Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

Hedera Helix posted:

It didn't have any save points, because they hadn't been invented yet. FF4 was the first RPG to have them, I'm pretty sure.

I mean yes, the original can be excused on that count. The remake can't. Not adding them and other quality of life improvements because of pointless chest-thumping about how that's how it was back in the day was unbelievably stupid.

CloseFriend posted:

I really hate this idea that the inability to save makes a game's content more difficult. (Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, for instance, made saving a Bad Thing as part of its design.) All it means is that when my guys die, so does all my interest in doing all that poo poo ever again.

You're right, no save points isn't what made the last dungeon so difficult. They are why the dungeon is so mind-numbingly tedious, though. Having to repeat three hours of mindless grinding every time I want to take a swing at the last boss is the number one reason I haven't beaten and probably never will beat 3 without save states. BoF:DQ worked because the developers consciously rejected having limitless saving be A Thing and worked out a different system. FF3DS didn't work because they didn't bother.

e: beaten by ImpAtom on post 39

Fungah! fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Sep 29, 2012

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Bear Sleuth
Jul 17, 2011

IX is a massivly flawed game. It missteps left and right. The thing is, it's still so darned good. It manages to charm its way past all the wierd design choices and lacking areas. A non-flawed version of it would be a mind exploding experience.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

I think a lot of IX's missteps are a product of its time. IX has a lot of mechanical and storyline quirks which are pretty emblematic of the time it came out. A lot of its strengths also come from that however, and I think a FFIX made a few years later would have been a very different game for a number of reasons.

Fur20
Nov 14, 2007

すご▞い!
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね!

ImpAtom posted:

In something like Shiren the Wanderer or Dragon Quarter or even many games with Ironman/Hardcore modes, you're not expected to finish it in one go. Each trip into the game is supposed to involve gradually increasing knowledge (and in the case of games like Dragon Quarter or Shiren, gradually stacking bonuses.) The purpose of limited or punishing saves is to encourage players to try different tactics, deal with mistakes, and in general do something besides savescum for optimal results or zerg rush until they get through. As such they play a big part in games where conservation and proper use of resources is a meaningful part of the game.
I think one of my biggest gripes against Dragon Quarter was that yeah, you did keep any techs you found upon restarting, but without a guide, you were running an opaque guess against when you should spend your carry-over EXP. To me, that EXP represented the "boost" you were allowed in your NG+. It would be a waste to spend it any time you weren't going to make it to the end of the game.

Shame that it didn't just stack permanently and add to a "total pool" you'd have every time you restarted. Your first time playing, sure, you'd die and you'd restart with what, 1500, maybe 2500 EXP to spend? That's not too much of a boost, but you'd get farther and the next time you restarted, you'd have that 1500-2000 plus another 3000 or 4000 on top of that, and then get 7-8k per character the third time you played. I think my opinion of that game would be much more generous were that the case. It would work with the "restart for bonuses" deal rather than against it as a blind opportunity cost system.

Fur20 fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Sep 29, 2012

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

ImpAtom posted:

I think a lot of IX's missteps are a product of its time. IX has a lot of mechanical and storyline quirks which are pretty emblematic of the time it came out. A lot of its strengths also come from that however, and I think a FFIX made a few years later would have been a very different game for a number of reasons.

I think a lot of its quirks can be attributed to being references to how past games worked. I've never seen a more tight-knit game than FFIX, honestly.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Azure_Horizon posted:

I think a lot of its quirks can be attributed to being references to how past games worked. I've never seen a more tight-knit game than FFIX, honestly.

I can't really agree.

Eiko, alone, is a pretty good example of a mechanical weirdness that feels out of place. Every other character in the party fills a distinct role which matches one-for-one with an existing Final Fantasy archetype. Eiko and Garnet both fill the Summoner/White Mage role. While they have their mechanical differences, they're overlapping in game which is otherwise very very distinctive about its characters, to the point where you can describe each one by their job class.

The closest you get otherwise is Beatrix and Steiner or the thieves and Zidane, but the difference between those guys and Eiko is that they don't stay in your party.

