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What do you all think of the PSP art style used in FFI, II, IV, and The After Years? I really like the spritework in the first game, but the character models seem a little off in Final Fantasy IV. It's either because the characters are less super-deformed, or because they look more like the original Amano art, and not the stylised sprites I'm used to. FFI:  FFIV: 
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Dec 7, 2013 03:31
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I think the problem is that the FFIV sprites are more 'complex' than the FFI sprites and so attempts to put them in the same basic art style look more cluttered.
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Dec 7, 2013 03:35
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FFIV Complete (and FFI&II PSP and iOS) was made by Bullets, whereas the iOS ports of FFIII-VI were made by Matrix. I think Bullets did superior work, but I can't find any information about why they didn't do the others. Perhaps they folded, or maybe they were too expensive compared to Matrix.
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Dec 7, 2013 03:39
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Evil Fluffy posted:It's a given that the FF6 remake's sprites are going to be
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Dec 7, 2013 04:52
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conversions of the FFD characters just like we saw with FF5.
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That loving Sned posted:What do you all think of the PSP art style used in FFI, II, IV, and The After Years? I really like the spritework in the first game, but the character models seem a little off in Final Fantasy IV. It's either because the characters are less super-deformed, or because they look more like the original Amano art, and not the stylised sprites I'm used to. I really liked the sprite work when I played FFIV Complete, and it blows my mind that they didn't stick to that art style for FFD and these mobile remakes.
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Dec 7, 2013 05:12
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I also liked how in the PSP version of Final Fantasy IV, you had the option to use the original SNES music, as well as different languages such as Japanese. More remakes should let you choose what parts you want changed, such as the difficulty (original, Easy Type, DS), graphics (SNES, Wonderswan/GBA, PSP, DS), or translation. I'd much rather play the mobile phone versions of FFV and VI if they let me use the original SNES graphics, because the new backgrounds look like they were put through an emulator filter.
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Dec 7, 2013 11:19
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Evil Fluffy posted:They look like cheap garbage because the team that made them are the FFD/FF4:TAY people and while FFD's class/combat was solid with just god awful writing TAY was a complete trainwreck of fan service from start to finish. The best part of all this? TAY's sprites were basically crappy redraws of FF6 sprites. So now FF6 is using sprites inspired by inferior copies of its own sprites.
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Dec 7, 2013 12:35
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Evil Fluffy posted:It's a given that the FF6 remake's sprites are going to be Yeah...while FF6 could benefit from a sharper look, what they've done here by brightening it up kind of messes with it.  The dark and dingy look a lot of the backgrounds had in that game contributed heavily to the atmosphere and made it really distinct, particularly coming after 4 and 5.  Here, it's kinda jarring. Those doors stand out way too much and don't look like part of the structure, and the whole thing seems a little too clean. I think the problem any artist would have is, particularly with places like Vector, they can't use the low resolution to help imply extra detail, and they're constrained by the fact that it's just a retuning of the original look, with nothing actually being redrawn with any kind of additional artistic flair. I guess you could say it's trying too hard to be faithful, but it loses a bit of the charm.
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Dec 7, 2013 15:03
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E: ^^^ You actually see less of the screen on the iOS version, despite the huge increase in resolution. The top and bottom have been cropped off, like in the GBA version. That's a really poor quality screenshot. I took these from the SNES version: Unfiltered:  Filtered:  Better yet, here's the whole area, so they could have just zoomed out the screen if they wanted it to look good on HD devices. 
That Fucking Sned fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 17:15
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That reminds me, I really like FF6 because it was the first game (of many) in the series to be influenced by Blade Runner.
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Dec 7, 2013 17:25
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That reminds me I'm kind of weirded out by the art direction in VI. You have Narshe that's sort of steampunk in an inspired way, the Empire that's clearly past industrialization, and Zozo. But then the rest of the game is just generic medieval JRPG background noise. It's almost like they only figured out half way into development they were sick of the same old cliches and decided to go for a more technologically advanced setting, but didn't have time to come up with all new assets (so lets instead do our best to make stone watch towers look like ventilation shafts instead).
