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On July 07 2011 12:05 TealLurker wrote: I recently beat Final Fantasy V for the first time. I played around 10 hours of the SNES version, but never got around to finish it. I played the version that I had most available which was Final Fantasy V Advance and I liked it very much.
The game got ridiculously hard at the end mostly because I didn't do well getting the appropriate job skills that would've made the game a lot easier. It was too little, too late for me to get the necessary ABP to get the skills I wanted. It took me three tries to beat the final form of the final boss. I just wound up throwing lots and lots of money at it since I wouldn't be needing it. As much I like the game, it just pales in comparison to the other SNES FFs. It's tough being sandwiched between my two favorite FFs FFVI and FFIV. But honestly...a tree?! Really?!
I still haven't played I, II, or anything after X-2 except for XII (which remains unfinished). I'll finish XII sometime, but I'm sooooo not enjoying that game at all.
As it stands, if I had to rank the games I played.
VI IV IX Tactics V X VII ----------- VIII X-2 XII III
Whereas I think FFVII is very good. I didn't like FFVIII and there's a huge distinction between my likes of VII and my dislike of VIII.
If you are playing FFVA, then use the PRG abuse and fight Movers. You get 200ap for every fight.
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On July 07 2011 02:42 baubo wrote:This thread just reminded me how much of a geek I was and still am. Show nested quote +On July 06 2011 18:42 Sufficiency wrote: I feel that an extremely strong, well-rounded main character causes the player to be "lazy" and the game less diverse. It gave players less motivation to develop other characters. On the other hand it does make the game a bit easier to play and more palatable to beginners. I am sort of an anti-main player. I typically enjoy using niched characters and classes more than the main character and cookie-cutter classes. Unfortunately this always always byte my ass later on in the game. I never found any main character to be overpowered in FF games. Or for that matter, most RPGs. Show nested quote +I recall in the NDS version of FFIV, Cecil is incredibly more powerful than rest of the permanent and non-permanent playable characters. He got the highest natural HP growth for as tank, arguably the best physical damage output (I find him greatly outperforming Kain and Edge), and white magic for utility (something that is unfortunately lacked by most other characters). When I play FFIV, and Cecil dies, I am pretty much guaranteed to have a gameover... well, until I gave Rosa a +50% HP Augment. Never played the NDS version. Played the original. Don't really feel like FF4 is a game where character comparison matters. It's not like you have to choose to use Kain or Cecil. Or a choice where you can use 2 Cecils. In the end, you are given a set party and there's not much you can do. I do believe the remakes can have you play as all the temporary characters in the game. But that has nothing to do with the main character. But rather if you wish to compare Rosa/Rydia to the twins or something. Show nested quote +Another example is wtfimba moment I had was with FFVI and Terra. Because Terra's Trance makes her to do double damage, she pretty much rolls over any bosses. In fact, my strategy for FFVI has pretty much being: 1. keep Terra alive. 2. Terra use Trance. 3. Attack 8 times with Master's Scroll and Genji Gloves. 4. Boss dies in 1-2 turns. The only blessing with FFVI is the last part of the game, which forces me to develop other characters. There are a lot of abusive stuff in FF6. Can't remember them all though. In particular, Gau has some very game breaking rages, and I'd consider him the broken character in FF6. Gogo too to a certain extent, although you get him late. Terra IMO is just a regular character with better stats. I never felt she really outshined everyone else in any mindboggling way. Show nested quote +Squall from FFVIII is a similar example where the party is very uneven. Squall's Limit Break is significantly better than all other playable characters (perhaps except Rinoa's Angel Wing). In fact, Squall's Limit Break is so good that it's retarded: Squall's Limit Break does at least 8 hits, iirc has a maximum of around 70k. Most other characters Limit Breaks are limited to 9999-30k. This is a big deal since Limit Breaks are so common in FFVIII. This is so off it's not even funny. Zell is by far the most broken character in FF8. You can chain his limit literally forever. And unlike Squall where Lionheart is 100% random, his longest limit timing can be triggered easily with low hp+aura. Also, for all practical purposes, Irving is better damage dealer than Squall. AP ammo ignores defense and can be had quite early if you just play some cards. Lionheart is not available til quite late unless you're into grinding. And even then, you need that spell that destroys defense first... my memory's failing me in my old age. And Quistis, despite her lack of damage potential late game, has some pretty uber support spells and ridiculous amount of usefulness in her blue magic. So really, if a player knows how to use every character to his/her fullest, Squall and Rinoa would likely rank 4 and 5. Poor Selphie is 6th, but I use her all the same cause she's cool. Show nested quote +Then there is FFX's Yuna on her standard grid. In fact, just the summoning spells themselves put Yuna in an entirely different class than the other characters; the fact that Yuna's magic is higher than Lulu's on their respective grid is kind of stupid. It would have been better if FFX had different statistics for White and Black Magic (like the Intelligence/Spirituality for FFIV).
