Raged was right here.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Raged was right here.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
So it's really not supported by any of the game's text, but my working theory is that this is a case of art imitating life. That is, Kefka is not God, he's just dipshit with too much power. Everyone ascribes motives and knowledge to him because that's more comforting than awknowledging the realty that he's a capricious asshole that randomly deletes towns for shits and giggles.
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Muramasa
Best Girl
Hmm. From what I recall, the timed events were indeed much harder in the older versions of the game. You could not sprint without sprint shoes, there may have been a means to pause the game mid battle but other than that, no. Also the timer would still run even in the menu screen, possibly during the victory segments in battles too. So it was very punishing. I recall having to run the child rescue bit multiple times to make sure I got everything.
- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah, seeing that the world at large is still alive is somewhat heartening, but only so much given that it's a wreck and people are terrified of Kefka.
As for Sabin, turns out there was a bit of an expansion to his recruitment. Here, you have five minutes to save the kid and get out, or lose the game. Originally, the devs wanted to have a possible permadeath for Sabin, so that if you failed to get out in time, you still manage to escape alive but Sabin is crushed. Yikes. Needless to say, it's probably best as it is now.
I mean, imagine getting the team back together, only to realize you left Sabin dead under a house and Shadow dead with the destruction of the Floating Continent. Awkward questions all round, I'd imagine. And if Mog genuinely did die when you chose to take the Gold Hairpin, well, you'd have a track record of being a crappy team leader.
Humbaba... Maybe it's because of the old translation, but I don't recall the 'Solar Plexus' move. Either some Japanese dev thought it sounded like a cool name, or this monster not only launches spells all round, it also punches people in the gut for giggles. What an asshole.
I get the feeling Terra is going to come back eventually, though. Just give her some time.
IIRC, Sabin gets some text when you run into 'Gerad Bains', clearly recognizing his brother. I know he doesn't get a lot of text here given the reveal that Sabin's recruitment is optional, but it would be hilarious if Sabin couldn't recognize the man he spent decades growing up with.
Sabin: "Haha, can't fool me, bro. I know all your tricks!"
Edgar: *puts on fake mustache*
Sabin: "WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BROTHER, YOU FIEND?!"
Not all characters need to have arcs, sometimes you need a rock of stability to keep everyone in balance.
Now I'm picturing Humbaba to be this abusive hooligan who just gut-punches women unable to fight, which is why he ran off like a coward when Celes (or whoever's in your party) actually stand up to him.
That's my headcanon now.
Which is nice and all, but now I can't help that maybe it would have given them time to fix the game's bugs.Fun fact. When you said the Floating Continent felt like an endgame dungeon? You were right. That was supposed to be the endgame.
They were only through half of their planned development schedule, and said "fuck it, let's go double or nothing". So one could say you're now basically playing a sequel now, free of charge.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Well, mythological Humbaba was a physical fighter rather than a spellcaster, so that makes sense.
It's a bit boring that the game immediately reunites us with characters who already had lots of presence earlier in the game. I would have preferred if they used this party shuffle to give the odder characters some time to shine.
Celes getting an Infernal Exaltation in the wake of Cid's death would be pretty dope. Just switch the wounded bird for a crane for extra symbolism.
Honestly what really tops it off for me is the pose Omi didn't put in the update. When Terra first runs out of the house to fight Humbaba, she has this hands on hips, face set look of "bring it bitch I can take you".
And then she gets destroyed instantly leaving Celes and Sabin (and others in my case since I went to get more help for my low level party first
) to take him on in her place.Yeah, there's certainly a few characters who could have used this chance. Mog comes to mind what with having basically zero character, or Gau leaping about in this new World of Ruin which is... probably still pretty close to what he's used to anyways, considering he grew up on the Veldt.
Just make them non-optional now and have some flexible lines for both a 'Who the hell are you' and a 'Oh, you are that Moogle' scenario. Wouldn't be that difficult if you stay pragmatic.