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Dec 7, 2013 17:34
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BioMe posted:That reminds me I'm kind of weirded out by the art direction in VI. You have Narshe that's sort of steampunk in an inspired way, the Empire that's clearly past industrialization, and Zozo. But then the rest of the game is just generic medieval JRPG background noise. It's almost like they only figured out half way into development they were sick of the same old cliches and decided to go for a more technologically advanced setting, but didn't have time to come up with all new assets (so lets instead do our best to make stone watch towers look like ventilation shafts instead). I actually have always appreciated the fact that the FF series doesn't just stick to Ye Olde Medieval settings, and instead mixes the Dungeons-and-Dragons stuff in with futuristic technology and Steampunk motifs. It really makes their settings feel like whole other worlds, completely alien ones which didn't follow the same linear path of societal/technological progression that Earth took.
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Dec 7, 2013 17:37
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BioMe posted:That reminds me I'm kind of weirded out by the art direction in VI. You have Narshe that's sort of steampunk in an inspired way, the Empire that's clearly past industrialization, and Zozo. But then the rest of the game is just generic medieval JRPG background noise. It's almost like they only figured out half way into development they were sick of the same old cliches and decided to go for a more technologically advanced setting, but didn't have time to come up with all new assets (so lets instead do our best to make stone watch towers look like ventilation shafts instead). I figured that was intentional, to try to get across the whole dissonant pairing of nature vs technology that was still a fresh and hot theme back then.
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Dec 7, 2013 17:38
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Captain Mog posted:I actually have always appreciated the fact that the FF series doesn't just stick to Ye Olde Medieval settings, and instead mixes the Dungeons-and-Dragons stuff in with futuristic technology and Steampunk stuff. It really makes their settings feel like whole other worlds, completely alien ones which didn't follow the same linear path of societal/technological progression that Earth took. There's a pretty insane dissonance with different parts of the setting is what I am saying, and it isn't really mixed in a way that makes sense (compare to say FFVII that establishes a technological revolution emanating from Shinra, or FFV where there's the super-advanced lost civilization cliche). Funnily enough I happened to type "ventilation shaft" into google and was immediately greeted by this: 
BioMe fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 17:41
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BioMe posted:There's a pretty insane dissonance with different parts of the setting is what I am saying, and it isn't really mixed in a way that makes sense (compare to say FFVII that establishes a technological revolution emanating from Shinra, or FFV where there's the super-advanced lost civilization cliche). Is there? I think the art direction has the restraint not to stick little gears and steam devices all over the place, so when you look at a rural village there's not much evidence of steampunk stuff, but that's actually good. The bigger towns have cobblestones instead of grass and dirt roads but that's about it. Narshe and Vector look higher-tech because the locations you visit there are mines and factories. The opera house, Colosseum, train, and Zozo don't look remotely medieval; they look Victorian if anything. Figaro looks like an old building retrofitted with new technology, which is what the story says it is. I'm not seeing the problem.
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Dec 7, 2013 18:08
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Also, it's OK to have technological disparity in a world. You can't expect to see the same sort of technology when looking at Tokyo vs. a rural Scottish town vs. a small village in Uganda. Vector has experienced a techno-magic revolution and is very advanced. Narshe presumably is a prosperous "superpower" if you will, and I believe all that steam is supposed to be from Geothermal heating. As stated, Figaro castle has been specifically updated by an engineering genius. Everywhere else in the world is older, rural, or just advancing at a normal clip. OK, I guess Zozo looks too modern, considering it was built by and solely inhabited by thugs and common criminals. But the rest is pretty internally consistent.
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Dec 7, 2013 20:23
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I always thought the disparity in style between Figaro Castle and Vector was deliberate. Figaro Castle is supposed to be a leader in engineering and whatnot, but the designs are retrofitted into the castle. Meanwhile, Vector is all new from the ground up. When the very first thing the game tells you is that a thousand years ago there was a war that destroyed society and people are still trying to rediscover things that were common beforehand, the good guys mixing modern and historical and the villains being purely modern is probably a stylistic decision.
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Dec 8, 2013 03:26
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If I bought the PSP version of Tactics digitally and am playing on a Vita, there's no way to fix the spell animation lag, is there?
