Final Fantasy Discussion Thread

[James]

Currently playing FFVI Pixel Remaster right now. About 6 hours in and I'm enjoying what I'm playing. It's not very hard so far but that's a-ok with me as I'm currently preferring simplicity over complexity. I find that I'm using the auto-battle feature more often during the random battles and even most of the bosses since they've not required any sort of real interaction outside of just continually blitzing with Sabin or Rune-ing with Celes.

It is the sort of game you can grind to reduce difficulty. For the most part, rather considerably. On that note, I suspect the addition of auto-battle and similar convenience features has also made it trivial, in terms of energy, to grind or thoughtlessly collect experience, which really stacks up over the course of traveling about. Especially as it pertains to things like Sabin’s blitzes, where there is no longer a need to enter them on the controller. In the original version, some of these functional considerations helped a lot to reduce grinding.

One way to get a lot more challenge out of it is to cut down on random battles. Run a fair bit.

Some components of the game can be extremely challenging, especially going in for the first time, if not significantly over-leveled. I still remember what it was like for young me the first time I completed Cultist’s Tower. But there is still a lot to appreciate even if you decide to take a lot of the game easier by using those fast-forward/automation/convenience features.

[Mikhail]

Just beat FF6 Pixel Remaster.

It was fun. Beat in about 30 hours but probably would have beaten it a bit sooner if I didn't grind as much as I did. Grinding is so much easier with the auto-battle so I probably could have beaten it much faster if I didn't grind as much as I did. The final area was trivial because of it. I was basically doing near to or max damage by the time with everyone in my party against everyone I was fighting with so the final bosses really took only a few turns to dispatch. Story and character wise, I liked everything about it so the experience was very much a positive one for me. I do think in some respects, the roster was too big and it really ruined some of the character development but it was fine regardless. I know I only finished 7 and 8 beforehand but this was definitely a great game to play and it has made me excited to play the other pixel remasters.

Now off to IV and to resub to XIV tomorrow!
My quest to play all the mainline FF games has started off well

[Bryan]

Just beat FF6 Pixel Remaster.

It was fun. Beat in about 30 hours but probably would have beaten it a bit sooner if I didn't grind as much as I did. Grinding is so much easier with the auto-battle so I probably could have beaten it much faster if I didn't grind as much as I did. The final area was trivial because of it. I was basically doing near to or max damage by the time with everyone in my party against everyone I was fighting with so the final bosses really took only a few turns to dispatch. Story and character wise, I liked everything about it so the experience was very much a positive one for me. I do think in some respects, the roster was too big and it really ruined some of the character development but it was fine regardless. I know I only finished 7 and 8 beforehand but this was definitely a great game to play and it has made me excited to play the other pixel remasters.

Now off to IV and to resub to XIV tomorrow!
My quest to play all the mainline FF games has started off well

I'm glad you had fun! I still have mixed feelings about auto anything, but it's pretty similar to the Lete River grind with Bannon... so... I guess...

Did you save Shadow? When you were getting the band back together did you grab Gogo and Umaro? I think they changed the Opera House a bit for the Pixel version, what did you think of it? Who were your favorite party members, which were your favorite stories, and what were your favorite bosses?

[Mikhail]

I'm glad you had fun! I still have mixed feelings about auto anything, but it's pretty similar to the Lete River grind with Bannon... so... I guess...

Did you save Shadow? When you were getting the band back together did you grab Gogo and Umaro? I think they changed the Opera House a bit for the Pixel version, what did you think of it? Who were your favorite party members, which were your favorite stories, and what were your favorite bosses?

Shadow was saved, Gogo and Umaro was in the band, everyone was level 50 at least, got all the magicite, got Pally shield. Opera house was fine, I don't know what differences supposed to have occurred but it's just a scene? Granted it was my Lincoln Osiris moment (I'm the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude) but didn't feel anything different by it. I did like how the song became Celes' theme after though. I find that outside of the comedic portions of the story, the pixel art doesn't really do enough to convey emotion to me. It's especially weirder trying to reconcile the sprites and the artwork the game has for them such as Terra's blonde hair in the art vs. Terra's teal/green hair in the sprite version.

