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Music Junkie posted:This next part though, SCREW THAT. You're going to love Mega's next update.  Senior Woodchuck posted:Up next, one of the most pain-in-the-rear end minigames in the entire series. At least the music is good.
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Oct 2, 2016 14:57
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ALWAYS hated that dungeon.
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Four sacrifices. Four crystals. But the sacrifices were the problem in the first place? Dammit, Zidane, can you be a little curious now?
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Oct 2, 2016 16:26
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Glazius posted:Four sacrifices. Four crystals. But the sacrifices were the problem in the first place? Not when beloved comrade Quina is in mortal danger!
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Oct 2, 2016 17:01
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MarquiseMindfang posted:After Googling a few of that thing's attacks that didn't come from Ark, turns out it's also a reference to a 1986 game called Cruise Chaser Blassty. That's where the Super Hawk Blaster and GA-100 attacks come from, as well as the add.
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Oct 2, 2016 20:08
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The farthest I've ever gotten was just before Oeilvert, because for some reason neither the gameplay or story could really hook me into playing longer. Whenever Kuja sent me out I just said who gives a poo poo and quit. Apparently if I had just actually gone into that dungeon, I probably would have found enough of a reason to keep going. There's some pretty interesting backstory coming out of there.
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Oct 2, 2016 21:19
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Well this is the point in the game where the plot sorta disappears for everyone not named Zidane.
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Oct 2, 2016 21:30
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ZiegeDame posted:Well this is the point in the game where the plot sorta disappears for everyone not named Zidane. You are forgetting Amarant's Christmas Special Interlude. Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Not when beloved comrade Quina is in mortal danger! Why would he? Quina would take a look at the lava, get reminded of soup, and jump headfirst into it only to resurface at the next story plot point. Quina don't care. lezard_valeth fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Oct 2, 2016 |
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Oct 2, 2016 22:43
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the next dungeon was a hiatus point for me too during my first playthrough not long mind you, but back then I didnt have the internet to rely on
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Oct 2, 2016 23:08
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I always forget about that minigame until riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight about here
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Oct 2, 2016 23:15
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Hooray, 50 pages of catch up done. Love you Mega!!!
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Oct 3, 2016 01:44
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So, I apologize if this has been covered in some degree before and this is a big question. Why isn't this game more popular? I mean really. It seems like it plays very much like the previous 8 major titles, the last two on PSX specifically. The graphics are great, which makes sense, since this is one of the last big titles in the system's life cycle. It has all these nods and ties to the previous games. It has the classic summons, nods to the original FF1 classes - plus summoner and whatever Quinoa is. It has a way of breaking the game open (reportedly. I don't think we covered it unless I skimmed it), which is always fun for min-maxers. And then there's the story, which is really engaging. I'm really looking forward to each update because the whole thing is new to me. 7 is the classic for a certain group of people. It was the first one post nintendo, it was probably the first FF for a lot of people (yo) if not the first RPG they ever played. It holds a special place for a lot of people. Everyone knows who Cloud, Aeris, Tifa and Barret are. That's why they keep popping up 20 years later. 8 is usually nowhere near as well liked But those are both remembered a lot more than 9 it seems. 9 feels like a forgotten child, but with all the positives I've seen here, I just don't get it.
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Oct 5, 2016 02:57
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VII and VIII had PC versions in their day. IX had a PC version earlier this year. The earlier games had wider audiences.
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Oct 5, 2016 03:05
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I don't think lack of PC release really mattered at the time. The influx of fans from FF7 and FF8 just preferred stories with more modern settings, realistic human characters, and love plots, I guess. Yes I know FF7 has very little to do romance ultimately, but tell that to the millions of people who think Aeris is a Disney Princess. Also, it came out very late in the PS1 cycle, a year after the "next gen" consoles and people were blown away by how much of a great leap forward FF10 was going to look. I personally think FF9 has aged fairly well for a PSX game, but I'm not going to pretend it as big a leap as 10 was. Another factor, one that kills my desire to ever replay it, is that the battle system is sooooo slowwwwwwwww that playing is just a chore.
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Oct 5, 2016 03:38
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I think the decision to go with these semi-deformed cartoon figures with large hands, feet and heads (with strangely shaped cheeks and jaws) was very off putting to many. Coming from VIII, where the characters had generally realistic proportions (okay, the legs were still super tall because Nomura but whatever) in not just the FMV sequences but in the entire game, IX's art design was baffling to me as a kid in early high school. Now I'm okay with it but I still occasionally will gaze through the art book that was released and wonder why there was such a proportional difference from what Amano sketched down and the final product.
