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Pablo Gigante posted:I think you could make an interesting sequel to FFVI about rebuilding the world and the struggles that come along with it. Of course from Squeenix it would turn out to be ham-fisted as gently caress so maybe not. So basically X-2. Whatever I wanna say about the art asset stuff, I think X-2 was the only SE seuqel game where I felt like the writers were genuinely interested in exploring the universe of the game a second time. Whatever other problems, they managed to revisit not only most of the locations but have little sideplots about every C-list NPC you ran into from before. Yeah part of that is Modeling Is Hard, but it gave you the feel of continuity and is easymode for establishing the theme of the game (Moving On?). None of the FF7 pre/mid/sequels give me the feel of actually interested in wanting to revisit the world per se or even revisit characters the way X-2 does. It's more fanficing for the pet characters (or worse, new Original Characters whose overwrought 'modern' designs make them stand out even more) of writers rather than because any of those characters are actually important from a narrative (ie, the audience should give a poo poo) standpoint. Or worse, making random changes to the established quo simply because "I like this way better and why would I care what some artist a few years ago did with them? I don't care if place/person/thing looks different now." People have already commented on the fact Midgar, even or especially post-groundzero, would be an awesome setting for an exploration/puzzle/survival/action game or whatever, but unless SE thinks they can shoehorn sephiroth or whatever flavor-of-the-year deviantart gimmick the art dept comes up with it'll never happen. It's pretty ironic considering SE's lower tier quirky games seem held in quiet regard a lot even as their AAA is poo poo on by critics. I'm not saying a sequel should retread ideas, but I like a little similarity in the settings for the sake of continuity (if you wanna try out some ~zany~ new battle system, thats fine) I think the Ivalice games hit a nice idea in simply setting various games in a mostly-shared world. There's also less of a need to sell the entire idea to the audience in a newer installment ("Oh now there's kangaroomen in this 3rd one? Sure why not") keet fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jul 24, 2012 |
# ? Jul 24, 2012 20:10 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 09:14 |
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penguinmambo posted:I think the Ivalice games hit a nice idea in simply setting various games in a mostly-shared world. I found absolutely zero resemblance between Vagrant Story's/Tactics/XII's setting aside from random names so I never got what the point of that was.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 20:18 |
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Krad posted:I found absolutely zero resemblance between Vagrant Story's/Tactics/XII's setting aside from random names so I never got what the point of that was. Really, "zero resemblance"? Considering how much overlap there was in creative input between the games, they definitely all have a similar "feel." They all involve scheming and machinations going on behind the scenes. They have similar soundtracks and art style. They have a similar graphic style and I could swear there were shared sound effects, both of which are especially obvious between Vagrant Story and XII. Whether you like it or not, the characters use similar sorts of dialogue. Despite taking place in vastly different time periods, the world feels like the same place between the architecture and wildlife. The Tactics Advance games don't feel as similar, but I feel they hardly count anyway.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 20:30 |
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Speaking of Vagrant Story, I really wish they'd do a HD update of that game. Actually it wouldn't even have to be HD, just change it around a bit so I don't have to go into the menu every ten seconds, let me switch weapons or something with the trigger buttons. I tried to play that game for the first time about a year ago and all the menu navigation just kills it for me, despite everything else being so great.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 20:31 |
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Krad posted:I found absolutely zero resemblance between Vagrant Story's/Tactics/XII's setting aside from random names so I never got what the point of that was. Maybe just an broad art thing? All three remind me of a vaguely dusty "yellow-brown" pseudo-Reinnsance in a way I can't place. Hell, when I saw FF9 after the fact I figured the game was set in Ivalice cause of little things.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 20:53 |
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Ok, having never given FFV a chance I figured I'd take a shot at the fiesta. Unfortunately my first two jobs ended up as White Mage and Time Mage. Does anyone have any suggestions on making it to the fire crystal, because right now my damage is pretty terrible and short of some serious grinding I ain't sure how to bridge the gap.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:17 |
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Well my suggestion would be to not do a fiesta run your first time playing. I haven't done one myself but from what I hear sometimes grinding it just necessary for progressing.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:23 |
