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

[Positronic Brain]

I did consider getting the superweqpons, but then I realized all that time would be better spent forging my own - and forging super weapons with Auto Phoneix that transformed my party members HP Damage into XP. Add a Tonberry, a couple hours farming spheres, and my characters were able to walk the whole sphere grid dropping stat enhancing spheres without a care in the world. I don't remember if the stat cap was 99 or 255, but Yuna had that for Speed and Magic and she could take down Jecht by herself without him getting more thsn6a couple turns.

Who needs a superweapon when you're the super weapon?

 

[Mightyblue]

Okay I haven't kept up with FFXIV, what character class gets freakin Gundam bits?? XD

New healing job for the expac, Sage.

 

[FelixSH]

Also, Excal 2 in 9 can go screw lightning itself.

Fun Fact (not actually funny): There is a guide on Gamefaqs, that details how you can get everything in FF IX, in such a time that you can also get Excalibur 2.

During my University studies, I met a guy who was really great to work with. We took the Operations Research specialization together, which is bascially about optimizing via algorithms (Simplex, metaheuristics and similar stuff). We became friends, and at some point, he told me that he had written an FAQ. I was curious, and he sent it to me. It's that FF IX FAQ for a perfect save file. It felt, for a few seconds, like a had met a celebrity.

 

[Destil]

I assume that’s the guide that includes opening the CDRom cover to skip FMVs?

 

[FelixSH]

Don't know? I haven't looked into it for years. It's the "Excalibur II Perfect Game Guide" from Atomos199.

I only remember tents being somehow useful in battles. And that it's not even possible with a PAL tv, because the lost frames add too much time. Something like that.

 

[Zef]

Fun Fact (not actually funny): There is a guide on Gamefaqs, that details how you can get everything in FF IX, in such a time that you can also get Excalibur 2.

I wonder if it got updated to account for the secret sidequest that was discovered just a couple of years ago.

 

[Mightyblue]

The easiest way to get Excalibur II is just use a gameshark code to freeze the in-game clock, haha.

 

[FelixSH]

I think that was back than, when we met regularly, beacuse I told him about this weird quest. He already knew about it, probably because he never stopped getting emails about ways to save little amounts of time. He said it was still possible, and he had adjusted the FAQ.

I never checked it, but knowing him, it's likely true. Not a bragging or lying person.

 

[Zef]

I only remember tents being somehow useful in battles.

Enemies are like birds, if you throw a Tent over a monster's eyes, it thinks it's nighttime and goes to bed, so you can sneak away. j/k

 

[Oathbreaker]

I think that was back than, when we met regularly, beacuse I told him about this weird quest. He already knew about it, probably because he never stopped getting emails about ways to save little amounts of time. He said it was still possible, and he had adjusted the FAQ.

I never checked it, but knowing him, it's likely true. Not a bragging or lying person.

I wonder if it got updated to account for the secret sidequest that was discovered just a couple of years ago.

It did get updated, yeah. I was hanging around the board when the final update started, and it even included time to go see another separate hidden event (not a quest, just a neat little scene) and get a 9th copy of an item you're only supposed to be able to get 8 of.

But I'll be honest I was still really thankful for FFIX getting released on PC. That FMV skip destroys PS2s and I haven't been able to find my PS1 in ages. So now I can just leisurely play through the game and edit the clock when I get to the final bits. Beats leaving the game on for 2 years before the clock finally resets enough that Excalibur 2 becomes available again.

 

[Zef]

leaving the game on for 2 years

BRB I have a great Excalibur 2 Run idea for GDQ.

 

[spines]

there's a fairly notorious collectable of the same kind in baten kaitos, which takes somewhere on the order of two weeks of gamecube time for one item to turn into another one, and a "long game marathon" was conceived and streamed couple years back with a 100% playthrough of that game as a kind of frame story, periodically making progress on various elements of the game while filling in long waiting periods between those segments with other (mostly rpg) runs, most of which took 7-20 hours on their own. brilliant concept. i hope they do it again.

