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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]

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Omicron said:
It's definitely one of the storylines where FFVI is really grasping at something great and I feel it falls short. The game is ambitious in its storytelling in a way far beyond any of the previous games, and as much as it worked for Terra and Celes, for Locke I feel frustrated even though I even cal it bad - it was an okay resolution, but I feel like it's missing something.
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Yeah. Looking back, Final Fantasy storytelling may have been great at times, but never truly earth-shattering. I think that comes with the territory of being a game; at some point you have to work in committee rather than follow your own muse, and the format tends to weaken truly epic moments because the devs have to prioritize fun and engagement over storyline. It's one thing to read about a tragic hero, it's another to be forced to play as a misery guts loser protagonist.
Muramasa said:
Alright so about Ragnarok and the choice...

The magicite is definitely the better pick for a low level run, since it can teach Ultima to all of your conventional party members with little fuss. You can also use the Ragnaroks summon to acquire more genji gloves if used against a particular monster, which is in itself a very nice thing if you didn't spend a ridiculous amount of time stealing genji gloves on the floating continent.

However of course you're locked out of obtaining the Ragnarok and also the Light Bringer sword for the rest of the game. They are with one caveat, the best swords in the game.

However if you go for the sword instead, you'll lose the Ragnarok summon and the easiest means of obtaining the Ultima spell. The only other way to get Ultima is obtaining a shield that's also in Narshe. However the shield is cursed as the worst shield in the game. It penalizes your stats and inflicts just about every status effect on you when worn. So you need to equip a ribbon on top of the shield for that character to remain functional if diminished.

HOWEVER if you grind out and win 256 battles with that shield equipped, it turns into the Paladin Shield. The absolute best shield in the game that also teaches the Ultima spell. It boosts stats, has great elemental defense bonuses and can be worn by anyone. A big investment but well worth it... if you weren't going for a low level run.

Going for the Ragnarok will also give you the opportunity to trade that sword in for the Light Bringer later on.
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The Cursed Shield can be managed by equipping a Ribbon with it and fighting Peepers. The Ribbon nullifies all status effects except Doom, and Peepers die way too fast for Doom to matter. You have to win 256 fights, not necessarily kill enemies.
 
Saint_007 said:
Yeah. Looking back, Final Fantasy storytelling may have been great at times, but never truly earth-shattering. I think that comes with the territory of being a game; at some point you have to work in committee rather than follow your own muse, and the format tends to weaken truly epic moments because the devs have to prioritize fun and engagement over storyline.
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You reminded me of a jab the devs of the Lunar RPGs made at FF, where they said the series had 'great stories but no great storytelling'. This was back in the day too, pre-FF7 at least, rather than in hindsight. Though they were talking mainly about characterisation from memory, and of course would've faced similar limits as the FF devs given what games could do back then (I think they had a bit more technological leeway though, working for the Sega CD instead of the SNES)
 
ArlequineLunaire said:
You reminded me of a jab the devs of the Lunar RPGs made at FF, where they said the series had 'great stories but no great storytelling'. This was back in the day too, pre-FF7 at least, rather than in hindsight. Though they were talking mainly about characterisation from memory, and of course would've faced similar limits as the FF devs given what games could do back then (I think they had a bit more technological leeway though, working for the Sega CD instead of the SNES)
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Plus I think it's the fact most game devs are nerds themselves, not award-winning writers or literary experts.
 
By the way, don't sleep on that knife you got for Locke. Despite its low attack power, its stronger than it looks thanks to the fact it completely bypasses the defense stat.
 
Omicron said:
And right now that hasn't actually improved my capabilities in any way. What Magicites grant is not magic, it is the right to start learning magic.
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Yeah, that's annoying. A much better way to do it would be if equipping the item gave you the ability immediately, but only as long as you had the item equipped, while the grinding would be required to make the ability permanent. That would immediately make any ability-teaching item a great treasure to find, while still forcing players to strategize on who learns what when and what abilities are worth grinding for.
 
Egleris said:
Yeah, that's annoying. A much better way to do it would be if equipping the item gave you the ability immediately, but only as long as you had the item equipped, while the grinding would be required to make the ability permanent. That would immediately make any ability-teaching item a great treasure to find, while still forcing players to strategize on who learns what when and what abilities are worth grinding for.
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Sounds like a combination of FFVI's Espers, FFVII's Materia, and FFVIII's Guardian Forces
 
Egleris said:
Yeah, that's annoying. A much better way to do it would be if equipping the item gave you the ability immediately, but only as long as you had the item equipped, while the grinding would be required to make the ability permanent. That would immediately make any ability-teaching item a great treasure to find, while still forcing players to strategize on who learns what when and what abilities are worth grinding for.
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You're describing 9's equipment and ability system almost exactly there.
 
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@Saint_007 @Derek58 That's a spoiler, surely; although Omicron did mention he played through nearly all of FFIX, so I don't think it matters too much. Still.

