Final Fantasy Megathread: I want all of this to stop

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Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

I could not play FFVII without speedup for battles at least in this day and age. Thankfully, the most recent release on PS4 (and PC, I assume?) has that.

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:14

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 18:10

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

FF7� mods? Huh! I would never have considered that possibility, are there any particularly notable ones?

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:19

Procrastine: Mar 30, 2011

Kestral posted:

FF7� mods? Huh! I would never have considered that possibility, are there any particularly notable ones?

bobjr posted:

https://twitter.com/GmanLives/status/1614732093497708545?s=20

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:21

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

Kestral posted:

FF7� mods? Huh! I would never have considered that possibility, are there any particularly notable ones?

Might we introduce you to a little fellow named

Iscar Matthias

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:21

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

I will never listen to clips of that FFVII fandub voluntarily because of the secondhand embarrassment, but let it be known that if Cait Sith doesn't have a Scottish accent they're all cowards

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:22

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

bobjr posted:

https://twitter.com/GmanLives/status/1614732093497708545?s=20

If nothing else, this helps us understand why FF7 Remake needed to be done the way that it was.

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:24

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

Arist posted:

I will never listen to clips of that FFVII fandub voluntarily because of the secondhand embarrassment, but let it be known that if Cait Sith doesn't have a Scottish accent they're all cowards

This does risk the idea of somebody attempting a Scottish accent which could make it better or worse. Or both!

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:26

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Arist posted:

I will never listen to clips of that FFVII fandub voluntarily because of the secondhand embarrassment, but let it be known that if Cait Sith doesn't have a Scottish accent they're all cowards

It doesn't give him a scottish accent. The main problem with this dub is that the audio quality is really bad, but doesn't line up well either with the rest of the audio. The fans who contributed to this project too have clearly never done any voice acting classes of any kind and they don't know what they are doing.

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:31

HD DAD: Jan 13, 2010; Generic white guy.; Toilet Rascal

Get Troy Baker to voice the entire game by himself

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:40

Kheldarn: Feb 17, 2011

HD DAD posted:

Get Troy Baker to voice the entire game by himself

Or Steve Blum?

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:43

SyntheticPolygon: Dec 20, 2013

I'm never going to listen to the FF7 fandub mod but i'm glad it exists.

Weirdly ambitious fan projects are cool

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:44

Meowywitch: Jan 14, 2010; Fight for all that is beautiful in the world

I will play it, and make fun of it

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:45

Oxxidation: Jul 22, 2007

the team four star abridged version of ff7 was very bad and it sounds like this dub is taking cues from that more than anything

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:48

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

Having played a little of the FF7 remake - which is what had me interested in replaying the original - I would genuinely rather listen to that fan dub Sephiroth than the guy they got for FF7R.

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:54

ConanThe3rd: Mar 27, 2009

On a more serious note, you can't go wrong with Beacause (sic), which cleans up the translation significantly.

ConanThe3rd fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jan 21, 2023

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:56

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Kestral posted:

FF7� mods? Huh! I would never have considered that possibility, are there any particularly notable ones?

To give a serious answers, FFVII modding is in a sort of glory period. We now have this thing called 7th Heaven
https://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15520.0

Get that setup and you can have your pick of mods. Lists them all. Graphics, gameplay overhauls, alternative soundtracks - just click, download, and turn on.

I can tell you, it's a helluva lot easier than when I was trying to install mods back in 2008 or 9. The FFVII Prelude is probably the best version but I might only think that because I had to reinstall the game a billion times to get my mod setup to work. (Also fun fact, the Prelude sample for the install was the real song, not the crappy MIDI version in the original PC release. Talk about false advertising.)

But yeah, if you want the characters to look better, you have a huge pick of models. Make them more realistic or simply higher def chibi or whatever else. Want the game to be a bit harder? You can do that. Want a whole new gameplay experience? New Threat is your way to go.

# ? Jan 21, 2023 22:59

Agents are GO!: Dec 29, 2004

NikkolasKing posted:

To give a serious answers, FFVII modding is in a sort of glory period. We now have this thing called 7th Heaven
https://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15520.0

Get that setup and you can have your pick of mods. Lists them all. Graphics, gameplay overhauls, alternative soundtracks - just click, download, and turn on.

I can tell you, it's a helluva lot easier than when I was trying to install mods back in 2008 or 9. The FFVII Prelude is probably the best version but I might only think that because I had to reinstall the game a billion times to get my mod setup to work. (Also fun fact, the Prelude sample for the install was the real song, not the crappy MIDI version in the original PC release. Talk about false advertising.)