It doesn't even really work as a reference because summoner/white mage isn't really a big thing in earlier Final Fantasies. They tended to be distinct and with little overlap beyond 'someone equipped these jobs at the same time' and a short period where Young Rydia had white and black magic and a Chocobo summon.

It isn't a huge game-breaking flaw but it's an odd quirk.

The White Dragon posted:

Shame that it didn't just stack permanently and add to a "total pool" you'd have every time you restarted. Your first time playing, sure, you'd die and you'd restart with what, 1500, maybe 2500 EXP to spend? That's not too much of a boost, but you'd get farther and the next time you restarted, you'd have that 1500-2000 plus another 3000 or 4000 on top of that, and then get 7-8k per character the third time you played. I think my opinion of that game would be much more generous were that the case. It would work with the "restart for bonuses" deal rather than against it as a blind opportunity cost system.

The problem I'd see there is that it seems like it would stack way too quickly, which in turn would risk making it just feel like a more esoteric way of grinding instead of a resource cost.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Sep 29, 2012

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

ImpAtom posted:

I can't really agree.

Eiko, alone, is a pretty good example of a mechanical weirdness that feels out of place. Every other character in the party fills a distinct role which matches one-for-one with an existing Final Fantasy archetype. Eiko and Garnet both fill the Summoner/White Mage role. While they have their mechanical differences, they're overlapping in game which is otherwise very very distinctive about its characters, to the point where you can describe each one by their job class.

The closest you get otherwise is Beatrix and Steiner or the thieves and Zidane, but the difference between those guys and Eiko is that they don't stay in your party.

It doesn't even really work as a reference because summoner/white mage isn't really a big thing in earlier Final Fantasies. They tended to be distinct and with little overlap beyond 'someone equipped these jobs at the same time' and a short period where Young Rydia had white and black magic and a Chocobo summon.


The problem I'd see there is that it seems like it would stack way too quickly, which in turn would risk making it just feel like a more esoteric way of grinding instead of a resource cost.

The game makes Eiko and Dagger very distinctive, though. While they have some White Magic overlap, Dagger is very clearly a Summoner while Eiko is very clearly a White Mage, and this is directly shown by what their unique commands are in Trance form. I thought they were just mechanically different enough to be distinctly labeled as those two classes.

Especially since other characters have skills that also overlap with the White Mage, just with different labels, such as Reis' Wind and Mighty Guard and all that.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Azure_Horizon posted:

The game makes Eiko and Dagger very distinctive, though. While they have some White Magic overlap, Dagger is very clearly a Summoner while Eiko is very clearly a White Mage, and this is directly shown by what their unique commands are in Trance form. I thought they were just mechanically different enough to be distinctly labeled as those two classes.

Especially since other characters have skills that also overlap with the White Mage, just with different labels, such as Reis' Wind and Mighty Guard and all that.

Yes, you're completely ignoring what I said though.

Every other character in the game has a distinctive job class which is either uniquely theirs or shared only with guest characters. Both Eiko and Garnet share the Summon and White Mage skills. The fact that one is better than the other at a particular skill doesn't change the fact that they're both White Mage/Summoners with a lot more overlap than any other two permanent party members.

Even design-wise, there's too much overlap to go "they're clearly (X)." Garnet has the Summoner Trance and Eiko has the White Mage Trance. On the other hand, the first time you see Garnet she's wearing the White Mage robe from FF1 and she spends a good chunk of her time only capable of using white magic. On the other hand Eiko has the distinctive horn that the Summoner job class has in most games. (Garnet's having been removed as a child.)

If you named every character in Final Fantasy IX, you could do so by their job. Zidane is the Thief. Steiner is the Knight. Vivi is the Black Mage. Freya is the the Dragoon. Quina is the Blue Mage. The Flaming Amarant is the Monk. Those two stand out for being both Summoner and White Mage, with both characters receiving both White Mage and Summoner attributes.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Sep 29, 2012

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

ImpAtom posted:

Yes, you're completely ignoring what I said though.

