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

[Peklo]

I think it speaks much more to the overwhelming tendency of people relating to media foremost according to their preconceived expectations and entrenched preferences often shaped primarily by precedent instead of being open or willing to approach things on their own terms. This is a series and how people talk about each entry infamous for that kind of unbudging preferentiality even as the games are nominally praised for being collectively diverse.

 

[Kazin]

Font files have been the same between all versions, so it's (probably) mostly just dropping in one of the existing packs as a replacement or using the tools to build your own.

Just downloaded FFIVPR and put the files from the first three games in the streaming assets folder just like before, and I can confirm I have a good font right off the bat. Hooray!

EDIT: It also appears to save your display settings between launches, too, fixing the issue the other games had prior to their patch where you'd have to set the resolution you want every stupid time you launched the game.

 

[Peklo]

The more I play these remasters the more I become a little disillusioned with them as a set--there's a brand of consistency to them that's really double-edged for me. Grousing from elsewhere:

i can already tell this is gonna drag and increasingly so as these remasters go on because they're all like so homogeneous in presentation
none of the gradual evolution of the series is present in them because they all have a common baseline and shared development circumstances
so you miss flourishes important to each game's individual identity like unique spell effects (cecil uses an item in the intro which is just the flame sfx i've been seeing since 1pr)
and weird omissions like flying enemies not bopping up and down and having shadows, like ff4 original did, for the only time in the series
even the wave shape of the damage numbers is not replicated here

I'm not willing to dismiss all the work that's been put into these but they serve a very different purpose and context than the games in their original forms do. I guess it just puts a point on the thinking I've always had that no remake of media could or should replace its source material, so it's usually better to wildly diverge when pursuing those kinds of reprises. The Pixel Remasters are stuck in an odd place somewhere between authenticity and revisionism in ways that don't always gel.

 

[Mightyblue]

Yeah, they're weird, but interesting weird I guess? Honestly, my investment is mostly in having versions of these legally and easily available on my PC in something resembling their original forms.

Well, that, and the really good rearranged OSTs.

 

[Kazin]

I'll probably feel the same way about 6 once that one comes out, but as someone who played that one first, I find 4 looks pretty bad in its original form on SNES (sorry to the 4 diehards here), so I prefer all the later versions of 4, this one included.

I grant you the wave shape of the damage numbers missing is a shame, though. That was always nice.

EDIT: Also, there's some confirmed bugs on the Steam page, one of which says "some enemy shadows are not displayed correctly," so maybe that will get fixed?

 

[Zef]

I'm skipping 1~3 and going in on IV. I agree with Peklo, as fantastic as each remaster is on its own, the homogenized look robs them of individuality. It felt much the same way with the Dawn of Souls remakes, where FF1 and 2 blended into each other, but it's much more pronounced here.

I wonder how it will compare to V, now.

Also someone tell us if the Virus/Bio sound escaped unscathed that's the sweetest sound in the game.

 

[Peklo]

IV's not even a favourite of mine (in fact the opposite; check Felix's thread for ample demonstration of that) and the version of it I like best is the DS version, but all the nuances are still important in making distinctions for the material so you can latch onto the particularities for each game--they're more than just the summaries of their immediate plots and mechanics. Six games recreated all at once with ostensible parity between them is just a tall order to glean those moments of divergence from, as opposed to the same games occurring over seven years or so across two console platforms, with more staff fluctuations on the creative side. These are like reliably rehearsed covers of the source but they all defer to the same voice underneath.

 

[Kazin]

I'll have to look at Felix's thread, as I fell off keeping up with that a while back. I don't care much for IV and never really have - I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays immediately after playing the Famicom version of III (though, granted, you're right that the Pixel Remaster isn't going to give me the same experience as the SNES version would), because coming off III, I feel like I'm going to find the mechanics of IV even more dull than I usually do. I promise not to try to dump on the game too hard in this thread! There's still a lot to like about it (the music in particular has always been great imo)! IV on SNES was just weird in that graphically, I prefer the NES FF games or VI (V suffers a little bit from this, too, though I do like the look of it on SNES more than IV, and the mechanics in V are so interesting that any presentation issues I have with that game melt away).

Anyway. I know graphical fidelity isn't really what you're getting at, and I agree the presentation of all the PR games being so similar is weird and can understand why it'd rankle a bit.