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Oct 5, 2016 03:48
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I think the designs are what I really like about it though. It helps the game feel unique. No other games in the main series have designs that are anything like the others in the series. The closest I can think of to 'traditional' FF designs are Kuja and Zidane, but even they manage to be fairly unique. Like, you very rarely see character designs like Freya or Steiner in FF games, or Japanese style media in general, so I'm very happy that they exist, if nothing for a nice change of pace from all the perfectly sculpted Gackt-analogs that are in all the other FF games (not that there's anything wrong with Gackt and his perfect abs mind you, but the variety is appreciated).
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Oct 5, 2016 04:33
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Is ff8 really "popular"? I've gotten the feeling that everyone played it and then joked about how lame they found it.
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Oct 5, 2016 04:44
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Hemingway To Go! posted:Is ff8 really "popular"? I've gotten the feeling that everyone played it and then joked about how lame they found it. It was a much more breakable game and the game had more appeal to teenage angst, a follow-up to Squall. The graphics were also touted as more 'realistic'. I think the graphics on 9 have aged better. DentD posted:I think the decision to go with these semi-deformed cartoon figures with large hands, feet and heads (with strangely shaped cheeks and jaws) was very off putting to many. Coming from VIII, where the characters had generally realistic proportions (okay, the legs were still super tall because Nomura but whatever) in not just the FMV sequences but in the entire game, IX's art design was baffling to me as a kid in early high school. It seemed more like a callback to many. I find that most people who played 1-6 as kids loved 9 as a callback to more solid "class based" characters and those who were younger and started on and 7 and 8 wondered what the hell 9 was and it seemed to be 'not Final Fantasy'. Anecdotal but it fits with the people I know.
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Oct 5, 2016 04:54
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I played IX before I played any of the pre-VII ones so I didn't get most of the references, but it's still my favourite one.
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Oct 5, 2016 04:59
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I remember when VIII came out I played through the whole thing convincing myself it was the best because of course it was. Then I replayed it and realized its monumental flaws. Then I replayed it again years later and was able to see the handful of things it did really well, as well as respect its audacity. When IX came out it was seen as a boring step backwards into tradition, in an era when deformed characters were considered "kiddie" and when that was the worst thing a game could be. It took several years for the fanbase to come around in numbers, but I think the consensus now is that the game owns even among people who panned it when it came out. Final Fantasy games are always at war with their own legacies.
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Oct 5, 2016 10:05
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quote:Gonna preface from now on to prevent possible confusion: I'm quoting from the Excalibur 2 Perfect Game Guide! This is how not to only beat the game at low level, but to also make a speedrun of it, and how to also not miss any missable items! It's elaborate as hell and maybe slightly insane! Not much to cover this time. code:Oeilvert itself is rather boring, except for the Ark preparation: code:As for the strategy: code:
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Oct 5, 2016 11:46
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Charge! is the TAS's endgame tactic, actually.
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Oct 5, 2016 13:05
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Charge! is the TAS's endgame tactic, actually.
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Oct 5, 2016 13:32
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Apart from trances like double black / white magic, I think Charge! is the only multihit move in the game. It takes some setting up but it's certainly a nice option to have.
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Oct 5, 2016 14:02
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Charge! is potentially the best ability in the game, because outside of Vivi and Eiko's trances, it's the only way to do more than 9999 damage in a single action. Considering that the most HP any boss has is about 65,000, that's pretty powerful.
