- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
by the time Endwalker rolls in the FFXIV WoL canonically has a trauma response to being asked to sit down for dinner or a drink
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean it's kinda funny that here in FF2 the dragoons/dragon knights are in fact presented as a kind of cavalry what with their history of riding wyverns.
But here in the English speaking world our "Final Fantasy 2" would be the retitled FF4 and our introduction to the dragoon archetype would be Kain Highwind, lance-wielding shonen rival and mind-control-victim extraordinaire.
Viewed in that light it makes the FF14 presentation of the dragoons of Ishgard as anti-dragon spearmen with a secret buried history of a friendship with dragonkind and the character arc of primary dragoon Estinien overcoming his hatred of dragons until he finally starts fighting in concert with them extremely on the nose.
But here in the English speaking world our "Final Fantasy 2" would be the retitled FF4 and our introduction to the dragoon archetype would be Kain Highwind, lance-wielding shonen rival and mind-control-victim extraordinaire.
Viewed in that light it makes the FF14 presentation of the dragoons of Ishgard as anti-dragon spearmen with a secret buried history of a friendship with dragonkind and the character arc of primary dragoon Estinien overcoming his hatred of dragons until he finally starts fighting in concert with them extremely on the nose.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
I only make posts about what I know about. If I don't know about something, I admit it and, usually, avoid posting anything altogether.
I mean, I don't want to start an antagonistic discussion with you, so I suppose I could limit myself to say that I disagree.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that FF7 Remake is bad, it's a solid sequel (and it is a sequel, no matter what anybody says), but I find that the expansion on characterization for anybody other than Biggs, Wedge and Jessie is pretty small. Aerith and Tifa had plenty of character in the original, and while not as much of it was revealed in Midgar, a ton more than what the remake had to offer was shown throughout the entire game, so measuring whole game vs whole game (rather than whole game vs the first third of disc one), there's really no contest. Also, while I could agree that you can get through the same section of FF7 relatively quickly (perhaps not two hours, but close enough) if you rush it, that's just a side-effect of rushing it; taking the time to actually explore Midgar properly, there's plenty of stuff to do and things to learn. Not as much as the Remake, I can give that to you, but the difference isn't that big, in my opinion.
Mister Bad Guy
Mr Mercury to friends
- Location
- Bay Area
I mean, counterpoint: the Black Mage sprite is perfect.It's a shame that in FFI the Warriors of Light have no characterization and very generic class sprites, because Amano's WoL concept art that was used as the basis for Dissidia's WoL and [REDACTED] from FFXIV is one of the best FF character designs ever:
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vivi!!!I mean, counterpoint: the Black Mage sprite is perfect.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Okay but. You're basically saying because they wanted to put so much focus on the plot that there was so much plot they could no longer fit it into one game they are, somehow;
... having the plots get shorter and less complex?
Like by this standard if you turned Final Fantasy 1 into a six game epic saga in which each game had hundreds of characters and covered, respectively: start of game through to Astos, from there through to defeating Lich, from there through to defeating Marilith, then from there through to defeating Leviathan, then from there through to Tiamat, and lastly one final epic game for going back to the Chaos Shrine and beating Chaos...
That by making there be so much plot, so many twists and characters, but possible to map to originally one game's plot means the plots are getting both shorter and less complex.
Shorter, maybe, but also less complex? Really?
Like I've never played either but this argument doesn't hold water I have to say. You're not just arguing the plots got shorter, you're also saying they got less complex, so arguing you should compare the plot that clearly maps to one section of the game (and is more complex than that section) to the whole original instead of that one section, even though they clearly intend to repeat the expanding for the other sections, to prove that the plots got both shorter and less complex is... it's just kinda disingenous, you know?
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
I don't think this is a fair way to interpret my argument. A game like you describe would not be less complex than FFI. From what I understand of the FFI prequel, which I have not played or watched and thus cannot speak with any knowledge about, it is a more complex story than FFI had. Which isn't hard, considering how minimalist FFI is.
You're trying to take two observation, one that is a statement of fact - FF plots started to evolve in FFII, got progressively longer and more complex all the way to FFIX, then started growing shorter and simpler - and a specific evaluation of two individual titles provided as an example of this trend - FF7 is longer and more complex than FF7 Remake by a huge amount - and are trying to establish a general rule out of these two observation. That's silly. There is no such general rule that I believe in that you can extrapolate. I am discussing the existing characteristic of real objects that actually exists, not assuming that any hypothetical objects that do not exist should have similar characteristics due to sharing superficial similarities. I'm not even sure why you're trying to move from specific to general on a matter that can't be moved from specific to general because it's a discussion about specifics.
I believe that complex games are complex, and simple ones are simple; I believe that long games are long and short games are short. I also believe that, in specific, the Final Fantasy franchise had a trend of attempting to make any new title longer and more complex than the preceding one for a time, and then stopped doing so and went in the opposite direction. That's really all there is to it.
