #2, any time someone hates on the game, either that scene or Blitzball is the linchpin of their argument.

zeroKFE wrote:
Stele wrote:

So now Lulu does Flare for 2MP to every enemy for 9999 damage so far today. Hehehe.

Let's talk again once you break that damage limit. Time to dodge some lightning!

Blind_Evil wrote:

I’m glad to see you’re finding meat in X. It’s the only game in the franchise that I haven’t touched since finishing it for the first time in the PS2 era, aka high school. I’m likely playing it this year at some point and you’ve got me stoked for it.

I have great news for you: you've saved the best for last and it will probably hold up way better than you expect.

(This was absolutely the case for me when I replayed it a few years ago.)

The first time I played through the game, I got a few of the celestial weapons and broke the damage limit at least for Auron, and Yuna, maybe Kimarhi and Rikku also. I definitely didn't for Tidus, or Lulu, or Wakka. With that broken limit, and with some travel to Lulu's section of the sphere grid, Yuna quickly made Lulu obsolete. I'd hit for about 30,000 with a single cast of Holy.

Though maybe Lulu would have outpaced Yuna if I'd taken the time to dodge all that lightning. And, I definitely didn't do all of the monster hunting and fights, so Lulu may have been necessary there.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Does anyone know of a good explainer for, I guess, the totality of Final Fantasy 7. Like, a single resource that pulls together the threads of the original game, Crisis Core, Advent Children, and whatever else has been released into a coherent narrative that I could (preferably) read?

I don't think you need any Crisis Core / Advent Children knowledge for FF7 remake. There are one or two tiny easter eggs (like, a brand of fruit juice from Crisis Core is in a poster, or something) but it definitely helps, even seems expected, that you be familiar with the plot of the original. I think this is the refresher I read: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki...

LastSurprise wrote:

Though maybe Lulu would have outpaced Yuna if I'd taken the time to dodge all that lightning. And, I definitely didn't do all of the monster hunting and fights, so Lulu may have been necessary there.

I definitely did not dodge more than 5 lightning in a row while I was there the first time. I can't see any good reason to go back and suffer through that. Maybe if I decide to come back for post game stuff someday, but I don't know.

I did realize I had plenty of keys now and got double cast for Lulu yesterday. So now it's 2 flares for 4 MP total, doing 19998 per turn. Or 9999 each to 2 different enemies. I'm pretty sure I could beat the game now between that and Bahamut. He did a 30k overdrive last time I pulled him out for a boss fight.

Story wise, I got back to the beginning scene of the game finally. And then I think I quit at the start of the Zanarkand temple last night. Some really cool images of the past in the city so far.

lunchbox12682 wrote:

How is the FF12 remake? It's on Game Pass and I may give it a shot after I get through some other stuff.

Have you played the original?

When I played the original, it quickly became my favorite of the series; but I was a different kind of gamer back then. With a strategy guide telling me where to powerlevel and all the hidden tricks to get superweapons, plus the original job boards letting everybody master everything, coupled with copious free time and patience, I was in heaven grinding my way to completing every optional mega-fight.

Now, as far as changes in the game and changes in me as a gamer...

The game itself has had a few things tweaked. Looks pretty good, but the realistic style and bland colors of many parts don't seem as pretty (even remastered) to jaded contemporary eyes. With the Zodiac job system, you can't grind up a half dozen demigods, which is honestly good because it forces you to be more thoughtful.

No ridiculous tricks to get a Zodiac Spear; but they still have a lot of superpowered weapons that have like a 1% drop rate from one really rare enemy, and there are still some hunts for rare monsters that require being in very specific areas at a very specific time of day, which will require completionists use a guide and be VERY patient. The kind of gamer I am now just said "F this" and played like a "normal" person, not going after anything super rare.

The whole gambit system seemed like a revelation at the time. After years and years of turn-based RPGs where a lot of it was autopilot (mash attack, heal when required) being able to automate most of it and just butt in with an occasional manual command seemed brilliant. Grinding was so much easier! So much less tedium! Now, of course, I realize that the really good RPGs found ways to keep you engaged and reduce the amount of grinding required. The clever idea of gambits has now been iterated upon in FF13 and FF15, and now FF12 feels like a step backwards.