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Schwartzcough posted:Really, "zero resemblance"? Considering how much overlap there was in creative input between the games, they definitely all have a similar "feel." They all involve scheming and machinations going on behind the scenes. They have similar soundtracks and art style. They have a similar graphic style and I could swear there were shared sound effects, both of which are especially obvious between Vagrant Story and XII. Whether you like it or not, the characters use similar sorts of dialogue. Despite taking place in vastly different time periods, the world feels like the same place between the architecture and wildlife. The Tactics Advance games don't feel as similar, but I feel they hardly count anyway. Yes, they share the same art designer and music composer, I know there's a similar "feel" there. What I mean is that they don't feel part of the same world/country/whatever. They don't have some mythos in common, they just have the same architecture. For example, can you picture Chocobos in VS? Can you picture Sidney riding a Chocobo? I sure as hell can't. Oh, and the Advance games feel perfectly fine next to XII. Next to FFT, however, is a different story.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:27 |
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Tolth posted:Ok, having never given FFV a chance I figured I'd take a shot at the fiesta. Unfortunately my first two jobs ended up as White Mage and Time Mage. Does anyone have any suggestions on making it to the fire crystal, because right now my damage is pretty terrible and short of some serious grinding I ain't sure how to bridge the gap. Yeah if you've never played FFV before, you probably shouldn't do a fiesta run first. Mostly because a) a fiesta run requires pretty intimate knowledge of the game and its mechanics and how to get around your limitations and b) most of the fun comes from combining class abilities into pure brokenness.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:32 |
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Tolth posted:Ok, having never given FFV a chance I figured I'd take a shot at the fiesta. Unfortunately my first two jobs ended up as White Mage and Time Mage. Does anyone have any suggestions on making it to the fire crystal, because right now my damage is pretty terrible and short of some serious grinding I ain't sure how to bridge the gap. Time Mages can equip rods and break them ("use" them out of the person's hands when in battle, you can get to their equipped weapon/shield by pressing up at the top of the item list) so do that for elemental spells. You can buy lots of rods in Karnak which is right before the fire crystal dungeon. Also poke around in here, it has lots of good tips from the people here, including in-depth stuff relating to each job.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:32 |
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Alright, I'm gonna give the fiesta run a try and back off and play normally if I reach something that seems insurmountable. On the other hand, breaking rods seems like an excellent way to get past tough fights, and giving three of my party members flails seems to avoid the damage shortage to some extent!
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:38 |
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glod posted:Time Mages can equip rods and break them ("use" them out of the person's hands when in battle, you can get to their equipped weapon/shield by pressing up at the top of the item list) so do that for elemental spells. You can buy lots of rods in Karnak which is right before the fire crystal dungeon. Also poke around in here, it has lots of good tips from the people here, including in-depth stuff relating to each job. Be warned that that document has spoilers in them, in case you are worried about that sort of thing.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:43 |
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I find it easiest to think of the three major in-continuity Ivalice games (FF12 > FFT > VS) as idealized and fantastic visions of the three most popular historical periods of western history. FF12 is the ancient age of wonders, the way people romanticize the Classical period. FFT is the early middle/dark/dung age vision, where religious persecution and feudal class struggle replaced all the "wonder" (art/culture/beauty). Vagrant Story is the renaissance, in which the church is struggling to maintain its power base against the rise of national governments, while the rebirth of scholarship and rise of science are finally putting the wonders of FF12 and superstition/fear of FFT to bed forever. The Dark and Sydney's power are sort of like the last bastion of those forces, the last of the supernatural forces in a world that's growing up. That's why everybody is so interested in claiming it, and why it needs protection. Aside from FFT's dramatically different ingame artistic style (squat 2d sprites instead of normally-proportioned 3d models) they're about as similar as I'd expect them to feel, given that they're meant to illustrate three distinct time periods in western history. Of course, none of those periods was quite like the way they're portrayed in the games (the ancient greeks didn't have magic airships and the western european middle ages weren't as miserable and backward as everybody thinks), but they're sort of like Japanese designers taking on western history the same way westerners have this vision of the Mythical Orient. Baku fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Jul 24, 2012 |