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
>statement of fact
You have no idea what you're talking about and probably have not actually played a Final Fantasy game since 10. Every Final Fantasy game is ambitious, every Final Fantasy game is trying to innovate and set a new bar, every Final Fantasy is trying something new, that's what defines Final Fantasy. That you don't want to see that is because you want to fit the series into a simplistic 'decline and fall' narrative which is just not true.
You have no idea what you're talking about and probably have not actually played a Final Fantasy game since 10. Every Final Fantasy game is ambitious, every Final Fantasy game is trying to innovate and set a new bar, every Final Fantasy is trying something new, that's what defines Final Fantasy. That you don't want to see that is because you want to fit the series into a simplistic 'decline and fall' narrative which is just not true.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
i mean maybe we're discounting it as the exception that proves the rule or something but, like, FF14 exists
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
No, I'm not.
I'm taking you making a specific comparison as evidence of your entire argument and arguing against it. You positioned it as self evident that FF7's remake is an excellent example of the plots getting both shorter and less complex. But by your own admission, the plot is more complex for the segment of the game it's paralleling to, and yet it's, somehow, when they explicitly are turning it into a multi-part remake, an example of the plots getting both shorter and less complex.
That doesn't hold water. But it's exactly what you did. Here, I can quote it and everything;
I mean, I can quote it again, I should say, since I quoted it for clarity already.
But you are literally arguing that a game with a, by your own admission- I can quote this too-
expansion of characterization, ie they made the part of the game it covers have a more complex plot, is an example that shows what you mean when you say, as quoted above, the plots switched over to becoming both shorter and less complex.
You're doing a motte and bailey where yes, the zoomed in, covers a third of the game (so they can expand the complexity and detail work!) plot game has a shorter plot overall (because it covers less of the overarching narrative), so it's yes, shorter, sure, but then you're using the fact that it is shorter to also argue it is less complex. That doesn't track.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
My greatest disappointment about FF1 was, after having played FF9 first, learning that the class upgrade for FF1 has the black mage remove his hat and reveal a human face under the shadows rather than just a mass of black with glowy eyes
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That was something they thankfully fixed in the Final Fantasy Origins FF1/FF2 disc for the PS1-
-where the black wizard got a much more Vivi-esque makeover.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The idea that ff13 and its dread progeny are somehow less complex than 10 (or fucking 9) is sort of blowing my mind? Like, those games aren't very good, and part of that is the ridiculously overcomplicated plots. 12 is around the same as 10, 11 and 14 are MMOs, and while I don't know the former, the later has an enormous, sprawling, intricate story built over almost a decade that deals deeply with just about every facet of real world history I can think of. I didn't play 15 so I can't comment on it, but the idea that "after 10 they keep getting simpler" is even halfway consistent is just on its face wrong.
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
The FF13 games may be convoluted, but they're also about as deep as a puddle. I'd honestly compare it to the Star Wars sequels, if you made their plots needlessly complicated? There's a lot of stuff happening, but the world that stuff exists in doesn't feel fleshed out at all. (also the best bit is somewhere in the middle as a radical departure from the style before and after it
) It's a stark contrast to other Final Fantasy games. Midgar in both FF7 and FF7R oozes life, for example.11, 12 and 14 are all pretty great though, I don't know what Egleris is talking about with those.
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mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Stupid and-or botched complexity still counts, sadly
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I will say that XV had a less complex and shorter story than a lot of the games before it, but XV was just a mess all around and spent 10 years in development hell being chopped and changed and rewritten. It wasn't an indicator of general trends.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It also wasn't even supposed to be a numbered game until very late in development - it was originally intended to be a thematic spinoff to XIII like its companion piece Final Fantasy Type-0, and IIRC was originally going to be called Final Fantasy XIII Vs.
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
13 has a lot of interesting ideas, in terms of character, setting, plot and mechanics. Until I played 14 it was probably the final fantasy I spent the most time with. The character dynamics especially are theoretically really cool, and similar for how your characters get their summons.
Unfortunately interesting ideas don't count for much when you botch the execution that badly.
We can kinda see some of this in FF7R, actually, which basically has 13's entire combat system tucked in and refined as just one part of its overall encounter mechanics. Similarly, I'd love to see the game that takes the hypothetical Lightning who rears her head on occasion and does her justice.
Unfortunately interesting ideas don't count for much when you botch the execution that badly.
We can kinda see some of this in FF7R, actually, which basically has 13's entire combat system tucked in and refined as just one part of its overall encounter mechanics. Similarly, I'd love to see the game that takes the hypothetical Lightning who rears her head on occasion and does her justice.
Amphidsf
The Quipster
- Location
- Golden
Reminds me, with a lot of luck it is possible to win in some versions... where the game just goes back the main menu because it doesn't know what to do.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And some do and give you a non-standard ending. Others just pretend you lost.