My point was just that FFVI, as much as it has a lot of strengths, is one of the mechanically weaker entries in the series, and it's not that difficult to imagine ways what it tries to do could be done better. Although it'll be up to Omicron to offer their position on the matter when the game is over, I'd be very surprised if he ended up saying that FFV was inferior to FFVI on the mechanical front.

I did mention multiple times that I think FFIX is the best of the series, so...
 
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IIRC Dragon Quest XI has a fairly good 're-recruit all your team' halfway through the game (if you can ignore the extremely dated sexual politics of the game). It's helped by the fact that DQ11 doesn't have FFVI's levelling system, and unused party members get XP the same as used ones.
 
Egleris said:
Yeah, that's annoying. A much better way to do it would be if equipping the item gave you the ability immediately, but only as long as you had the item equipped, while the grinding would be required to make the ability permanent. That would immediately make any ability-teaching item a great treasure to find, while still forcing players to strategize on who learns what when and what abilities are worth grinding for.
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In fact that is so intuitive that in my first few hours after unlocking the esper system I kept being tripped up by the fact that it isn't how it works - I kept assuming that if I put a Fire Magicite on a character they would be able to cast Fire until I swapped it for another Magicite only to open my menu and be reminded that no, they couldn't :V
 
It has great story bits too; "mad clown breaks the world" might have been contrived, but it certainly had impact.
 
Egleris said:
Yeah, that's annoying. A much better way to do it would be if equipping the item gave you the ability immediately, but only as long as you had the item equipped, while the grinding would be required to make the ability permanent. That would immediately make any ability-teaching item a great treasure to find, while still forcing players to strategize on who learns what when and what abilities are worth grinding for.
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As I recall, that's how Lord of the Rings: The Third Age worked.
 
Uh, pretty sure one or another of the FFTs work like that, too? There's some SRPG that has that system (well, probably several, really), I'm just forgetting exactly which one it is.
 
Omicron said:
Here, though it goes unnamed, it would appear we summoned Alexander, an FF staple that typically manifests in the form of a walking castle/mecha combo. I love Alexander's aesthetic, but rolling him actually reminds me of one of my bugbears about this game, which is that, like…
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Fun fact, Alexander appears for the first time in this game. You can actually get it now and it's actually a decent Magicite overall.

Also, about the Phoenix Cave and Ragnarock, there's an enemy here, the Galypdes (big eagle enemy) that Ragnarock can morph in more Growth Eggs. Also incidentally the same enemy has an amazing rare steal.
 
Frumple said:
Uh, pretty sure one or another of the FFTs work like that, too? There's some SRPG that has that system (well, probably several, really), I'm just forgetting exactly which one it is.
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Tactics advance and, if I remember right, A2 grimoire of the rift both work that way, yes. Dunno about the original Tactics, I read an LP once but it didn't stick in my memory well.
 
Incidentally, about Cyan being mediocre, Fang is nice for not having much delay and penetrating defense, but in most cases Flurry will give you more overall DPR, even accounting for the charge time. And, obviously, boost strength, and use the various physical-boosting relics. On my last playthrough, I had reached ~6 or 7k damage per hit on each of the four strikes. Cyan can lay out very respectable deeps.
 
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On the subject of WoR kinda falling apart, this is exactly why I've never really got the hype behind FF6.

It's a good game, that's for sure, but the rushed pacing and failure to deliver on the promise of WoR's opening means it doesn't really go beyond merely "good." You can't even call it the best Squaresoft RPG on the SNES, since Chrono Trigger, Bahamut Lagoon, Live a Live and Treasure of the Rudras are all better than it - and even though the latter three weren't officially released on the SNES Bahamut Lagoon and Live a Live were both fully translated in the 2000s (with Rudras taking until 2015 due to technical issues with the magic system).
 
I mean, you kinda' hit the reason on the head with your post, heh. For most of the english speaking world in particular, only CT actually existed until well after the SNES as a console was donezo, with only weirdass niche-living people trawling around the depths of the internet being aware of anything else (not throwing shade, here, mind, I've been following the fantranz scene to one degree or another for decades now, ha. I'd be one of those people). CT and FF6 were more or less the pinnacle of JRPG on the system for most folks you'd be having a conversation with. I'd agree there's several that never got ported in the system's lifetime that were better than one or both of them on one level or another, but, well.

Anyway, the hype's cause that's what was there for most of the relevant folks' introductory phase of gaming, heh. It's not a complicated thing, nostalgia, high points, and relative lack of access to competitors. The game's unsurprisingly well loved, even with the rough bits.
 
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Frumple said:
I mean, you kinda' hit the reason on the head with your post, heh. For most of the english speaking world in particular, only CT actually existed until well after the SNES as a console was donezo, with only weirdass niche-living people trawling around the depths of the internet being aware of anything else (not throwing shade, here, mind, I've been following the fantranz scene to one degree or another for decades now, ha. I'd be one of those people). CT and FF6 were more or less the pinnacle of JRPG on the system for most folks you'd be having a conversation with. I'd agree there's several that never got ported in the system's lifetime that were better than one or both of them on one level or another, but, well.

