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[Norondor]

Well ok, the larger point here is that the main characters are all cool-looking statues who don't do anything but stand around and remind you that they're cool.

Balthier only ever does one thing in the whole fucking game besides pose and be snarky, and it ruins the ending.

[Arc]

*kupo*

Is there a problem here? You wanna dance? Alright, let's do the man dance snuffykins.

[Brentai]

Oh, what?  You're going to take me with your 25% weak status attack?  Your substandard air render?  Your ability to sit on top of a trash mob?  Go away.

[Classic]

Someone say "Dance"?

[Arc]

Looks like Clan Rocket's blasting off again!

[Brentai]

Clan Clu Clux is actually a much more unique name than I expected it to be.

[Thad]

...what's wrong with a decent translation being largely responsible for a game's quality?  There are certainly some games that suffered horribly for poor ones, and some that are overrated for their good ones (not naming names, we're already having too many debates in this topic already), so the translation is basically a part of the package you're buying.

Sorta.  But the original FFT and Suikoden 2 are both examples of beloved games with pretty poor translations.

Besides, it's not like the characters don't stand on their own... the dashing thief, the troubled mage, the goofy but strong-hearted knight... you notice something about those archetypes?  They didn't necessarily show up in 1-5 in such forms, but when Square went and thought of the "classics" when cocking up FFIX, they naturally went for Locke, Terra and Cyan.

4 was nothing BUT archetypes.

And the fuckers kept coming back from the dead.

Okay, point.  But lately I've been learning to appreciate minimalist dungeon layouts, especially from Square.  Complicated mazes, like random battles, just... don't work in the new dimension.

It's not so much the dimension as the proportions.  You can't build a complex dungeon TO SCALE.

The latest EGM, the one about Mirror's Edge, talks about how totally disproportionate Faith would look in a third-person view, but that the visual cues you get from seeing, say, her feet onscreen in situations where you would absolutely not be able to see your own feet in real life justify the design decision.

For whatever's wrong with games like FF7 and 9, having characters who are CLEARLY not the correct scale for the world they're inhabiting has some clear design advantages.

Could go for an FF6 rebalancing too, with each character having a more defined role.  As much as I loved Locke, his Steal ability was pretty unattractive compared to Blitz, Slot, Dance etc.,

...I literally did not remember Dance being in 6 until the next page with all the Mog references.  (In fairness, I am pretty drunk.)  I was never attracted to abilities like Dance, Rage, or Vincent's Limit Breaks that require you to give up control of your character.  For some reason I do not like just sitting there waiting for the fourth member of my party to inevitably die because he can't resurrect the others.

and Celes/Terra become almost irrelevant when everyone gains the ability to sling around spells (not that I ever used anything that wasn't Cure).

Again, Runic is useful in mmmmaybe two battles.  I don't know how rebalancing could fix that.  Rebalancing could EASILY fix Morph, though.

Clan Clu Clux is actually a much more unique name than I expected it to be.

...That's probably because it should be "Cu Clux".

[Brentai]

...what's wrong with a decent translation being largely responsible for a game's quality?  There are certainly some games that suffered horribly for poor ones, and some that are overrated for their good ones (not naming names, we're already having too many debates in this topic already), so the translation is basically a part of the package you're buying.

Sorta.  But the original FFT and Suikoden 2 are both examples of beloved games with pretty poor translations.

I was thinking of both of those in the "suffered horribly" column, actually.  It kept both from being very mainstream popular.

Okay, point.  But lately I've been learning to appreciate minimalist dungeon layouts, especially from Square.  Complicated mazes, like random battles, just... don't work in the new dimension.

It's not so much the dimension as the proportions.  You can't build a complex dungeon TO SCALE.

Well, you can, but you get FFXII.

The latest EGM, the one about Mirror's Edge, talks about how totally disproportionate Faith would look in a third-person view, but that the visual cues you get from seeing, say, her feet onscreen in situations where you would absolutely not be able to see your own feet in real life justify the design decision.

...did I mention how much I want to play that game?

For whatever's wrong with games like FF7 and 9, having characters who are CLEARLY not the correct scale for the world they're inhabiting has some clear design advantages.