But yeah, if you want the characters to look better, you have a huge pick of models. Make them more realistic or simply higher def chibi or whatever else. Want the game to be a bit harder? You can do that. Want a whole new gameplay experience? New Threat is your way to go.

Did they ever get the source code to Seventh Heaven, or rewrite it? Last time I modded up PC FF7, I remember that being a problem the community was dealing with.

Also, I keep reading the dates in FF13-2 as, for example, "300 As gently caress" rather than as "300 After the Fall".

# ? Jan 22, 2023 01:15

Arist: Feb 13, 2012; _{who, me?}

Agents are GO! posted:

Also, I keep reading the dates in FF13-2 as, for example, "300 As gently caress" rather than as "300 After the Fall".

lmao

# ? Jan 22, 2023 01:21

Weird Pumpkin: Oct 7, 2007

Arist posted:

I will never listen to clips of that FFVII fandub voluntarily because of the secondhand embarrassment, but let it be known that if Cait Sith doesn't have a Scottish accent they're all cowards

He does, and I'm just about through disc 2. Well.. he has an accent at least

It's actually been.. like legit really good. Way better than I was expecting at least. I mean it's still a fandub, so it's pretty amateur, but the main cast turns in pretty good performances and the translation has been great.

The minor NPCs are a very mixed bag, but it's honestly not a big deal. I'd seriously recommend it, so long as amateur acting and the occasional awkward read doesn't bug you too much.

There's definitely a defined skill list though where some of the cast are better than others. I think tifa's actress does a great job, Barrett's va as well. Cloud is mixed, yuffie is ok but had kind of a bad mic. Aerith is pretty good, but has a serious problem with remake Aerith being basically perfect. Cait sith is alright I guess, Vincent has said like 4 lines so I don't really have an opinion. Red XIII is probably my least favorite overall though

Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Jan 22, 2023

# ? Jan 22, 2023 01:28

Oxxidation: Jul 22, 2007

boy, crisis core�s dialogue flows like mud

even after switching to JP voices these cutscenes are tough to listen to

# ? Jan 22, 2023 02:54

FrostyPox: Feb 8, 2012

Lightning Returns: I don't know why I didn't see it coming that the Angel of Valhalla was Odin, it seems really obvious after the fact. So I guess there is one Eidolon in the game. Mission 4 boss was pretty easy, actually, and mission 5 was actually just a fun romp through the world to save Dahj. Chocolina is Sazh's Chocobo Chick, now THAT'S a twist I did not see coming. I really was sweating the time thing for nothing. I have five fully days until the end. Don't know if I even want to grind side quests to try to unlock the extra day or just have Lightning go on vacation, by which I mean stay in hotels until the last day lmao

EDIT: I remember I had originally considered not playing the sequels and spin-offs (except SoP) as part of this marathon and I am so glad I changed my mind. Especially about Type-0, which I was also going to skip because it seems to be not terribly well-liked.

FrostyPox fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jan 22, 2023

# ? Jan 22, 2023 03:07

CharlieFoxtrot: Mar 27, 2007; organize digital employees

Agents are GO! posted:

Also, I keep reading the dates in FF13-2 as, for example, "300 As gently caress" rather than as "300 After the Fall".

I do this whenever people talk about AF Gear in FF14

# ? Jan 22, 2023 03:17

Mustached Demon: Nov 12, 2016

FrostyPox posted:

Lightning Returns: I don't know why I didn't see it coming that the Angel of Valhalla was Odin, it seems really obvious after the fact. So I guess there is one Eidolon in the game. Mission 4 boss was pretty easy, actually, and mission 5 was actually just a fun romp through the world to save Dahj. Chocolina is Sazh's Chocobo Chick, now THAT'S a twist I did not see coming. I really was sweating the time thing for nothing. I have five fully days until the end. Don't know if I even want to grind side quests to try to unlock the extra day or just have Lightning go on vacation, by which I mean stay in hotels until the last day lmao

EDIT: I remember I had originally considered not playing the sequels and spin-offs (except SoP) as part of this marathon and I am so glad I changed my mind. Especially about Type-0, which I was also going to skip because it seems to be not terribly well-liked.

Go on a murderous rampage and slaughter every behemoth and chocobo eater in sight.

# ? Jan 22, 2023 03:29

FrostyPox: Feb 8, 2012

LR: Welp, met Biggs and Wedge, got the Dragoon garb, the Blue Mage garb, and made Nibblets a thing of the past. They are extinct.