Also, there are still a couple parts of the story that drag, areas that are a little bigger than they need to be.

But: All my complaints are subjective complaints about the nature of FF12 no longer fitting the kind of gamer I am as well as it once did. The remaster is absolutely an improvement on the original.

Looks pretty good, but the realistic style and bland colors of many parts don't seem as pretty (even remastered) to jaded contemporary eyes.

Square-Enix has this remarkable habit of remastering their older games in such a way that they consistently look worse than they did before. In the case of FF12, they gave almost all the textures an overly sharp, poorly contrasted look, like they'd just set up a too-aggressive sharpening filter in Photoshop and turned it loose on a directory of image files. And as with all their other 3D remasters, they cranked the resolution up on the models and called it a day, as though simply rendering images designed for a 480i CRT display at 4K is an automatic improvement.

For a company that has prided itself for decades on being on the cutting edge of graphics technology, they show little care or consideration for preserving the aesthetic achievements of their past releases. It's a real shame.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Looks pretty good, but the realistic style and bland colors of many parts don't seem as pretty (even remastered) to jaded contemporary eyes.

Square-Enix has this remarkable habit of remastering their older games in such a way that they consistently look worse than they did before. In the case of FF12, they gave almost all the textures an overly sharp, poorly contrasted look, like they'd just set up a too-aggressive sharpening filter in Photoshop and turned it loose on a directory of image files. And as with all their other 3D remasters, they cranked the resolution up on the models and called it a day, as though simply rendering images designed for a 480i CRT display at 4K is an automatic improvement.

For a company that has prided itself for decades on being on the cutting edge of graphics technology, they show little care or consideration for preserving the aesthetic achievements of their past releases. It's a real shame.

IMAGE(https://media2.giphy.com/media/14SAx6S02Io1ThOlOY/giphy.gif)

Thankfully I believe they're finally moving into AI upscaling.

Final Fantasy XVI to be quite action-oriented, but feature a story-focused mode.

  • Final Fantasy XVI is quite action-oriented. It’s a Final Fantasy featuring story and action
  • (What about players who aren’t good at action games?) We really want players to enjoy the story, so we’re preparing a mode for players who want to focus on story. Since we have quite the substantial support actions, we’re of course preparing something easy to operate and smooth to play. Don’t worry too much (players who aren’t good at action games.)
  • I’m (Naoki Yoshida) from the generation that has been playing the Final Fantasy series from the first game in real-time—I’m almost in my 50s. I think the Warriors of Light have grown up in their own worlds, so I want to create a world of Final Fantasy that those who know the good and bad of reality can also be passionate about. I believe there are certain hardships that are experienced when becoming an adult, so I want to make the main theme of this game something that those who grew up playing Final Fantasy and understand reality can still enjoy, get something out of, and think about.

I'm curious to see what they put together. I know Beep has enjoyed the less real-time variants of combat in FFXV and FF7 Remake, whereas my preference is for the more action-oriented designs of these games. And speaking "who I was then and who I am now", it feels like FFXVI is being tailor-made for me.

Even if the game ends up being merely okay, I'm happy it'll be the result of a focused development and not a decade-long development fiasco.

FF X... Yunalesca down!

Lulu dominated. And I saved Yuna overdrive for the end. But I pulled out the wrong summon like an idiot and didn't get overkill. I seem to have enough level 3 keys so I don't think I'm going to redo the fight.

Got the Crest for Tidus right after the fight, as instructed.

So apparently I've got one more quest with airship and then I can be at endgame.

I think I'll at least dabble with celestial weapons. Maybe a little bit more capturing for arena since I have it unlocked. I don't know. Don't want to waste too much time and risk getting burned out and not finishing. But I feel like if I just go for the end I won't come back to do any extra stuff ever. It's a balance.

The walkthrough seemed to think yunalesca could be a tough fight but I'm already built pretty well (except Kimahri) and had no issues. So if I grind any more the end will probably be too easy. But it may already be haha. Oh well.