It... actually worked like crap in FF7 though.  Might have turned out better in 9, but I'll take your word for it.

But I'll grant that doing similar worked out okay in the Grandia and Wild Arms serieseseses.

Could go for an FF6 rebalancing too, with each character having a more defined role.  As much as I loved Locke, his Steal ability was pretty unattractive compared to Blitz, Slot, Dance etc.,

...I literally did not remember Dance being in 6 until the next page with all the Mog references.  (In fairness, I am pretty drunk.)  I was never attracted to abilities like Dance, Rage, or Vincent's Limit Breaks that require you to give up control of your character.  For some reason I do not like just sitting there waiting for the fourth member of my party to inevitably die because he can't resurrect the others.

Dance was pretty damn useful, though, and you could stop it at any time.

and Celes/Terra become almost irrelevant when everyone gains the ability to sling around spells (not that I ever used anything that wasn't Cure).

Again, Runic is useful in mmmmaybe two battles.  I don't know how rebalancing could fix that.  Rebalancing could EASILY fix Morph, though.

Same way you rebalance Steal by tightening up the economy.  Make MP more precious, so that Celes' ability to easily renew it makes her one of the premiere casters again.

Clan Clu Clux is actually a much more unique name than I expected it to be.

...That's probably because it should be "Cu Clux".

...should I be embarrassed about my ignorance of hate groups?

[AČ]

I want to submit "Breath of Fire II" to "Horrible Translation but a good game" but that game had problems on a level beyond DO YOU WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT SHAMANS.

The main examples:
There are a number of items that give you Holy Resistance. There are no enemies that attack with Holy.
The item "FastShoe" does nothing. Nada. Zip.

There's more, there is this UNGODLY huge FAQ on GameFAQs where some guy basically dissected the game down to the 0s and 1s and it's completely FASCINATING to anyone who loves that sort of thing. It has a full list of "What the fuck, Capcom, this is not how a game works"

As far as FF6 Rebalancing goes, Gau would need probably a good workover. Several of his rages can give you a massive advantage, to the point of making you near unbeatable. One of the first rages you get will have Gau cast Life3 over and over again with no limit most of the time.
Also they could actually make all of the Rage List accessable.

One second on this, I have a friend who is a hardcore ff6 nerd. I want her take on how one could 'rebalance' ff6.
Her take: She agrees on the idea that magic should be regulated a bit more - perhaps make Terra and Celes the only two capable of learning all of it. Everyone else can only learn a specific set of spells - say, 20-50% of the total list, depending on who they are. Locke, for example, being near Narshe and being all going I PROTECT YOU and being a thief, he'd be able to learn cure, the support ones...whereas someone like Sabin, who's all about beating the shit out of things could learn an array of attack spells.

re: Extra Shit. EXPAND ON THE HISTORY MORE. Let us dabble in the War of the Magi, or the sealing of the dragons, let us dip our toes into the historical things only referenced in the game! Final Fantasy 5 Advance where you [spoiler]fought Euno, the person who FIRST ripped open the Rift[/spoiler] was great. Totally not needed for the meat of the story, but still attached and you got to feel like you DID something.

FUCK.
LET US SEE INTO THE BACKSTORY OF MOTHERFUCKING -KEFKA-. LET US SEE JUST HOW HE WAS BEFORE HE WAS FUCKING NUTS. All we have now is some drunk bar guy going "Magi Augmentation made him plumb loco! Now he dresses like a gay clown"
Give is MORE ON THAT, PLEASE.

[Defenestration]

The limitation is a good idea, but I don't think it should lock out whole schools except in individual cases (Sabin would be a great example, as he's a musclehead), as opposed to simply super high level spells.

I think upping the stats related to spell effectiveness on Terra, Strago, Celes, and Relm and then downing it on everyone else would be a much more natural limiter. Maybe total MP as well.

[Bongo Bill]

I don't know about rebalancing. To me, a part of the charm of Final Fantasy games is that the systems are constructed in such a way that, if you know what you're doing, you can make everything trivially easy. The already rewarding sensation of achieving complete understanding and mastery of a system was reinforced by granting overwhelming power when this mastery was applied.