Final Fantasy II, Part 6
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Last time on Final Fantasy II, we entered Castle Fynn!
Castle Fynn is a dungeon.
I should be going into more detail, but frankly at this point I'm getting tired of FFII's dungeons. None of them has any fun or cool gimmick, most of them are plagued with dead-end rooms, and while it's still cool to find a new, better weapon, I'm getting kind of tired of the combat system. I'll get more in depth on this later.
The Revenants' physical attacks drains HP and heals them, which would make them a serious threat to an underleveled party. But we are leveled, aren't we, Firion? Members of the Wild Roses.
Captains are now part of mixed groups alongside powerful spellcasters, so the opposition is tough enough that my tendency to just press A and auto-attack bites me in the ass sometimes. Here, Guy's been petrified and Maria's been paralized, leaving Firion and Leila as the only effective party members. Not a great time.
Depicted: the result of a successful Toad casting. Look how cute it is!
Castle Fynn is constructed in this extremely simple way: if you had straightforward you'll reach the throne room extremely quickly, while there are optional paths to explore on each side of that central pathway that will take more time. There is some interesting stuff to be found…
The Strength-boosting Giant's Gloves are back, and just as good as ever.
Such as a room with a strange mirror:
Interacting with the Mirror prompts a dialogue menu. Unfortunately, talking to the mirror does nothing. However, you can select the dragoon pendant, and…
It shows you the status of the egg! That's neat. More likely to fill some kind of purpose later in the story, I suppose. Maybe I find this Raycard guy and the egg hatches?
Not much to be said here. I get to the throne room, and meet the "castellan," the man in charge of the Fynn region.
I think he's saying that we trapped him by bogging down his soldiers against rebel forces while we broke in as a kill team, but I am intrigued by the possibility that he's referring to guards who should be in his room and the 'trap' is talking about is having been set up to fail by his superiors pulling away his personal guards at the last moment for some unknown purpose.
Huh, is he a monster? Interesting. Giving government positions to monsters - even brutal ones primarily intended to crack down on the populace and extract forced labor - isn't something I had expected. He's also the only articulate monster we've met aside from the Lamia Queen.
Aside from some interesting lore implications, Gottos is nothing to write home about, and quickly collapsed under a couple of Berserk/Haste-buffed attacks.
Without further ado, the rebel forces triumph and Princess Hilda takes back her throne.
I am informed that the "Ultima Tome" that contains the ultimate magic Minwu has been looking for is in Mysida, a land populated exclusively by mages. In order to enter the Mysidia Tower where the tome is hidden, one needs to collect two masks, one white and one black. The White Masks is under this castle - but Hilda does not know where to find the entrance, and none know where the Black Mask is.
Thankfully, Gordon suggests that our favorite thief is exactly the kind of person who'd know about secret doors, so we go to visit Paul, who's once again taken residence in his once-empty home.
One thing I'm realizing I like about FFII that was absent in FFI is that it has a cast. FFI had you bump into characters with names, sure - you save Princess Sarah, you wake up the Elven Prince, you ask the Sage Saddia for wisdom. But all these characters, with the sole exception of Garland, are one-and-done. You meet them once, leave, and though it's technically possible to come back to meet them again, there is usually no new dialogue for you to have. They never organically reappear in the story. The Twelve Sages have the most changing dialogue by far, but they're not characters, they're literally nameless exposition devices.
FFII's characters don't have a lot going for them, but what they have primarily is persistence. They show up again and again, enough that you know what to expect from them. Paul comes up repeatedly to do thievery and give you a rogue's secret knowledge. Gordon goes in and out of your group as he grows into his role of Prince, assumes his responsibilities, and establishes a relationship with Hilda. Hilda, of course, is the leader figure you come back to again and again, the unifying figure of the rebellion. Minwu fucked off hours ago and 'what is Minwu doing and why isn't he back' casts a shadow over our current victories, because surely someone as capable and wise as Minwu would not fail in his quest.
It's not a big cast, but it's there. It matters. And even though their characterization is simple, it's endearing. Just Paul referring to me as 'Firion, you old devil! How've you been?' is a fun greeting that easily sells this rogue who tried to steal our prize from us before and yet still comes across as likable. It does more work giving Firion character than most of Firion's actual lines simply by suggesting that someone else in this story might think of him as a friend with a long history of working together.
It's an extremely basic layer of groundwork, but it's also one that's necessary for every other game in the series to build upon. The idea that there aren't just individual encounters left in the past, but a consistent cast of characters who evolve through the story even as we do and come across us time and again.
Anyway, Paul gives us the location of the hidden door, which he never managed to open because it requires a password Hilda just gave us, and we head for the next dungeon.
It's, like, a dungeon.
I appreciate the novelty of fighting giant floating brains.
Weird fact, though.
Check out the picture above. See how amost the entire party is near full health, except Maria who is close to death?
I think Maria might be cursed.
