The Ultimate Final Fantasy Thread: This Guy Are Knock You All Down

I for one, am looking forward to the HD remakes of the 8 and 16 bit FF games for precisely this reason. I have zero nostalgia for the graphics of these old games, and giving the bgs a facelift/revamp would do a lot for me personally.

They should provide the option to toggle the graphics and just let us old-schoolers deal with whatever artifacts don't quite work.

R.R. Bigman said:

I’m fifteen hours into FFX and most of the regular battles amount to switching to the right character to kill a particular enemy in one hit. Bosses are a bit more involved, but I did not think this game had so much going on underneath the hood.

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Like most FFs the game has almost no difficulty curve, so if you're three spheres away from where the game expects you to be it's pretty easy... and then, like in most FFs, there comes a moment where the difficulty curve suddenly shoots up and outright murders you if you haven't been paying attention. I don't remember where X's lies (right before Via Purifico, maybe?) but it's there... and the last boss can be a real pain (a boss with extra speed, overdrive and two auto-countering healers as support. Fun! Unless you seriously overlevel Yuna like I did and Ultima him in two hits)

I remember the inevitable Final Fantasy speedbump in FFX distinctly as that one fight with Seymour on Mt. Gagazet.

I always associate the bump with the big desert you're stuck in for a while. Suddenly random encounters are less about matching characters with the appropriate enemy types and Zus are a serious threat.

gogglebob said:

I remember the inevitable Final Fantasy speedbump in FFX distinctly as that one fight with Seymour on Mt. Gagazet.

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Agreed, that's the one battle I really remember as getting me stuck. Always had to play all my cards (read: Summons) right, so they would take the super attack. And always needed a second or third try.

Heh, for me, the speedbump was the Seymour fight before that one, the Bevelle Highbridge battle. IIRC I had to grind for *ga spells for it?

I'm playing thru FF7R Intergrade right now. There's actually several speed bumps in this game! People like to cite Hell House (I never thought it was that bad; I beat it on the first try even without elemental magic by just whittling it down in an easy but slow battle of attrition) but for me the biggest speed bumps in the game were the literal speed bumps in the final highway sequence (oh man, they do not give you enough HP to survive that extended bullet hell sequence/the entire thing feels like a shump which I'm not a big fan of) and also the fight in Shinra Tower with Barret and Aeris against the big-fuck-you-robot (which kicks your ass if you've been neglecting Barret/aren't properly equipped. That fight is basically impossible if you accidentally left Barret equipped with a melee weapon. I beat 'em w/ a melee weapon but probably took two hours of attrition and most of my item inventory.) I'm just glad that I ported over my PS4 save file, so that 1) all of this could be a cakewalk at lvl50, and 2) so that I can skip the motorcycle sequences on command.

Every Seymour and really most boss fight represents a spike in difficulty. Mt. Gigazet specifically amps it up by throwing status effects that are hard to manage and major party wipes that you can't just nullify easily. As far as a general difficulty spike though, Desert or maybe macalania seems right. It's where random battles get less assured.

I still hate that these seem to completely drop all the extra content from prior versions. One step forward, Squenix, two steps back...

I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here:

• There's a chance you can change a few options for it and it's just the screenshots showing default look
• SE might be paying closer attention to fan feedback with these, since they are a direct result of listening to feedback from the first mobile releases

i just think it's a funny bit

YangusKhan said:

I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here

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I'm trying to, too. They're still a month out, we don't really know anything about them, I'm trying not to be a doomsayer. But, with everything they've revealed so far, everything seems to be, well, following the mantra "One step forward, two steps back". On a more positive note, FF3 looks SICK.

Super Megaman X said:

I still hate that these seem to completely drop all the extra content from prior versions.

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I just looked it up, and apparently Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls: The GBA Collection had a release year of 2004. That was 17 years ago, which is eleventy billion centuries in videogame years. It would be cool to see an "advance" collection of these games, even if it has to be another, separate Final Fantasy collection with its own issues. I want to play stupid detective games with Kain again!

Super Megaman X said:

On a more positive note, FF3 looks SICK.

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Yeah, more seriously, I'm mixed on this as an overall package, but the general art style these releases seem to be going for looks great for FF3 and also, I think, for FF5!

I don't really care if I don't like every game released in this project, as long as something good comes out of it, and it seems like it will.

