Fabulous Final Fantasy Franchise Discussion Catch-all

I'll second the 3D version of FF IV being a good version. I'm not a fan of the big headed Precious Moments doll style of character design, but that's just a personal preference thing. You can tell that a lot of love and care went into the remake. Lots of little touches that stay true to the original but give it a different spin.

Pretty much the opposite of the quick and dirty Android ports, in other words.

I doubt I'm in a rush for these, but they better at least keep the QoL stuff added in some of the ports. Like always have sprint shoes on.

merphle wrote:

I really hope S-E/Steam has some make-good program available for folks who already bought some or all of those individual (old-version) titles.

There's precedent. Dark Souls owners got a 50% discount on the remaster. Several other games have done similar.

Stele wrote:
merphle wrote:

I really hope S-E/Steam has some make-good program available for folks who already bought some or all of those individual (old-version) titles.

There's precedent. Dark Souls owners got a 50% discount on the remaster. Several other games have done similar.

Doesn’t look like there is a make good, not to mention this is the same company that charged full price for Dragon Quest 11 definitive and de-listed the old version of the game.

I’m hoping like Chrono Trigger (eventually) they do these 6 games right, I’m a bit disappointed that a lot of the later content from other game versions seems to be gone. I ended up getting the entire package though, I’ve been really wanting to replay 1,5 and 6 and having 3 in this style for the first time is to hard to pass up.

Sounds like they are doing right by these ports music wise so I’m hoping the same care is taken with the rest of the game

hbi2k wrote:

I'll second the 3D version of FF IV being a good version. I'm not a fan of the big headed Precious Moments doll style of character design, but that's just a personal preference thing. You can tell that a lot of love and care went into the remake. Lots of little touches that stay true to the original but give it a different spin.

Pretty much the opposite of the quick and dirty Android ports, in other words.

Thirded, it's great. I played FF IV on SNES a whole bunch of times, back in the day, and really enjoyed the 3DS remake.

Any news on if the pixel remasters will use the better sound that was put in the GBA versions of IV and VI?

During the recent dev update for FF14, Naoki Yoshida said not to expect any updates on FF16 during the upcoming Tokyo Game Show in September. However, they’ve finished writing the main scenario and are wrapping up the English voice over.

While it’s possible we’ll get some updates this year, I suspect we won’t get a release date or significant marketing until next year.

Another tidbit of info coming out related to the above: they're doing performance capture with english voice acting to start with, so the Japanese performance will be dubbed over top of that. Not sure if that was the case with FF7R or earlier games, so it stuck out to me.

LastSurprise wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

I'll second the 3D version of FF IV being a good version. I'm not a fan of the big headed Precious Moments doll style of character design, but that's just a personal preference thing. You can tell that a lot of love and care went into the remake. Lots of little touches that stay true to the original but give it a different spin.

Pretty much the opposite of the quick and dirty Android ports, in other words.

Thirded, it's great. I played FF IV on SNES a whole bunch of times, back in the day, and really enjoyed the 3DS remake.

I'll throw my own vote of approval at the FF IV DS remake as well, and I still am disappointed that V and VI never got the same style of remake on either the DS or 3DS (and that we never got the DS 3D remakes of the SaGa games brought over to the North American market!).

The remasters of FF 1, 2, and 3 came out yesterday. I spent around an hour with each yesterday and came away feeling really positive about all of them.

These really are based on the NES versions of the games. None of the extra dungeons from previous re-releases are here. There's no fancy CG cutscene like did the for the 3D remakes of 3 and 4.

This means that FF1 and FF3 both have their original spell slot system from the NES. No MP pool here. Your level 1 White Mage can cast Cure 3 times before they need to rest. This took some getting used to.

What I don't know is if they kept the original bugs and exploits for certain spells, or the various ways to exploit FF2's skill leveling system (such as attacking your own party to level your skills).

That said, there are nice quality of life additions. There is a resizable mini-map in the top right corner. You can also pull up a larger world map, and any locations you've discovered show how many treasure chests there are, how many you've found, as well as the same for hidden items. I love this change, personally.

Because FF1 is still a tough game that's not afraid to punch you in the mouth when you're not looking, I discovered that it has autosaves before battles, so you don't appear to lose progress if your party wipes. I didn't play enough to know if there are any nuances to this, but it certainly makes the dungeon crawling a less stressful experience overall. From what I remember of playing the 3D remake of 4 a few months ago, it also had a similar autosave system.

They also added a CRT filter if you want to play with a blurry aesthetic.

The biggest standout is the music. They redid all the music, and it sounds incredible. The battle music sounds punchy as hell, you can make out guitars, upright bases, strings, woodwinds, and others. FF3 in particular has an electric guitar based battle theme that pumped me up every time a battle started. It made a huge positive impact on the overall experience. Each game's main menu has a music player so you can listen to all of it at your leisure.

The main menu also has a neat Bestiary. It's presented as the world map, and it shows you where each enemy you've discovered can be found. You can fly around the world map and see where you still need to find some enemies. It's overall a slick presentation.

Finally there is an art gallery in each game with loads of high resolution art, including tons of Amano pencil art. I want to print out all of it.

The font isn't something that bothers me in an appreciable way, but there is already a workaround to improve it if you want.

Putting an hour or so in each of these actually has me tempted to play through all of them to completion. I already started remembering how much fun I had with the job system in 3, and it would be neat to replay 1, with the original magic system, before Stranger of Paradise comes out.