Every few hours - and this is too infrequent for me to have caught it happening in the moment - I come out of a battle and realize that Maria's health is in the red. Universally, this happens while I am grinding or going through a dungeon using autobattle. Now, I know what you're thinking, 'but Omi, you clearly just weren't paying enough attention while Maria was getting hit by enemies!' Okay, but the thing is, Maria has perfectly reliable defenses, the highest HP in the party, I keep track of whether my characters are slowly getting worn down every few encounters to avoid an embarrassing wipe out of nowhere, and it's always only Maria.
An earlier instance of it happening. Note how even a massively underleveled Leila is doing fine, and how Maria has the highest HP of the entire party.
I don't know what's going on here.
Well, anyway, the underside of the dungeon has some beefy encounters:
None of it impresses much.
No, the worst trick the dungeon has to send me is this:
The fuck is this, Monty Hall? If I pick one door and then enter another and it's the wrong one, does that mean I have to change the door I picked first? Hey, fun fact: Let's Make A Deal by Monty Hall has a French version called 'Le Bigdil.' The Big Deal. Le Big Deal. Le Bidgil. Funniest name in the world.
In the previous versions of the game where dead doors have massively increased encounter rates, this would have been an absolute "fuck you" move, and I don't respect the devs for it. Here it's merely a mild speed bump.
There are no bosses in the Fynn Dungeons; we merely reach the chest and get the White Mask.
…hold on to that thought.
With the mask in hand, we go up to ask for directions again:
It takes me some time to parse Mysidia's location - it's one of the more non-obvious bits of the map. But eventually, we get there:
I appreciate that they kept the Black Mage's aesthetic for the town of wizards. It's just iconic.
Hmm.
If you know it's there, Mysidia can be reached as early as getting the canoe, if you're good at fleeing from battles. And their magic shop is one of its kind:
I'm guessing Mysidia is a common part of most modern strategy to get a bunch of specific spells early on and break the game? Its shops also carry expensive high-end equipment that would nonetheless not be out of reach of a dedicated grinder. I'm guessing this is Power Up Town with Minwu in the party.
Well, none of that for us. There's only one spell in there I'm interested in:
And this is mostly because I've built an association over time with Holy being special, high-tier magic. An association it doesn't have in this game - it starts at lv 1 like every other spell, and its main distinction is that it gives a white magic-focused character a damage option and that it ignores elemental weaknesses.
…put a pin in that too.
There is a "statue of a goddess" under Mysidia, and approaching it allows us to put the White Mask on it:
This has no immediately visible effect, but I assume is part of the process of unlocking the dousing rods which are the item we want to unlock the Ultima Tome.
Next up, one of the mages talked about a 'very small island in the middle of the sea' - I've actually been there before, it's the Tropical Island way down south.
Which means, that's right, another dungeon!
There's this neat visual effect where you walk under a mesh of vines or roots that partially hide your character, giving a 3D kind of depth to the scene.
Some rhinos. Taking vengeance for that early game wipe is sweet, ngl.
Note these HP numbers. While still far behind the rest of the group, Leila is actually tough and strong enough to survive fights and level up, and is actually starting to pull her weight; especially with a buff or two she deals actual damage and can kill enemies, and she has enough HP to survive any attack by any random encounter (they typically deal 100-200 damage for 1,500 HP). She's the only member of my party without a shield, instead wielding a sword and spear for double the chance to deal damage. Leila has further cemented her status as Best Girl.
The most surprising part of the whole expedition, though is when I discover a native population with a unique, distinct culture!
Fascinating.
They all wear masks, and appear to consider not doing so strange and abnormal. Their language appears to have deviated from the common tongue, beginning to take on aspects of a vernacular, even if not a dialect yet. This seems to hint at isolation on a historical scale - but not the same epochal scale as the Lufenians, who were completely unintelligible to the rest of the world; and unlike the Lufenians, this isolation is likely owed less to a deliberate desire to keep themselves apart than to the actual physical isolation of their island.
They appear peaceful - none of the random encounters on the island are hinted to be hostile members of their people, which incidentally makes it difficult to figure out what they're supposed to look like in full form rather than as sprites. In fact, they're even willing to trade:
The Island People - understandably given their isolation - appear fairly ethnically homogenous, with the same white hair on both variants of sprites, varying only in the color of their robes and masks.
They also seem to consider the Black Mask a valued cultural treasure, in fact their most valued, perhaps the origin of their own mask-wearing practice? Which is unfortunate, because I'm about to steal it. I'm not going to ask for it, I'm not going to trade for it, I'm not going to argue the need to save the world, I'm not going to negotiate. I'm just going to fucking do an Indiana Jones and steal the shit out of it.
Fucking colonials, man.
You know, though.
A strange people with mysterious origins and a mysterious culture who all wear identical robes and masks, and who consider it weird when other people bare their faces?
What a weirdly specific random background thing to bring up decades later in the new franchise flagship.
Well, anyway.