Yuna being better than Lulu at magic is irrelevant since unless you go off her beaten path, her first attack magic is Holy. And Lulu doesn't even get Holy. I did find Yuna's summoning to be imba in boss fights, but it's not like they become uber difficult if you don't use them. If anything, I find summonings to be more helpful in getting that easy overkill or as sacrifices against late game bosses. Rikku is the character whom if you use correctly, can do the most weirdly awesome stuff. Post-game(after airship) Wakka and Tidus are the biggest damage dealers. Rikku is the best support. And magic becomes utterly useless except for grinding purposes.
Some of the things you said are probably true, but I am unsure about Irvine. His Limit Break acts similarly to Squall's, but uses up items. I am pretty sure AP ammo are very hard to get.
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i've played FF1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,X
i'll rate FF6 and 7 as my two most favourite series..
anyone know if FF6 is available in any other platform? (other than GBA, which i lost mine years ago).. suddenly i have the itch to play it again
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On July 07 2011 14:09 kaleidoscope wrote: i've played FF1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,X
i'll rate FF6 and 7 as my two most favourite series..
anyone know if FF6 is available in any other platform? (other than GBA, which i lost mine years ago).. suddenly i have the itch to play it again
FFVI was released for SNES, PSone, and GBA. Square has hinted at a 3DS remake.
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On July 07 2011 13:51 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2011 01:37 HolydaKing wrote:On July 06 2011 19:27 Velr wrote:On July 06 2011 18:42 Sufficiency wrote: I want to raise a topic for discussion.
How powerful/imbalanced is the main male and female (if exists) cast compared to other playable characters in different Final Fantasy games? FF4 Cecil was leagues above everyone else. Kain was WAY weaker (but at least could avoid damage with his Jump). FF7, everyone was pretty similar except for the limitbreaks.. Which iirc was Tifa/Cloud > rest (well Vincent was good somewhere in the middle but sucks in the End... And has an anoying ultimate weapon to "make strong"). FF8, Rinoa in Witch-Mode... I just gave her only the strongest spells (she choses only spells she actually has.. So Ultima/Meltdown/Flare/Meteor/Aura/Wall... ftw...) and she basically just beats the shit out of every boss there was on her own while Squall does Physical-DMG and the 3d Char just supports/heals. FF10, Yuna delivers.. And her ultimate Weapon wasn't a bitch to "get", unlike Lulu's. Kihmari seemed EXTREMLY terrible. Tidus/Auron were ok.. Couldn't stand Wakka/Strangegirl so i nearly never used them (never made it to "REAL" fighting the dark summons). FF7 you got it quite wrong. Best Limit team was Cloud, Cid, Yuffie/Barret. I prefered Yuffie over Barret, which is think was because Yuffie's was stronger against single target. Most of the time it didn't matter though, i would say Vincent indeed is really useful in the mid game. Replayed it 3 or 4 months ago and used mostly Tifa cause she's sexy (specially so with a graphic mod for the computer version ^^) with Cloud and Cid (before that Barret)! This is what I heard too. Tifa's limit breaks are not good at all.
Hm, k, i probably mix something about that i read a long time ago . (i myself used mianly Cloud/Cid/Red.. Because Vincents ultimate level was to much of a grind to level up ).