 

[spines]

credits rolled on xv. Might or might not play it a little more; I feel like I got most of what i was going to get from it before I headed for the ending, and there's a kind of inevitable diminishing returns kind of thing when you get into the kinds of postgame/side content, especially (to me) the "hunt" kind of thing. I definitely had fun, and a surprising amount of affection for the characters, and the world is gorgeous and feels kind of beautiful and familiar-but-different like I mentioned before, so it's not like it'd be a terrible place to spend more time. That said, there's a shot of the Lestallum market on one of the loading screens, and it eventually hit me that one of the stalls in it has a TON of chile ristras (had to look up the name just now because even though I've seen them for ages I had no idea what it was called), making me ever more certain that Lucis really is the american southwest

random thoughts: older Noctis reminds me of Keanu Reeves. Ignis is the most likeable and useful character and the devs sure make sure you know they knew that. Relatedly I think the marlboro battle annoyed me the most out of anything in the game. Leviathan is gorgeous and I love her. (Aranea's pretty cool too.) Chapter 13 has a kind of lower-intensity but great horror game vibe that I wonder if they'll revisit to any extent in later in 7R

The broad thrust of the main story is pretty nothing I felt, and it's weird to me how similar it is to XIV (recently), with a huge focus on Light And Darkness, the fate of The Star, and also an immortal whimsical bastard-villain. It's so much of a character driven story and game, and on some level I have to admit they worked to make Ardyn a suitable villain in that sense, with a close connection to Noctis and his powers, and how much of his presence involves toying with him specifically and trying to distance him from the other party members, but in the end there's just all that cosmic jrpg stuff that feels incredibly distanced from the bro-adtrip game that the first 2/3 of it is. Some elements of the ending also reminded me of Persona 3. But as a whole, a story about living in a decaying world and literally facing the seemingly inevitable approach of endless darkness is the kind of mood that's a little hard not to relate to these days

Chocobos were my favorite part. I used them a ton after they unlocked, they just felt great to ride, seemed like an appropriate and fun way to explore the world, and I did all the races. Plus you get to color them! I even chose a shot of them for my final picture, although most of the ones I saved were ones that looked stupid and glitchy (and even that one had some weird-looking perspective stuff going on, which is a big part of why I saved it in the first place) so it was definitely the best option.

Overall I definitely have pretty mixed feelings, and feel like I could complain tons about most aspects of the game, but I don't really feel like it and I'm still pretty happy I played it. I don't think I've ever played anything like this and despite the negatives it really is a unique and personal game that I enjoyed a lot, and spoke to experiences I haven't reflected on in a long time. Are all of those experiences positive? Like the game, obviously not. But even if I never play through it again I think this is one that'll stick with me, in a way.

 

[FelixSH]

Playing through all the games made me want to replay Theatrhythm CC, which is still very fun. I just wished they had gone for a different look, really not a fan of these dead-eyed puppets. And I remembered there being more event-type songs, like, one per game. But half the games don't have one. Sad.

I mean, it's still very enjoyable, because rhythm games are great and the FF series has great music. It's still probably one of my most played games on the 3DS.

 

[Kirin]

I put so, so many hours into the two Theatrhythm games. Good times.

 

[FelixSH]

So, I will soon-ish (I guess somewhere in April) replay FF V. I guess not everyone reads my other thread, so I'll ask this here.

I'm not sure how to approach this game in a fresh way. Unlike the NES games, I have played that one a bunch of times already. Without any restrictions, I ignored the more gimmicky jobs and just used the ones that felt like upgrades. Always a White Mage, always a Black Mage / Summoner, always a Samurai. Boring stuff, but that's how I would play the game normally, go for the obvious, boring jobs. I don't want to do that.

I also don't want to do it Fiesta Style. I did that too, and I just don't want to restrict myself to four specific jobs, when there are so many to explore.

I would like to try them all out, but I feel like that would just mean that I won't have anything mastered at the end of the game. Which, I assume, would make the endgame pretty hard, and also doesn't quite seem in the spirit of my project, to look at these games in (for me) new ways.

Maybe just using weirder jobs might be interesting? I mean, that sounds like the thing that makes most sense, considering that I do have some experience with the game. I certainly want to use a Blue Mage and a Chemist, because I never did before. But are they decently playable, if I don't use a guide? I would like to avoid that, but that would likely mean that I would make both jobs less versatile and fun.

I definitely want to make Bartz into a dance. I love his costum a ton.