Every other character in the game has a distinctive job class which is either uniquely theirs or shared only with guest characters. Both Eiko and Garnet share the Summon and White Mage skills. The fact that one is better than the other at a particular skill doesn't change the fact that they're both White Mage/Summoners with a lot more overlap than any other two permanent party members.

Even design-wise, there's too much overlap to go "they're clearly (X)." Garnet has the Summoner Trance and Eiko has the White Mage Trance. On the other hand, the first time you see Garnet she's wearing the White Mage robe from FF1 and she spends a good chunk of her time only capable of using white magic. On the other hand Eiko has the distinctive horn that the Summoner job class has in most games. (Garnet's having been removed as a child.)

If you named every character in Final Fantasy IX, you could do so by their job. Zidane is the Thief. Steiner is the Knight. Vivi is the Black Mage. Freya is the the Dragoon. Quina is the Blue Mage. The Flaming Amarant is the Monk. Those two stand out for being both Summoner and White Mage, with both characters receiving both White Mage and Summoner attributes mechanically and with their designs.

I dunno, I still feel like labeling them based off of their strengths, and honestly I don't see how it's an issue.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Azure_Horizon posted:

I still feel like I'd only ever label Dagger a Summoner and Eiko a White Mage, and I'm not sure how this is an issue, honestly.

Then you're defeating your own point by claiming that the tightly-knit game is giving its nostalgia references to the exact wrong characters. For a game that otherwise goes out of its way to make sure the subtle jokes are appropriate and in-place (down to, say, a prince being attacked by the antlion), it feels pretty odd that you'd claim that the White Mage has the Summoner's horn design and that the Summoner first shows up in White Mage robes.

It's an "issue" because it's an example of a weird quirk in the design which feels a bit out of place upon closer inspection. I love FFIX a lot but it is full of stuff like that. It's also a good enough game that it doesn't really matter.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

ImpAtom posted:

Then you're defeating your own point by claiming that the tightly-knit game is giving its nostalgia references to the exact wrong characters. For a game that otherwise goes out of its way to make sure the subtle jokes are appropriate and in-place (down to, say, a prince being attacked by the antlion), it feels pretty odd that you'd claim that the White Mage has the Summoner's horn design and that the Summoner first shows up in White Mage robes.
Since we don't have any exact reasoning from the devs why they decided to switch that up, I'd say it's more of a reference to the shifting job classes that were seen in FFVII/VIII, where characters became more of a blend rather than a solid class. You can see this in the other classes having overlapping skills with each other (Dragoons never had actual skills, Monks never had healing skills). The only class that is ever rigidly defined in IX is the Thief.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Azure_Horizon posted:

Since we don't have any exact reasoning from the devs why they decided to switch that up, I'd say it's more of a reference to the shifting job classes that were seen in FFVII/VIII, where characters became more of a blend rather than a solid class. You can see this in the other classes having overlapping skills with each other (Dragoons never had actual skills, Monks never had healing skill). The only class that is ever rigidly defined in IX is the Thief.

These are both incorrect actually.

Lancet was introduced in FFV. Other skills are direct refrences to either dragons from other games or just dragons in general. You're right that many are new skills, but they're not really a melding so much as they're a bunch of new dragon-themed skills.

All of the Monk skills are from other Final Fantasy games. Sabin and the Monk class in Final Fantasy Tactics had healing abilities. Most of Amarants skills are directly from FFT actually.

FFIX is pretty rigidly adherent to its job classes. It's part of what is charming about it. It is avoiding the melding together that you got from 7 and 8.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Sep 29, 2012

Bear Sleuth
Jul 17, 2011

Azure_Horizon posted:

Since we don't have any exact reasoning from the devs why they decided to switch that up, I'd say it's more of a reference to the shifting job classes that were seen in FFVII/VIII, where characters became more of a blend rather than a solid class.

Just because IX is a game full of references doesn't mean everything in it is a reference.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Bear Sleuth posted:

Just because IX is a game full of references doesn't mean everything in it is a reference.