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Oct 5, 2016 19:12
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Jinkies, finally caught up after finally reading from when this came back! Jotted down a few things I wanted to bring up. Super bummed Freya takes the rest of the game off. There's a bunch of other stuff to add, but I'll wait for that bridge. I'm also a dirty Freya-Amarant shipper. I never understood the weird mechanics a lot of abilities in this game had. I guess it's to mix things up, but I've never been one to mix things up with terrible inconsistent RNG, especially since it comes at a point where we also get exploitable 9999 attacks and just outright brute force. Another reference you might have missed was the name of Atomos' attack. It looks like it's a reference to Globe 199, an attack the CPU boss from FFIV uses. One thing I really loved about 8 and 9 were the sounds the monsters made when the battle started. It gave them all a unique flavor, especially in the PSX trio of games where there's tons of weird one-off poo poo that shows up. It bums me out that from 10 onward bestiaries have been really rigid and lack poo poo like Hell House and the like. One thing I like about the miscellaneous islands in FF9 is suddenly finding yourself against freaky giant poo poo like the Whale Zombie and Gigan Octopus. Somethin about fighting giant monsters on a beach, especially with the angle and location, that made it all super creepy. I like when the game stuck away monsters that only specifically show up in particular spots on the world map (speaking of cool angles, that's one thing I loved about FF7's battles, they really messed around with camera angle, especially the Ultimate Weapon battles). That being said, after reading through Cool Ghost's FF8 LP so far, I realize how great 8's world map is. There's so many details packed into it, tons of backstory hinted at that imply a whole lot about the history of 8's world. FF8 was pretty spotty in a lot of places, but it handled world-building really well and there was tons of potential hidden in the background, and luckily it wasn't all in text logs. Lots of neat sidequests that involve spots on the world map tailored to those quests, it was rad as hell. FF9 didn't really utilize its world map much. Sure the world feels super rich from how cool all the towns are, but the overworld is pretty much A to B with the exception of the Chocobo sidequest (which is cool as hell that it does that, but utilizing the overworld is strictly relegated to the Chocobullshit). It doesn't help that we've reached the point where the plot starts to settle into an A to B structure which is super jarring, even moreso cuz I didn't realize it was right on the heels of the excellent Alexandria disaster. I remember not knowing Garland showed up in Alexandria as well. When I replayed it a few years back I got bummed out, cuz they introduce Garland, who's really great and definitely gives the feel that a threat has appeared that's even greater than Kuja, but then we're right back to having to put up Kuja's grating ham. Which I guess is helped a little by everyone taking the piss outta him (or they should do more if they don't).
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Oct 5, 2016 22:38
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Oh, Mega, were you not going to add that note about Titan to the update with Terrestrial Rage? I thought that might have been a neat note for the archive. I even found a picture of him from the artbook. 
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Oct 5, 2016 22:47
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CzarChasm posted:But those are both remembered a lot more than 9 it seems. 9 feels like a forgotten child, but with all the positives I've seen here, I just don't get it.
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Oct 5, 2016 23:03
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Oh, Mega, were you not going to add that note about Titan to the update with Terrestrial Rage? I thought that might have been a neat note for the archive. I'll go ahead and do it now. Kinda slipped my mind the first time it came up. Thanks! e: Here it is. quote:
Mega64 fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 23:16
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It's no problem.
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Oct 5, 2016 23:30
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     This is no way to treat a lady! I hope Zidane and the others are alright... I'm sure they'll come back for me.  By the way, Zidane is out running an errand for me in return for your safety. But I hate keeping promises... So, I thought I would give you a special death to remember me by. As its sands fall, the floors of your rooms slowly open. Well? Isn't it a fabulous idea? Oops, just ten more minutes. Better start praying.   -----  Ahahahahahahaha!  That does it <ribbit>! If I don't save them, no one will!  I reset the hourglass and locked it just because I was ordered to. Wait. Isn't that better than to stop functioning? ...... C-Come on, let's go back. Turning off that trap again? I still don't understand how you do it. Let's go. At this point on, we're playing as Cid. Yes, we're playing as a frog. The usual fare for a Final Fantasy game.  So we need to head east to begin a rather delightful minigame, complete with fantastic music.     For this minigame, you spam the circle button. Each time you press it, Cid moves one frame closer to the key.  The trick is if the Hedgehog Pie sees Cid moving, it'll get pissed and Cid will run away like a coward. So you have to move while the H-Pie is not looking, and of course it'll constantly switch back and forth between looking. So be careful!   I liked this screenshot. But yeah, this is simple but pretty frustrating since it takes awhile to reach the key and it's easy to make a mistake and lose all your progress.  It takes me two minutes to reach the drat thing but here we go.  