And I still have about four days and fifteen hours til the end of the world.

# ? Jan 22, 2023 04:55

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Agents are GO! posted:

Did they ever get the source code to Seventh Heaven, or rewrite it? Last time I modded up PC FF7, I remember that being a problem the community was dealing with.

I dunno, I loaded it up with a bunch of mods when I got my new PC about five months ago and didn't see any problems.

# ? Jan 22, 2023 15:33

Weird Pumpkin: Oct 7, 2007

Agents are GO! posted:

Did they ever get the source code to Seventh Heaven, or rewrite it? Last time I modded up PC FF7, I remember that being a problem the community was dealing with.

Also, I keep reading the dates in FF13-2 as, for example, "300 As gently caress" rather than as "300 After the Fall".

afaik it's just on git: https://github.com/tsunamods-codes/7th-Heaven

It's maintained by the same guy that helmed the voice mod

# ? Jan 22, 2023 15:35

Oxxidation: Jul 22, 2007

Necrothatcher posted:

Forspoken's special chests are locked with sliding tile puzzles

i saw this in pyf and the violin music from Psycho started playing in my head

# ? Jan 22, 2023 15:45

FrostyPox: Feb 8, 2012

Well, if my math is correct I've done enough side missions to unlock the extra day, and I've still got something like four full days til the end, not including the extra day. I suppose the smart thing to do would be to continue doing side quests to get stronger (and taking some time to hit up the shops to ensure I've got all my abilities upgraded). I also guess it's possible to spawn Omega enemies out in the world so doing that to make the Extra Day dungeon a bit easier is also probably a good move.

# ? Jan 22, 2023 17:42

Oxxidation: Jul 22, 2007

yep, genesis is every bit as obnoxious now as he was fifteen years ago

e: and angeal is just as bad. he�s incoherent despite being totally flat as a character

Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jan 22, 2023

# ? Jan 22, 2023 17:50

DanielCross: Aug 16, 2013

So if I genuinely loved actually playing Stranger of Paradise, but my brain is too small to comprehend anything I need to do in the postgame, as far as gear or a "build," am I just hosed for the DLC?

# ? Jan 23, 2023 19:35

deep dish peat moss: Jul 27, 2006

I wrote this post for a different thread but I ended up writing waaaaaay more than I expected about FFXI and how much I enjoyed revisiting it in 2020. It has always been one of my favorite games of all time. so I figured it's worth posting here too, for anyone interested in a review/writeup about playing FFXI as a solo player (and/or as a singleplayer game) in the post-pandemic age.

quote:

I went back and played [FFXI] for a few months in 2020 and I had a blast, they've added a ton of systems to make it the whole game fully soloable - you now have a full NPC party whenever you want them (except in certain event zones), exp-boosting gear is plentiful from events that are running and change every month or so. Like, new events. Not just a repeating cycle of monthly events (though sometimes they do repeat), but there is still a dev team actively developing new monthly events and content for FFXI (or at least there was in 2020)

There's also a whole lot of end-game content that has been added. Like, it's the only MMO I have ever played where I felt like I never ran out of things to do at max level. Most of the end-game stuff still requires a party of players rather than AI companions, but I liked that because A) it maintains the sense of community FFXI always had and B) since it's only the level 99 end-game stuff, the entire playerbase is concentrated into the same bracket and it's not too hard to find parties (no matter what your role is). There are still a ton of people playing and the community on whatever server I played on was super friendly, helpful and chill. PUGs were regularly put together in jeuno chat by small teams of massively overgeared players who could carry everyone else through things like weekly boss kills with great rewards so it wasn't difficult to find footing at level 99.

I ended up leveling almost every class in the game to 99 (there's so much exp-boosting stuff that going 1-99 on a class beyond your first is one or two full days of playing solo, the first one takes 1-2 weeks as you work your way through missions and unlock level caps and stuff), and you can very affordably buy powerleveling from people for in-game gil that will take you from like level 20 to 99 in an hour or 2 - I ended up selling powerleveling to fund myself ). I even grinded out a huge amount of, I forget what they're called but basically bonus levels that you can gain at 99 that give you passive bonuses to make a class stronger. I mean I grinded like 500 or something of those levels on Rune Fencer, and at that point it was straight up like oldschool FFXI grinding (be careful with pulls, make sure your full party is attentive, grind for long hours).