 

[Sprite]

I really like the Pixel Remasters so far, and like the idea of doing them all as a single project that unifies their aesthetics while using the original sprites as a base. Though yeah, there are trade offs there. They’re not replacements for the originals,* but I like them for what they are. I’m also actually really excited to see how VI looks after seeing those Narshe shots.

*Though in IV’s case, I’m not quite sure what actually counts as “the original,” given the different versions on the original system

 

[nijhazer]

It’s never going to be possible for anyone to experience FF4 as it existed at the time. The world around it is too different.

If there’s to be a rerelease of any of these older games, you could do worse with your design goals than “present it well, preserve its spirit, and make sure it’s still fun”. These remasters are doing a pretty good job in that regard. I wouldn’t mind some additional content that provides context about the space in which these games existed originally— but then, if you want that sort of thing, all you need to do is to ask an old fool like me about that time when I was a kid that Rydia showed up in the nick of time and I lost my miiiiiiinnnnddd

 

[Mightyblue]

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to hum Battle 1 until the day I die. I've already gone 20+ years being able to do it, lol.

 

[Zef]

I judge entire ports of IV by how well they reproduce the alernating-L/R-channel, gradua-echo "alien synth" motif in The Final Battle, so, yeah.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Based on what I have seen (but not played) so far my main issue with 4PR is that Rosa looks too much like Celes.

 

[MrBlarney]

On the topic of FF XIII, I played through it for the first time on PC this spring. Since I mostly play indie games on PC, and only really have the Nintendo Switch as a modern console (haven't played outside of Nintendo since I think the original XBox or PS2), I was actually caught quite amazed by how good the graphics looked, and that's without any mods that folks talk about. It was also the first big JRPG that I had played through in quite a long time, so I definitely appreciated the very streamlined nature of the gameplay. The streamlining of the game was so comforting that I got a bit overwhelmed when I got to That Area (thanks, 4-So), and took some time to get acclimated towards the new area and progression style.

I don't think much else has remained with me about the game, though I will say my overall feelings are positive? I couldn't really buy into all of the narrow escapes and coincidences that happened to the party over the course of their journey, and I don't think I ever fully understood the full motivations of the antagonists in setting the party on their path. The one thing that still sticks with me is a fairly obvious, but nice join, between gameplay and story: the fact that Vanille is already a branded l'Cie from the start of the game is made evident in her starting with three ATB bars, in contrast to everybody else starting with two, gaining their third after their own brandings. But as someone who says they likes JRPGs, but hasn't played through one in a while, the gameplay and story just ended up in the right place at the right time for me to feel like it was time and money spent well.

 

[Beowulf]

Just downloaded FFIVPR and put the files from the first three games in the streaming assets folder just like before, and I can confirm I have a good font right off the bat. Hooray!

I'll be interested in hearing how FF4 has been altered in the remake. I can't really justify buying it when I already own four other versions of the game (though my wife is convinced I'll buy it anyway), so I need to rely on you folks for the details.

 

[Peklo]

Well, here's something that will torment some folks: the hovercraft moves like twice as slow or more in this version. No, I have no idea why.

Bio's sound effect survives, though. I think it may have been in the earlier three games when relevant, too, considering how uniform these are.

The weirdest thing to me is the localization, which has an approach that I can't really define because it seemingly can't either. Some series style guide standards are inexplicably ignored or walked back, like going back to "Life" instead of "Raise", and editing out some excesses of past treatments but not others (Cid still talks about something awful; the Real Ultimate Power kid no longer uses that lingo). Some of it is similarly dealing in the framework established by the PS1/GBA/PSP scripts, but then most everything has been newly rewritten and edited anyway. It uses the phrase "phantom beast" to refer to Eidolons which is such an awkwardly direct literalization that I've never seen the series use it outside of fan translations. It reads well in the moment, but some of the decisions are just odd.

 

[MetManMas]

Well, here's something that will torment some folks: the hovercraft moves like twice as slow or more in this version. No, I have no idea why.

Given that the game's also playable on a touch screen, the slowed down hovercraft could be to make it easier to place and park it where you want to. Did you check if there was a button to hold or a toggle for it to go faster?

 

[gorha]

I loved FFXIII when it came out. It has my favorite soundtrack in the series, outstanding graphics even now, and a story that grew on me as it went along, though it did have a rocky start. The biggest draw for me was the combat and combat-related gameplay, though. Everything about it hit just right, from the ATB mechanics to the stagger system to the crystarium. I couldn't put it down for the week it took to finish, and a few days after finishing, I picked it back up for another week to do all the postgame stuff and get the platinum trophy.

