Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rico]

FFIV remake is hot as hell.

[Norondor]

Pacobird did some detective work and found that almost the whole cast of FFIV worked on Odin Sphere as well.

This explains why it's so weird to me, hearing Rosa tell Cecil she loves him -- she's cheating on Oswald with Cornelius, the brazen hussy!

[Brentai]

God I hate it when FFXII cheats.

ME: Okay, this is working fine.  We've got the boss down to 10% health and...
BOSS: *one-hit kill*
ME: YOU CAN'T DO THAT!
BOSS: Sorry, is this better?  *infinite combo*
ME: NO, NO IT ISN'T.

[Norondor]

The theory is generally that as soon as you get a boss to 27% hp, you instantly switch in your off-team (who should all have three full MQs ready) and chain that fucker to death before he uses renew/white wind/paling/thunder fuck.

My inability to time things makes this kind of a problem, though.

[Cthulhu-chan]

I don't recall having these kinds of problems, unless it was one of those optional bosses.  Of course, I has bubble belts nailed to my collective asses as soon as they were available.

[Brentai]

It's mainly a problem with marks, but the main bosses are kind of guilty of it too.  I've had them suddenly spam their special, party-damaging attack three times in a row when I've gotten them to low health, for example.

Also I apparently put this in the wrong topic because it was very late and I was two parts pissed and three parts groggy.  Feel free to shuffle the conversation over.

[Brentai]

You know, I keep ranking this game pretty highly, but I've also not managed to play more than 10 hours into it.  And I'm remembering why.  The further I get, the more it becomes a Final Fantasy I Can't Fucking Stand.

There are a lot of those.

[Rosencrantz]

You know, I keep ranking this game pretty highly, but I've also not managed to play more than 10 hours into it.  And I'm remembering why.  The further I get, the more it becomes a Final Fantasy I Can't Fucking Stand.

There are a lot of those.

Every person I know who played this game (including myself) quit at the same spot: the lighthouse. Apparently it's really damn close to the end of the game, but even though up until that point I was addicted to the game, it just seems to be the point where people go "okay, I'm done".

On another note, I recently started playing the first Etrian Odyssey. It's tough but addicting, as I'm sure everyone already knows. At least it's helping pass the time during the summer break. (Speaking of which, I'm kind of annoyed that Disgaea 3 is coming out the day after the fall semester at my college starts. Talk about bad fucking timing for a grindathon.)

[Burrito Al Pastor]

I didn't like XII within 72 hours of buying it.

[Norondor]

Co-incidentally i am playing through FF12 right now as well! I am liking it just fine, but i am using the Power Walkthrough on gamefaqs, since i had previously played through to Archades when i was living in Tucson and i didn't want to fuck around getting back to where i was. I'm level 40 or so and i have had the Zodiac Spear for some ten-odd levels! Everyone has all their quickenings! I have 6 Gold Amulets and 6 Embroidered Tippets! It's wonderful.

[Niku]

Every person I know who played this game (including myself) quit at the same spot: the lighthouse.

Technically, I did too.  I completed the lighthouse, but plotwise I never got any further.  It was the King Behemoth mark that was the straw that broke the camel's back, though.

[Rosencrantz]

Every person I know who played this game (including myself) quit at the same spot: the lighthouse.

Technically, I did too.  I completed the lighthouse, but plotwise I never got any further.  It was the King Behemoth mark that was the straw that broke the camel's back, though.

I don't exactly remember, but I think that's the mark that stopped me, as well. Between the lighthouse and not being able to complete any more marks, I just got fed up and quit. Maybe one day I'll play it again with that power walkthrough.

[AČ]

I played like a few minutes of FF12, but haven't played it in so long that when I do get around to playing it (need to beat some games that a friend loaned me first), what exactly am I looking out for with this 'King Behemoth' Mark

[Alex]

I still need to buy FFXII and finish it...as soon as I remember where I was.

[LaserBeing]

FFIV remake is hot as hell.

Agreed. Although I don't remember Golbez being such a fucking whore.

[Norondor]

Almost lost the will to play at the tower of babil. Oh boy, random encounters that can kill, in one turn, every single non-fire-immune party member and the return of Zombie Seymour for dessert!

 

[Niku]

I played like a few minutes of FF12, but haven't played it in so long that when I do get around to playing it (need to beat some games that a friend loaned me first), what exactly am I looking out for with this 'King Behemoth' Mark

Imagine a really really big map.  A really big map covered in fog.  In fact, make it two really big maps, covered in fog, where you can't see more than a foot in front of your face.

Now go clear out every single monsters on the map to make the King Behemoth spawn.  And then die when he gets down to 2% health and watch as all the monsters you cleared out respawn.   