[Norondor]

ANTICLIMAX ANTICLIMAX ANTICLIMAX.

Am i the only one who actually likes legitimately hard fights, where you scrape by be being a fuckin' hero-genius?

wait, nobody but me ever played legend of legaia

[Alex]

I played Legend of Legaia and it's totally not as cool sequel! 

Granted, most of my boss fights in Legend of Legaia went like RAISE SPIRIT CHAIN AS MANY ARTS AS POSSIBLE INTO SUPER/HYPER/MYSTIC ARTS FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE! 

I should play it again.  I miss it. 

[Doom]

FUCK.
LET US SEE INTO THE BACKSTORY OF MOTHERFUCKING -KEFKA-. LET US SEE JUST HOW HE WAS BEFORE HE WAS FUCKING NUTS. All we have now is some drunk bar guy going "Magi Augmentation made him plumb loco! Now he dresses like a gay clown"
Give is MORE ON THAT, PLEASE.

[spoiler]Kefka is Shadow's friend from the dreams. He is captured robbing that train and used as a guinea pig for the magitek stuff. The only way to prove this is that Shadow's friend and Kefka have the same speech mannerisms.. in the Japanese version.[/spoiler]

I played Legend of Legaia! It had a lot of grand fights that really kicked your ass! JESUS CHRIST, PRINCE KORT!

[Classic]

I played Legend of Legaia! It had a lot of grand fights that really kicked your ass!

But all I really remember from them was using a painfully rote set of techniques that had been developed through about an hour of grinding to feel even somewhat comparable to the boss' power, and then watching as my attacks sliver-stealing ability was undone by the boss casting a low-rank healing spell.

I'm pretty sure I beat the first couple of bosses, but gave up when the game did not become any easier with a full party's resources to create the kind of boss-crushing synergies that I find really enjoyable.

Then again, my favorite battle system in recent memory is Grandia2 (first played all of two years ago!) where my party without much grinding became essentially unstoppable in normal combat, and even from day one are abusing power hits to smack down the already very manageable bosses. Maybe I don't actually like "tough" battles?

Also, one hell of a spoiler.

[jsnlxndrlv]

Since when can you cancel Dance?  How?  Why have I never run into documentation of this before?

I don't think you can cull out one aspect of the game and say the game lives or dies on that alone.  Decent writing is important, yes, but the promotion of "son of a submariner!" from a bit of charming curse-evasion to pop-cultural icon for wacky prose doesn't help the game in any way.

Then again, I haven't yet tired of the use of archaic terminology in Ivalice, yet, so what do I know.

To me, the fact that you never have to break any of VI's systems is a strength.  Sure, you can find the obscure forest of incredibly hard dinosaurs and slaughter them for incredible power, but the fact that you don't need to is what makes the extra edge rewarding--that, and the fact that most people never would have discovered it (if the internet and strategy guides didn't exist to take the mystery from everything.)

Desperation skills should be an obscure, unlikely occurrence.  The power creep that gradually made them more reliable over the next several games turned something amazing and magical into something humdrum--yet another videogame system to exploit.  There is an audience for systems to exploit; there is also an audience for mystery.  Let them each have their games.

[Alex]

Desperation skills should be an obscure, unlikely occurrence.  The power creep that gradually made them more reliable over the next several games turned something amazing and magical into something humdrum--yet another videogame system to exploit.  There is an audience for systems to exploit; there is also an audience for mystery.  Let them each have their games.

And YouTube for the people who don't feel like trying get them to trigger in FFVI!  I've beaten it four times and yet I've only seen Sabin and Shadow's and that kind of annoys me. 

[Cthulhu-chan]

I think I've only ever seen moogle punch, personally.  I played the hell out of FF 3/6, too.

I am firmly of the opinion that Chrono Trigger has yet to be bested, overall.

edit:  I rather liked Final Fantasy Legend.  Monsters that eat other monsters to become stronger, robots building themselves into walking weapons platforms, mutant psyckers, and well-read warriors climb a mysterious tower, beat up it's mythical inhabitants, and kill god ('cause he's a dick).