Dunno, any suggestions? I will come up with something (probably as mentioned, just use the weirder jobs that I never tried before), but if anyone has an idea, I'd be interested.

 

[Torzelbaum]

The only idea I have is a different type of 4 job fiesta - "choose" four different jobs for each character (one per crystal). If you want you could also exclude some jobs from the list if you don't want to use them for some reason.

A silly thing I did one time was rotate the characters through the jobs - changing jobs each time the character reached a new job level. In that "challenge" I went with the job that required the least points for the next job level that didn't already have a character in that job. It required using a spreadsheet to track everything so I don't know if you want to go through all of that extra work.

 

[estragon]

I certainly want to use a Blue Mage and a Chemist, because I never did before. But are they decently playable, if I don't use a guide? I would like to avoid that, but that would likely mean that I would make both jobs less versatile and fun.

Both of those jobs have extremely overpowered abilities with a guide (although especially Chemist), but without a guide they're still good.

If you have a Blue Mage in your party at all times (or at least someone with the Learning ability equipped), they will be good enough even if you miss a few cool abilities. If you want to look something up but not follow a guide extremely closely, you might want to make a note of how to learn White Wind and Mighty Guard.

Chemist is also good without a guide. Just experimenting a bit should help you stumble into good options.

For someone who has played FFV a lot like you, I honestly think your plan of "just don't use the jobs I always use" will be fun and not even really a super challenge run, just a new way to experience the game.

 

[FelixSH]

The only idea I have is a different type of 4 job fiesta - "choose" four different jobs for each character (one per crystal). If you want you could also exclude some jobs from the list if you don't want to use them for some reason.

A silly thing I did one time was rotate the characters through the jobs - changing jobs each time the character reached a new job level. In that "challenge" I went with the job that required the least points for the next job level that didn't already have a character in that job. It required using a spreadsheet to track everything so I don't know if you want to go through all of that extra work.

I might combine the idea of choosing four jobs with the idea of using mainly jobs I didn't use much before. And the pretty ones. Bartz as a dancer with Blue Magic sounds intriguing.

Yeah, your other idea is a bit too much paperwork for me. But it is an interesting variant. Maybe another time.

Both of those jobs have extremely overpowered abilities with a guide (although especially Chemist), but without a guide they're still good.

If you have a Blue Mage in your party at all times (or at least someone with the Learning ability equipped), they will be good enough even if you miss a few cool abilities. If you want to look something up but not follow a guide extremely closely, you might want to make a note of how to learn White Wind and Mighty Guard.

Chemist is also good without a guide. Just experimenting a bit should help you stumble into good options.

For someone who has played FFV a lot like you, I honestly think your plan of "just don't use the jobs I always use" will be fun and not even really a super challenge run, just a new way to experience the game.

Thanks for the info. So certainly Blue Mage and Chemist, in some ways.

Hmmm...Bartz as a Dancer with Blue Magic (because Bartz dancer sprite is the best).
Someone with the Beastmaster skills. Maybe Lenna? She looks great as an archer, another class I never tried. I love the feather in her hair.
Someone as a Bard, or at least with the Bard skills. Maybe Geomancy as a secondary?
I really want a Summoner too, and a Time Mage, and I guess a White Mage would be a good idea? But than, I would maybe have White Wind through the Blue Mage, and the Fiesta makes it clear that you don't need a White Mage.

I feel like I should have one actual physical class, though? Something tanky? Samurai is always fun, because in case of a problem, you literally can throw money at it, to make it go away. Or Ninja, or Knight. Maybe a Knight, I probably have given them up every time I reached the Ninja or the Samurai, because they are cooler...
But I'm sure there were more than a few Fiesta runs without a tank, so maybe I'll just skip them.

A thief might be interesting too, especially considering that I might get ingredients that way. I guess I need to think on that for a bit longer.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I feel like I should have one actual physical class, though? Something tanky? Samurai is always fun, because in case of a problem, you literally can throw money at it, to make it go away. Or Ninja, or Knight. Maybe a Knight, I probably have given them up every time I reached the Ninja or the Samurai, because they are cooler...

Or what about Dragoon? Everyone always seems to ignore them.

 

[FelixSH]

I thought about that, and should probably try him, as I never did. But they seem very boring, and, considering that they should jump all the team, just don't seem to synergize well with the rest of the team. Maybe I could give one the steal command, start that way, and than do the jump thing. Or maybe geomancy?