Let's examine the scales first. These are huge scales <ribbit>. I could probably put 3 weights on a dish. I've got to climb onto the scales in order to reach the hourglass <ribbit>!Next, let's check the weights.  From right to left, each one is wood, clay, stone, and iron. Now let's use the weights.  To call this a puzzle would be an insult. You literally take the three heaviest weights and put them on there. It's that simple.  Also note that Cid slowly picks up and places each weight, so hopefully getting the key didn't take too long!  JUST loving SCALE THE SCALES ALREADY YOU drat IDIOT    At least we're done now and never have to play as Cid ever again. -----   Thank goodness we made it! !? And it wasn't easy, mind you... But we've no time to celebrate <ribbit>! I heard from two black mages <ribbit> that there's some kind of trap up ahead. That's right! We can't just rely on Zidane! We have to work together until Zidane gets back! Again, the game defaults to Eiko being in charge if she's here, since she's the most like Zidane and thus the only other person actually willing to take a lead. There's no dialogue from the other characters here like there was in Oeilvert.  The most useful thing to do is give Quina the Light Robe if you brought Quina in. Everything here is vulnerable to L5 Death besides the boss, and Half MP makes trivializing all encounters even easier.   Back where the scale puzzle is, there's a moogle to do Mognet stuff with. If we head west...  This dungeon is kind of a weird one, even for this game.  There are candles all over this place. You want to light them.  Doing so will usually activate bloodstones.  These bloodstones give power-ups to this dungeon's boss. If you inspect a bloodstone, it removes that specific power from the boss. Thus fully exploring the dungeon will make the boss significantly easier.   And if that wasn't enough, you also get loot from the bloodstones. This bloodstone made the boss immune to all elements. Now it's vulnerable, which is kinda nice since it's weak to Wind and Water. It doesn't really matter though because Flare was better than a weakness-hitting Water when I fought the boss (spoilers I fight the boss).  This clue doesn't apply to the passage that's about to appear here, since there's no lamp. This is more for the final puzzle of this dungeon.   Basically it's hinting that the bloodstones buff the boss and interacting with them will remove those powers. You know, what I just told you earlier. I'm too lazy to remove redundant information, though, so you'll have to live with your wasted time for the rest of your life.  There's enemies here, of course. This is Torama, which is probably better known as the series-staple Coeurl. This guy's signature move is Blaster, which causes large damage and inflicts Stop. Pretty similar to other games, where it'll either paralyze or straight-up kill you.  It's weak to Water, so Vivi ruins it. Also you can completely neuter it with Silence. And L5 Death. Really, this dungeon's difficulty comes down to whether or not you're using a FAQ.   When I try to take the left exit, this pathway appears.  This is Drakan. It's better known as another FF series staple, the Mindflayer.  Its signature move is Mind Blast, which inflicts damage and Confuse on a character. Of course, it also has stuff like Bio, Freeze, Mustard Bomb, and a physical attack. Wind wrecks it, as does L5 Death.  The path leads us to a candle upstairs. Then we move onward.   This for every battle.  This next room is a puzzle. There are nine torches here to light.  The first three unblock the two windows on either side of the room, letting us move to the right side.  This one removes the left set of statues. Lighting the other two closes the two windows, so we'll leave those alone for now.  Then we can loop back, light the two upper-middle torches to remove the other set of statues, and then do the other torches.   That leaves just this torch.  This nets us an Anklet. We've also reduced the boss's magic power and opened up the path to the next section.  There's an easy-to-miss candle here.  Shield Armor, and we've lowered the boss's defense.  Another candle here as we continue on.  Ultimately we end up in this room. Light this candle to bring in a stairway.   This candle raises the bookshelf. The other two do the same, though we'll look at each floor first.  N-Kai Armlet. Reduces the boss's evasion, I believe.    More candles.  Finally, the bottom floor.  YEP. MORE CANDLES.  This lets us pass the glass on the left (hence the earlier clue) and find the other moogle here.   There must be a reason, kupo. The penultimate room has a few things going on, namely a pair of statues.  The trick is each candle creates a specific shadow.  Lighting both candles for this one spawns a bloodstone.    We reduce the boss's magic defense and get a new hat, the Black Hood. It halves Fire/Ice/Lightning damage and teaches Accuracy+ (Physical attacks always hit), Locomotion, and the Death spell for Vivi, which has a 35% chance of inflicting instant death.  Next, we light only the right candle.  Then move over to the other side.   This unlocks another bloodstone.   This results in the boss losing magic evasion and nets us new armor, the Venetia Shield. Gauntlets for Freya and Steiner, they teach Cover and Auto-Float, while also having minor stat boosts and the best magic evasion of any heavy gloves.  Having both right candles lit create stairs to the boss.  I don't know what this candle does though.  One last candle and we're done!   Huh? That's not Kuja's voice!   So the boss I keep bringing up? It's time to actually fight it!  This is Valia Pira.   At this point, it'll look at all the bloodstones available. All of this pops up in red text. Failed to disable Elemental Attacks. Magic Power enhancement failed. Defense enhancement failed. Evasion enhancement failed. Magic Defense enhancement failed. Magic Evasion enhancement failed.  This means we thoroughly debuffed it. Otherwise it'd be a lot stronger and much more durable. That said, it still has a lot of nasty attacks. The -aga spells, Holy, Flare, Mustard Bomb, Freeze, even Reflect.  