We don't really have a conclusion one way or the other, and it makes sense to me.

edit: either way I have nothing else to say besides that I never had a problem with it. *shrug*

Azure_Horizon fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Sep 29, 2012

a crisp refreshing Moxie
May 2, 2007


The White Dragon posted:

It certainly is a stupidly long dungeon, but at least I didn't bother with it until I was at a sufficiently high level. At that point, there was no attrition left to be had and it was just "jeez I really hope I don't get another random encounter before I find the path to the next room."

I don't remember it sourly. I just remember it being really boring, and the high encounter rate didn't help that at all.

I thought this way, until THREE hours in without a save point, I get randomly ambushed by a group of monsters who proceed to use a Bad Breath-style attack, confusing all my guys (As well as other statuses? It's been a while, I don't remember). Next thing I know I'm staring at the Game Over screen without ever having pressed a button that entire fight.

I haven't turned the game back on since.

CloseFriend
Aug 21, 2002

Un malheur ne vient jamais seul.

ImpAtom posted:

It's an "issue" because it's an example of a weird quirk in the design which feels a bit out of place upon closer inspection.
It stuck out to me as I played it, but I can see why Square would do it. For the split-party sections, it allows for a white mage in each party.

Fur20
Nov 14, 2007

すご▞い!
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね!

fount of knowledge posted:

Next thing I know I'm staring at the Game Over screen without ever having pressed a button that entire fight.
I remember running into that kinda crap in the normal dungeons. There are, what, two, maybe three Ribbons in the game? One of which is from the optional part of the final dungeon, and another comes from I think the end part of the final dungeon.

I guess I kinda dodged that bullet because when I said "sufficiently prepared for the final dungeon," this also entailed having a full Onion set on someone, which provides ad-hoc Ribbon effects, and Ribbons on my two casters. My Ninja was my only vulnerable dude, but I mean I had to farm a loving Onion set. I ain't play that game ever again.

THE AWESOME GHOST
Oct 21, 2005

Did they ever fix FF3 in the later releases? It came out on iOS and PSP so they had time to hear the complaints.

Bear Sleuth
Jul 17, 2011

As far as I know, just up-rezed graphics. But it just came out on PSN for the PSP, why not play through it and report to the rest of the class?

computerdude37
Apr 20, 2012
Do people consider FFVIII a bad game? I haven't seen it in any website's "top X FF games". I'm currently on disk 2 and I'm really enjoying myself a lot.

Considering I might like a "bad" game, what would be the next in the series that would blow my mind?

Vanderdeath
Oct 1, 2005

I will confess,
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.



computerdude37 posted:

Do people consider FFVIII a bad game? I haven't seen it in any website's "top X FF games". I'm currently on disk 2 and I'm really enjoying myself a lot.

Considering I might like a "bad" game, what would be the next in the series that would blow my mind?

I would consider FFVIII to be a fine game but I'm the first to admit that its story peters out after the second disc and relies on a hell of a lot of convenient happenings to make things cohesive plot-wise. Also, aside from Squall and Rinoa, it's difficult to see any real character growth or progression in the cast. Squall's maturity is tangible and while I'm not a fan of Rinoa's, she at least has some development over the course of the game. It's a shame that the rest of the playable characters falls short on this. The Junction System, in my opinion, is one of the most fun systems to ever be in a Final Fantasy game. That and Triple Triad make FFVIII one of my favorite FFs, yet I can understand why it's ranked so low when compared to the other games of the franchise.

Polite Tim
Sep 3, 2007
'insert witty Family Guy/ Futurama/ Simpsons/ Little fucking Britian etc quote here'

computerdude37 posted:

Do people consider FFVIII a bad game? I haven't seen it in any website's "top X FF games". I'm currently on disk 2 and I'm really enjoying myself a lot.

Considering I might like a "bad" game, what would be the next in the series that would blow my mind?

You mean as a perceived 'bad game'? X-2, though most people here would agree that x-2 is the tits, it just has a retarded story. Or maybe FFIII DS, that's a pretty horrible game

AngryCaterpillar
Feb 1, 2007

I DREW THIS
Could anyone tell me how big the PSP FFIII file is?

computerdude37
Apr 20, 2012

Polite Tim posted:

You mean as a perceived 'bad game'? X-2, though most people here would agree that x-2 is the tits, it just has a retarded story. Or maybe FFIII DS, that's a pretty horrible game

I mean, what would the next logical 'good game' be to impress me?