Favourite party members were Edgar, Sabin, Locke, Celes, and Shadow. They were picked mostly for utility over anything else. Sabin's blitzes early to mid game were OP. Edgar with the dragoon boots and dragon horn were easy over 10k damage. Locke with Lightbringer and Ultima Weapon was the same. Celes I found more useful with Runic than Terra's Trance, plus I liked her story with Locke over anything Terra. And Shadow because his 9999k damage came out faster than Sabin's and he's a ninja with a dog. What's not to like?

Story wise I liked Locke/Celes as mentioned before and maybe Cyan's. The problem with this game is that there's just too many player characters and therefore their stories aren't really explored that much upon. There's like some cursory stuff and some stuff gets a deeper dive than others but I just didn't care at all for all the later pickups like Gau, Mog, Strago, etc. Favourite bosses, I had none. Another problem I had was that I was just too strong or my combination was too strong so the majority of enemies would die in one rotation and therefore the enemies wouldn't have time to make an impact. Speaking of being too strong, it actually prevented me from seeing 90% of the magicite summons because it was faster and easier to do as much damage with regular attacks than using those. I did hate Cultist Tower a lot though. Way too many battles and having to make use of reflect to deal damage and running out of MP all the time and being unable to teleport out, it was horrid.

As for the auto-anything, it's really not as bad as you think it is. You still have to adjust if it's not working our someone gets hurt too much. It just prevents you from having to put extra inputs is all. You allow it to happen because it's exactly how you'd play that situation so you don't end up having to select it from a list. Like if my strategy for a fight is to have Celes use Runic every turn, while Sabin blitzes every turn because nobody is getting hurt due to the Runic, while having Shadow throw a fuma shuriken, will my experience be that much better if I had to scroll to Runic or input the full circle command for the blitz or better yet, scroll all the way down my massive inventory just to find the shuriken? Quite the opposite. I find that I get too busy when I do have to scroll down and/or input commands and I miss out on the mid-fight dialogue or even things like the results of Libra.

I should add that I dont think it's the same as Lethe river where you're on rails. I still have to go to places and run around dinosaur head forest myself or the desert under Miranda to help with the grinding. I still have to explore all that I want to explore in dungeons and whatnot. It literally just repeats the last action taken by that character so all it does is eliminate the unnecessary fiddling with menus in battles. And it's definitely nothing like fighting in the Colosseum where the character would make the dumbest choices instead of just straight up attacking. So in that sense, I got everything I was ever going to get from the game with or without the auto-battle and I don't think I was deprived of anything really. If anything, it's the simplicity and the power of my guys that did the game an injustice.

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By contrast, I'm finding IV a lot more difficult in comparison. I'm finding regular enemies to be tough and do not give enough experience to level up more. I'm burning through resources at a much quicker rate as well especially since there's nothing in the way of OP blitzes or tools to quickly dispatch enemies without using mana and the like. And considering I know that Kain is a hero and he's the cover art character, I'm probably more excited to see what's causing his current mean streak compared to any story moment from VI. Though that could just be Dragoon bias.

[Mikhail]

Just finished FFIV PR. It felt really short. Made it to the final boss at around 13 hours but I had to grind an extra couple of hours because I was finding the last boss a little too strong. Either way, I found the game enjoyable.

I do have some complaints though. I wasn't fond of not having all companions available to me. It really made some characters feel a little bit undercooked. It does make sense in some respects but unless your favourite character is Cecil, you're always going to want more of the others. It also prevents any sort of customization for the party which was disappointing. I also wasn't a fan of some characters being almost useless in major fights as using their skills would cause devastating counterattacks so you'd more or less just defend or be an item user.

I think I might prefer VI at the end of it all.

[Kong Wen]

Ironically, one of the common complaints about FF6 when it launched was that every character was the same (could learn all spells, have the same HP, etc.) and it was more of a menagerie. So the "point" of FF4 is that you're following a story and it only makes sense for certain characters to play their role in the story rather than hang out with you forever as part of a collection.

I actually really like this aspect of FF4. It allowed them to create scenarios and set-pieces that relied on the specific skills and characteristics of the characters. This is in contrast to games that weren't as strongly plot-driven, where the primary interest/hook of the game was to customize the characters as you please and using the job system to creatively tackle obstacles (FF3 & 5).

13 hours and 30 hours for your two plays sounds very short/fast. I chalk that up to the Pixel Remasters speeding/easying things up a great deal. I noticed the same thing in my play through FF4 PR. At almost every turn I was thinking to myself "why is this so much easier!"

