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

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RogueIce said:
Godo I would grant, but isn't Midgar Zolom mainly a challenge because it's got an overpowered finishing attack? Fighting it now would be a breeze even with a Beta cast at the end.
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Yes, of course a late-game party would destroy the Zolom easily. But doing it before Gold Saucer (which is where the game gives you Aqualung) is a big challenge, for a number of reasons, of which Beta is the main but not only one. That has no bearing on it being a challenging fight when first met or, indeed, for a substantial amount of game thereafter. It's not a secret superboss, it's an early game optional challenge, and within that contest, it is actually challenging, which was my point: the FFVII team clearly knew how to create challenging enemies, they just didn't put them on your path as plot bosses. Which means they intentionally kept the game easy.

Like, if you've played the original Metal Gear Solid, the fight with the first boss in the game is pretty tricky - because you don't have the assault rifle yet. If you had the assault rifle, then it'd be much easier. But the developers put the boss there knowing which weapons you would and would not have, and made the fight challenging on purpose. FFVII rarely does anything like that with the plot encounters.

Difficulty is always relative; I'd thought that would be obvious.
 
Interestingly I've heard of people finding the game relatively difficult, or bouncing off it for said difficulty.

I think the game's designed to be moderately challenging to someone who 1) isn't necessarily already familiar with Final Fantasy, 2) does not have access to out of game resources, 3) is probably a child or a teenager.

If you meet all three of these factors, you'd be facing a lot of hurdles compared to my own playthrough - not knowing about the existence of Beta/Trine/Aqualung and Big Guard means that the Enemy Skill Materia loses much of its utility and will only have Enemy Skills you lucked into by chance while carrying it, not being as thorough in exploring (and as all of you can attest, I am rather less than completely thorough in my exploration, regularly missing some things, yet still more than a clueless or inexperienced player might be) means having fewer items/Materia which in turns means spending more money at the shops to compensate, not knowing the ATB system and how all the status effects work and some basic FF-line assumptions like 'I shouldn't bother with status effects for most bosses' means performing more poorly in fights in general, performing more poorly in fights means suffering more KOs which means some characters lose out on XP and means spending more money on healing resources and occasionally suffering wipes, and so on.

If all these factors compound with the fact of just... Not being as good at games because you are young and lack experience (or are old and have just not played that many video games of that genre in your life), I could see FFVII actually being a moderately challenging game that puts a few painful losses in your way. And that is probably a solid recipe for success and popularity in 1997.

It's just that being calibrated for "afterschool teenager for whom this is their first Final Fantasy in an era before widespread Internet use" as its ideal difficulty scenario means every peg you remove from that edifice makes it easier and easier, and I meet none of the three. I could decide to forbid myself from ever looking up anything on the FF Wiki and forbid my thread from talking about any of it, but not only would that be pretty annoying for everyone, it's not actually the kind of challenge I enjoy.

At the end of the day it is what it is. FF7 doesn't need to be challenging, it is still fun and is telling a very compelling story. I'm just hoping a couple of the Weapons will serve as superbosses that give me a chance to flex my muscles, but for the most part I'm okay with just carving through the game with overwhelming firepower. If nothing else it makes updates faster.
 
I was about 9 years old when I first played FF7 and I found it fairly challenging. The story and characters both fascinated me and utterly confused me as a child. It certainly does feel like FF7 was designed to be as broadly appealing as possible with an international market in mind - hell I am fairly sure it was first first FF game released in Europe, unless you count Mystic Quest on the SNES!
 
I don't think we've even scratched the surface in terms of "missable items/abilities/equipment/magic that are nigh impossible to stumble across without a guide or spoilers" territory in the franchise yet. The Playstation era was a wild ride indeed, there's a reason we all fell for the "Mew Truck" rumour. With no context or spoilers, an upcoming game had an entire sidequest left undiscovered for over a dozen years.
 
Gaz said:
I don't think we've even scratched the surface in terms of "missable items/abilities/equipment/magic that are nigh impossible to stumble across without a guide or spoilers" territory in the franchise yet. The Playstation era was a wild ride indeed, there's a reason we all fell for the "Mew Truck" rumour. With no context or spoilers, an upcoming game had an entire sidequest left undiscovered for over a dozen years.
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Special shout out to FF9, where the official game guide was of no help because half of its tips were "go check out our website for more info!" when this was the era of dial-up that used your phone line and chances were Mom had to make a call when you needed to check something in the guide
 
I remember FF7 being reasonably challenging at age 14.