At some point they added a really cool system that I forget the name of, but it's a series of personal missions that you follow from level 1 all the way to level 99 and well beyond, and what it does is guide you through the entire main story of the game, taking you through appropriately-leveled tours of pretty much every zone in the game, and every major mission - except with new additions: the characters from the newest expansion pop into the missions, cutscenes and dialog from throughout the entire game, so the cutscenes are slightly different than they were in the past, etc.

Following it provides a tooooon of QoL/utility/etc type bonuses (exp buffs, fast travel, high-end gear, all kinds of things). It lets you go through and experience all of FFXI as a well-packaged singleplayer RPG without all the tedium and bullshit that was in it back in the day. It gets pretty out there with its plot though, I forget the details but IIRC it was sort of like a weird meta-narrative introducing new end-game villains who knew that the world of vana'diel is just a game or something and these new characters are the techno-gods who programmed it. In the context of a lot of other games it would have been pretty dorky and dumb, but in the context of current FFXI it feels like a very appropriate send-off to the game, because at this point it's a 22+ year old MMO and it's sort of recontextualized as this new end-game content being an entirely new narrative and story that you lore-abidingly get rushed/helped through by all of these new QoL features and like, that 'remixes' the game's old content in neat ways. It absolutely shatters the 4th wall in several places and really feels like a love letter from the devs to all the players.

In a lot of ways FFXI right now is a sort of museum to what FFXI was and the things that made it unique among MMOs. The mission line mentioned above is like a guided museum tour that makes sure you hit all of the important notes of the story without needing another player's help. The gift shop is full of experience boosters and various other neat/helpful/convenient things that you buy for in-game currency. I legitimately think I had more fun with my 2nd go of FFXI than I've ever had with another MMO. (Also I'm weird and would already have said FFXI was the best MMO ever prior to that)

But I mean, caveat emptor - this is a 20+ year old PS2 MMO. It's a very unique kind of janky and I might have been overwhelmed by things like the UI and the controls if they didn't come flooding back to me in a massive nostalgia rush as soon as I booted up the PlayOnline launcher for the first time and heard that music. I played a lot of FFXI when I was young and made some good friends in it, and this return trip was more jam-packed with nostalgia than anything I've experienced before. Like, drat, every single zone in FFXI is oozing with personality. Everywhere I went brought back memories. I stepped into Yhoator/Yuhtunga and literally tasted mango juice because at whatever point in time I was leveling my WHM through there in the oldschool FFXI days I was drinking a lot of mango juice.

There's a whole pokemon system for collecting NPC party members (with some being way stronger than others, but harder to unlock). There are multiple event zones with neat gimmicks added through various expansions over the years. There's content that's still difficult. Everything still feels like an adventure.

Every single piece of pure tedium has been removed. You don't have to feed a chocobo 3x daily for a week to get a chocobo license anymore. There's a mod that lets you skip boat/airship travel times.

Anyway drat Writing all of that up kind of makes me want to resub for a bit.

deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 23, 2023

# ? Jan 23, 2023 19:36

Weird Pumpkin: Oct 7, 2007

So we polished off the voice mod for FF7 PC last night and wanted to share my final thoughts on it

I actually really enjoyed the experience. Part of that is just because FF7 has a great story, but I do think the voice acting added a bunch to it. It's certainly an amateur project, at the very least from the varied mic quality alone if we put aside the NPC voices, but I don't think it detracted from the experience at all. At least for me, but my tolerance for acting and amateur work is admittedly high

The translation was really good, and makes the questionable choices for their youtube trailer all the more baffling. There wasn't much cursing at all, and all the dialogue was pretty well done. The VAs clearly put a lot of heart into their roles, and while not every line lands I think the main cast with essential plot points all did pretty great and had their time to shine.

Tifa's VA was the stand out star of the fandub imo. She put a lot of effort and emotion into it, and it really comes through. I imagined Tifa would be one of the harder roles anyway, since much of the plot of the game revolves around her and Cloud as characters and I think she totally nailed it imo
I thought I'd really not like Aerith's VA from the trailer, and while it is a little higher pitched than I would've liked I think she did a pretty great job overall.
Cloud was pretty mixed, but I really liked Barret a whole lot. Crazy enough, the same VA did both of them which I never, EVER would've guessed. Mostly the voice they used for Cloud was just the slightest bit like.. nasily? I guess? The acting itself was fine and the mic quality was no issue at all, but there was just this weird like.. edge to the voice that I didn't like as much? Hard to explain honestly without hearing it a whole bunch.
Yuffie was pretty great, but her VA definitely needs either a better mic or a better recording setup, as it's just a bit noisy
Cait Sith really committed to the accent. It was fine, but honestly I've never really liked the character overall so I can't really say more than that.
Vincent and Red XIII were both the worst of the group by a good margin. Vincent doesn't talk very much, so it's very whatever (and tbf the VA absolutely plays him in a way that conveys vincent being a huge dork), but Red XIII was just kind of rough.

