Well, as someone who actually played FF1 on the nintendo and, for some reason I can't remember anymore, decided to level all my characters as high as I could to see what the max level was, I can assure that yes, grinding Warmech for XP was a thing at least one person did.
Wow, I even played Bravely Default and I have no memory at all of enemies getting access to that stuff. My bad then.
Yep - but, that is something that would have fit fine for certain areas in the game, as well; just not everywhere. Really, that's the best way to sum up the multitude of problems that FFVIII has: they went all the way with a number of experimental features where, if they'd just toned them down or fine-tuned them some, it would have been incredible. It's still a very good game as it is, but you really need to know what you're getting into and be ready to accept you're dealing with madness to enjoy it properly. But this is probably a discussion best left to whenever the thread gets to it, if it ever does.
Yeah, they don't use it anywhere near as extensively as the player party can with stacking four turns in one go, but at a minimum there's things like if you get ambushed the enemies all start with an extra BP that they'll use, or some boss strategies using it to try and nuke the party. It's a fun mechanic honestly, I'd almost be interested in seeing Omi play Bravely Default as a spinoff that takes a lot of cues from FFV.
Maybe the dragons should have spent a bit more time studying who they were going to pretend to be, you know? Could have avoided this if they had realized that the mocking cry of 'old geezer' they overheard wasn't supposed to actually be a name.
Those are the same amount of save points as in the original, but I don't think easily retreating is possible for most of the castle, see Random Encounters, especially considering that you're also in the middle of a boss rush, and if you miss the fight with Azulmagia (which I didn't but is by no means impossible) every death puts you behind Omega. And while you may not run into Omega often, and doing so isn't as punishing a game over as doing so to any of the other bosses, even doing it once or twice is going to leave a lasting impact.
Fair and valid, I suppose. Though I guess for me even playing the GBA version back in the day with no ability to savescum, I just don't remember it being anywhere near the slog that is FFIII's endgame, which actually managed to make me go "yeah fuck this" and not finish after wiping to Dark Cloud at one point. At the same time, you're right that I can't actually think of any other Final Fantasy endgames off the top of my head that have as much potential to be painful.
...See, not having played it myself, but trying to think of something appropriate here, I would have thought to make the Omega badge an equippable accessory that has the result of disabling random encounters, because if you're good enough to best Omega it is distinctly true that the random encounters are purely an annoyance, rather than either threatening or fun. And at that point the pure boss rush of this final dungeon actually sounds kind of entertaining.
Also true with Golem and Catoblepas, although you do miss the fun Golem shenanigans. Pretty sure they're both in the Omega caves rather than the castle though.
That's what Octopath sorta does with the Spurning Ribbon after its superboss, which allows you to turn off random encounters while you just wander around doing 100% of the side quests.
Send me the best you've got! Send me your strongest machines!
Oh. Okay.
Yeah, the "gives no XP but a ton of ABP" is, hm, well. I'm putting a pin in that because I need to talk about it when I write my next update.
I flunged once, one time, against my friend who had less experience, played worse than me, and had a worse deck, but who had one Fog card (fog! no one plays fog!) which turned my "kills you twice over" attack into nothing and then instantly killed me now that I had no blockers available. The trauma is burned into my brain to this day ensuring that I will never, ever do it again.
Once again, I come back to "people make fun of me for being overlevelled but the experience they describe of going through the dungeon at the 'appropriate' level where it's challenging sure sounds absolutely agonizing."
Yeah, I definitely want to do Tactics, and it's been brought to my attention that Chrono Trigger is another Square classic that is really conversant with Final Fantasy and the JRPG genre as a whole that I should play as part of this, and the list is growing ever greater and greater...
That's how I imagine it, too, with the addendum that it's initially a Hali vs Bartz fight where the "maiden" tricks him and is about to do him in when Faris saves him and switches in for the fight.
One of the three monsters Exdeath sent to stop us gathering the tablets.
Also this is our first explicit sign that Exdeath intends to create a world of monsters, rather than destroying everything just because. It makes sense, but also it could have gone either way given his wacky over-the-top villain persona. It doesn't look like we'll be given much indication that there is a sympathetic motive in the monsters wanting a world for themselves, either; they're just evil and want to take over reality. Fair enough.
Unfortunately, this guy chose the wrong stop to ambush us.
Leviathan emerges from behind the waterfall and promptly eats the guy.
"Monster general shows up to gloat at us and tries to kill us, Leviathan does a big stretch and casually paws him into oblivion" is just such a funny twist on this scenario, I love it. Dude really thought he had a moment there, and in the end we'll never know either his name or his combat sprite! Get punked!
Twintania is also a name reused in FFXIV, although that is where the similarities end.
*Looks at old decks with Fog and Holy Day* Haha yes, why would anyone play those. Haha.
Yeah, Rapid Fire is simultaneously the skill that makes Ranger actually worth using at all, and also just... I don't know, feels balanced around the idea that Ranger is the one using it. Because it's one thing to fire four times with a bow, which there's a limited selection of and can't be used with spellblade. It's another thing entirely when you can throw the full freelancer combo together for "what if I had 8 hits that ignored defense and could enchant them with elemental weaknesses too lmao".
Oh boy, if Chrono Trigger is already on the list as FF-Adjacent despite not actually being a Final Fantasy game... then yeah, the list will never end. I joked about "haha play the Secret of Mana series because the first one is called Final Fantasy Adventure in the west" but now that almost feels like an actual possibility.