 

[estragon]

I guess a White Mage would be a good idea? But than, I would maybe have White Wind through the Blue Mage, and the Fiesta makes it clear that you don't need a White Mage.

A Chemist is also great at healing! Even if you're just doing trial and error and not referencing a chart, you will probably stumble onto some very good healing options. One particularly good example is Phoenix Down + Ether = revive with full HP and MP. Unless I'm misremember you lose out on multi-targeting compared to a white mage, but you get a lot of extremely good single-target options.

 

[Issun]

I'd forgotten what a wonderful curveball the CPU is in FF4. Cecil, Edge and Rydia attack, Rosa heals and FuSoYa, who has been your spellcasting powerhouse to this point, is effectively taken out of the battle. It's a very methodical fight and different from anything else in the game.

 

[Peklo]

We're coming up soon on the 10th anniversary of one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made. That's right: Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. It and its predecessor were among the games that made me think playing games on a PSP wasn't a huge mistake, because my love for them eclipsed the loathing I held for the hardware. Now, I don't have a PSP anymore, and the only legitimate way to play is on a Vita, which is a much more comfortable experience, so I stepped back into the games that I gave literally hundreds of hours to in the past--that is not something I do with almost anything. Just an hour or two of play was enough to have a lot of the exceedingly cool things present rush back into my thoughts, so I'll transcribe the log below. It's gushing and I think the game and series warrants it. Share your recollections too if you got them!

i'm playing dissidia duodecim again
this is one of the best games ever made for me
the story mode for the sequel is such a good concept because it's not just these fragmented single-character narratives the first game had
it's a group of of lightning, laguna, tifa, vaan, yuna and kain all traveling and fighting together
which gets represented in dialogue, the battle mechanics (where they're available to be called as assists), and just the presentation in general
the first dissidia just had these chessboard battle grids for its story mode "menu"
those get repurposed here as dungeon analogues
and the actual structure of the stories is conveyed via a 3d world map that you run through and explore
the partners this group of six consists of are all there, traveling with whoever your pov character is, and you can talk to them for additional musings
and because it is a group of three women and three men it has some of the highest concentration of interaction between women in the series
oh and also the world map? it's ff1's map, to exacting detail
eventually you unlock basically all of the story content of the first dissidia, and all of those stories are adapted to take place through this new presentation too
and whoever the character you're controlling is dictates what the world map bgm is
starting off as lightning, it's the archylte steppe
in effect, this game is both a sequel and a remake of what was already a really solid arena fighter
but it's just done extremely well as a follow-up
the cosmos vs. chaos conflict premise is mixed up too, with some of the players being on sides they weren't in the first game (this is a prequel)
jecht fights for cosmos and tidus fights for chaos; terra and cloud are on chaos's side too; kuja is sort of on the edge and being browbeaten by the more malicious actors into proving his commitment to chaos
golbez only plays the part he feels he deserves because he's an atoner and just wants to invisibly and indirectly support cecil
and there's a kain betrayal
all of that kinda stuff is informed by who these characters are in their source material, which i think is really fun
none of it's arbitrary
and is why i think this series has really good storytelling even though people get stuck on the "they just stand around talking" direction and the kh-style platitudes that the dialogue falls into
which i love anyway, because there's a sort of artificiality about the setting, in that it's this patchwork BATTLEWORLD composed of disparate universes and the way the player sees it is as these arenas to just do battle in
so it reads kind of prop-like like it could fall apart at any moment, with characters exiting stage left and right, and these characters acting theatrically and enormously with their elocution works for me all the way through
it's something that i'm compelled to laugh with rather than at
and god just the tutorials, of which there are dozens and dozens of pages, are some of the most thorough and importantly flavourful of anything i've ever seen
because they're all presented and orated through by actual ff characters--and because it's just textual content, they can range from more famous ones to the really obscure
and it's all conveyed in their particular voices and relations because the text interacts between the presenters
like this weird comedy routine between ultros, relm and typhon trying to figure out how accessories work
or biggs who celebrates that he survived the firings between the first game and the sequel, because there's actual fuckin' continuity between the first game's tutorial writing and the sequel's
stuff like that makes this the not only just a great-playing game for its fundamentals but one of apexes in the art of painstaking self-tribute in the medium
which of course is done by fans--younger staff employed by square enix who got to work on this stuff, even if some of the original people are there
but something like this doesn't come together without a team-wide effort and outpouring of love for what it represents
anyway lightning said "oh i'll show you how lightning strikes" so it's goty 2011