Edit: That's similar to VIII in mechanics and whatnot.

Mega64
May 23, 2008

I took the octopath less travelered,

And it made one-eighth the difference.

CloseFriend posted:

I can't really stand any of the first three Final Fantasies in any iteration because they just feel so dated and tedious now. I really thought with Origins and Dawn of Souls and the PSP/DS games that Square would gut the whole battle system and rebuild it from the ground up (II sure loving needs it) and modernize the dungeon-crawling. I don't know how I ever let myself believe Square would actually do that.

But Square did add some improvements to the battle systems, albeit not complete overhauls. In FF1, they radically boosted the MP reserves to two-digit levels and later switched to a traditional MP system, plus they fixed some broken spells and other glitches, thus making Black Mages not nearly as useless. FF2 made leveling much less a pain in the rear end and makes it easier to actually play the game, even if you still have to deal with its crazy leveling system.

Anyway, on to FF3. The final dungeon is definitely a pain in the rear end. First you go through a dungeon to even reach the final dungeon, and you have to go back through it to reach your airship and restock on supplies. This is also the last chance you have to save.

The final dungeon itself consists of three separate dungeons. You could skip the first one, but it holds the best weapons in the game and the two best job classes, the ultimate physical/magical jobs, so you might as well do them. Once you do beat it, at least you get a chance to heal up and buy some ultimate equipment and spells. Of course, you have to backtrack to the entrance, but it's not nearly a pain with new weapons and jobs and no bosses to deal with. Plus, you get to go outside and save, so the first part really isn't that bad.

The second part only has one boss, and it's a pretty straightforward dungeon, albeit the random encounters can be real assholes to deal with. You climb to the top, go through a rather lengthy story scene (for a NES game, anyway), then beat a kinda-easy boss, more story, and then get teleported to the third dungeon. If you're playing without access to save states, it might be a good idea to reach the room before the boss (a room full of water and some treasure), then backtrack to the exit and save so you don't have to recollect treasure and keep your levels, because that boss is a point of no return. And of course, you can't save up there.

The final dungeon involves four bosses that range from kinda-pathetic to brutal if you don't know what you're doing. And then after that, you face a final boss that is relentless in its attacking, its only move being a party-wide attack than can deal over 1k damage, requiring two members to constantly be spamming your strongest cure spell to survive.

And this is the original. Yet I find this fun enough to not use save states. Of course, it became annoying when I kept dying to a boss in the last part of the dungeon in my solo game and had to keep backtracking through thirty minutes of dungeon, so I recommend using save states.

Anyway, the FF3 DS remake baffles the poo poo out of me because they take a game that is too outdated to really be any fun for most people and add even more bullshit without really fixing any of the big flaws. The final dungeon still has no save points, and they make up for the lack of large enemy parties by buffing the poo poo out of enemies, making them more of a chore to take down. Then the bosses end up being ridiculous, and the game just ends up being even more old-school and extreme to the next level, to the point where even fans of the original like myself find it way too bullshit to play. Rather than make the game more accessible to other players, they simply ramp up the old-school bullshit to intolerable levels.

I really have no loving idea why they thought this was a good idea. The game ends up being an incredibly tedious mess to the point where battles aren't fun to play through, which is kind of the entire point of the job system to begin with, and the story's certainly not good enough to warrant playing through the bullshit. I just don't know what they were loving thinking with that god drat remake, or why they expect anyone to want to buy this game besides it being a loving Final Fantasy game. How the gently caress do you expect to snag new customers with a game that's even more inaccessible than the original?

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

computerdude37 posted:

Do people consider FFVIII a bad game? I haven't seen it in any website's "top X FF games". I'm currently on disk 2 and I'm really enjoying myself a lot.

Considering I might like a "bad" game, what would be the next in the series that would blow my mind?

It depends on what you like about it.