(I'm not particularly attached to the Advance content for FFV either, so depending on other factors I could see this becoming my preferred way to play the game.)

estragon said:

i just think it's a funny bit

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Look, Squex just needs some extra space to narrow down the root cause of this issue, to determine the size of the problem before it gains further visibility. They just need to save face before a tiny error gets them stereotyped.

But seriously though, the Pirate screenshot kills me. I was waiting to see what a screenful of enemies looked like, to more accurately judge WHY the sprites are so tiny, or why there's so much empty room between the sprites and the menus, but nope, it really is just arbitrary empty space.

Don't know if it's been confirmed but I saw on twitter that the font being used are the English character's from the game's Japanese font, which apparently looks fine. No idea if that's a temporary thing and they wanted to get the screenshots in front of people ASAP or if it's here to stay.

It actually looks decent, even good, in Japanese? Still way too much empty space and the sprites could be much larger.

Oddest thing about the new ports I can see from that image is that the smoke coming from the chimneys in Narshe isn't transparent? It even looks like the same graphic from the SNES/GBA ports, just totally opaque.

I dunno what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I wanted a big glow up. The kind the DQ games are getting. I think in a better, magical, impossible world, FF1-6 get completely remade from the ground up with Suikoden I/II-style graphics, music, and sprite designs.

Is the empty space and small sprites issue possibly because of a change in aspect ratio?

Issun said:

Is the empty space and small sprites issue possibly because of a change in aspect ratio?

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I feel like the previous FFVI port addressed this by making the enemies really big. One of the good choices in that baffling port, honestly.

The pet-peeve I'm developing is that, judging by the FFII "Wild Rose" screenshot, the bottom UI seems to be a "general-purpose" area used for both dialogue options and battle UI, and the weird space on the left is reserved specifically for FFII's dialogue commands and the other games just have to live with it.

No, the battle UI is not the same size as the large box in that "Wild Rose" shot, but I see no other reason why it won't use the full horizontal space. What else would possibly go in that corner?

(Until proven otherwise, I'm going to believe the new UI was created in Material UI.)

Has it finally happened? Has typography discourse finally risen to the forefront of scrutiny in remasters like these? I've waited for so long! Interface design does more harm, when lacking, to the presentation of these games than I think any other aspect of them, so it really pains to see it mistreated by the works, and that's really my only remaining pertinent criticism here. You can even see how they're so close to a unified aesthetic in some ways: the fast-forward icon is pixelated, as are the damage numbers--but then every other asset used in the menus and UI just completely ignores the nominal resolution of the surrounding game. It's so frustrating.

Actually really happy they're not bringing over any of the later additions, content-wise. They're a poor fit for each of the games in the design mentality and sense evoked, and as for what's worthwhile in them outside of the sheer novelty and curiosity of them... Soul of Rebirth in FFII I think is the most integrated to the parent game in a compelling way, but that's the only one I'd make the reach for. The whole point of these remasters, in presenting and releasing them as a unit, seems to me to be an effort to unify the source material as much as it can be, after decades of varying approaches and standards--the addition of inconsistent for-super-players-only material would stand in opposition to that ethos.

I honestly don't mind much about extra content (I'm tempted to agree from extrapolating what little experience I have with extra content from, say, Chrono Trigger). I don't love the new character sprites (they clash a bit with the art from NPCs in some cases compared to the original higher-contrast coloration). That font is inexcusable. I will tolerate a random font at whatever pixel density, but I need to be able to read it.

I have some issues with the new graphics but I'm overall pretty happy with the direction this took: it is faithful to the originals, just with a greater attention to detail (I certainly never noticed Narshe nestled in the cliffside in the original). I'm counting my blessings that this isn't another "HD-2D" project, a style I have come to loathe both aesthetically and otherwise.

The Final Fantasy 6 ending suite just came on my winamp, so you're going to have to blame that for this post...

When I first purchased Final Fantasy 4 (then FF2), it was a "used" rental copy with a mostly-dead save battery (well before I understood how a save battery could be replaced). I would constantly play that game with what would today be known as "speed run strats", as I had like maybe three days before the game would reset, and all my progress would be wiped to the point that I had to watch Dark Knight Cecil venturing forth again. ... I still have PTSD from hearing the Red Wing theme to this day. But, regardless, it all meant that I had very little time to "play around" in the final areas of FF4.