# ? Jul 24, 2012 21:53 |
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These are cool, custom dialog boxes you can stick on your fridge. The examples are classic quotes from FFVI, but you could make them say anything.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 22:23 |
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The only way I could see an FFVI prequel thing working is if it's about the War of the Magi with a completely different cast and everything. I'd prefer they left the cast and plot of VI alone.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 23:04 |
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Himuro posted:Final Fantasy XIII Versus was not cancelled. However, it may look completely different from what we saw last time, and will most definitely be renamed. You guys don't have to believe me at all, but you can chalk this case up as another example of game journalism.txt. Throwing poo poo at a wall to see what sticks and cleaning spots on the wall now and then? Sounds like all versions of journalism.txt to me. e: Versus 13 is going to be the JRPG equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever and Dai-katana. I can't wait.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 23:31 |
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I never really understood how the Ivalice games fit together. Granted, I've never gotten terribly far in any of the Tactics games (I know, this is a cardinal sin), but FFXII and Tactics are so different, it's hard for me to believe they're the same world. With Tactics Advance and XII, I can definitely see that, but I dunno about Tactics. However, Ivalice and Vana'diel seem like the only worlds where Square put a lot of effort into world-building and made them into fully-realized living, breathing worlds with their own history and lore. The vast majority of FF settings are just a bunch of locations for the player to visit in their quest, and they don't really go into the history, politics and cultures of said settings in any detail. If they were to do more Final Fantasy "sequels", I'd prefer to have some unrelated games set in either Vana'diel or Ivalice at different time periods with entirely different characters. I think I'm a little more disappointed with Fortress getting cancelled than I am with Versus XIII.
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# ? Jul 24, 2012 23:35 |
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Evil Fluffy posted:Versus 13 is going to be the JRPG equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever and Dai-katana. I can't wait. Oh, and it's apparently not cancelled. Kotaku were just making stuff up. Colour me surprised.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 00:32 |
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If they were to do more sequels, a part of me is hoping that they make XIII-3, XIII-4, XIII-5, etc, and nothing else. It would be amusing to see just how far they run it into the ground. vvv This works too. Hedera Helix fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Jul 25, 2012 |
# ? Jul 25, 2012 00:47 |
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If a new FFVI game were to be made I want it to be a midquel set during the one year between the end of the world and Celes coming out of her coma. It'd be a classic side-scrolling beat-em-up starring Sabin following his adventures as he wrestles things in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Maybe he hunts down the phantom train to finish it off, conveniently explaining its absence in the WoR.
A Great Big Bee! fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jul 25, 2012 |
# ? Jul 25, 2012 00:54 |
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You could make a prequel in the time period right before the game using all the assets that are already in the game (plus like a menu portrait for Kefka). Celes, Kefka, Leo as the main characters, maybe some disposable soldier guys or something as temp recruits. It might be terrible, but you could!
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 01:10 |
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The new FF6 game should be all about how Gau learns rages from other enemies. It would be 90% horrible minigames, of course.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 02:04 |
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Zombies' Downfall posted:You could make a prequel in the time period right before the game using all the assets that are already in the game (plus like a menu portrait for Kefka). Celes, Kefka, Leo as the main characters, maybe some disposable soldier guys or something as temp recruits. So Final Fantasy VI: The Before Years, then.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 02:09 |
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So I've 100% FFXIII-2, pretty much. I've acquired all of the fragments, got both ultimate weapons, and got the secret endings. Is the DLC worth it? I mean, the extra bosses of XIII-2 appealed to me because I enjoy the battle system enough to want harder fights to put my mind into it more, but after Yomi and the extra Caius fights everything else feels a bit climactic and I want something more challenging. Also, Serendipity sort of soured me on mini-games in general so that's a part in hoping the Sazh DLC is good too. Will the extra coliseum fights and Sazh DLC be worth investing my money in or should I just wait and hope XIII-3 is more challenging?