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On July 07 2011 02:42 baubo wrote:Show nested quote +Another example is wtfimba moment I had was with FFVI and Terra. Because Terra's Trance makes her to do double damage, she pretty much rolls over any bosses. In fact, my strategy for FFVI has pretty much being: 1. keep Terra alive. 2. Terra use Trance. 3. Attack 8 times with Master's Scroll and Genji Gloves. 4. Boss dies in 1-2 turns. The only blessing with FFVI is the last part of the game, which forces me to develop other characters. There are a lot of abusive stuff in FF6. Can't remember them all though. In particular, Gau has some very game breaking rages, and I'd consider him the broken character in FF6. Gogo too to a certain extent, although you get him late. Terra IMO is just a regular character with better stats. I never felt she really outshined everyone else in any mindboggling way.
Stupidest imba: economizer and gem box, cast (in this order) utima quick, ultima ultima ultima ultima. 5 casts of ultima in 1 turn, for 6 mp
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Huge Tactics and 7 fan here, although I love most of the FFs (haven't played since 12). If I had to choose a least favorite, it'd probably be 8. Although it had a lot of great things to discover, games to play, and items to collect, the most important aspect of classic RPG games, for me, is the story. I had trouble swallowing the details of spontaneous and inexplicable amnesia riddling the entire lead party and supporting cast who all knew each other since they grew up as a family with their boss and the primary antagonist. "Blame the GFs, duh, let's move on" was not an acceptable answer for me.
Especially not after the epic tales of 6, Tactics, and 7.
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On July 09 2011 00:14 KOFgokuon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2011 02:42 baubo wrote:Another example is wtfimba moment I had was with FFVI and Terra. Because Terra's Trance makes her to do double damage, she pretty much rolls over any bosses. In fact, my strategy for FFVI has pretty much being: 1. keep Terra alive. 2. Terra use Trance. 3. Attack 8 times with Master's Scroll and Genji Gloves. 4. Boss dies in 1-2 turns. The only blessing with FFVI is the last part of the game, which forces me to develop other characters. There are a lot of abusive stuff in FF6. Can't remember them all though. In particular, Gau has some very game breaking rages, and I'd consider him the broken character in FF6. Gogo too to a certain extent, although you get him late. Terra IMO is just a regular character with better stats. I never felt she really outshined everyone else in any mindboggling way. Stupidest imba: economizer and gem box, cast (in this order) utima quick, ultima ultima ultima ultima. 5 casts of ultima in 1 turn, for 6 mp
I rate that as second stupidest imba.
First stupidest imba: Stat vigor level locke up. Relics: Gengji Glove/Offering. Illumina/Atma Weapon (Or two illuminas if glitched). 8 hits of 9999 on anything for 0 mp.
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eh, i like the other one better cause that hits everyone on the screen for 9999. Single opponent, yours is better
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In FF8 the card game, if say you card modded a level 10 card, say Squall. Could you get another one from playing the top players? I've always wondered about this and why I always chose to not get rid of the GF/Character cards
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No, anything lvl 8 and above is unique and u can't get another one.
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Final Fantasy Tactics is my favorite one, by a huge margin. But it's not on the poll
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Ha from nostalgia I looked to see if there was a stand alone online Triple Triad game and yes there is:
http://www.tripletriadflashonline.com/
Quite fun actually, even though I have the worst cards there are. Playing right now, name tony350 if anybody else wants a laugh
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i feel like talking about imba stuff in ff6 is like asking what would kill a caveman faster, an ak-47 or an m4a1... it really doesn't matter, he's gonna die pretty badly
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is awesome32248 Posts
Ok, I feel I need to play a little devil's advocate here for Final Fantasy VIII. Specially since it's one of my favorite final fantasy games.
First things first, I don't understand why people like Final Fantasy 7 so much. I must confess I played it a bit late (before 8, but not as soon as it got out) so maybe I lost kind of the "wow 3D?" effect for it. Then again, I'm not the kind of guy easily impressed by just graphics, else I wouldn't be on this forum lol.
Now, onto Final Fantasy 8. I know the story has some shady stuff, I know all the jokes you can made with Squall using 3 dots, etc. But let's look at what FFVIII has and make it great.
For starters, everything seems to blend is so nicely. The game transfers to FMV and back soooo nicely, it was something I had never seen before. Controlling characters during FMVs? I actually let squall sit at the Edea assassination sequence, because I was waiting for the video to go on.
And not only that, everything in the story is "playable" or embedded into the game. There's tons of little stuff in the game that could be put into text to make it easier for the game designers but it would ruin the experience. Some examples are the train hijack explanation, the Edea assassination part, the collision of gardens where you have to fight a guy in the middle of a FMV with a rock, paper, scissors minigame, the band thing at fisherman horizon, etc.