I replayed it a few years later with a more casual attitude, and didn't like it as much. Losing fights became an annoyance rather than a welcome change in a series and genre that is usually not that challenging anymore. Having to keep switching paradigms to maintain buffs and debuffs and chains was more work than I wanted to put into the game. I finished the main game again, with good memories making up the difference in enjoyment (and I was still enjoying the game, just not as much as before), but didn't want to do the postgame.

So I think FFXIII is a game that gives back what you put into it. A common criticism of it from its detractors is that it's too reliant on autobattle and AI party members, which is not something I've ever seen a fan of the game say, and I guess I am such a fan, because it doesn't match my experience with it at all; if anything, it's too reliant on player input to make a good chill out game, which most FF games do. Even the story demands active engagement, with some important details only conveyed through datalog entries you have to choose to read. That being the case, it's just as well it doesn't make itself even more demanding by including a lot of exploration and hidden items and such.

I still like the game a lot conceptually, and hope to be in the right mood to play it properly again someday.

 

[4-So]

Given that the game's also playable on a touch screen, the slowed down hovercraft could be to make it easier to place and park it where you want to. Did you check if there was a button to hold or a toggle for it to go faster?

There is a button to make the player walk faster but it does not speed up the hovercraft.

 

[Mightyblue]

Huh, at least some of the arrows are no longer consumables. That's good to know.

 

[4-So]

Appears to be all of the arrows, as far as I can tell.

Also, when a character leaves your party for whatever reason, you automatically get all of their gear in your inventory.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Eidolons

I like 9 and all but I really don't really care for the spread of that term to the broader series.

 

[Lokii]

Yeah, call them by their proper name. Digimon.

 

[Kazin]

Made it to the magnetic cave, which is as good a place as any to stop for the night as that place is annoying lol. The PR plays very smoothly and the music is excellent.

 

[YangusKhan]

I played through liberating Baron Castle. I can't tell if the game is substantially easier, or if I'm just a lot more knowledgeable about it after playing Free Enterprise for dozens of hours, but in my memories, Baron Castle was usually the first noticeable difficulty spike and here it wasn't even a speed bump. I'm not even talking about the bosses, I mean the random encounters in the sewers with all the alligators and big worms and fish. Anyway, it's going pretty fast and I mostly like the new arrangements.

 

[Peklo]

It's not any different from what I can tell. FFIV is in an uniquely beneficial and detrimental position for being a game of so many "firsts" for large parts of its audience, often the very beginning of exploring its representative medium, so there is a lot of internal mythmaking in how people remember and experience the game postscript. All of that is compounded by the mass of different versions of it available, the misconceptions about their differences, and anomalies like the DS remake swinging the pendulum on the opposite end as far as player demand. The game in its most primal state, which this remaster does not stray from that much, was always a pretty kind game--it just seemed vast and insurmountable for the context most experienced and internalized it in.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Could the ATB formula be part of the reason? On Brickroad's stream last night he observed that it seemed like enemies were getting fewer turns on him overall which was why things felt easier, and he would know how FF4 is supposed to feel.

 

[Kazin]

"Easier" seems to be the case for all the games in the pixel remaster series so far - III was a cakewalk compared to its Famicom and even DS version, and I and II weren't very difficult either, so it wouldn't surprise me if IV was easier here than it was originally. Though, yes, IV was always pretty easy (at least in it's US releases).

 

[Peklo]

The biggest mechanical difference to me is that you can swap between ready turns, which is of course a huge wrench in the works of how IV's innovation of ATB worked and balanced itself around contrary to later iterations (even its own subsequent versions). Maybe the numerical differences in patterns and such are there to some degree, but this combined with the very fast pace of the auto-battle makes everything resolve faster and in ways that are easier to optimize around--that feeling of expediency can then translate to also feeling like you're not getting as much pushback from the game as expected. I think it's optics to a large degree, though there are some substantial wrinkles to glean--Rosa overall is probably going to be even stronger than before thanks to arrows not being consumable as the DS game retooled them, and commands like Aim and Pray also seeming more reliable.

 

[Kazin]

Am I misremembering, or did IV always have a lot of back attacks and ambushes? I'm getting hit with a ton of those in this version.