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 02:32 |
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Sazh's DLC is about one thing: The Chronobind card game. The Lightning DLC is interesting, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. (I bought it.) The Snow DLC fight is probably the hardest fight I remember in the game. I only bought Lightning/Amodar boss fight though, so I don't know about the rest.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 02:43 |
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Ultros and Typhon make for a pretty interesting fight, if only because it's downright weird giving Ultros a voice. Also, unless you really want Valkyrie Lightning as a party member, you can just watch how the Lightning DLC plays out on youtube or something.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 02:45 |
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There's like so much fun poo poo I'm learning from playing through FF6-SNES again. Sabin learns Bum Rush without Duncan in the 80s, as does Cyan and Cleave. You CAN reduce Chupon to 0 HP (rather than him just using Sneeze as a desperation attack), but he has a 100% on-death reaction where he uses it as well. I'd love to go in with like X-Zone and see what the gently caress happens then since that overrides on-death scripts. Probably acts like you won with the dance and poo poo and then you inexplicably end up falling through the sky once the battle concludes. Like 99.9% of the game's draw calls are in order except for one in the house of the richest man in South Figaro, where it draws the map waaaaaay before it draws your characters and there's a ~1s delay between the time it draws it and the time it draws your dude. Also the little world map HUD is on the same layer as the airship but takes priority
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 03:08 |
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Azure_Horizon posted:These are cool, custom dialog boxes you can stick on your fridge. The examples are classic quotes from FFVI, but you could make them say anything. Thanks for bringing these to my attention, it's awesome and I bought one.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 03:12 |
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The War of the Magi is the only part of FFVI I could see making a worthwhile game. More espers, more magic, utterly destroy the planet. Maybe focus on the warriors that ended up founding Thamasa? If they focused on the characters before the main game, I'd like to see Celes gleefully burning Maranda to the ground. Make her start not quite as twisted as Kefka, and get better over time through some generic story events. FFV could use a prequel too. The story of the twelve legendary heroes would work, though it would involve less job swapping and more character swapping. Maybe each character has 2-3 jobs they switch between? Granted, given Square's record regarding sequels neither of these games would likely be good.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 04:44 |
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Gammatron 64 posted:I never really understood how the Ivalice games fit together. Granted, I've never gotten terribly far in any of the Tactics games (I know, this is a cardinal sin), but FFXII and Tactics are so different, it's hard for me to believe they're the same world. With Tactics Advance and XII, I can definitely see that, but I dunno about Tactics. None of the games have a continuing story, its just the same world. The reason why XII and Tactics are so different is because sometime after XII something really loving bad happened, wiping out a shitload of races and destroyed all of their high tech gizmos, like airships. People in Tactics are only starting to find out how to make guns again, but have no idea how to get airships working, or the worker bots and stuff. War of the Lions tried to make them more related by changing the holy stones to auracite and various other stuff that I can't remember though, but there's no overarching plot.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 05:00 |
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Sex_Ferguson posted:So I've 100% FFXIII-2, pretty much. I've acquired all of the fragments, got both ultimate weapons, and got the secret endings. Is the DLC worth it? I mean, the extra bosses of XIII-2 appealed to me because I enjoy the battle system enough to want harder fights to put my mind into it more, but after Yomi and the extra Caius fights everything else feels a bit climactic and I want something more challenging. Also, Serendipity sort of soured me on mini-games in general so that's a part in hoping the Sazh DLC is good too. Most of the extra coliseum fights are more difficult than any of the bosses in the game. Lightning/Amodor aren't too difficult, but everything else has some pretty insane difficulty. In particular Ultros/Chupon and Gilgamesh I hear are the most difficult. No clue on the Snow DLC fight though.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 05:26 |
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Gammatron 64 posted:I never really understood how the Ivalice games fit together. Granted, I've never gotten terribly far in any of the Tactics games (I know, this is a cardinal sin), but FFXII and Tactics are so different, it's hard for me to believe they're the same world. With Tactics Advance and XII, I can definitely see that, but I dunno about Tactics. Magical Golden Age backstory for FFXII --> FFXII (very high magic, some areas are ruins or forgotten but there wasn't actually a collapse) --> a collapse of civilization --> FFTactics (medium magic, few magical races but there are beasts and people wield it) --> Vagrant Story (low magic, magical races are extinct and magical beasts are just legends outside from a few pockets of magic, known only to a few). There aren't connecting plot elements, just a story of a world in magical decline. Also the style of the plots are heavy on politics and multi-faction machinations, more so than most other FF games. The Tactics Advance games are separate. They're a fantasy Ivalice, so they contain characters and areas from the storybook, but while Vaan and Penelo may show up for example they aren't the FFXII people. It's like if someone in this world found a magic tome and decided to visit Middle-Earth. The FFTA "Earth" *could* be Ivalice in the modern day but there's nothing to mark it as so.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 05:30 |