And that was something that wanted to make me want to actually do stuff in the game. Even silly stuff like collecting vases pieces in that town Laguna patrols with Kiros (sorry forgot the name >.<) was made into something enjoyable with dialogue and Chocobo appearances.
In most games it turns into this "Collect this, do that" side-quests, where it becomes more of a burden for the player to complete. In the I usually end up doing those "to finish the game at 100%" or because "I want X item", not because the experience in itself is enjoyable, which is the most important thing in a single player game.
The battle system get's a lot of hate due to the draw mechanic and how easy is to break the game. I agree, some dumb decisions where made here by Square, but the system is not bad in itself, but I do think it could use some patching.
First of it's down to make the EXP require to lvl up static. That is completely dumb and makes reaching lvl 99 a joke (even if enemies lvl up with you). Something exponential like FF9 would have been nice. You usually want to discourage grinding, at least for a normal play-through, side-quests and bosses maybe.
You can get spell from other sources, but yeah, draw is the "safest" and it takes loads of time, there should be another way to do this. Maybe set spells as a sort of battle prize? (like spell stones: fire stone, water stone, etc to be later refined via respective GFs? for example Ifrit could only refine fire magic, and power depending on GF level).
I liked the junction mechanic, nothing wrong with that, it's just that spells are 'easy' to get and there's no reason to junction nothing but 100 of each. Some spells lose value over game and deters from good gameplay.
I really liked what they did GFs, the problem is that they are not really useful, except for using them as meatshields (vs Omega weapon for example) in later stages of the game. But before FF8 summons where just strong spells and I think FF8 took a bit step forward with them, made them to be more relevant in battles (junctioning, making them level up, compatibility, power, skills, their HP, boosting them while their animation was going off, etc). Whenever I got a new summon on FF9 is was like "meh" (i really like FF9 though!), but finding a new GF on FF8 was a lot more than a spell.
Characters and personality. I guess it's a matter of preference, but I really like some characters in FF8. I like Squall though many people hate him, I love how he honestly thinks of everything and how he facepalms at a lot of things. I love Zell, specially when in disc 1 and when he talks to Seifer. Irvine I like a lot too and the character he tries to play. Quistis is fun too. Selphie I could care less, she's like Yuffie to me, if you remove her from the game it would make little difference. Rinoa fit's her role well, but she's nothing impressive. I realize none of the characters are really deep (then again, I don't think any FF character is really deep), but I love the interactions they form between themselves. Zell with Seifer (even when Seifer is possesed by Edea he keeps calling Zell chicken wuss, i love it), Squall with about everyone he meets. With Quistis, Laguna and his clumsiness and awkwardness with everything around him and so on.
The good things everyone knows about probably but doesn't get enough praise:
The background, city design and locations are beautiful. Each city has their distinctive element without falling too easy into the cliche "tribal like fishing town", "urban city with army", etc. You are probably thinking "ugh FH and Galbadia" are those. But they don't fall into the cliche. Yeah, it's a fishing town, but for once it's not full or poor aborigine looking like people. They are tech sawwy people that got tired from the civilization and are actually more capable than 90% of the other cities in the game to show one difference. Visually too.
That brings me onto the next subject, music! I love this game's music so much. Even though I think other final fantasy has the best song of all of them (Jenova series of songs from FF7), I think on average, FF8 is vastly superior. I actually didn't play FF8 THAT many times. I think I finished it 3 times (one quick run) over the course of 12 years and I can still name where "we could possibly be" if you play a song. I loved that: going into FH and listening to that calm tune, or hearing a tune and knowing Edea was close, etc. I never see people praising FF8's particularly, I wonder if I'm alone on this one.
Enemies design is good too. Usually RPG fall on recoloring and stuff like that for enemies, but I liked the enemies in FF, they have a nice design, cards make them more interesting as well. Sometimes I got the card for a big enemy before finding them (like Iron Giants or Ruby Dragons) and you wonder how big they are before meeting them and stuff like that.
I guess a lot that I mention could be put as "How you tell the story is as important as what story you are telling".