Though Gau really stands out as a great choice. The vibe of 'Feral teen barely noticing something changed+Adult mess struggling to keep her hope alive in light of the apocalypse' seems super strong.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
To be fair to the game I think that Terra's loss of her ability to fight to protect the children she's responsible for would be considered a bad thing in Japan too? It's absolutely part of the 'good mother' stereotype to be willing and able to use violence against people threatening your children, just as it is in the anglosphere.
Though it does not, regardless, make for a good look that Terra is physically and magically weakened by starting to feel emotions and healing from the psychological/neurological damage done to her by the mind control crown.
Though it does not, regardless, make for a good look that Terra is physically and magically weakened by starting to feel emotions and healing from the psychological/neurological damage done to her by the mind control crown.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I would have imagined that Terra losing her strength was due to the whole world breaking thing with the magical apocalypse and all. In a, all Espers are suffering from it sort of sense.
Since they basically all got depowered to let Kefka the GMPC do whatever, after all.
Since they basically all got depowered to let Kefka the GMPC do whatever, after all.
When Young Me has discovered that Terra will not come to fight in my party, I almost threw a tantrum. Specially because I was struggling in the game at this moment. I didn't level up a lot Célès and Sabin (because Runic was ununderstandable and useless and I was unable to properly use blitz for reasons), so fights were difficult and painful. So yeah, when I finally meet Terra who was my strongest party member, I was like "Yeaaaaaaahhhh, I can finally begin to kick some monster ass !!! No more suffering !!!"
"I don't come, because I need to stay with these kids."
...
...
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-----???"
I just wanna kill all the kids to make her come with me. Because if there is no more kids in the town, she will not stay right ? To be unable to fight because she had some "kids", absolutely didn't make any sense for me.
Of course, I can't kill the kids, things doesn't work that way. But it's probably at this time, I began to definitely switch from team Terra to team Célès. Because I had the feeling that I had been totally betrayed by Terra now. She abandoned me for some random kids... TREASON.
To break a young heart is a dangerous thing....
Another thing about Young Me from the Relm and Edgar discussion (yup, the one which has already spilled a lot of virtual ink) : because the Woolsey translation and my very very poor english skills as a young kid, I have concluded that Edgar was Relm father. And I was totally hyped by it. And I passed ALL THE REST OF THE GAME TO WAIT FOR A CUTSCENE ABOUT THEM. WHICH NEVER HAPPENS. OF COURSE. SO MUCH DISAPPOINTMENT.
And if possible, my second playthrought has made things worse. But I will speak about it when the time will be revelant.
"I don't come, because I need to stay with these kids."
...
...
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-----???"
I just wanna kill all the kids to make her come with me. Because if there is no more kids in the town, she will not stay right ? To be unable to fight because she had some "kids", absolutely didn't make any sense for me.
Of course, I can't kill the kids, things doesn't work that way. But it's probably at this time, I began to definitely switch from team Terra to team Célès. Because I had the feeling that I had been totally betrayed by Terra now. She abandoned me for some random kids... TREASON.
To break a young heart is a dangerous thing....
Another thing about Young Me from the Relm and Edgar discussion (yup, the one which has already spilled a lot of virtual ink) : because the Woolsey translation and my very very poor english skills as a young kid, I have concluded that Edgar was Relm father. And I was totally hyped by it. And I passed ALL THE REST OF THE GAME TO WAIT FOR A CUTSCENE ABOUT THEM. WHICH NEVER HAPPENS. OF COURSE. SO MUCH DISAPPOINTMENT.
And if possible, my second playthrought has made things worse. But I will speak about it when the time will be revelant.
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
Little fun fact about FFVI: using glitches you can skip recruiting Celes in the World of Balance. But wait, what happens in the World of Ruin, since you start with only Celes?
Well, do you remember the "defend Terra" multi-party sequence at the beginning of the game? Other than Locke and Mog you get 10 moogles as guest. Well, those moogles are actually placeholders for other party members, and the game still keeps them in memory until you actually recruit the corresponding member. So you get a moogle in place of Celes and the game goes on its merry way.