[Brentai]

That sounds like... every other hunt in the game.   

I really, really dislike how faithfully they recreated the MMO experience in some places.

[PhoenixUltima]

I spurred myself to finally play through Final Fantasy V (fan-translated SNES ROM, I own the PSX version but fuck that). The last couple of times I ended up quitting because I couldn't get enough ABP to seriously level my jobs early on (around clearing the ancient library the first time) and got bored. This time I just said "fuck it, I'm just going to get enough job levels to be viable and go with it" and that ended up working. It was nice to actually have a challenge for once (the last RPG I played was Ar Tonelico which, although pretty good, is about as hard as melted ice cream), although I didn't bother trying to kill the optional bosses because seriously, fuck that noise. I still think the game is nowhere near as good as 6 and a bit below 4, but I no longer think of the game as being just plain terrible.

One thing that really fucking ticks me off, though, is that later in the game one of your members who is mostly geared towards fighting and challenge and might is replaced by another who is basically a speedy caster. What. The. Fuck. She starts with all the skills and equipment the other guy had, but if you're like me then you trained the first guy to be a front row fighting guy, while new girl is better suited to casting from the back, which means Faris would be better off taking a front line fighting spot, except I always put her on casting duty alongside Lenna (because you really need 2 casters, especially once you start getting the good time magic spells and red magic is no longer really viable), and ARHGRHGRHRBRHRRBRGHGHBR. Of course it's possible to retool both characters, but by then you've already grinded a lot of ABP and it's much easier to just say "fuck it, I'll just go with it". You could just train the first guy as a mage from the start, of course, but then you're saddled with a subpar caster for like 2/3rds of the damn game. All in all, just a poor design decision. If you're going to replace my big burly fighter character, then MAKE THE REPLACEMENT ANOTHER BIG BURLY FIGHTER CHARACTER. It's just common sense!

Also, Xfight doesn't work with Magic Sword. Boo. I suppose Flare Sword x 8 (Xfight + 2 weapons) would have broken the game, but, well, I like breaking games. Shove me down the yellow brick road and call me a munchkin!

[LaserBeing]

I still haven't been able to get through FF5, but since I've been on a FF kick this week I gave it another shot the other day. Playing it side by side with FF4 I was struck by how much worse the story and characters in 5 are. I mean 4 isn't exactly Shakespeare, but it's surprisingly nuanced for a video game from 1991. Whereas, by comparison, (and I'm sure the fan-translation is partly responsible for this) 5 feels like someone's RPGmaker project.

Though I suppose it shouldn't really come as a surprise that the most draconically linear FF is also the one with pretty much the best story.


You know, a thought just occurred to me: the arc of VII-XIII is basically a repeat of I-VII.

I: the standard that all its descendants are based on. Popular, but not really that amazing when you look back at it.
II: characters had more personality and the story was vaguely more interesting, but the weird leveling system made everyone hate it anyway.
III: play-it-safe return to the basics with clearly defined jobs, a straightforward story, and a fucking shitload of airships, the most powerful of which is named "Invincible".
IV: a fairly constrained but moderately compelling story about one effeminate blonde swordsman and his dysfunctional family issues.
V: brought back the job system but everyone hated it.
VI: vastly epic in scope with lots of interesting characters and a well-developed world but not a particularly interesting overarching narrative.
VII: flashy, overbearing, with a pseudo-modern setting and a fractured narrative that was basically about grown men with improbable hairstyles looking pretty and having emotional breakdowns over their cellphones.

Time flows like a river... and history repeats...

VII: the standard that all its descendants are based on. Popular, but not really that amazing when you look back at it.
VIII: characters had more personality and the story was vaguely more interesting, but the weird leveling system made everyone hate it anyway.
IX: play-it-safe return to the basics with clearly defined jobs, a straightforward story, and a fucking shitload of airships, the most powerful of which is named "Invincible".
X: a fairly constrained but moderately compelling story about one effeminate blonde swordsman and his dysfunctional family issues.
XI: brought back the job system but everyone hated it.
XII: vastly epic in scope with lots of interesting characters and a well-developed world but not a particularly interesting overarching narrative.
XIII: Flashy? Check. Overbearing? Check. Pseudo-modern setting? Check. Motorcycles? You better fucking believe it.

From this we can easily extrapolate the quality of each new FF game years before it is even released, in perpetuity. THIS IS SCIENCE, PEOPLE.

Oddly enough in this cycle of aeons, FFVII is the cosmic turning point, being both the end of one age and the beginning of the next, which certainly seems to be how it's perceived by a lot of people. I believe the Vedas describe it as "jumping the celestial shark"...