[Brentai]

I want to submit "Breath of Fire II" to "Horrible Translation but a good game" but that game had problems on a level beyond DO YOU WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT SHAMANS.

The main examples:
There are a number of items that give you Holy Resistance. There are no enemies that attack with Holy.
The item "FastShoe" does nothing. Nada. Zip.

You think that's a deal breaker?  FF6 had a stat for accuracy, but never calculated hit rates.  That means stuff like Blind and Accuracy+ did absolutely nothing.

It goes without saying that that would have to be fixed in the rebalance.

As far as FF6 Rebalancing goes, Gau would need probably a good workover. Several of his rages can give you a massive advantage, to the point of making you near unbeatable. One of the first rages you get will have Gau cast Life3 over and over again with no limit most of the time.

Gau's fine - most of his gamebreaker Rages you have to dig around for.

One second on this, I have a friend who is a hardcore ff6 nerd. I want her take on how one could 'rebalance' ff6.
Her take: She agrees on the idea that magic should be regulated a bit more - perhaps make Terra and Celes the only two capable of learning all of it. Everyone else can only learn a specific set of spells - say, 20-50% of the total list, depending on who they are. Locke, for example, being near Narshe and being all going I PROTECT YOU and being a thief, he'd be able to learn cure, the support ones...whereas someone like Sabin, who's all about beating the shit out of things could learn an array of attack spells.

My idea exactly, though I forget if I actually said so.  Honestly I'd rather see the restriction be on what Espers each characters could equip.  Not only does it affect spells, but it also limits the way you can grow each character (but still offers options).  Sabin could be limited to equipping Attack and Accuracy Espers, for example, but not Magic.

It'd also be nice to retool the character growth system so that you don't have to worry about every level you gain before meeting Ramuh actively working against you.

re: Extra Shit. EXPAND ON THE HISTORY MORE. Let us dabble in the War of the Magi, or the sealing of the dragons, let us dip our toes into the historical things only referenced in the game!

Honestly I'm still waiting for an FF6 prequel.

FUCK.
LET US SEE INTO THE BACKSTORY OF MOTHERFUCKING -KEFKA-. LET US SEE JUST HOW HE WAS BEFORE HE WAS FUCKING NUTS. All we have now is some drunk bar guy going "Magi Augmentation made him plumb loco! Now he dresses like a gay clown"
Give is MORE ON THAT, PLEASE.

Er, I always thought Kefka had been dicked with since he was a child, like Celes was.

I don't know about rebalancing. To me, a part of the charm of Final Fantasy games is that the systems are constructed in such a way that, if you know what you're doing, you can make everything trivially easy. The already rewarding sensation of achieving complete understanding and mastery of a system was reinforced by granting overwhelming power when this mastery was applied.

Yes, well, FF6 allows you to make the entire game trivially easy even if you don't know what the hell you're doing (FF6 was my first RPG.)  We're just trying to make it more of an accomplishment, really.

Fuck, how hard is it to make some kind of overhaul ROM patch?

Am i the only one who actually likes legitimately hard fights, where you scrape by be being a fuckin' hero-genius?

I always thought the Lunar series was pretty good about that, Ghaleon aside.

To me, the fact that you never have to break any of VI's systems is a strength.

No, you don't have to.  Even if you never search for any of the game's hidden stuff, you still have Autocrossbow, Air Render and Slot.

Or just Air Render and Slot if you're doing the absolute minimum.

I am firmly of the opinion that Chrono Trigger has yet to be bested, overall.

What?  No.  That game is even more trivial.

edit:  I rather liked Final Fantasy Legend.  Monsters that eat other monsters to become stronger, robots building themselves into walking weapons platforms, mutant psyckers, and well-read warriors climb a mysterious tower, beat up it's mythical inhabitants, and kill god ('cause he's a dick).

FFL is basically SaGa 1.  SaGa games are pretty much the opposite end of the challenge spectrum; everything will fuck you over in that series.

[Cthulhu-chan]

I am firmly of the opinion that Chrono Trigger has yet to be bested, overall.

What?  No.  That game is even more trivial.

We shall simply have to be of two opinions on the matter.  I shan't be swayed.