 

[FelixSH]

A Chemist is also great at healing! Even if you're just doing trial and error and not referencing a chart, you will probably stumble onto some very good healing options. One particularly good example is Phoenix Down + Ether = revive with full HP and MP. Unless I'm misremember you lose out on multi-targeting compared to a white mage, but you get a lot of extremely good single-target options.

Right, I completely forgot about that one. Well, no White Mage. That should be interesting.

I'd forgotten what a wonderful curveball the CPU is in FF4. Cecil, Edge and Rydia attack, Rosa heals and FuSoYa, who has been your spellcasting powerhouse to this point, is effectively taken out of the battle. It's a very methodical fight and different from anything else in the game.

FF IV is the first game, that has mechanically interesting bosses. The NES games are a lot of fun, but bosses are just damage races, except for a handful of exceptions (mainly bosses that no one likes, like Hein and Garuda). That is something I'm really looking forward to, seeing the first time when an FF game offers boss battles that have a bit more thought put into them.

We're coming up soon on the 10th anniversary of one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made. That's right: Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. It and its predecessor were among the games that made me think playing games on a PSP wasn't a huge mistake, because my love for them eclipsed the loathing I held for the hardware. Now, I don't have a PSP anymore, and the only legitimate way to play is on a Vita, which is a much more comfortable experience, so I stepped back into the games that I gave literally hundreds of hours to in the past--that is not something I do with almost anything. Just an hour or two of play was enough to have a lot of the exceedingly cool things present rush back into my thoughts, so I'll transcribe the log below. It's gushing and I think the game and series warrants it. Share your recollections too if you got them!

I really should get around to playing this one. When it came out, I didn't have the consoles to play them, but I always wanted to experience both this one and the first Dissidia (well, now it's only 012, it seems to be a straight upgrade to the first game).

 

[Peklo]

It's shamefully inaccessible, unfortunately. Your options are either having an original system and a physical copy, or... that's about it. It was possible to purchase and download it digitally on a Vita, which is what I'm doing, but the web browser storefront for legacy Sony systems has been axed by now, and going through the wonky proprietary Vita storefront for PSP games doesn't even have the game come up, which is a common problem. You're kind of locked out either way.

At least it's not something like Crisis Core which has never been rereleased in any manner whatsoever!

 

[MetManMas]

I appreciated the fan service in the tutorial stuff and the FF1-ish world map for story mode, but other than that I quickly came to the conclusion that Dissidia 012 was very much a game not for me. I need a little more (physical/visual) diversity in my fighting game casts and I was constantly rolling my eyes at the plot set-up that resulted in this whole Superfriends vs. Legion of Doom-ish affair between Good Deity and Bad Deity.

That said, if multiplayer had been at all feasible, I might've gotten a li'l more into it. The 1v1 fights were comparatively easier for me to get into than the 3v3 chaos of its successor.

Also a campaign for the villains would've been nice to give them more levelling opportunities.

 

[dosboot]

I ran into a FF6 video that I wanted to share:

If you like listening to overall praise of the game and someone constructing his interpretations of the themes, then you might like this.

 

[FelixSH]

That was very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Destil]

Chemist is utterly, absurdly broken with just !Drink. It’s like the third or fourth best command in the game and requires only buying cheep consumables easily available at shops to make good. !Mix breaks the game at a more fundamental level but it’s entirely unnecessary.

Either a dedicated Chemist or getting everyone !Drink is more than enugh to destroy FFV with pretty much any other job restrictions. Ideally someone else can do damage, but that’s not really a big deal (most jobs can do it).

The original Dissidia did a better job with its menu gimmick of characters explaining things, something entirely deligjtful that no other game has ever really attempted at that level. Otherwise 012 is a pure upgrade, but unless you get really into it or love one of the new characters (Vaan and Tifa play really well, everyone else is gimmicky as hell) the two games are pretty equally enjoyable.