The Final Fantasy Thread

[Well Intentioned]

Huh. I stand corrected.

Generally, if people get 'stuck' in a seed, they're either missing a character check, or haven't checked an open check (typically the Kefka at Narshe scenario.)

There's even a small racing community for it on Twitch.

Edit: There's also a couple of instances where you can softlock yourself by getting into a battle that you can't win. MagiTek Factory and Lete River are both instances you can fuck yourself if the randomizer gives you a bad fight and you didn't backup save.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Vaan has been killing rats for all of about 90 minutes when he's joined by veteran sky pirates Balthier and Fran, who are...one level higher than him. Okay.

This is entirely Balthier's caper. What insight does Vaan provide?

It's obvious that half of the development team disagreed with the other half.

 

[Tealeaf]

Games like the Mana remakes were easier because they were smaller, world-wise, and the use of tile sets in the original meant the remake could use the same design for multiple areas each.

To use Trials of Mana as an example, no, it doesn’t reuse any areas. Every single 2D background in the original was modeled into 3D areas with remarkable faithfulness to the original playable areas. Sure, the game may be smaller than Final Fantasy games tend to be, but it’s by no means a small game.

The main difference is that Mana is less important to Square Enix and there’s not as much executive meddling to blow up the scope, drown the developers in funding and/or milk the franchise for money. They just outsourced Trials of Mana to a mobile game developer (Xeen) and called it a day. Not to denigrate the developers, they did a great job in balancing modern quality of life with the classic stuff with what they had.

While technically very doable, to do the same for Final Fantasy would require Square Enix to be reasonable with the budget and scope for their darling franchise. And let someone else do it.

 

[Shield Breaker]

To use Trials of Mana as an example, no, it doesn’t reuse any areas. Every single 2D background in the original was modeled into 3D areas with remarkable faithfulness to the original playable areas. Sure, the game may be smaller than Final Fantasy games tend to be, but it’s by no means a small game.

The main difference is that Mana is less important to Square Enix and there’s not as much executive meddling to blow up the scope, drown the developers in funding and/or milk the franchise for money. They just outsourced Trials of Mana to a mobile game developer (Xeen) and called it a day. Not to denigrate the developers, they did a great job in balancing modern quality of life with the classic stuff with what they had.

While technically very doable, to do the same for Final Fantasy would require Square Enix to be reasonable with the budget and scope for their darling franchise. And let someone else do it.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself very well. I don't mean they're literally reused, I mean the assets are reused. Most areas share assets with other areas:


The trees, rock face, etc can be used in multiple places, but it is still a faithful recreation due to the original using tile sets which shared designs. Now compare any area in the PSX games compared to another, and they don't share assets.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Now compare any area in the PSX games compared to another, and they don't share assets.

Hot damn, that game looks great. They didn't meddle with the soundtrack, either. The gold standard of 3D remakes.

 

[Tealeaf]

The trees, rock face, etc can be used in multiple places, but it is still a faithful recreation due to the original using tile sets which shared designs. Now compare any area in the PSX games compared to another, and they don't share assets.

To be fair even the elaborate painted backgrounds in PSX Final Fantasies are full of repetition and generic themed objects that can be turned into reusable assets. They have to look familiar to the player and have continuity from screen to screen.

There are only so many different trees, hallways and building architectures. It doesn’t have to be a pixel perfect recreation, just faithful resemblance.

You are right that a tile set gives you objects to turn into reusable assets right off the bat but I don’t think identifying them from static backgrounds is an unreasonably hard intermediate step.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

It wouldn't be an issue if Balthier awarded his "leading man" status to Vaan. But that didn't happen until the spinoff. (Which nobody played.) This is entirely Balthier's caper. What insight does Vaan provide?

It's obvious that half the development team disagreed with the other half.

Supposedly Ashe was supposed to be the main character earlier in development.