More than that, it has me really excited for the re-releases of 4, 5, and 6. I have really high hopes for how the opera scene will sound now. All we know is they'll be out sometime later this year.

More than that, it has me really excited for the re-releases of 4, 5, and 6. I have really high hopes for how the opera scene will sound now. All we know is they'll be out sometime later this year.

Yeah, I'll be very curious to see how that goes, particularly with FF6. While better than the mobile version sprites, what I've seen so far still does not make me happy, and makes me think that the GBA version might continue to be the definitive version there.

That's actually quite the glowing review, especially after a buddy of mine told me the FF remake/remaster on GameBoy Advance only had the MP system and remixed leveling up to 99 instead of capping it at 50. I know the original PlayStation remake allowed the player to change those systems, but also allowed the player to determine if your warriors would continue to target an enemy even if they were dead. That's the only quality-of-life adjustment I want for the original Final Fantasy.

I'll be looking forward to some reports regarding the others.

Your party will attack other enemies if their original target dies first, in all three games. Not sure about level caps, and I would also like to know how, if at all, they've attempted to balance 2's skill system compared to other versions.

Forgot to mention above: there is 8-directional movement, and they run at 60FPS with lots of options for resolution and the ability to play windowed, fullscreen, and borderless fullscreen..

Sounds promising. Maybe I'll get 1 for nostalgia sake. But mostly 4 and 6 are my jam.

beanman101283 wrote:

They also added a CRT filter if you want to play with a blurry aesthetic.

While that's nice of them does it matter now that the art has been re-tooled for modern screens?

I wondered the same, but regardless I'm okay with the option being there.

I didn't ask that in an intentionally dismissive way, I'm genuinely curious if it helps the look? As in, did you give it a try?

I did give it a try and I'd say it's a mixed bag. With the caveat that I'm not an expert on how these filters are "supposed" to look, when out in the world it looks fine and matches my memory of what those games looked like back in the day. When you're in the menus, it looks weird, though. The high-res fonts still look high-res, but now there are alternating light/dark lines going down the screen so it's obvious the filter is just a layer over top of the existing art. It would probably look better if they swapped to a pixelated font and menu borders when the filter is enabled.

I just found this video that shows it off.

They're playing on mobile so there's some differences from my experience, but it's clear it doesn't look great in the menus.

Yeah, my instant take is that it looks terrible for the fonts, but great for everything else.

Advice wanted. I generally like FF games but I don't like MMO's Should I get FFIV?

strangederby wrote:

Advice wanted. I generally like FF games but I don't like MMO's Should I get FFIV?

IV is great, but I'd wait for the Pixel remaster.

If you mean XIV, then I don't know

Yeah I should have typed XIV

XIV has a free version and includes hundred of hours of content(and levels up to 60) so it wouldn't hurt to try it out and find out for yourself.

Neat!

Yeah, the free trial has no time limit, so you can take your time getting acclimated. It starts slow but the story is fantastic especially once you reach the first expansion.

It's worth trying, but it's definitely an MMO, for sure. Lots of back and forth.

And group content required to advance the story.

In addition to Beanman, I had two other friends gush to me about the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, so I pulled the plug and made the unwise decision to purchase the entire bundle. Booting up the first game, it for some reason skipped right on by any ability to set the game to full screen instead of Windowed, which was odd.

Otherwise, I'm pretty sure this is based off of prior remakes than the original NES game, but it's still not too bad. I haven't touched FF2 or FF3 yet and only just got the pirate ship in the first game, but I decided to experiment and not bother grinding. My friend thinks that they've boosted experience and money gains, but I'm not so certain. It's been a long time since I played the original NES version, or played the PSX remake with almost all the original settings in place, but it's just quite possible that the game just feels faster due to the adjustments and modernization of the combat system itself. At the same time, I was startled to see my Fighter getting 2-hits as soon as level 2, so... it's hard to say.

He, of course, is hoping for mods that will restore some of the original difficulty, but mostly because he is familiar enough with the original to know that it was actually detrimental to be higher level when you class-changed. So he's trying to avoid being over-leveled, but it seems to him that the game is just leveling him up really fast.

I don't really know enough myself. I just think it's interesting because the game is more for people that remember the old game and would like to revisit it without the headaches. There's a lot of that old-fashioned design still intact (and Garland still exclaims that he shall knock you all down), but it's more than just a touch-up.

That's something that makes sense to me for the NES games, and the first especially, but it does have me wondering what adjustments or changes they might make to the SNES titles. I'm not even sure what sort of quality of life changes I'd want out of them aside from translations (though if FF6 retains the GBA translation then that's best case scenario), but those games were formative for me so... I dunno.

I still dunno about the pricing. I actually don't mind the font so far. The graphics look pretty but some of the models look odd (the thief in particular somehow feels like a downgrade). The music, though... mmph. Lovin' that classic battle theme arrangement.

I believe it defaulted to Windowed for me as well.

From what I can tell, the reason most folks are saying it's based off of the NES game is the return of the spell slot system, rather than having the MP system of later re-releases. FF3's remaster is the same in this regard. Also the fact they didn't include the various extra dungeons/bosses from those re-releases.

I thought this was a decent overview of the remasters:

Cannot watch the video now, but I assume that may also be based on mobile and GBA ports. A buddy of mine played on GBA and FF1 only had MP and other quality of life adjustments. However, on the original PlayStation port, you could choose whether to use MP or spell slots, and you also had the ability to stick with the original level 50 cap or go to level 99, which also sped leveling up.

This feels like it could be a compromise of different QoL changes.