The Tropical Village is a dead end, but backtracking a little sends us on our way to the final room and its treasure, protected by…
A giant rhinoceros!
Four giant rhinoceroses!
Victory is achieved.
Alright.
Let's talk.
Final Fantasy II so far doesn't… have bosses, does it?
This may be a personal hang-up because one of my favorite things to do in games is confront unique, named opponents with individual features and besting them in single combat. But despite the game putting up a pretense to have bosses, this is very conspicuously lacking from the game so far.
It's weird because FFI was so good about this for such a simple game. You open the game by beating up goblins until you're strong enough to defeat Garland, the greatest swordsman in Cornelia. You then track down Astos, King of the Dark Elves who is behind the slumber of the elvish prince, face his dangerous magic, and slay him in battle. Afterwards, you are given Four Fiends to track down all over the world and challenge, each one with their custom moveset and unique sprite. In the process, you may or may not encounter the unique Warmech superboss. And then you do a rematch against all Four Fiends in a row and finally Chaos, their master. It's simple, it's colorful, it's effective, it's cool.
I have about as much play time in FFII right now than lasted my entire FFI playthrough. In this time, I have fought two unique opponents: Borghen and Gottos, one of whom is intentionally a joke and the other of whom is easily trivialized. Everything else I've fought in the game is a random encounter sprite that's either placed ahead of time (Adamantoise, Sergeant) but quickly reintroduced as mobs, or a rare encounter that is mandatory at least once (Behemoth). Several times now, the "boss" hasn't even been a particularly frightening opponent (like Behemoth was) but just several level-appropriate mobs at once (Chimera, Big Horn).
Moreover, none of these bosses have any mechanical identity worthy of note. Closest is Red Soul, who looks scary at first but only has raw damage spells and exhausts its MP supply in four turns, then becomes largely harmless. The vast majority of these bosses either only have basic physical attacks and high defense, or have one party-wide damage attack like Blaze or Fire X. I'm dealing with the status system far more in random encounters than in any boss fight. Because, again, they aren't actual boss fights!
This is boring. I'm never excited at the idea of fighting a cool new monster the way I was with the Four Fiends. Of course, there's still a whole chunk of game to go, I'm definitely gonna be fighting the Emperor and the Dark Knight and probably some fancy new toys they have. But, again, my playthrough so far has taken as long as all of FFI, and so far the ratio of gudfites is 6 to 0.
But that's not my only problem with the combat system.
FFII is far, far more complex than FFI, and ironically this results in it having much less tactical depth. I tried to set up my party into something similar to a Ninja/Red Mage/Knight setup in FFI - Firion hits hard with a sword and has black magic, Maria uses both black and white magic in concert while forgoing direct damage, Guy has vast defenses and white magic to support his comrades.
This doesn't work. The need to level up each individual spell for it to be worth shit means magic takes up enormous amounts of my time only to end up with absolutely mediocre damage output, so I'm always better off just hitting the Attack button. Grinding sessions for specific spells are long and extremely boring and feel like they have very little effective payoff. Cure just levels up on its own using it outside of combat. The toggle between "high damage to one opponent vs low damage to all opponents" is a trap that never does anything unless you're fighting absolute trash mobs that bring you no XP anyway. All my characters are HP tanks with 99% Evasion who do more damage with their attacks than with their spells - and while attacks outpacing damaging spells was true in FFI, that just meant my mages became dedicated support units with a lot to do in the… four or five encounters in the game that were seriously challenging. I'm never excited to find a cool new tome; I think about taking two hours just to get up to a usable level and put it back in the drawer immediately.
FFI was extremely simple and offered tactical variances in how you chose to leverage its specific class system and how you chose to set up your Spell Dance and front attackers. There was depth in its simplicity. FFII's system is so intricate in its individual levers and gauges and stats that it averaged out. The game flattened itself into tactical mindlessness. Am I missing something? Because to be clear I am cutting through the game like a heated knife through butter even just pushing the Autobattle button, and I don't like that I am doing that. Of course sometimes doing this is a terrible mistake because I rolled an encounter with an enemy who casts Swap, turning my 3,000 HP into 150, and another who casts Break and petrifies my party, and it's wildly random whether any given encounter, even featuring the same opponent set, is going to prove such a challenge. And it's not like I stop every couple hours to spend an extra hour grinding, either! And I'm told late-game opponents hit for like 2k damage a piece, and I don't know how the hell we get from point A where we're currently at to that to that particular point B.
It's not like I'm bored with the game. I'm having fun. But when it comes to the gameplay, I had more fun in FFI.
Or maybe I'm just still at the Astos stage of the game and Lich is going to tell me to fix my shit and fight it properly next time. I don't know.
Alright, rant over. Thanks for hearing me out, I had to put my thoughts on paper. Next up: Mysidia Tower, I think?
Castle Fynn is a dungeon.