I did really like the way they handled Red XIII getting his original name back. The entire cast/dialogue boxes all switch to using his actual name, except Vincent for some reason which I thought was pretty funny.

The NPCs are an extremely mixed bag. I'm pretty sure they mostly got people from the discord or whatever for a bunch of them because some of the NPCs are really rough. Weirdly though there's some serious gems in there, I dunno if that's the main cast voicing them or they just had some more professional people record a bunch of random NPC chatter?

Overall on the technical side the Mod works great! you DEFINITELY have to turn off the day/night cycle implementation as it doesn't appear to be functional and just makes the world map incredibly dark.

I had 5 crashes over the 30 or so hours I put in, generally around the minigames. In the later chunk of the game there were some dialogue boxes that were messed up so they wouldn't display the dialogue correctly, and occasionally the VA went way beyond the end of the dialogue box (like for example, they'd add an aside or something related to the character) and it didn't show up in the text.

Probably the weirdest thing that happened was that, randomly at the end of the game, Yuffie had a character introspection moment that was in Japanese? For some reason? I have to assume at some point they intended Yuffie's asides to be in her "original" language while her spoken dialogue was in English, and then they went back on the idea and didn't re-record that line or something?

I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot if you're curious. But keeping in mind it's a volunteer thing so there's absolutely going to be the occasional weirdness.

Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jan 23, 2023

# ? Jan 23, 2023 20:12

FrostyPox: Feb 8, 2012

deep dish peat moss posted:

I wrote this post for a different thread but I ended up writing waaaaaay more than I expected about FFXI and how much I enjoyed revisiting it in 2020. It has always been one of my favorite games of all time. so I figured it's worth posting here too, for anyone interested in a review/writeup about playing FFXI as a solo player (and/or as a singleplayer game) in the post-pandemic age.

FFXI is really good

# ? Jan 23, 2023 20:53

deep dish peat moss: Jul 27, 2006

FrostyPox posted:

FFXI is really good

Here is an ancient and magical curse that will remind every FFXI player of a better, more joyous age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6mxRUKehtE

# ? Jan 23, 2023 21:29

CharlestonJew: Jul 7, 2011; Illegal Hen

DanielCross posted:

So if I genuinely loved actually playing Stranger of Paradise, but my brain is too small to comprehend anything I need to do in the postgame, as far as gear or a "build," am I just hosed for the DLC?

Kinda, yeah. All the DLC stuff really wants you to get serious about the gear and build system if you want to be on an even playing field with the enemies.

The game does give you access to Extra mode, which makes you invincible if you have 400% Knight affinity, so you can use that if you absolutely must see the rest of the story content the DLC has. (Which isn't much)

# ? Jan 23, 2023 21:45

THE AWESOME GHOST: Oct 21, 2005

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

5 might have the worst soundtrack outside of 2.

Reviving this pages old post to say what the gently caress

# ? Jan 23, 2023 21:46

Orcs and Ostriches: Aug 26, 2010; The Great Twist

THE AWESOME GHOST posted:

Reviving this pages old post to say what the gently caress

5's soundtrack doesn't hold up against any of the others. Battle on the Big Bridge and a handful of decent songs isn't enough to compete against any of the other FF soundtracks.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 21:47

Delphisage: Jul 31, 2022; by the sex ghost

Got all the backtracking for Jecht Spheres done, making my way back to game progression.

I'm really regretting my decision to play FF10 on a console instead of an emulator. There's so much about this game that'd be way easier to do with savestates or a fast forward button, namely backtracking, dodging lightning, Blitzball, and RNG rolling for steals.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 22:14

Super No Vacancy: Jul 26, 2012

yeah cheating does typically make things easier

# ? Jan 23, 2023 22:16

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 18:10

Chillgamesh: Jul 29, 2014

Orcs and Ostriches posted:

5's soundtrack doesn't hold up against any of the others. Battle on the Big Bridge and a handful of decent songs isn't enough to compete against any of the other FF soundtracks.

Only song I can remember from FF4 is Elemental Fiends tbh. Exdeath's battle themes, Warriors of Dawn, Lenna's theme, the main theme, the world map themes, Big Bridge, the mountain theme, etc. all stick out to me from FF5

# ? Jan 23, 2023 22:35

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