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Dec 8, 2013 16:01
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Whether it's deliberate or not isn't really the problem, nor is the fact there is technological disparity. It's that there's really no given reason for it. You have guys fighting with something akin to WWI tech against knights holed up in a stone castle without any justification why the nations would be so insulated their level of tech would differ by centuries. But really it's a stylistic problem that doesn't really get jarring until the empire's capital. You say the towns would easily be almost from any era past medieval, but the devil is in the details (like the ships still being old wooden ships, there being a colosseum, towns still having stone walls, etc.), and of course the fact the only towns you visit seem to be quaint little villages that look like they could be from several centuries ago. FF7 had a similar setting, if subtler, and it solved it by having the recent jump in technology being commented a lot by the story and NPCs. Maybe FF6 intended something similar, but it doesn't really handle it well. In fact almost every FF since has done it better. BioMe fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Dec 8, 2013 |
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Dec 8, 2013 16:20
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Actually, World War 1 had a lot of anachronism like that. Turns out the entire planet didn't modernize at the same time, so you had stuff like Tibetan Horse Archery fighting the Chinese Army during the Russian Civil War in Mongolia.
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Dec 8, 2013 16:42
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Dross posted:If I bought the PSP version of Tactics digitally and am playing on a Vita, there's no way to fix the spell animation lag, is there? There's a patch out for European ISOs that fixes it, but you need a hacked PSP or a PSP emulator to make to make it work of course. No way to get it running on a PSN copy and I don't think you can get it on the Vita.
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Dec 8, 2013 17:20
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So I'm actually making good progress through FFVIII on Steam. I just got the ability to travel around the world on the Garden. (Do I need to spoil this?) I know there's tons of miss-able stuff in this game, what's the next best course of action?
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Dec 8, 2013 18:15
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ShadeofDante posted:I know there's tons of miss-able stuff in this game, what's the next best course of action? The only really major "misseable" stuff is gated off after the "Disc 3 to Disc 4" transition. Basically, don't continue with the plot after gaining your second major world map transport. EDIT: Also, play cards with everyone possible now. There's a couple on-going sidequests that require you to find certain NPCs. This opens up some BIG possibilities endgame that let you completely break the game (worse than you already can, at least.) Mokinokaro fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Dec 8, 2013 |
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Dec 8, 2013 18:17
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MonsieurChoc posted:Actually, World War 1 had a lot of anachronism like that. Turns out the entire planet didn't modernize at the same time, so you had stuff like Tibetan Horse Archery fighting the Chinese Army during the Russian Civil War in Mongolia. Don't forget that armies holed up in actual stone castles in World War I a few times. Also the Imperial Army is shown to use melee weapons for most of its troops still, so Doma holing up is a lot more feasible that way.
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Dec 8, 2013 18:21
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Mokinokaro posted:The only really major "misseable" stuff is gated off after the "Disc 3 to Disc 4" transition. IIRC all you really lose on disc 4 is Gilgamesh and Obel Lake. You can get any items you missed from Chocobo World, cards from the CC Club/Queen, and GFs from Ultimecia's Castle.
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Dec 8, 2013 18:34
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Tempo 119 posted:cards from the CC Club/Queen The club doesn't show up unless you've beaten them earlier in the game.
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Dec 8, 2013 18:35
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Mokinokaro posted:The club doesn't show up unless you've beaten them earlier in the game. Yeah you're right, that's the one thing you'd need to get on top of early. Other than that though, not much to worry about in terms of missables.
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Dec 8, 2013 18:40
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Defiance Industries posted:Don't forget that armies holed up in actual stone castles in World War I a few times. Also the Imperial Army is shown to use melee weapons for most of its troops still, so Doma holing up is a lot more feasible that way. Bayonet rifles are basically gunblades when you think about it.