This included such gems 'What the heck is Enemy Skill? It doesn't do anything' and 'Why is Reno so hard, he's taking my characters out of the fight permanently.'
 
SolipsistSerpent said:
You know I never got Mighty Guard on my first play through and maybe that was for the best, as far as game balance, though I remember not having that much trouble with most fights anyway (I did have Matra Magic, Trine, and eventually Beta).
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So to be entirely fair? Looking through the rest of its appearances in the series, part of it is also that FFVII Mighty Guard is one of the stronger versions of the spell since it has Haste as an added effect, meaning you've got early access to full party Protect/Shell for half damage and doubling your speed. FFV's version just add Float as an addition (oh boy how... occasionally useful?) and FFVI doesn't have anything additional. Meanwhile, full party haste is usually either a late-game option or requires individually casting the spell - in FFVII specifically it means getting a Time Materia (not available until Gongaga) and then having to slap one of your All Materias in a link with it.

Then here's Enemy Skill saying "wanna see me do that except with three spells at once and with no All limits and also this bad boy can fit two dozen more spells of varying usefulness and can be passed around freely between party members???" This is... probably why Blue Magic in general is limited to specific party members in most of the games barring FFV when it first showed up.
Omicron said:
Interestingly I've heard of people finding the game relatively difficult, or bouncing off it for said difficulty.

I think the game's designed to be moderately challenging to someone who 1) isn't necessarily already familiar with Final Fantasy, 2) does not have access to out of game resources, 3) is probably a child or a teenager.
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Yeah, admittedly this is probably a factor in FFVII's difficulty as well. It was a game designed to be a flagship FF entry on a new system with wide mass appeal, meaning it runs into the age old game difficulty issue of "doesn't actually have difficulty options so more experienced/knowledgeable players can dump all over it." Like just as one example I absolutely didn't consider as a kid, but Omi jumped on immediately and was also my first thought following along now? Grabbing HP/MP Up Materia for everyone in the party. It's literally free HP/MP upgrades for the entire party that just makes them all the tougher, why wouldn't you grab it?
Zap Rowsdower said:
Special shout out to FF9, where the official game guide was of no help because half of its tips were "go check out our website for more info!" when this was the era of dial-up that used your phone line and chances were Mom had to make a call when you needed to check something in the guide
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Oh man, I cannot wait for one specific absolutely stupid item that Omi is 100% not getting in his playthrough of FFIX when it come around. I haven't even finished the game, it's just that famous of a stupid requirement.
 
McFluffles said:
Oh man, I cannot wait for one specific absolutely stupid item that Omi is 100% not getting in his playthrough of FFIX when it come around. I haven't even finished the game, it's just that famous of a stupid requirement.
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I think getting that item on the first playthrough would actively ruin the game for him, even. It's just not a good idea to go for it when you're playing for the first time.
 
The MP Up is actually largely useless IMO, the stat boosts from equipping things that need it are generally enough. HP Up is theoretically handy for countering the HP reductions of late game materia but, on the other hand, by the late game HP numbers get so high that only unconventional attacks (gravity, l4 suicide, force-to-1, etc) really put you into the danger zone in the first place.

The best stat changer is Speed Up, I think. More actions is unequivocally the best way to win fights and most of the ways to trivialize FF7 fights involve breaking the action economy.

Magic Up is also good as a direct boost to your firepower and handy for either letting you cap out your high-end magic or use cheaper spells to the same effect.

The effects of Luck Plus are more subtle, but the Luck stat allows you to dodge undodgeable attacks and hit when you'd otherwise miss, and I believe it boosts crit rate as well, so I like to make room for it.

The Gil Plus and XP Plus materia are basically worthless and the only reason to slot them is for the Master All Materia achievement; Enemy Lure is a better choice for improving the reward-to-time ratio of grinding.
 
In my wuest to go through all the mainline Final Fantasy games, it is my pleasure to state i beat Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
i wont say "it stinks" cause it doesnt but its not as good as Final Fantasy was. Ranked 16th of 16.
 
21stCentury said:
In my wuest to go through all the mainline Final Fantasy games, it is my pleasure to state i beat Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
i wont say "it stinks" cause it doesnt but its not as good as Final Fantasy was. Ranked 16th of 16.
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I should really replay Mystic Quest one of these days, it was genuinely one of my first Final Fantasy games and I don't recall it being all that bad, honestly? But at the same time, I was maybe 8 so it's not like I had good judgement of "what is good game".

At the least, it's got some banger boss music.