I should be going into more detail, but frankly at this point I'm getting tired of FFII's dungeons. None of them has any fun or cool gimmick, most of them are plagued with dead-end rooms, and while it's still cool to find a new, better weapon, I'm getting kind of tired of the combat system. I'll get more in depth on this later.
The Revenants' physical attacks drains HP and heals them, which would make them a serious threat to an underleveled party. But we are leveled, aren't we, Firion? Members of the Wild Roses.
Captains are now part of mixed groups alongside powerful spellcasters, so the opposition is tough enough that my tendency to just press A and auto-attack bites me in the ass sometimes. Here, Guy's been petrified and Maria's been paralized, leaving Firion and Leila as the only effective party members. Not a great time.
Depicted: the result of a successful Toad casting. Look how cute it is!
Castle Fynn is constructed in this extremely simple way: if you had straightforward you'll reach the throne room extremely quickly, while there are optional paths to explore on each side of that central pathway that will take more time. There is some interesting stuff to be found…
The Strength-boosting Giant's Gloves are back, and just as good as ever.
Such as a room with a strange mirror:
Interacting with the Mirror prompts a dialogue menu. Unfortunately, talking to the mirror does nothing. However, you can select the dragoon pendant, and…
It shows you the status of the egg! That's neat. More likely to fill some kind of purpose later in the story, I suppose. Maybe I find this Raycard guy and the egg hatches?
Not much to be said here. I get to the throne room, and meet the "castellan," the man in charge of the Fynn region.
I think he's saying that we trapped him by bogging down his soldiers against rebel forces while we broke in as a kill team, but I am intrigued by the possibility that he's referring to guards who should be in his room and the 'trap' is talking about is having been set up to fail by his superiors pulling away his personal guards at the last moment for some unknown purpose.
Huh, is he a monster? Interesting. Giving government positions to monsters - even brutal ones primarily intended to crack down on the populace and extract forced labor - isn't something I had expected. He's also the only articulate monster we've met aside from the Lamia Queen.
Aside from some interesting lore implications, Gottos is nothing to write home about, and quickly collapsed under a couple of Berserk/Haste-buffed attacks.
Without further ado, the rebel forces triumph and Princess Hilda takes back her throne.
I am informed that the "Ultima Tome" that contains the ultimate magic Minwu has been looking for is in Mysida, a land populated exclusively by mages. In order to enter the Mysidia Tower where the tome is hidden, one needs to collect two masks, one white and one black. The White Masks is under this castle - but Hilda does not know where to find the entrance, and none know where the Black Mask is.
Thankfully, Gordon suggests that our favorite thief is exactly the kind of person who'd know about secret doors, so we go to visit Paul, who's once again taken residence in his once-empty home.
One thing I'm realizing I like about FFII that was absent in FFI is that it has a cast. FFI had you bump into characters with names, sure - you save Princess Sarah, you wake up the Elven Prince, you ask the Sage Saddia for wisdom. But all these characters, with the sole exception of Garland, are one-and-done. You meet them once, leave, and though it's technically possible to come back to meet them again, there is usually no new dialogue for you to have. They never organically reappear in the story. The Twelve Sages have the most changing dialogue by far, but they're not characters, they're literally nameless exposition devices.
FFII's characters don't have a lot going for them, but what they have primarily is persistence. They show up again and again, enough that you know what to expect from them. Paul comes up repeatedly to do thievery and give you a rogue's secret knowledge. Gordon goes in and out of your group as he grows into his role of Prince, assumes his responsibilities, and establishes a relationship with Hilda. Hilda, of course, is the leader figure you come back to again and again, the unifying figure of the rebellion. Minwu fucked off hours ago and 'what is Minwu doing and why isn't he back' casts a shadow over our current victories, because surely someone as capable and wise as Minwu would not fail in his quest.
It's not a big cast, but it's there. It matters. And even though their characterization is simple, it's endearing. Just Paul referring to me as 'Firion, you old devil! How've you been?' is a fun greeting that easily sells this rogue who tried to steal our prize from us before and yet still comes across as likable. It does more work giving Firion character than most of Firion's actual lines simply by suggesting that someone else in this story might think of him as a friend with a long history of working together.
It's an extremely basic layer of groundwork, but it's also one that's necessary for every other game in the series to build upon. The idea that there aren't just individual encounters left in the past, but a consistent cast of characters who evolve through the story even as we do and come across us time and again.
Anyway, Paul gives us the location of the hidden door, which he never managed to open because it requires a password Hilda just gave us, and we head for the next dungeon.
It's, like, a dungeon.
I appreciate the novelty of fighting giant floating brains.
Weird fact, though.
Check out the picture above. See how amost the entire party is near full health, except Maria who is close to death?
I think Maria might be cursed.