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Dec 8, 2013 19:10
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BioMe posted:You have guys fighting with something akin to WWI tech against knights holed up in a stone castle without any justification why the nations would be so insulated their level of tech would differ by centuries. Cause technological development doesn't map to time, except in the history of the West since the industrial revolution. There was an era of Japanese warfare where armored men with swords and bows on horseback literally were going up against early machine guns; a person from that culture is necessarily gonna have a different understanding of technology and war than we do. The Doma Castle scene makes total sense in that context. Plus Magitek isn't akin to WWI tech, or any real tech. It's exploiting magic to make superhumanly big and strong armored warriors. It's visually coded as high technology but it doesn't correspond to anything in real life, and doesn't particularly make sense outside the story's fantasy world. The colosseum replaces the opera house after the apocalypse, it's a symbol of how the world has changed. And how doesn't it make sense that the Empire has the best weapons technology and industrial techniques for producing it? That's why they're winning, right? That's why they're an empire at all. All in all it's pretty surreal to imagine you looking at a game where people ride giant chickens and summon magical horses to heal them and going "hmmmm but what era of Euro-American warfighting technology does this correspond to"
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Dec 8, 2013 19:29
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BioMe posted:Whether it's deliberate or not isn't really the problem, nor is the fact there is technological disparity. It's that there's really no given reason for it. You have guys fighting with something akin to WWI tech against knights holed up in a stone castle without any justification why the nations would be so insulated their level of tech would differ by centuries. What do you mean, "there's really no given reason for it?" Did you not read the opening text crawl? FFVI posted:"The ancient War of the Magi... When its flames at last receded, only The cutting edge of technology for most of the world is gunpowder and steam engines. However, the Empire captured all those Espers about 18 years ago and has been using the power of ~magic~ to develop, get this, Magitek (that's short for technology). Pretty sure there are lots of people talking about how the Empire is using their "magic technology" to conquer all the other nations. So unless you're just objecting to having magic power a technological revolution in your fantasy video game setting, I don't see what the problem is. A difference between 6 and 7 is that Shinra was basically selling their technology to consumers around the world, so more people actually felt the difference in their daily lives. The Empire is keeping its technology to itself and just using it to steamroll anyone who gets in their way. So no, you're not going to see a lot of people saying "Magitek sure has changed how we live our lives!" because it hasn't.
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Dec 8, 2013 19:31
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I don't know why I bother, I knew it'd end with someone pointing out the historical equivalents or the one time the game even brings it up, because then it's not unrealistc or a plot hole, and what else is bad writing but unrealistic and plot holes? The reason I brought up FF7 was because there the technological aspect of the setting is actually well established in the writing. The character's acknowledge the changes in their world and are shaped by them, technology also brings societal change, and their equivalent of Doma vs. the Empire actually had a thematic point about the momentum of technological superiority and progress. In FF6 the Empire had to poison Doma's water supply, there was no point about the futility of fighting a technologically superior enemy or anything like that. Also most real-life examples pretty much rely on the fact the real world is loving huge and it's possible to become insulated from the progress other civilizations make. In FF6 it really doesn't feel like any part of the world is exactly cut off and there's no justification for the disparity. And because it's fiction, not real life, it has to justify things. I mean I don't really expect a video game from early 90s to be that cohesive, and in the end it's just a small flaw with a bit of a jarring art style change in one of its areas. It seems everyone else is always compelled to argue it's a perfect masterpiece.
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Dec 8, 2013 21:11
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The Empire didn't have to poison Doma's water supply. Kefka did that because he is a shithead. General Leo explicitly was trying to take over Doma without murdering everyone there. The challenge the Empire had wasn't beating Doma. It was that General Leo didn't want to murder everyone there to do it. This is stated directly onscreen and it is the reason Kefka goes right to murdering the second Leo leaves town. Figaro was specifically allied with the empire (as a front for Edgar to keep working behind the scenes with the Returners) and Kefka was able to pretty easily assault the place until they literally hid under the sand to avoid attack. South Figaro fell in a heartbeat once the Empire was actually became aggressive. South Figaro is held until peace is made with the Empire later in the game. Narshe gets stepped on early in the game and only the combined forces of the protagonist team (including at least two incredibly powerful magic users, one of whom is stated to have been able to destroy 50 of the Empire's soldiers in three minutes and the other who was one of its top magic-infused generals) allowed them to hold of an attack later in the game. Multiple characters discuss how the empire is terrifying and powerful because of their Magitek. The entire stated reason for recruiting Terra is because magic (and Espers) are the one thing that will let people stand up against them. The entire point of the Empire is that they managed to get hold of Espers and that gave them access to technology nobody else did. The technological disparity and overcoming it is literally the protagonist group's motivation in the early game. You're ignoring things that happened onscreen and saying the game didn't address them when it did. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Dec 8, 2013 |
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Dec 8, 2013 21:21
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So I just picked up FFVII on steam in the last couple of days and was messing with the controls some. I realized that when I hold Page Down and any movement key, it moves me in that diagonal direction. This will be a problem later when I am racing chocobos. I've googled this but haven't found anything relating to it and didn't know if someone else had the same issue I do.