Boten Anna
Feb 22, 2010

I like the Android version of FF3 much more than the DS one that made me very angry, though I confess I haven't finished it. The battles don't take nearly as long to load, which was my main complaint.

Fur20
Nov 14, 2007

すご▞い!
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね!

Polite Tim posted:

You mean as a perceived 'bad game'? X-2, though most people here would agree that x-2 is the tits, it just has a retarded story. Or maybe FFIII DS, that's a pretty horrible game
X-2 is weird in that it's like this awkward mesh of, like, SNL, Star Wars, some especially :allears:starry-eyed:allears: feelgood chick flick, a Sparknotes on existentialism and a pamplhet on Hinduism, and Britney Spears. I don't think it's that it has a bad story, just one that fails because it was trying to be in too many places at once.

computerdude37 posted:

Considering I might like a "bad" game, what would be the next in the series that would blow my mind?
If you like the story, then I'm not really sure what to tell you. I might wonder if you're under twenty.

If you're having fun with the mechanics, well, there aren't really any other numbered FF games that let you break the poo poo out of them by modifying your core stats really early on: FF6, sure, but that requires a lot of grinding and you can't do it until the early midgame; FF5 also requires a lot of grinding if you want to reach push-button easy; FF9's stat-breaking requires a lot of micromanagement. You might rather enjoy Star Ocean 2 or FFT (not Advance) or I dunno maybe an Etrian Odyssey game.

Eggie
Aug 15, 2010

Something ironic, I'm certain
In the original Final Fantasy, do party positions matter? I have a Black Mage in the front party slot and I'm wondering if more blows will go his way because of it.

quote:

You mean as a perceived 'bad game'? X-2, though most people here would agree that x-2 is the tits, it just has a retarded story. Or maybe FFIII DS, that's a pretty horrible game

I like FFX-2 for several reasons and dislike it for several reasons. Yeah, the story and writing of the game is pitiful, but there's a lot to like about it and it tried some very interesting things like having the world completely open from the start and using mission-based gameplay. Paine was a cool character if you could unlock the missions to detail her story. I loved the class system. I loved the equipment system.

Sometime in the future I'll rebuy the game and see how long I last before it frustrates the hell out of me.

Eggie fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Sep 29, 2012

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

Eggie posted:

In the original Final Fantasy, do party positions matter? I have a Black Mage in the front party slot and I'm wondering if more blows will go his way because of it.

Party members in the front are more likely to be targeted.

Fudge Handsome
Jan 29, 2011

Shall we do it?
I hated everything about X-2 except the battle and class system. I loved what they did with that and it felt like what Chrono Trigger's battle system would have evolved into, if they had ever made a sequel. It was fun and satisfying to use, every class had a purpose, and there were incentives to change class mid-fight -- complete with a magical girl transformation, if you weren't into that sort of thing.

Mustach
Mar 2, 2003

In this long line, there's been some real strange genes. You've got 'em all, with some extras thrown in.

ImpAtom posted:

Even design-wise, there's too much overlap to go "they're clearly (X)." Garnet has the Summoner Trance and Eiko has the White Mage Trance. On the other hand, the first time you see Garnet she's wearing the White Mage robe from FF1 and she spends a good chunk of her time only capable of using white magic. On the other hand Eiko has the distinctive horn that the Summoner job class has in most games. (Garnet's having been removed as a child.)
This is actually way more interesting than if they were one class or the other.

computerdude37 posted:

I mean, what would the next logical 'good game' be to impress me?

Edit: That's similar to VIII in mechanics and whatnot.
There aren't any others like it, unfortunately.

Bear Sleuth
Jul 17, 2011

Eggie posted:

In the original Final Fantasy, do party positions matter? I have a Black Mage in the front party slot and I'm wondering if more blows will go his way because of it.

Yes! I hope you are playing one of the remakes because what are you even doing?! It works like this: first rank is targeted 50% of the time, second 25% of the time, and the back two spots are targeted 12.5% each. Rotating the heroes through the top rank is a more effective method of mitigating damage than healing or spending thousands of gold on armor. It is the number one secret trick to successful and non-grindy approach to the game.