Every few hours - and this is too infrequent for me to have caught it happening in the moment - I come out of a battle and realize that Maria's health is in the red. Universally, this happens while I am grinding or going through a dungeon using autobattle. Now, I know what you're thinking, 'but Omi, you clearly just weren't paying enough attention while Maria was getting hit by enemies!' Okay, but the thing is, Maria has perfectly reliable defenses, the highest HP in the party, I keep track of whether my characters are slowly getting worn down every few encounters to avoid an embarrassing wipe out of nowhere, and it's always only Maria.
An earlier instance of it happening. Note how even a massively underleveled Leila is doing fine, and how Maria has the highest HP of the entire party.
I don't know what's going on here.
Well, anyway, the underside of the dungeon has some beefy encounters:
None of it impresses much.
No, the worst trick the dungeon has to send me is this:
The fuck is this, Monty Hall? If I pick one door and then enter another and it's the wrong one, does that mean I have to change the door I picked first? Hey, fun fact: Let's Make A Deal by Monty Hall has a French version called 'Le Bigdil.' The Big Deal. Le Big Deal. Le Bidgil. Funniest name in the world.
In the previous versions of the game where dead doors have massively increased encounter rates, this would have been an absolute "fuck you" move, and I don't respect the devs for it. Here it's merely a mild speed bump.
There are no bosses in the Fynn Dungeons; we merely reach the chest and get the White Mask.
…hold on to that thought.
With the mask in hand, we go up to ask for directions again:
It takes me some time to parse Mysidia's location - it's one of the more non-obvious bits of the map. But eventually, we get there:
I appreciate that they kept the Black Mage's aesthetic for the town of wizards. It's just iconic.
Hmm.
If you know it's there, Mysidia can be reached as early as getting the canoe, if you're good at fleeing from battles. And their magic shop is one of its kind:
I'm guessing Mysidia is a common part of most modern strategy to get a bunch of specific spells early on and break the game? Its shops also carry expensive high-end equipment that would nonetheless not be out of reach of a dedicated grinder. I'm guessing this is Power Up Town with Minwu in the party.
Well, none of that for us. There's only one spell in there I'm interested in:
And this is mostly because I've built an association over time with Holy being special, high-tier magic. An association it doesn't have in this game - it starts at lv 1 like every other spell, and its main distinction is that it gives a white magic-focused character a damage option and that it ignores elemental weaknesses.
…put a pin in that too.
There is a "statue of a goddess" under Mysidia, and approaching it allows us to put the White Mask on it:
This has no immediately visible effect, but I assume is part of the process of unlocking the dousing rods which are the item we want to unlock the Ultima Tome.
Next up, one of the mages talked about a 'very small island in the middle of the sea' - I've actually been there before, it's the Tropical Island way down south.
Which means, that's right, another dungeon!
There's this neat visual effect where you walk under a mesh of vines or roots that partially hide your character, giving a 3D kind of depth to the scene.
Some rhinos. Taking vengeance for that early game wipe is sweet, ngl.
Note these HP numbers. While still far behind the rest of the group, Leila is actually tough and strong enough to survive fights and level up, and is actually starting to pull her weight; especially with a buff or two she deals actual damage and can kill enemies, and she has enough HP to survive any attack by any random encounter (they typically deal 100-200 damage for 1,500 HP). She's the only member of my party without a shield, instead wielding a sword and spear for double the chance to deal damage. Leila has further cemented her status as Best Girl.
The most surprising part of the whole expedition, though is when I discover a native population with a unique, distinct culture!
Fascinating.
They all wear masks, and appear to consider not doing so strange and abnormal. Their language appears to have deviated from the common tongue, beginning to take on aspects of a vernacular, even if not a dialect yet. This seems to hint at isolation on a historical scale - but not the same epochal scale as the Lufenians, who were completely unintelligible to the rest of the world; and unlike the Lufenians, this isolation is likely owed less to a deliberate desire to keep themselves apart than to the actual physical isolation of their island.
They appear peaceful - none of the random encounters on the island are hinted to be hostile members of their people, which incidentally makes it difficult to figure out what they're supposed to look like in full form rather than as sprites. In fact, they're even willing to trade:
The Island People - understandably given their isolation - appear fairly ethnically homogenous, with the same white hair on both variants of sprites, varying only in the color of their robes and masks.
They also seem to consider the Black Mask a valued cultural treasure, in fact their most valued, perhaps the origin of their own mask-wearing practice? Which is unfortunate, because I'm about to steal it. I'm not going to ask for it, I'm not going to trade for it, I'm not going to argue the need to save the world, I'm not going to negotiate. I'm just going to fucking do an Indiana Jones and steal the shit out of it.
Fucking colonials, man.
You know, though.
A strange people with mysterious origins and a mysterious culture who all wear identical robes and masks, and who consider it weird when other people bare their faces?
What a weirdly specific random background thing to bring up decades later in the new franchise flagship.
[REDACTED]
If you know, you know.
If you know, you know.
Well, anyway.
The Tropical Village is a dead end, but backtracking a little sends us on our way to the final room and its treasure, protected by…
A giant rhinoceros!