The only problem is you get a guy with low stats, fixed equipment, no skills and you can't even give them an Esper to learn magic, but the fact that the game still works is noteworthy.
Well, do you remember the "defend Terra" multi-party sequence at the beginning of the game? Other than Locke and Mog you get 10 moogles as guest. Well, those moogles are actually placeholders for other party members, and the game still keeps them in memory until you actually recruit the corresponding member. So you get a moogle in place of Celes and the game goes on its merry way.
The only problem is you get a guy with low stats, fixed equipment, no skills and you can't even give them an Esper to learn magic, but the fact that the game still works is noteworthy.
Mister Bad Guy
Mr Mercury to friends
- Location
- Bay Area
hey quit bitin' my style
The monsters aren't as much of a threat as I'd worried, and the prophesized Petrify abilities that I have no counter for never materialize - some of the monsters can be wiped by a Thundara omnicast, others I have to kill one by one but they do low damage, all in all Celes's Magic makes this all relatively trivial.
Yeah you did. It's the Zokka. The have an ability called Stone that instantly Petrify's you. If it lands it's game over. The fact that it didn't use it on you is only because of simple dumb luck.
The Enhancer has the highest Magic buff of any weapon. Well except for the Magus Rod that ties with it and two other swords that... I'll talk about when the time is right. You might want to keep these for a while.
If you see a Greater Mantis on the Overworld I advise you to stay sharp. Their physical attack will simply kill you with their attack stat of 180, more than double that of the Final Boss.
One more thing. If you use a Rod as an item, it will be destroyed. In exchange, the spell they cast will bypass all defence stats.
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We even have the new ruler of a ruined world claiming sovereignty by means of ancient superweapon from a distance! Though here Kafka ruined said world in the first place...
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's funny how the connotation of names changes other time. The concept of a "crusader" was always dubious and implicitly politically charged, but there was a time when my association with the term wasn't chuds with frog avatars screaming "DEUS VULT." And going in the other direction there was a point when the 'Butlerian Jihad' was a major sci-fi concept that nobody looked at twice.
I suppose we'll eventually see what that thing is meant to be crusading for.
Fun fact. When you said the Floating Continent felt like an endgame dungeon? You were right. That was supposed to be the endgame.
They were only through half of their planned development schedule, and said "fuck it, let's go double or nothing". So one could say you're now basically playing a sequel now, free of charge.
That's interesting, though.
Like, on its face, the game can't stop at the Floating Continent no matter what. It's half the runtime of a full game, we only have 2nd tier spells, several character arcs are left unresolved...
So there has to have been a decision at one point to move stuff that was planned to take place before the Floating Continent and move it to after, as well as to 'condense' the World of Balance stretch of the game so you wouldn't be getting late-game reward during it. Like resolving the deal with Locke's girlfriend, which just completely vanished after we got to the Southern Continent and had a bunch of high priority stuff to deal with that left Locke oddly uninterested in looking for his 'legendary artifact', because this is now World of Ruin content.
That must have been a mess to organize, deciding what goes where and how. And I'd wager that stuff like the Ultima Weapon was meant to be final dungeon stuff and ended up leftover content in the Floating Continent.
Generally speaking I get the impression the Pixel Remaster versions of the games are way easier than the SNES originals, though I don't know how they compare to other, later ports like the Playstation version, and that most of it has less to do with characters being less or more effective and more to do with quality of life improvements. Quicksaves, a sprint button, maps, better displays that aren't limited in their number of characters and so can convey more legible information... All of that contribute to making these games very different from the months-long affairs I remember from my childhood, where even daily play could only slowly grind through, with a given session of gameplay very frequently featuring nothing but grinding and combat, no story for hours at a time.
I mean, these still take months to get through, but that's primarily because this thread, at 360k words, is now over half the length of the complete Lord of the Rings.
Have you considered donating to my Patron?
Just wait until I have the exact line-up of which specific characters are the only ones that are mandatory to finish the game, making everyone else optional. It's very funny.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Not saying that you're wrong (you're not), but if you haven't gotten there, how can you know that the mandatory lineup is funny?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Find out in the next update, coming probably tonight!