That said, so does our team. This guy has a measly 12k HP, and for once we don't have to stall time to steal. Thus I don't actually see its nasty attacks since Vivi and Steiner rip this thing apart in two rounds. Fun Fact: You can kill it by depleting its 10k MP if you really, really wanted. I also like how Water only did 2k damage to it despite hitting its weakness while Flare did 4.5k.   So yeah, this was easy because it's supposed to be. I'd rather have fought the hard version honestly but I also wanted the loot so...  Anyway, light the last candle...  And teleport away.     Well, no rest for the wicked! I gotta get movin'!  Did I take a wrong turn? But I want you to come alone, Zidane. Alone.  I'll be okay! You guys just wait here.We can talk to our party again.  You must exercise caution! Don't trust anything he tells you! ......   My friends better be alright! Oh my! Blunt as always, I see...  No need to worry. They just needed some rest, that's all. -----    He went forth to Kuja's domain alone. By what means did you escape? Actually...     What the heck!?   You bastard! You're the worst scum alive! Well, will you hand it over or not?  Oh dear, I wasn't expecting this. That's right, the ones inside are fake! But don't think you've won yet. What do you mean by that? Hehehe... Eiko!    ......<R-Ribbit>...   I wanted to finish you off after getting the Gulug Stone and killing all your friends...    He's gonna take that airship, Zidane! Let's get him! Welp. Eiko's been kidnapped, so we're down a person. I'll go with this team for now because why not. It doesn't actually matter here.  Before you leave, grab this. This is the only useful card in the game.  Go where the Black Mage was...  We can still follow him on the Blue Narciss! Great minds think alike! Let's go, people! Once we exit...  ...we automatically give chase to the Hilda Garde 1.  All the way to the Lost Continent, now with proper introduction.  Is there something beyond there...? What the hell is Kuja up to...? Why did he take Eiko? His motives are unclear <ribbit>... That girl can summon eidolons, too <ribbit>? ...... Don't worry, Dagger... We're not gonna let him have his way. Kuja got what he wanted, and now he's kidnapped Eiko. Who knows how this is all going to turn out? Well, besides me and everyone else who's played before, of course. Next time, we head back to Esto Gaza and hopefully rescue Eiko and stop Kuja. Mega64 fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 6, 2016 00:57
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The bloodstones are so weird, there's no reason not to take them. It would make more sense if taking the item enabled the higher stats and made it an actual choice - you could take the items as a reward for a harder boss or give them up to make it easier.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:24
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I'm not saying this room is Kuja's creepy sex dungeon, but I am saying it's really weird that there's a restraint table, a whip, a moogle, and a Hedgehog Pie in there
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Oct 6, 2016 01:27
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AlphaKretin posted:The bloodstones are so weird, there's no reason not to take them. It would make more sense if taking the item enabled the higher stats and made it an actual choice - you could take the items as a reward for a harder boss or give them up to make it easier. It's a bone to toss the player. You just lost half your party, and this party is likely to be a bit unbalanced in its setup due to the other dungeon Zidane went to cancelling magic. If you haven't used most of the mages very much and don't have too many good abilities on them, you can flee most of the randoms easily and depower the boss into something more manageable. Not a perfect solution, but there aren't really any perfect solutions when it comes to splitting parties.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:29
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One minor thing is that if you take Vivi to Oeilvert, right before the black mages teleports them to meet Zidane, they share a small conversation.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:32
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So what was Kuja's plan if Eiko fell into the lava?
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Oct 6, 2016 01:40
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These three are a reference to FFVI's Warring Triad. This game.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:46
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:So what was Kuja's plan if Eiko fell into the lava? The fake friends would have actually worked them, so presumably the macGuffin he was after
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Oct 6, 2016 01:48
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Well, yeah, but he wanted Eiko's Eidolons, as Zidane mentions there. I guess he could have just extracted Garnet's again in worst case scenario, though.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:51
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 Final Fantasy Record Keeper translates the mechanic of the Bloodstones by having the boss be weakened for each Final Fantasy 9 character you bring in the battle. Presumably it's something like, they were canonically present, so they deactivated the Bloodstone on your way. It's an exercise in frustration if you don't have a single Bloodstone on your side, but you don't need to have a full party of five to make it manageable.
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Oct 6, 2016 03:04
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I'm going to assume that Valia Pira is actually meant to be Barrier Pillar. Because it's a pillar, with barriers.
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Oct 6, 2016 04:05
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