View: https://youtu.be/SUGDp39srk0
 
I was doing some math and it is theoretically possible to kill your characters in the materia equip screen. You can have up to 16 materia slots, and high-end materia often has a 5% HP penalty, and some -- like Contain, Full Cure, and Phoenix, to name some Omicron has found so far -- have 10%s.

12 x -5% (-60%) + 4 x -10% (-40%) = -100%.

Could it be done using materia Omi has right now...

Neo Bahamut, Phoenix, Full Cure, Contain, and Ultima are -10% each, so that's -50%.
Alexander, Kujata, Bahamut, Leviathan, and Odin are -5% each, that's another -25%.
Destruct, Time, Comet, Barrier, and Revive are also -5% each, for another -25%.

So yes. Yes it can.

There's even a spare slot -- that's just 15 used. :D
 
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McFluffles said:
I should really replay Mystic Quest one of these days, it was genuinely one of my first Final Fantasy games and I don't recall it being all that bad, honestly? But at the same time, I was maybe 8 so it's not like I had good judgement of "what is good game".

At the least, it's got some banger boss music.

View: https://youtu.be/SUGDp39srk0
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oh, it isnt bad. Its just not as good as its siblings.
like you said, it has bangin music.
 
Omicron said:
I'm just hoping a couple of the Weapons will serve as superbosses that give me a chance to flex my muscles, but for the most part I'm okay with just carving through the game with overwhelming firepower. If nothing else it makes updates faster.
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Even then, the WEAPONS can be cheesed very, very easily by means both legit (Materia builds to chaincast endless summon combos) or borderline scummy (cheating Cait Sith's Slots for the insta-kill effect). I'm sure someone else already mentioned it, but the game also flags various item pickups and scales some boss's health to match, under the assumption that you're probably going to be using said uber-items.

It's an interesting way to do difficulty, and one that I overall like. Sort of like how Souls games effectively have a very soft "choose your own difficulty" feature built into the mechanics, where there's very little stopping you from building your character to be as overpowered or as balanced as you want.

Edit: Clarified that is scales some Bosses health, not all bosses.
 
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Gaz said:
The thread is clearly incomplete until Omi plays Mystic Quest :V
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I wouldn't be against a one or two off "break" update of Omi just speeding through Mystic Quest and giving some thoughts on it, honestly. Granted, doing one small Final Fantasy spinoff quickly opens the door to "Omi why aren't you playing literally every single Final Fantasy spinoff game" of which there are a lot, so preferably we keep it to mainline series + maybe a select few games that are particularly well known like potentially Final Fantasy Tactics.
 
aledeth said:
Knowing that you played Remake first, this next sequence might be the single thing I'm most excited to see your take on in FF7.
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Same here, this is probably my favorite sequence in the entire game. It's great.

foamy said:
Neo Bahamut, Phoenix, Full Cure, Contain, and Ultima are -10% each, so that's -50%.
Alexander, Kujata, Bahamut, Leviathan, and Odin are -5% each, that's another -25%.
Destruct, Time, Comet, Barrier, and Revive are also -5% each, for another -25%.
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So... building a full on summoner, is what I'm seeing here?
 
Omicron said:
The C-Team.

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Part of it genuinely feels like the devs are doing it on purpose as like… I don't know, either "the most powerful magic isn't truly necessary to finish the game so we put it behind silly, optional gag moments" or "the greatest prizes are found in the unlikeliest places," or something?
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Today, still wanted by Shinra, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them. Maybe you can form, the C-team!
The thing is those materia are meant as rewards for you succeeding at the sequences, this leg of the story is rather unique as far as JRPGs go, in that you can either succeed or fail at it and the story still progresses. Though I tend to think of it as the planet apologizing for how the WEAPONs have basically decided to ignore their actual job of protecting the planet to just run around and destroy crap, thus leaving the fate of the world in the hands of a bunch of people who just happened to be there when the world started ending.
 
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Omicron said:
The C-Team.
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That you have a C-team implies that there is also a B-team. Considering your A-team seemed to be Cloud, Yuffie, and Vincent, this means that by default, Tifa, Aerith, and Cait Sith were your B-Team. Did you really Value Cait Sith more then Barret or Red? (I already know the answer regarding Cid.)
 
Thozmp said:
That you have a C-team implies that there is also a B-team. Considering your A-team seemed to be Cloud, Yuffie, and Vincent, this means that by default, Tifa, Aerith, and Cait Sith were your B-Team. Did you really Value Cait Sith more then Barret or Red? (I already know the answer regarding Cid.)
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Cait Sith is permanently warming the bench with his untrustworthy, fluffy ass I imagine :V
 
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