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Dec 8, 2013 21:30
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Chaitai posted:So I just picked up FFVII on steam in the last couple of days and was messing with the controls some. I realized that when I hold Page Down and any movement key, it moves me in that diagonal direction. This will be a problem later when I am racing chocobos. I've googled this but haven't found anything relating to it and didn't know if someone else had the same issue I do. That's something that Final Fantasy VII had on the PSOne. You could hold the R1 button to rotate the d-pad input clockwise by 90 degrees, and vice versa for L1. The PC version maps all the PSOne buttons to the keyboard, and doesn't change the interface. I think it does let you enter character's names by typing them in, but that's pretty much it.
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Dec 8, 2013 21:57
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ImpAtom posted:The Empire didn't have to poison Doma's water supply. Kefka did that because he is a shithead. General Leo explicitly was trying to take over Doma without murdering everyone there. The challenge the Empire had wasn't beating Doma. It was that General Leo didn't want to murder everyone there to do it. This is stated directly onscreen and it is the reason Kefka goes right to murdering the second Leo leaves town. It does nothing the establish why there's exactly one vast heavily industrialized city where most of the things are made of metal and concrete, while the second most major hub has only wooden ships and brick houses and there's a country that still relies on castles while still considered a major player. I know the plot is "the evil empire has technology that makes their military unstoppable", but a premise alone doesn't mean the rest of work reflects it well.
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Dec 8, 2013 22:02
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ShadeofDante posted:So I'm actually making good progress through FFVIII on Steam. I just got the ability to travel around the world on the Garden. (Do I need to spoil this?) If I remember correctly you can, at this point: -Get Squall's ultimate weapon by pulling some shenanigans -Get Odin (Draw 100 Death and 100 Triple from him on every character) -Get Tonberry (really want this, especially if you want to get Squall's ultimate weapon now) -Get Doomtrain -Grind cactaurs for tons of points for your GFs (also shenanigans) -Go to the Shumi village
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Dec 8, 2013 22:40
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BioMe posted:It does nothing the establish why there's exactly one vast heavily industrialized city where most of the things are made of metal and concrete, while the second most major hub has only wooden ships and brick houses and there's a country that still relies on castles while still considered a major player. Because they got a massive technological boost after acquiring magical creatures who can defy the laws of physics. It is not ~super realistic~ but it is pretty clearly explained. The rest of the world does not have access to Espers or anything that comes from Espers and also presumably the Empire isn't keen on leasing their technological development out to people they intend to conquer. Banon specifically discusses how Magitek allows them to use and power machines nobody else can. The entire reason the Espers bumrushed Vector as soon as they get free is because it is where they are using that power. Everywhere else, including the other cities on Vector's content, were taken over by the Empire. Vector is their combination fortess and city. It is the same as why Midgar except unlike Midgar they're not selling their poo poo to other countries. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Dec 8, 2013 |
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Dec 8, 2013 22:46
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SpazmasterX posted:If I remember correctly you can, at this point: These two aren't doable yet. They both need to be on disc 3 or 4. Doomtrain needs Alexander to make at the earliest, who's only available in the last boss of Disc 2 or one in Ultimecia's Castle, and the ring's near Esther which you don't go to until disc 3. Cactuar Island isn't reachable without the Ragnarok.
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Dec 8, 2013 22:48
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BioMe posted:It does nothing the establish why there's exactly one vast heavily industrialized city where most of the things are made of metal and concrete, while the second most major hub has only wooden ships and brick houses and there's a country that still relies on castles while still considered a major player. FWIW the part of Vector people live in has slightly different looking buildings than South Figaro but they're still made of all the same materials. It's not like Vector is cars and apartment buildings like you're making it sound. South Figaro having wooden ships, again, fits with the Figaro/Narshe aesthetic of the old with the new. The ship is wood but it is self-propelling (probably a steam engine). Figaro Castle has a stone exterior but the basement has a gigantic engine and turbines in the towers. And so on.
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Dec 8, 2013 22:54
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ImpAtom posted:Because they got a massive technological boost after acquiring magical creatures who can defy the laws of physics. It is not ~super realistic~ but it is pretty clearly explained. The rest of the world does not have access to Espers or anything that comes from Espers and also presumably the Empire isn't keen on leasing their technological development out to people they intend to conquer. Which is kind of confusing when the opening crawl talks about a technological progress taking over for centuries and it doesn't really make an intuitive sense how discovering magic translates to inventing rebar. It would have made a lot more sense if they had come up with some reason for the empire to have been isolated before starting world conquest.
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Dec 8, 2013 23:05
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