Anyway, the hype's cause that's what was there for most of the relevant folks' introductory phase of gaming, heh. It's not a complicated thing, nostalgia, high points, and relative lack of access to competitors. The game's unsurprisingly well loved, even with the rough bits.
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Yeah that's understandable, but then you get people calling it the best Final Fantasy game. I wouldn't ever call it better than 7 or 9. Hell, I'm not sure I'd call it better than 10!
 
McFluffles said:
World of Ruin peaks early, there's really no denying it. Personally I'm not so tied up over the "world doesn't seem broken enough" part, but the open-ended exploration and picking up party members feels like they spread the net too wide.
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I'm not sure what the source for this is, but I've read that the original plan for the game didn't have a World of Ruin at all. At some point the devs realized they were likely to finish early and under budget, and rather than try for a perfectly polished game they decided to go big and just add as much content as possible.
 
I suspect part of why people call FFVI the best one is that nostalgia filter that, well, filters out the tedium that the World of Ruin becomes as you get deeper into it. Up until around Kefka's Esper Genocide Bonanza, the plot as a whole is fairly strong and the game is generally swapping your party members about as it goes so you never really run into the "underleveled and under-magic learned" issue since the game is built to account for that. And then the actual transition into the World of Ruin and first bits of the World of Ruin itself are also high points of the game's story.

It's doesn't really fall apart until again, you get the Falcon, and suddenly each character is mostly their own disconnected story as you re-recruit them, dungeons start to skyrocket in difficulty since you can tackle them in any order (even discounting Kefka's Tower, you can go straight to the Phoenix Cavern with only four party members or the Cultist's Tower and get your face smashed in by 1500+ damage spellcasters). Then there's the fact that the endgame requires multiple parties of characters means all of a sudden you have to make use of a bunch of those scattered characters you never really bothered to raise... right around where a lot of character unique skillsets are falling off in usefulness compared to "bro just spend 100+ battles learning high level magic". It's the excessive grinding and busywork that plagues the lategame of many a JRPG, compounded with the problems of having to shuffle around Magicite to get stat boosts and actually learn spells instead of characters just naturally getting better along their own personal progression paths like say FFIV or Chrono Trigger, and also takes the FFV potential issue of needing to spend time in specific classes for abilities you want and multiplies it further because you need to train up whole teams of characters.

Despite all this, I wouldn't call FFVI a bad game by any means, and it's still a great entry in the series. It's just that this lategame is reminding me of why exactly I've actually finished FFV and not FFVI, and why I've long held FFV as my favorite pre-Playstation Final Fantasy game (and possibly favorite Final Fantasy period) instead of FFVI.
 
I'm one of the people who'd argue that FFVI holds up just on its own merits. The soundtrack obviously stands toe-to-toe with anything, some of the characters are undercooked as discussed, but honestly the biggest problem with the cast is that the amount of dialogue and characterization that a SNES RPG can serve up gets spread a bit thin over a cast this big, and like I said earlier even granting that FFVI does a lot with what it has to work with. Compared to Chrono Trigger which, granted, I only played through once but while Lucca, Frog, and Robo... Maybe Marle? Have a decent amount to them, Crono's almost a blank, Magus is mostly boilerplate edge, and Aya is mostly muscle girl gags? As a percentage, that's not any better than FFVI does. I'll grant that Chrono Trigger's basic combat is probably more interesting than FFVI's.

McFluffles said:
It's doesn't really fall apart until again, you get the Falcon, and suddenly each character is mostly their own disconnected story as you re-recruit them, dungeons start to skyrocket in difficulty since you can tackle them in any order (even discounting Kefka's Tower, you can go straight to the Phoenix Cavern with only four party members or the Cultist's Tower and get your face smashed in by 1500+ damage spellcasters). Then there's the fact that the endgame requires multiple parties of characters means all of a sudden you have to make use of a bunch of those scattered characters you never really bothered to raise... right around where a lot of character unique skillsets are falling off in usefulness compared to "bro just spend 100+ battles learning high level magic". It's the excessive grinding and busywork that plagues the lategame of many a JRPG, compounded with the problems of having to shuffle around Magicite to get stat boosts and actually learn spells instead of characters just naturally getting better along their own personal progression paths like say FFIV or Chrono Trigger, and also takes the FFV potential issue of needing to spend time in specific classes for abilities you want and multiplies it further because you need to train up whole teams of characters.
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Hmm, one nerd's 'falling apart' is another nerd's 'whoa, cool, I can do anything right now?' This is a matter of huge personal preference (and to the nostalgia point, it's legitimately up in the air whether or not the reason I love ensemble casts is because this game was one of my formative RPG experiences) but there's no denying some of the issues raised in the thread: The structure that FFVI is going for in the late game really wanted a level of sensitivity to who you have and have not recruited to deliver unique conversations and interactions between characters that the SNES couldn't really deliver, but honestly the devs themselves probably couldn't have done it back then either even without the hardware limitations given that this wasn't well-trodden ground in RPGs yet. But when a game's biggest sin is that we really needed more of it, I can't really find it that damning, honestly.
 
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