I can see it. Ashe is the only party member who has a reason to do the stuff you're doing, and Basch is tagging along because he's sworn to protect her. Everyone else is just there because they have nothing better to do and they're like eh fuck it let's go overthrow the evil empire.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Everyone else is just there because they have nothing better to do and they're like eh fuck it let's go overthrow the evil empire.

Balthier is an ex-Judge or something.

That's like item #2 on the Marty Stu how-to guide

 

[Coldgrip]

Supposedly Ashe was supposed to be the main character earlier in development.

I can see it. Ashe is the only party member who has a reason to do the stuff you're doing, and Basch is tagging along because he's sworn to protect her. Everyone else is just there because they have nothing better to do and they're like eh fuck it let's go overthrow the evil empire.

I seem to recall that Vaan was added much later in the development due to Square wanting a character that would click with kids or something like that.

Either way, 12 sucked.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Either way, 12 sucked.

Counterpoint: it's good.

It's one of the only FFs that requires you to know how to break the game if you want to do all of the hunts as soon as possible, like how you can set up an evade tank against Marilith.

 

[Coldgrip]

Counterpoint: it's good.

It's one of the only FFs that requires you to know how to break the game if you want to do all of the hunts as soon as possible, like how you can set up an evade tank against Marilith.

counter counter point: It has Vaan, so it sucks.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Counterpoint: it's good.

DON'T BELIEVE ONDORE'S LIES!

12 is divisive. I chalk it up to Matsuno leaving the company. For some folks out there, this is the last time Square made something of quality.

I never finished it. There are way too many ways to over-level your characters. Scenarios are detached from the plot. Penelo is the strongest character wtf.

requires you to know how to break the game if you want to do all of the hunts as soon as possible,

I'd recommend ignoring the Mark Hunts if you don't want to break the game entirely.

 

[Marissa Moira]

The one thing I hated about 12 was collecting all the wood chops to enter the city.

What even were they, carved wooden porkchops?

 

[Cantercoin]

counter counter point: It has Vaan, so it sucks.

Counter point x 3: Fran has a great ass

 

[Captain Syrup]

Counter point x 3: Fran has a great ass

It belongs in a museum.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

I remember liking 12 as a kid but I hated it when I tried Zodiac age. I feel like it was mainly because 4x speed practically turned it into some mobile game that played itself.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

So I've just gotten past the fight with Roche and I'm liking it so far. Makes me wonder if we'll bump into more characters from SOLDIER, because I always thought the organization was really underutilized in the original.

And would someone please get Jessie a glass of water, because that bitch be thirsty.

Yeah, the Jessie subplot is one of those fanfiction stories awkwardly jammed into Remake. Still one of the better fanfiction stories even though every character should be really tired for the big mission.

 

[UnKillFill]

Live-a-Live has some problematic parts, unfortunately.

Would you care to expand upon this statement any? I actually recently replayed Live a Live... and yeah, not every scenario was created equally... (This was literally by design though. Every single scenario was basically led by a different person.) I won't even claim that every single scenario was all that good. But the term "problematic" has some fairly specific social justard connotations, especially in the current year.

I actually really like Live a Live as a whole, and I'm legit curious- What about it is "problematic" to you?

 

[Captain Syrup]

The one thing I hated about 12 was collecting all the wood chops to enter the city.

What even is a sandlewood chop? How did I climb to the very top of Archadian society in half an hour?

This quest blows, but Blitzball is the worst minigame ever (despite being skippable.)

 

[AlexJonesGotMePregnant]

i played through 12: zodiac age a decade after trying and abandoning the original ps2 release; it was tolerable but frustrating.

- vaan beats out tidus as the least likeable MC
- ashe/bashe sucked
- penelo why?
- balthier/fran had a fun dynamic but the motivation was weak and stupid
- i don't remember any other character at all including any of the antagonists despite playing it less than a year ago

it really did play like a boring mobile game; the hunts were not much varied or interesting and the progression system felt like 2 or 3 steps back from the previous games. licenses were dumb and the guild system was pretty worthless.

Who put this in as the lead in final fantasy?