The Final Fantasy Thread

Got Final Fantasy X on the Switch, and it's giving me a choice between the original & expert sphere grids.

As a first time player, which is the better choice?
 
Vault Boy said:
As a first time player, which is the better choice?
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Avoid expert. A beginner will wander around aimlessly without a goal in mind.

In vanilla, everyone starts in a default 'job' (e.g. white mage, samurai, thief). Later, they can invade each others' jobs. Expert is kind of similar to FF2, if that makes any sense: there is no template. Just mold characters however you want.
 
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JamesFargo said:
Avoid expert. A beginner will wander around aimlessly without a goal in mind.

In vanilla, everyone starts in a default 'job' (i.e. white mage, samurai, thief). Later, they can invade each others' jobs. Expert is kind of similar to FF2, if that makes sense: there is no template. Just mold characters however you want.
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So a more guided approach at the start that allows for a little flexibility later on? That sounds up my alley.
 
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The Penultimate Warrior said:
Time to start a new game after finishing IX, I recently played VII again and can't bring myself to play VIII at the moment. So would people recommend the HD version of X (which I've never played) or XII (which I got about 1/3 through on the PS2, but for whatever reason never finished)?
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Oof...be careful with 8. That one has a funky game mechanic to say the least. If you do get around to it just remember one thing : refine items and cards ASAP. Trust me.
 
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Vault Boy said:
So a more guided approach at the start that allows for a little flexibility later on?
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Yes. It keeps the gameplay loop from getting stale.

You can't really go wrong on original. The only character who must wander off the path is Kimahri. Being the only non-human in your party, he looks cool. But his overdrives are fairly bad. Most players advise you to bench him. If you don't want him to suck, you have to put the work in; and you need to do it fast. Have a road map and stick with it. Backtracking will waste precious levels.

The question of what to do with Kimahri comes up a lot. Specifically, whether to make him Mage Kimahri or Bruiser Kimahri. For instance, say you want a tanky damage dealer. Sending him down Wakka's path will just yield an inferior copy, but Lulu's path has the best defense growth.
 
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Vault Boy said:
Got Final Fantasy X on the Switch, and it's giving me a choice between the original & expert sphere grids.

As a first time player, which is the better choice?
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Standard is preferable for a first-timer but I like expert since you can go and pick up the starting abilities of other people before going down their own pathway.

With the SD PAL version long ago, I usually had Lulu and Yuna go pick up Lancet so they can have MP recovery and then pick up the other's abilities so they both had healing and magic DPS. Although with the HD remaster's built-in encounter none/frequent, you don't need Lancet anymore since you can skip normal battles on-route and just grind at a save point. But having techs that cover some of the lackings in other characters is good shit.

I never tried this, but making characters take a path for another character (like turning Yuna into an Auron DPS while making Kimahri the white mage) seems pretty fun. Expert isn't too daunting for the first timer. I played it for my first time. But you need to realize where the leveling path is for characters are, especially for Lulu since her overdrives are tied to the black magic spells she learns. But it gives you more freedom right from the start to fuck around with how a character develops as it is in the name.
 
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CisnaHet Scumale said:
I never tried this, but making characters take a path for another character (like turning Yuna into an Auron DPS while making Kimahri the white mage) seems pretty fun. Expert isn't too daunting for the first timer. I played it for my first time. But you need to realize where the leveling path is for characters are, especially for Lulu since her overdrives are tied to the black magic spells she learns. But it gives you more freedom right from the start to fuck around with how a character develops as it is in the name.
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Yeah I don't think playing with the expert grid on your first run is a trap or anything. You can just look at the abilities to figure out which path is which so you can stay on it if you don't want to experiment.

Shoving Yuna down Auron's path is fun though since her aeons scale based on her stats and she's not expected to have THAT much strength. Also picking up Steal/Use with Tidus and Wakka.
 
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JamesFargo said:
X-2 is insultingly easy, I think the wedding cake boss in Mario RPG gives me a harder time.
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Sigh X-2 has the same issue like VIII and tactics. Really, really fun gameplay with rich gameplay depths but the main-story bosses have their difficulty scaled so even retards can beat them.

Then again most of my game overs from my latest X-2 playthrough was with mobs with powerful attacks and all the girls are in squishy mage dresses with no HP boosting equips so they only have 1-2k health even in chapter 3-5.

I really wish someone could mod it to rebalance the abilities and buff the enemies like the Struggle for Freedom or 1.3 mod for Final Fantasy XII and Tactics respectively. I have this idea that the songstress dances are changed to have the effects be permanent for the battle unless you change dresses. Would give that class that much needed status as the best class for marathon bosses.
 
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eternal dog mongler said:
My man Wiegraf has ended the runs of many players only saving in a single slot though.
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You know that 1.3 mod?

DaTruthDT posted a let's play: I think it took him eight or so attempts to kill 1.3 Gafgarion. When he finally went down, DT yelled, "bye Gafgarion, I hated looking at you."
 
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JamesFargo said:
You know that 1.3 mod, right? It's way above my weight class.

DaTruthDT has an enjoyable let's play: I think it took him eight or so attempts to kill 1.3 Gafgarion...which is hilarious. When he finally goes down, DT yells, "bye Gafgarion, I hated looking at you."
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Is that the one with the autist modder who had some special random encounter that wasn't supposed to be beatable, then someone beat it and they had a tantrum about it?
 
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Berrakh said:
we certainly hope so
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I think it is. Digging around, the modder's name is Archael and I guess he has a history of deleting fucking everything. Got banned from a community site (FFHacktics), made his own website ( insanedifficulty.com ) that he neglected for a couple of years, then came back and shit all over the jannys before deleting the website, YouTube and other related accounts.

Can't find the particulars on this special fight of his, though. From what I recall, you could only encounter the fight if you entered from a certain direction and there was some use of a trap tile to beat the encounter in an unintended way.

EDIT: Yeah, I think it stems from a LP that was done on Something Awful. Looks like the actual LP is behind the paywall, though. Don't have access to my account anymore, though, so I can't look at it:

ROM Hacks: Fantasy Tactics 1.3 RELEASE!

ROM Hacks: Fantasy Tactics 1.3 RELEASE!
www.romhacking.net

SA link: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3445832

Archael himself shows up in the Rom Hacking thread to argue. I think he shows up in the SA one, too, going off memory. Edited to clarify.
 
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CisnaHet Scumale said:
Sigh X-2 has the same issue like VIII and tactics. Really, really fun gameplay with rich gameplay depths
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I agree with you on 2 of those.

However VIII is on par with FF2 in terms of awful gameplay tho. The Junction System was a broken mess, limit breaks were way to easily abused and they managed to turn both Blue magic and Summons into garbage.
 
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JamesFargo said:
It was typical of Squaresoft to over-complicate things. Chrono Cross, Legend of Mana, Xenogears, f**king Vagrant Story....really, out of all of them Parasite Eve holds up the best. It's such a lean game.
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I wouldn't even call it over complicated, it is just broken.

"Junction Curaga to HP and spam triangle till squall gets a limit break" beats 99% of the game.
 
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