As someone who has played through much more of FF14 than I have, you'll definitely enjoy going through the rest of the series and spotting all the references, enemies, summons, zones, plot points, etc. that were taken from those older games.

[Mikhail]

Ironically, one of the common complaints about FF6 when it launched was that every character was the same (could learn all spells, have the same HP, etc.) and it was more of a menagerie. So the "point" of FF4 is that you're following a story and it only makes sense for certain characters to play their role in the story rather than hang out with you forever as part of a collection.

I actually really like this aspect of FF4. It allowed them to create scenarios and set-pieces that relied on the specific skills and characteristics of the characters. This is in contrast to games that weren't as strongly plot-driven, where the primary interest/hook of the game was to customize the characters as you please and using the job system to creatively tackle obstacles (FF3 & 5).

13 hours and 30 hours for your two plays sounds very short/fast. I chalk that up to the Pixel Remasters speeding/easying things up a great deal. I noticed the same thing in my play through FF4 PR. At almost every turn I was thinking to myself "why is this so much easier!"

As someone who has played through much more of FF14 than I have, you'll definitely enjoy going through the rest of the series and spotting all the references, enemies, summons, zones, plot points, etc. that were taken from those older games.

I agree a bit with regards to the having a role to their story versus being a permanent companion. It makes sense in life for people to only really deal with things in and around their area. But at the same time, I really would have enjoyed more time with some other characters. And considering the short playtime combined with the characters only being there for a relatively short time, it almost made some characters feel like throwaways.

I actually found FFIV much harder than FFVI and I'm not sure if that's because I was rushing it or not. I didn't try to rush (fought all the battles I encountered) but I also didn't grind until the last point. Because of it I now remember the name of Baigan instead of him just being a random boss.

And yeah, the Lunar Whale was something I got super excited about. I know there are other things but I saw the Lunar Whale on the FFXIV store before and I was laughing at the absurdity of it. Now I've seen it in FFIV, I want to ride around on it... even though it's an 8 person mount.

[Mikhail]

Finished Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster in about 8.5 hours. Probably going to take a single game break from my FF series playthrough after this one so I can recharge for a bit. It'll give me some time to either play Tactics Ogre Reborn or Chrono Trigger.

Obviously it's the first game in the series so I shouldn't judge it too harshly so I wont. It's just very basic and not that difficult but still an enjoyable time. Nice to see where the series came from and how it eventually evolves. I do appreciate the modernity of games though with the Pixel Remasters not having any sort of journals, you can get pretty lost without any guides or a lot of possible backtracking.

[Mikhail]

I don't mean to bump the thread so to speak, especially since I was the last two replies in the thread but I did beat two more Final Fantasy related games in the past few weeks in Theatrhythm Final Bar Line and Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age.

Let's start with Theatrhythm. It wasn't a game that was on my radar but I randomly saw it on the PSN store and because I am in the middle of my FF series playthrough, I thought it would be a great game to play to switch up from typical JRPG gameplay. I'm incredibly happy I did so because it's my current frontrunner for best game I played this year and it leads handsomely. I was so obsessed with it that I ended up getting platinum in a week's time and playing 70 hours within that time. I was just in awe of what I thought was simple gameplay but got much, much harder when strategy was required to beat certain quest missions. Furthermore, to be engrossed in Final Fantasy music, which are mostly amazing pieces of music, was an incredible experience. I enjoyed every minute of my time with it and I highly recommend it to anyone who is even remotely interested.

Now with regards to FFXII, my opinion of it is not very high. I can concede that it is a game that can be enjoyable and it could be a great game but it definitely was not for me. I found everything to be tedious and uninteresting. The battle system was boring, the license boards took forever to unlock everything in, having to purchase everything including gambits and spells made things super expensive, the quickening animations were a drag, too many battles, the lack of real summons, and so on for just the things around the combat system. The most egregious to me were the relatively bland environments and locations (everything was drab and brown) as well as the almost secondary soundtrack. I don't remember anything from the soundtrack and when I play the game's songs on Theatrhythm, I can confirm them to be pretty unmemorable. The storyline and characters were not bad, but they weren't great either. I think this is the first FF game I've played so far where I really just wanted it to end.

I'm curious now to how I'll feel with FFXIII especially compared to XII. I had thought that XIII was the worst FF I've played for years before playing XII, though I never got halfway through Lightning's game. So I'll be eagerly looking forward to comparing the two especially since I'll probably do XIII next.