Four giant rhinoceroses!
Victory is achieved.
Alright.
Let's talk.
Final Fantasy II so far doesn't… have bosses, does it?
This may be a personal hang-up because one of my favorite things to do in games is confront unique, named opponents with individual features and besting them in single combat. But despite the game putting up a pretense to have bosses, this is very conspicuously lacking from the game so far.
It's weird because FFI was so good about this for such a simple game. You open the game by beating up goblins until you're strong enough to defeat Garland, the greatest swordsman in Cornelia. You then track down Astos, King of the Dark Elves who is behind the slumber of the elvish prince, face his dangerous magic, and slay him in battle. Afterwards, you are given Four Fiends to track down all over the world and challenge, each one with their custom moveset and unique sprite. In the process, you may or may not encounter the unique Warmech superboss. And then you do a rematch against all Four Fiends in a row and finally Chaos, their master. It's simple, it's colorful, it's effective, it's cool.
I have about as much play time in FFII right now than lasted my entire FFI playthrough. In this time, I have fought two unique opponents: Borghen and Gottos, one of whom is intentionally a joke and the other of whom is easily trivialized. Everything else I've fought in the game is a random encounter sprite that's either placed ahead of time (Adamantoise, Sergeant) but quickly reintroduced as mobs, or a rare encounter that is mandatory at least once (Behemoth). Several times now, the "boss" hasn't even been a particularly frightening opponent (like Behemoth was) but just several level-appropriate mobs at once (Chimera, Big Horn).
Moreover, none of these bosses have any mechanical identity worthy of note. Closest is Red Soul, who looks scary at first but only has raw damage spells and exhausts its MP supply in four turns, then becomes largely harmless. The vast majority of these bosses either only have basic physical attacks and high defense, or have one party-wide damage attack like Blaze or Fire X. I'm dealing with the status system far more in random encounters than in any boss fight. Because, again, they aren't actual boss fights!
This is boring. I'm never excited at the idea of fighting a cool new monster the way I was with the Four Fiends. Of course, there's still a whole chunk of game to go, I'm definitely gonna be fighting the Emperor and the Dark Knight and probably some fancy new toys they have. But, again, my playthrough so far has taken as long as all of FFI, and so far the ratio of gudfites is 6 to 0.
But that's not my only problem with the combat system.
FFII is far, far more complex than FFI, and ironically this results in it having much less tactical depth. I tried to set up my party into something similar to a Ninja/Red Mage/Knight setup in FFI - Firion hits hard with a sword and has black magic, Maria uses both black and white magic in concert while forgoing direct damage, Guy has vast defenses and white magic to support his comrades.
This doesn't work. The need to level up each individual spell for it to be worth shit means magic takes up enormous amounts of my time only to end up with absolutely mediocre damage output, so I'm always better off just hitting the Attack button. Grinding sessions for specific spells are long and extremely boring and feel like they have very little effective payoff. Cure just levels up on its own using it outside of combat. The toggle between "high damage to one opponent vs low damage to all opponents" is a trap that never does anything unless you're fighting absolute trash mobs that bring you no XP anyway. All my characters are HP tanks with 99% Evasion who do more damage with their attacks than with their spells - and while attacks outpacing damaging spells was true in FFI, that just meant my mages became dedicated support units with a lot to do in the… four or five encounters in the game that were seriously challenging. I'm never excited to find a cool new tome; I think about taking two hours just to get up to a usable level and put it back in the drawer immediately.
FFI was extremely simple and offered tactical variances in how you chose to leverage its specific class system and how you chose to set up your Spell Dance and front attackers. There was depth in its simplicity. FFII's system is so intricate in its individual levers and gauges and stats that it averaged out. The game flattened itself into tactical mindlessness. Am I missing something? Because to be clear I am cutting through the game like a heated knife through butter even just pushing the Autobattle button, and I don't like that I am doing that. Of course sometimes doing this is a terrible mistake because I rolled an encounter with an enemy who casts Swap, turning my 3,000 HP into 150, and another who casts Break and petrifies my party, and it's wildly random whether any given encounter, even featuring the same opponent set, is going to prove such a challenge. And it's not like I stop every couple hours to spend an extra hour grinding, either! And I'm told late-game opponents hit for like 2k damage a piece, and I don't know how the hell we get from point A where we're currently at to that to that particular point B.
It's not like I'm bored with the game. I'm having fun. But when it comes to the gameplay, I had more fun in FFI.
Or maybe I'm just still at the Astos stage of the game and Lich is going to tell me to fix my shit and fight it properly next time. I don't know.
Alright, rant over. Thanks for hearing me out, I had to put my thoughts on paper. Next up: Mysidia Tower, I think?
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- Location
- Spain
Use-based xp systems (Where you level skills by directly using them) are always* terrible.
*(Mayhaps an exaggeration but honestly i can't think of a single exception).