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ShadeofDante posted:Most of the extra coliseum fights are more difficult than any of the bosses in the game. Lightning/Amodor aren't too difficult, but everything else has some pretty insane difficulty. Snow DLC is nuts. The fight with Snow relies on timing and continuously resurrecting your characters because whenever he changes targets he loses all his insane buffs. If you simply let him go at it forever he will unleash an instant-kill Sovereign Fist and annihilate you. Valfodr is a bit easier, but increases in level the more times you beat him, which also in turn betters the monster crystals that he drops (letting you get more Chichu and spread Pack Mentality around everywhere). Valfodr Lv. 99 is a tough cookie, but is more manageable than Snow.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 05:40 |
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Finally got around to finishing this: Neoexdeath was extremely annoying, as those levels were on the squishy side, so not having shell + full health for almagest was just a death. Wasn't really a fan of beastmaster, a lot of preparation for one shot tricks that other classes just come with innately. Dragoon is kind of the lamest of the last crystals too. I was surprised by the damage output of my beserker though (I mean I guess I shouldn't), but I kind of wish you could choose what target to beserk on. However, gilgabot doesn't seem to be acknowledging my victory tweet, no idea what to do about that (Generally it has that YOUR VICTORY HAS BEEN LOGGED FOR PROCESSING thing)
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 05:40 |
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Azure_Horizon posted:Snow DLC is nuts. The fight with Snow relies on timing and continuously resurrecting your characters because whenever he changes targets he loses all his insane buffs. If you simply let him go at it forever he will unleash an instant-kill Sovereign Fist and annihilate you. This sounds fantastic. I never thought a day would come where I'd be wanting to buy something relating to Snow, but here we are.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 06:13 |
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VGchartz just released an article detailing Square's video game sales. I don't know how credible they are, but I found the article to be interesting nonetheless. Sorry if this has been posted before. http://www.vgchartz.com/article/250282/top-10-in-sales-square-enix-games/ Makes me a little nostalgic. It sure was a great time to play this series in the late 90s. I'm kind of surprised IX sold so much less than VII and VIII. Could it have been because they released it so close to the launch of the PS2?
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 15:36 |
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Cardboard Fox posted:VGchartz just released an article detailing Square's video game sales. I don't know how credible they are, but I found the article to be interesting nonetheless. Sorry if this has been posted before. There are lots of reasons I can think of that may have combined to give FFIX lower comparative sales. Coming at the end of the PSX's life cycle is a big factor, and there were some really strong concurrent RPGs in 1999 that probably leeched off a few sales. The PS2 was backwards though, so that can't be the only reason. FFIX is also so different in tone from what the FF series was turning into at that time. The plot was relatively light-hearted, there was no strong individual protagonist/villain in the mold of 7/8/10, and the mechanics were definitively old-school. I think this was around the time that the series was beginning to become more popular with women than with men also.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 15:45 |
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I love IX to death, and I remember after kind of hating VIII I wasn't too excited for IX and nobody even really seemed to know that a new Final Fantasy was coming out. Whereas I had gotten VIII on launch day, IX I was like "oh poo poo that's out" like a week after release. And yeah it was great for people like me who started at IV and were in love with VI, but got a huge loving "What." from the much larger portion of new fans who loved the cyberpunk themes of VII and VIII. The PS2 was out when it came out as I recall, and everyone was like "wait, that's not a PS2 game?"
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 20:58 |
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Boten Anna posted:I love IX to death, and I remember after kind of hating VIII I wasn't too excited for IX and nobody even really seemed to know that a new Final Fantasy was coming out. Whereas I had gotten VIII on launch day, IX I was like "oh poo poo that's out" like a week after release. When FFIX rolled around, I don't think I picked it up until several months after it came out because I don't remember any hype around it, or even knowing it was coming out when it did.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 21:02 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 09:14 |
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I remember reading about IX in an old EGM magazine way back in the day. The game was featured on the cover, and being an already huge FF fan at the time I was extremely excited. The game just looked so drat cool in the pictures and I knew I had to have it. Does anyone remember what issue it was featured in? The screenshot text was in Japanese, and I remember one of the pictures was of Steiner when he was running back through the tall grass to Village of Dali.
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# ? Jul 25, 2012 21:24 |