But Final Fantasy 6? That was a brand new Christmas cartridge. That was a game with a working save battery! That was probably the first game I ever beat, and then "preserved" my completed save file. I had no problem wiping Super Mario World and its 96(STAR) exits from existence to get going all over again, but Final Fantasy 6 was a different animal. I wanted to preserve the many feats and achievements that had brought me to Cyan having all his sword techs or Gau having a generally full list of monster rages. I could start a new game on one of the other save slots (and I did! This time with characters more appropriately named after my friends! With age comes wisdom!), but I was always going to save that completed save file that I had poured so much time and effort into.

But I was still young enough that I had to do something with that save file. I loved Final Fantasy 6, I loved its eventually broken world, and I wanted to do more with it. And, side note, I was still at least a year away from having the likes of Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG in my hands, so I literally had nothing else like Final Fantasy 6 available. I wanted more Final Fantasy 6, and I was able to get it through I M A G I N A T I O N.

I used the "party switch" feature to, like, make little Final Fantasy 6 "plays". I had exclusively Sabin wander around the planet, and had a running narration of his life before he hooked up with the party proper. I had Mog, Umaro, and Gogo get revenge on a giant worm because obviously Gogo was Mog's girlfriend who had been turned into a mimic by Zone Eater. I transformed any ol' party into a group of imps, got some use out of the imp equipment, and had them fight t-rexs in a forest while pretending that they were breaking a final boss-induced curse.

Now, did I really believe in my heart that any of this was "canon" or something? Of course not. I was just playing with the toys I had, and I didn't take it any more seriously than when I was younger and working on my fanfic magnum opus with my Ninja Turtle figures. And this was exclusively something "for me", a bored only child, and not something I ever subjected my friends or parents to. In fact, I am pretty sure that this is the first I've ever told anybody about it, give or take maybe making a tangential reference to my own childhood on this very forum.

But my point? My point was that I was bored, a preteen, and wanted just goddamned anything more out of Final Fantasy 6. I loved the game, I loved the world, and I wanted more. And, eventually, Final Fantasy 6 Advance actually presented more Final Fantasy 6. Was it amazing? No. Was it everything I ever wanted? Certainly not. But was it more? Was it something some new 12 year old could find, experience, and play until their mom yelled at them for waking up two hours before school because they just had to beat the new Earth Dragon? Yes. It was cool that there was new content in Final Fantasy 6 Advance, and, while it may not have added anything significant to the themes of the game or whatever, it was available. It was fun to go through a new dungeon, or find and "capture" Leviathan or Gilgamesh. And I might not be able to experience any of that as a 12 year old ever again, but I have been informed there are more 12 year olds out there, and they don't have access to every game ever made like I apparently do. There is an Echo Goggle Bob out there right now who is only getting Final Fantasy 6 because it was relatively cheap and his mom heard that it was good stuff, and he is begging for more content in the Final Fantasy 6 in his Steam library. Final Fantasy 6 Advance may not have revolutionized the experience or anything, but it had more.

And it kind of sucks that it looks like there won't be more ever again.

Like, we're talking about death of an author and game hacks over in that other thread over there, and, as was sagely noted by some poster that I can't immediately pick out at the moment, the original game still exists. Final Fantasy 6 Pixel Perfect or whatever isn't going to change the PSX or SNES versions (SNES version marginally available on the SNES Classic!), or make anything about the Advance editions "canon". These new "editions" are already modified from their originals in ways that are superficial (Terra's hair is greener, I guess) or significant (a non-Woolsey translation could certainly color someone's interpretation of literally every bit of FF6), so they are not definitive preservation efforts anyway. Let 'em have a little more content. Let people have a little more game to play.

.... And that's all before we get into the fact that the Kaiser Dragon was apparently cut from the original, and was supposed to have some kind of weird dialogue or something according to included files. Is the Advance version offering new content that was always at least somehow intentional? We don't know! Might be fun to see it in action, though...

Anyway, point is that I want to see Advance content, because I'll be damned if I see more kids have to use their fuggin' imaginations to get more content out of a game! I don't want them to suffer like I did!

I don't have anything of value to reply with other than a very sincere fistbump to everything you just shared.

(Well, the one thing I might add, is that I loved the GBA content in FFV and getting to fight Enuo, the *ahem* root cause of all these troubles, was the reason I got that version in the first place.)