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
what the fuck, thude
Reminder that that post is reminiscing on dumb small child logic, so of course it's ridiculous and kind of psychopathic. I can only assume "young me" means really young when they say "yeah couldn't even figure out Runic and Blitz despite each having a whole boss battle themed around them."
Granted OG Blitz was just "hope you memorized the commands in the menu fucko" instead of the guided ones with prompts we get in the PR version. Pretty sure it took me multiple tries and some googling to finally beat Vargas back in the day.
Yeah having played most of these games to some degree in either older or original versions, the QoL brought on by reloadable quicksaves alone is great, and that's not even getting into things like the design changes or rebalancing. I mean, let's not forget the FFIII endgame slog where the last save point is pre-Xande's dungeon, or FFV Shiryu in a box probably wiping people back multiple areas especially if they missed the castle save point.
Honestly, my brain went probably as far to think that the kids were fake kids put there by Kefka to stop myself to recruit Terra.
Or.
They were just a bunch of sprite who are barring myself to
Or.
The world is dying, Kefka will probably murder everyone one day, let's kill them now to not let them have a miserable life.
Or.
Having Terra in my party would make my chance to save the world skyrocket. What is the sacrifice of few innocents against the saving of the world ?
...
Well, to be really honest, it was a looooong time ago, and I probably didn't think that deep about it (not sure though...). I was just mad about the situation, and you cannot expect a kid to perfectly understand the weight of killing kids, when you are already in a game where you have killed adults and even a kid has already been killed by the game (Cyan kid). So, I suppose at that time, I didn't make a difference about the fact to kill adults or to kill kids, because I was a kid. And it was a bunch of sprites with who I have, at this time, very small relationships, unlike the main characters, so I simply have almost no connection with them.
And finally, it's a game, a place where you can be wild. So, to make disappear some sprites to have the sprite you like, didn't seem to be a huge deal at this time, whatever the mean.
RogueIce
Noctis Æternæ
- Location
- New Lunar Republic, Equestria
I'm going back to this, because while I'm sure it's been fixed for the Pixel Remaster it was an "easy" way to deal with this encounter and get a cool 10AP, which is great for magic grinding.For instance, there's this weird triangle-shaped island in a corner of the map…
…where one of the random encounters is an initially invisible and sleeping monster called 'Intangir' who, upon being attacked, wakes up and wipes the party with Meteor, then goes back to sleep. After a couple of attempts trying to work out a strategy to beat it, I give up - it doesn't seem to have any reward for the effort, it's mostly just a joke death trap.
All you need is a character who can cast Confuse - easy enough since one of your first Espers teaches it - and a supply of Smoke Bombs, which IIRC the shopkeep on the Blackjack sells, conveniently enough. You would make sure that you have two characters with the ATB bars full and have one cast Confuse on the second, while you wait in the Item menu on that second character. As the Confuse casting animation begins, you quickly select a Smoke Bomb and confirm. Once that character gets Confuse status, they'll throw out a Smoke Bomb as commanded - except because they're Confused, they'll toss it at Intangir. This will result in a retaliatory Meteor cast, but only at the Confused character. Everybody else gets to live. Rotate out who gets sacrificed and you could fairly quickly max out all the Magic you can learn in the WOB.
I found it especially useful when I was playing (a very early version*) of the Pony Fantasy VI mod, since only the Unicorn and Alicorn coded characters could learn Magic anyway, which meant sacrificing an Earth Pony or Pegasus didn't result in any loss of time/effort in learning spells.
*I got it back when the original creator was working on it, though they left and I believe it was picked up by others. Unfortunately, it was one of those Total Overhaul Mods made by player(s) who thought the original game was "too easy" and therefore needed to be "rebalanced for a 'proper' challenge" which is utter bullshit so I got to a certain point and just quit it; I believe even the new team buys into this philosophy so I've never gone back to it, which is a real shame because I felt like it did some interesting things with the concept, both keeping true to the spirit of the original FF6 as well as MLP itself.