Things that people always mention as good as I agree: Triple Triad. I don't know if this has been surpassed yet. I didn't like FF9's card game (I haven't played FF10-2 or FF13, so I don't know if there's something better there). It's such a simple concept but it's done really really well. My only complain is that there should be more cards, but I don't think the Square guys thought the mini-game would be such a success.
I'm probably leaving a lot of stuff out: seed tests and being someone "employed", being payed, took from grinding since you could get more money simply by doing things right instead of hacking enemies for hours. Some funny dialogue. Crossed connections (like NORG-shumi tribe-moombas, places Laguna visited and you being there later, Timber Maniacs, etc), but "oh well" I guess I can add them later.
Sorry if this is a very long post for a Final Fantasy game, specially talking about game balance in a JRPG. But what can I say? I'm a nerd.
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^Intothewow
I don't believe people complained about the game-breaking aspect of the junction system. If anything, most people were too stupid to understand how to abuse it, so they spend hours sitting through all those summing animations and claim the game is messed up because of it.
FF8 is my 2nd favorite FF. I loved it, but found it lacking in certain aspects. And found much of those problems fixed in FFX, which to this day remains my favorite FF. It's not surprising that the same development team were responsible for both games.
On July 09 2011 03:29 TonyL2 wrote: In FF8 the card game, if say you card modded a level 10 card, say Squall. Could you get another one from playing the top players? I've always wondered about this and why I always chose to not get rid of the GF/Character cards
You can do so on Disk 4. There are two ways.
1. Play the Queen of Cards. She's on the world map somewhere... can't remember where. Look up a FAQ or something. You can also play her for the cards in her sidequest if haven't done so. 2. Play the Card Club members. You must've completed the sidequest before disk 3's point-of-no-return though. Basically before you're cut off from world-map exploration.
side note: Haven't touched this game in at least a decade. I'm so surprised I can remember this stuff yet keep forgetting tons of more important stuff for my papers. My brain is messed up.
Before disk 4, you may not get your cards back. But it's not necessary to mod them anyway. Well, certain Queen of Cards cards have really good mods. But it's still not necessary to mod unless you want to fully deck out all 6 characters. And all the top spells are available without needing them anyway.
I remember playing cards on disk 4 for rare cards just to get those stat-ups. But stopped when I realized how pointless it is since you don't actually need it. I guess this is one area where I really liked FFX for having enemies where perfect stats actually matter. At least give me some sort of reason to grind.
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The best part is all of the plusses you mentioned IntotheWoW are in FFIX and then some, they took all the good "flavor touches" of VIII and then amped them up and made them all a part of the story. Now looking back I prefer the FF's with the more "active" combat system (which is because of dissidia haha)
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On July 10 2011 02:43 Monokeros wrote: The best part is all of the plusses you mentioned IntotheWoW are in FFIX and then some, they took all the good "flavor touches" of VIII and then amped them up and made them all a part of the story. Now looking back I prefer the FF's with the more "active" combat system (which is because of dissidia haha)
Don't forget you could change the battle mode to active so there are no turns, just timers for the turns. It's how I always played FF's.
As for my favourites, 7 by far followed by 10 then 8 then 9. 6 was good but I never connected with any of the characters or really got into finding out more about it so is just behind. Anything after 11 was a joke and needs to be burnt.
Must say I enjoyed the "end-game" challenges of 10 the most, in terms of difficulty of bosses anyway. Oh Penance, you bastard you.. Makes all other optional hard bosses look like babies. Never used Yojimbo on any dark aeons etc either, just straight up fighting.
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is awesome32248 Posts
On July 10 2011 02:43 Monokeros wrote: The best part is all of the plusses you mentioned IntotheWoW are in FFIX and then some, they took all the good "flavor touches" of VIII and then amped them up and made them all a part of the story. Now looking back I prefer the FF's with the more "active" combat system (which is because of dissidia haha)
Well don't get me wrong, I like FFIX a lot. But I think the combat system is itself (not the balance) is pretty boring. Like, it's way more balanced than 8, but less attractive. Characters have their up and downs and though I love the atmosphere in it FF9 I feel a lot of things are way more cliche (design wise).
I love Vivi and Steiner. Amarant is good. I hate Zidane.
Something I forgot to mention is that I could never find a rom hack for FF8 (like there is for FF7). I think there's one for 9, there's one for Tactics too. I just wish there was one for FF8 that made it harder.
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