Unless you're playing on the GBA or PSP then whatever man, the game's not going to provide a challenge anyway.

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.

The White Dragon posted:

I remember running into that kinda crap in the normal dungeons. There are, what, two, maybe three Ribbons in the game? One of which is from the optional part of the final dungeon, and another comes from I think the end part of the final dungeon.

I guess I kinda dodged that bullet because when I said "sufficiently prepared for the final dungeon," this also entailed having a full Onion set on someone, which provides ad-hoc Ribbon effects, and Ribbons on my two casters. My Ninja was my only vulnerable dude, but I mean I had to farm a loving Onion set. I ain't play that game ever again.

There are a total of 5 Ribbons in the game, 4 of which are from the last area.

Still, there are other ways of weakening status, like the Aegis Shield. I know, using a shield instead of dual-wielding, madness. And the Bad Breath in this game is never as bad as FFVIII, or FFX.

I enjoyed FFIII for what it was, though - a game that was legitimiately hard and made me try it over and over again. You rarely find games that actually make you really work to win in the story itself, most games just have difficult post-game content. This might be one of the only games where when I start a new game I'm going 'geez, I don't know if this job combination will work in the end, but I'm going to try anyway.' FFIII DS in particular is very difficult and at times aggravating (I'm looking at you, Garuda), but that's part of its charm for me.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

computerdude37 posted:

Edit: That's similar to VIII in mechanics and whatnot.

Again, it depends on what you like about the mechanics.

The basic combat system is just fairly generic Final Fantasy. The most unique aspect of it is the Draw system, which is exclusive to FFVIII.

As far as wide options for customization go, there are a few different choices. Final Fantasy VII uses an equippable item system which determines your spells and abilities and occasionally stats. FFX has a semi=linear system which grows more customizable later into the game.

If you mean 'can be shattered into a billion pieces to do 9999 damage without effort," then FF6 is probably your go-to bet. It has less customization but a lot of extremely powerful options thrown at you from early on.

Dr Pepper
Feb 4, 2012

Don't like it? well...

2 isn't a particualrly good game (though I'm fond of it) but it's pretty easy to break. Once you get Minwu, head back to Fynn and cast Teleport on the Captains there until they drop a Toad tome.

Keep using Toad and you'll be able to win any fight.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

computerdude37 posted:

Do people consider FFVIII a bad game? I haven't seen it in any website's "top X FF games". I'm currently on disk 2 and I'm really enjoying myself a lot.

Considering I might like a "bad" game, what would be the next in the series that would blow my mind?

It's by far the worst game in the franchise. But you should play IX to wash it out.

Die Sexmonster!
Nov 30, 2005

Azure_Horizon posted:

It's by far the worst game in the franchise. But you should play IX to wash it out.

VIII is way more fun than a lot of other games with Final Fantasy in the name, including but not limited to XIII, Tactics Advance, Mystic Quest, Legends 1- 3, etc etc. It's got a lot of good aspects to it, the bad might be difficult to swallow if you're overly critical but it's a great RPG.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

VIII is way more fun than a lot of other games with Final Fantasy in the name, including but not limited to XIII, Tactics Advance, Mystic Quest, Legends 1- 3, etc etc. It's got a lot of good aspects to it, the bad might be difficult to swallow if you're overly critical but it's a great RPG.

I had more fun with every game you mentioned there, including Mystic Quest. I would argue each one (except *maybe* Mystic Quest) is mechanically better designed than FFVIII and the only contest the stories have is a race to the bottom. Even you're basically saying that it's fine as long as you don't actually be critical about it, which isn't something you should ever have to say about a great RPG.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

VIII is way more fun than a lot of other games with Final Fantasy in the name, including but not limited to XIII, Tactics Advance, Mystic Quest, Legends 1- 3, etc etc. It's got a lot of good aspects to it, the bad might be difficult to swallow if you're overly critical but it's a great RPG.

Like usual, I don't agree with this assessment. Its good aspects begin and end on Disc 1, aside from a couple music tracks here and there and Esthar's design. I can't put it above any other game in the franchise for losing all steam 25% in.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply