You realize that everything after this is a spoiler, right? Why are you intentionally spoiling things? The comment would have worked fine even stopping at this line, without including details from games further ahead in the series.
Spoilers? Seriously? I'd agree if they were something like first act twists, but they're basically the first ~5-10 minutes of each game; some of them still hadn't provided a basic setup yet by then. Even the summaries at the backside of their boxes would give more information to get you hooked and buy the game.
Whatever, it's edited out now, if only because I know I have a higher spoiler tolerance than others.
All this ATB hate is kind of blowing my mind, honestly. VI was my first Final Fantasy, so that's just kind of always how it was for me. How's the water, right?
There are valid grievances if you're really interested in the mechanics themselves of games in general. Like being a car junkie and being able to tell the deficiencies of one engine compared to others. But it's not like ATB alone made the games impossible to play or too esoteric to understand. 🤷♂️
All this ATB hate is kind of blowing my mind, honestly. VI was my first Final Fantasy, so that's just kind of always how it was for me. How's the water, right?
When your brain is trained for one style, then you end up on another.
I do actually like the ryza series way of battle. You just control 1 while the others auto, and can switch as needed. Time's counting down, but it's more a rhythm to it. Granted, the second game had a sad climax. All that hype, but my gear was at the point it fell flatter than the previous with my experience in the style.
Cecil wakes up first, and decides to take the girl with him and try to find his way… anywhere, really.
Look at this. Kid ain't fucking around.
Unfortunately, the nearest expanse of land from this valley is a gigantic desert.
What in god's name are those and how do they even work.
My first approach is to circle the periphery of the desert, hoping to find something at its edges. And I do - a cave, which like every other cave in the world is filled with monsters. Unfortunately, I can't advance through it, because this dude is barring the way:
My unspoken pleas that I am the Dark Knight of Baron and can handle myself go unheard. And also I suppose it wouldn't be safe for the child, whom Cecil is presumably lugging around on his back Nezuko-style.
It turns out my instincts were exactly wrong, and my next destination was smack in the middle of the desert, being an oasis town:
The first thing Cecil does upon entering the town is automatically head for the inn, hoping the girl can rest and recover. The innkeeper, on seeing the girl, is frightened by her palor, and offers us a stay free of charge.
After some indeterminate time, the girl wakes up, and Cecil asks her if she's alright. She doesn't answer. He says he is sorry about her mother, and understands if she can't forgive him, but he hopes that at least she will allow him to protect her (oh, the guilt-ridden assassin takes it upon himself to protect the child he orphaned, that is classic), and she doesn't answer either. Again, great use of ellipses to emphasize sullen silence. Both Cecil and the girl sleep the night in that inn - only to be woken up in the middle of the night when Baron soldiers barge into the inn!
Cecil's reply is, as you might imagine, emphatically 'no.'
Okay, this bit, with the soldiers getting full-size enemy sprites while Cecil is in this chibi form, does kinda make him look a little silly. It wasn't an issue when the enemies were beasts and monsters, but just… Lookitim. He's so tiny!
Not that it matters. The General has a mechanic where he yells 'attack!' and provokes an immediate attack from his subordinates, but seeing as Cecil deletes them all with lethal speed, this group is dispensed with quickly, and the General ends up running away. Coward.
However, more importantly, the girl was awake the entire time - she watched Cecil step in to defend her and put his life on the line to go against his king's orders to protect her. Forgiveness might not be on the table, but now she knows that at least he's sincere. She asks him if he's okay, and he tells her not to worry about him, as he won't let anyone hurt her.
"...Promise?"
"Promise."
Summoner Rydia has joined the party.
Now, if we were expecting her to wield the immense power of the spirits, well, I mean, maybe? But also she's like, six, so…
She's lv 1, has 30 HP, 10 MP, and doesn't know any magic. Her only summon is Chocobo. And, tragically, the goal is to avoid putting her in high-stress situations where she might have an anime breakdown and summon unfathomable power.
It's funny, because in FF2, when the Last Dragoon joins your party and is like twenty levels behind everyone else, it's frustrating and annoying. But here, it just… makes sense, yeah? Cecil is the only Dark Knight in Baron, a peerless warrior of singular power. Rydia is a literal child. Of course she's lv 1. Of course Cecil has to protect her in combat because she can't hold her own yet. The gameplay is flowing from the storytelling. The party is now one super powerful warrior and one child with great potential, and this is reflected in the mechanics. What was a huge bother in FF2 is actually reinforcing the plot in FFIV.
It's great! I love it!
Kaipo appears largely untouched by the conflict happening in the world. It's a peaceful oasis town, and is, in fact, the first proper town we're visiting in the game, with shops and NPCs to talk to. (The shops are useless almost as if making a point - none of the equipment they carry can be equipped by Cecil, who is limited to dark gear.) So we take a breather, walk around town, talk to the locals…
In so doing, we learn a few things. The town rarely has visitors these days, due to the increased monster presence (another franchise staple). Kaipo is a fief of Damcyan, the castle town which rules over the whole desert, and which lies behind the cave where that dude stopped me. East of Damcyan is the Antlion Cave, home to 'untold riches.' The Prince of Damcyan is rumored to be 'a delicate beauty with an exquisite voice,' which is refreshing to hear about a male character. Kaipo is home to a sage called Tellah, whose daughter fell in love with a boy from out of town and eloped when he disapproved of their union. And a 'girl from Baron' has been found unconscious on the outskirts of town, and taken in by a kindly couple. So of course, what else to do but go visit that couple, because I have an inkling who that girl is…
It's Rosa, who has fallen prey to 'desert fever,' leaving her unconscious and hallucinating in her sleep, whispering Cecil's name and talking about saving him from something. Unfortunately, the old man caring for her tells us, the only known cure for desert fever is a Sand Ruby, a rare jewel found where antlions dwell.
Which means we need to get to Antlion Cave, which means we need to get to Damcyan, which means we need to return to that cave up north and convince that old man to let us through.
It's hard to capture the exact moment without something getting in the way, but when summoning Chocobo Rydia actually turns yellow and fluffy.
Oh, hey, look at this.
In all prior games, magic was an item. You bought spells in shops, and you equipped them on a character. That is to say magic was purely extrinsic. Turning Rushanaq into a Black Mage didn't actually confer upon her any magical powers of its own, not unless you went and got a Fire item and equipped it on her.
But FFIV is different. It's not looking like we have jobs here, instead each character has their own custom class. And magic isn't bought, it's learned as we level up - and so after her first fight, Rydia climbs to lv 2, and instantly learns her three most basic spells, Blizzard (damage), Cure (healing), and Sight (utility). She's not just a summoner, then; she has capability for both black and white magic on top of summoning. That's… honestly impressive.
I'm not sold on the character-class structure vs the job structure of FF3 by default, but I'm keeping an open mind.
Here's to hoping Rydia stays with us for the long run and continues on this trend.
It's nice to be recognized.
The old man, it turns out, is the very Sage Tellah whom we've heard about in town, heading to Damcyan to rescue his daughter from a 'wicked bard' who has deceived her. Unfortunately, there is a monster dwelling in the cavern who is resistant to magic, and so he needs our help.
Our party is filling up! Looks like we have a Sage joining up. I wonder if he's as effective as FF3's Sages were-
LEVEL 20???
Yeah, so, we're not escorting the tiny frail old man across the crosswalk here, Tellah is packing some serious heat. Dude's got Black Magic, White Magic, and a Recall mechanic the game does not explain (I am given to understand that it selects a spell out of a random list?). He has many spells and more HP than Cecil. If Rydia is anything like him when she grows up, she's gonna be terrifying.
He is, however, not immune to being turned into a toad. Thankfully he can cast Esuna even when transformed.
We go through the cave, which is just a normal water-type dungeon with common watery enemies. Rydia is picking up levels fast - anything that's level-appropriate for Cecil gives out massive XP by the standards of a lv 1 characters. And, as she grows in levels, she learns new spells.
Which is where my issue with the ATB system is really located. Because I have two magic users, and I just got them, so I don't have their spell lists memorized. And Black Magic and White Magic are in two different lists under two different Commands, plus Rydia's Summon and Tellah's Recall. And they also don't have that much MP, so some turns I need them to just attack. Time freezes when I'm in the menus, but if I open White Magic, decide what I need right now is a Damage spell, tab out to go into Black Magic, that's ATB time. If I go check my spells then decide I don't have enough MP and have Tellah attack this round, that's ATB time.
It's not crippling. I'm still beating encounters without difficulty. But it's frustrating. It just grates. It makes me feel like I can't think through my decisions without being punished for it.
Hopefully, as I grow familiar with both the pace of the ATB system and my characters' spell lists, this will stop being an issue.
Anyway, the Waterfall Cave is also where we find something really interesting, that I am hoping we'll see more of in the game:
We find a room full of crystals that is a safe spot to rest inside the dungeon, which is a cool new addition to dungeoneering to bring to the game, but even more importantly…
…resting there triggers a campfire cutscene in which the characters just stop and chat to each other.
This is great, and I'm really hoping this isn't a one-and-done. This idea is one that's been kept all the way to modern RPGs; Pathfinder: Kingmaker is the most recent game I can remember playing with a mechanic where resting triggers random interactions between characters, and I think Dragon Age had a whole 'resting at a camp lets you talk to your companions' system? Obviously this is much simpler and more scripted - this cutscene is simply part of the normal storyline progress of FFIV - but if we have more bits where characters rest and talk to each other around a campfire during their travels or their dungeon exploration, I will be very pleased.
Tellah informs Cecil that Ryana holds great potential, and that "With proper training, she'll be able to master many spells. Look at her, sweet and innocent. She reminds me of Anna at that age…" Anna, of course, is the name of Tellah's daughter, who eloped with a bard. And while in his initial introduction, Tellah sold us a story about her being deceived by a wicked bard, here, in this quiet moment of reflection, he seems more self-aware, admitting to Cecil that she left because he wouldn't consent to their union. He in turn asks what Cecil seeks in Damcyan, and Cecil tells him about the desert fever. Tellah immediately makes the connection to the Sand Ruby (which is a nice showcase of the fact that he's a Sage, and he just knows these things), and warns that before getting there, they must slay "a frightful creature, with eight tentacles" to go through the cave. He adds that they must do so before it's too late - too late for what? He doesn't know. But he feels it.
In the morning, the party makes their way further into the cave - and the game has this gorgeous background shot:
Look at it. The dark background of the 'bottomless chasms' common in FF dungeons, shot through with the vivid blue of river streams, and… are those treetops, or rocky summits? This is really fantastic at conveying the feeling of climbing a mountain up to dizzying heights, making the world below seem small. It gives the whole place a sense of scale, of grandeur, that the previous games couldn't match. Which is interesting, since it must have been an artistic choice - these are all Pixel Remasters, after all, so they could have used the same touches in earlier games, but didn't, I imagine in the name of fidelity to the original?
In this dungeon, we also find Cecil's first upgrade suit. And it really is Cecil; due to the nature of the character-bound class system, dark equipment exists for him, and for him exclusively, and it is the only equipment he can use. So when the game first gives us the Shadowblade, and then the Hades Gloves/Helm/Armor in various chests (which the description tells us once belonged to a demon), it is very directly a series of upgrades given to Cecil, rather than a character-agnostic piece of gear to be found and given to whichever party member can best use it at the moment.
Then we reach the end of the cave, and face our foe… the deadly Octodad.
I love this colorful, bright design, and the way his sprite is designed to blend into the background layer so it looks like it's 'coming out' of the water. Really cool use of the limitations of the medium to enhance visual design here.
Octomammoth (its actual name) is, as far as I can figure, an extremely straightforward boss, with a presentation gimmick. You see, as the fight progresses and you damage him, his tentacle sprites change:
He's losing his tentacles one by one. The game is using the enemy sprites to convey what it can't do with protagonist sprites - they simply don't have the flexibility to show something like Cecil hacking and slashing at the octopus's tentacles one by one, so instead it changes the octomom sprite to reflect this happening within the narrative of the fight. This is really cool.
Other than that it's a simple affair. All Octomamma can do is physical attacks. It takes 1 damage from any spell other than Thunder, but at this point Rydia and Tellah both know that spell. I think there's something funky with the octo's defense values, though - at the start of the fight Cecil deals more damage with Darkness than he does with a basic attack, but at the end of the fight his basic Attack hits harder, to the tune of 250 damage, twice as hard as Tellah's thunder. Is there a hidden mechanic that represents the octopode's central body being easier to attack once you've cut down his tentacles? Or did the RNG just decide to be screwy on which attacks got crits?
No clue. Either way, this is a basic endurance battle and the Octopath Traveler is too weak offensively to win it.
Things do get a little dicey towards the end, but thankfully I am completely 100% aware that Cecil's Darkness ability costs HP to use and have not at all spent an hour of the game using it with reckless abandon without noticing that it kept pushing me down into red HP, so it's fine. It's fine.
Alright! We beat the squid! Great stuff, everybody. Now it's time to leave the cave and head to Damcyan, who's only a little ways north aaaand why is the game taking the controls from me.
OH SO YOU'RE JUST GOING TO PULL A FINAL FANTASY II ON ME, IS THAT IT? FUCK YOU.
I guess that's what the King of Baron had Cid build for him. "An airship designed to kill people." He invented the aerial bombardment. Not a novel plot twist - we've seen the Dreadnought do it two games ago, but, well.
Those would have to be the Red Wings, wouldn't they? They are Baron's air force. That's Cecil's men right there, just embracing the war crime life. Jesus.
It's not any prettier on the inside.
At the top of Damcyan Castle, Tellah finds his daughter, dead or grievously injured - and, next to her, terrified and confused, the very man who stole her away.
So what's he going to do?
If you guessed 'enter a fight scene,' then congratulation, you are on FFIV's wavelength.
Oh, he did it! He did the meme!
It's a really tragic scene, in a way. You don't actually control Tellah - he's scripted by the AI - but putting him on this side of the screen makes it feel like it's 'us' doing that. But he's not using any of his deadly magic, either - all he's doing he's using physical attack, shouting at the bard to "Shut up!' and "Die!" as the bard just cowers and does nothing. It's just… an old man, desperately taking out his grief and sorrow by beating up the man he's projecting blame for all this onto, a man who himself is a victim, with his feeble fists. It's pathetic, in the non-derogatory sense; it inspires pathos.
Thankfully, Anna isn't quite dead yet, and manages to call out to her father to stop beating him.
That the bard she fell in love with was the very same Prince of Damcyan who possesses "delicate beauty and an exquisite singing voice" was pretty telegraphed, of course. But it's only sadder for it - the Prince just lost everything, his kingdom, his people, the Crystal in his charge, and now his love. Because this joyful reunion is not for long, of course. Anna is dying. She and Edward say that they were readying to go back to Kaipo because Anna couldn't live without making things right with her father, when they were attacked by the Red Wings - and their new leader, a man named Golbez.
That's right, Cecil has been replaced. I know Golbez to be the name of the chief villain of the game - but I was actually taken completely by surprise by this introduction. I expected him to be some evil king or shadowy Xande figure, but no, here he is, taking Cecil's place, answering to the King of Baron, leading the Red Wings… The very same crew who were so loyal to Cecil and so appealed by the war crimes they'd committed they were starting to harbor doubts about the king.
Something fishy is going on here, and I don't like it.
Cecil doesn't know who Golbez is, either. Edward only knows that he 'arrived in Baron one day and became the leader of the Red Wings,' and that he is 'enormously strong.' Damcyan was home to a Crystal, and Golbez repeated Cecil's own actions in Mysidia, killing everyone in their way to get it. Edward was only saved because his father, his mother, and even Anna shielded him and took the arrows meant for him. Realizing that his daughter loves this man so much she was willing to sacrifice her own life, Tellah abandons his vengeful desires towards Edward - not that it makes them friends.
Anna perishes from her injuries. Edward breaks down crying - and Tellah is incensed by this, telling him to "stop your sniveling," as it won't bring Anna back.
Then he does something that genuinely takes me by surprise.
When Tellah was first introduced, I kind of mentally slotted him into the role of 'wise old sage.' I mean, his class title is Sage, he's old, he's knowledgeable, he can sense the future, it all made sense. The 'wise' part of that, the thoughtful kindly Gandalf type of deal, though, has been progressively eroding over this adventure. It's clear that Tellah had a prophetic sense of the doom about to befell Damcyan - but, not knowing its precise cause, he made the connection to something that personally upset him, that asshole who 'stole' his daughter for him, and deduced that he must be some evil bastard who was going to make terrible things happen to his daughter. Tellah is… impetuous and spiteful. He felt owed some degree of control over his daughter's life, judged Edward harshly based on gutfeel, and, now that his daughter is dead, is reaction is not sorrow - he is, obviously, grieving, bereft, and sad, but the way he channels these emotions is in immediate and all-consuming anger.
Yeah.
Anna's body isn't even cold yet and Tellah is already setting out on a course of revenge, not merely not waiting for the rest of the group, but actively pushing them away. This old man has one thought on the mind, and it's bloody murder. It's almost scary - this dude is the strongest character in our party by a fair margin, and he just casually shoved Cecil aside with some kind of magic push, outright hostile to those who were his allies moments ago, before heading to locate and kill a major military leader of the new world superpower.
I suspect things are not going to go as well for Tellah as he's hoping. But I am wishing him the best.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group is left alone with Edward, who is so miserable that everyone decides to give him shit about it. I'm serious!
Rydia tells him that she lost her mom and she's handling it better than he is and he should get a hold of himself, to which Edward is understandably pissed and tells them both to fuck off, and that (less understandably) he's just going to stay by the dead Anna's side forever. Cecil tries to appeal to his royal position, that he has a duty to his people and all those who died for him, which similarly fails to find purchase with the grief-stricken man.
However, the mention of Rosa and her desert fever changes things. When he realizes that Cecil is also in love, but that his loved one might still be saved, he does some kind of psychological transference and decides he'll help him save her like he couldn't save Rosa. The Sand Ruby, we learn, is only found in the Antlion Cave because it is produced from antlion secretion - and to reach the cave, we will need a new addition to the series; the hovercraft, which is used to cross shallow waters.
As the group departs, Edward turns back one last time, to say goodbye to Anna, whose body flickers and disappears - as do most FF dead bodies in cutscenes, but here I am unsure if this is supposed to represent something happening in the narrative.
Well, that was… interesting.
FFIV is using a very flexible approach to its cast. Since the game has started, we've had Cecil and Kain, Cecil alone, Cecil and Rydia, Cecil, Rydia and Tellah, and now Cecil, Rydia and Edward. I wonder if the game is going to solidify into singular permanent cast at some point, or if it's going to keep shuffling characters? It certainly gives the story a very dynamic feel, and changes up combat mechanics pretty frequently. It could be a problem if level discrepancy starts creeping up, but so far it's pretty fun.
Interesting also that the game seems to be pulling freely from previous games - notably FF2. Tellah is filling an on-its-face similar role to Minwu (veteran mage with prophetic abilities and great knowledge joins your party and carries for a while), only to bring in a twist in their very different characterization. The bombing of Damcyan echoes the Dreadnought's bombing runs. Edward himself echoes Gordon, as bereft princes who are also pretty boys - although where Gordon was a coward who learned bravery, Edward is merely understandably grief-stricken, and forced out of his mourning by urgency and compassion.
I am very curious about Golbez. This dude clearly has more going on than just 'new air force commander.'
I'm not sure if it's ever spelled out, but Recall is Tellah going 'I'm sure I remember a spell for this' and then just casting something he knew in the past. Dude's forgotten more magic than most mages ever learn.
(I'm not sure if he's textually supposed to be suffering from some form of dementia but it definitely fits him. Irrational jumps, uncontrollable emotions, forgetting things... yeah, it's pretty obvious subtext if it's not actually text.)
In all prior games, magic was an item. You bought spells in shops, and you equipped them on a character. That is to say magic was purely extrinsic. Turning Rushanaq into a Black Mage didn't actually confer upon her any magical powers of its own, not unless you went and got a Fire item and equipped it on her.
But FFIV is different. It's not looking like we have jobs here, instead each character has their own custom class. And magic isn't bought, it's learned as we level up - and so after her first fight, Rydia climbs to lv 2, and instantly learns her three most basic spells, Blizzard (damage), Cure (healing), and Sight (utility). She's not just a summoner, then; she has capability for both black and white magic on top of summoning. That's… honestly impressive.
Yeah, so, we're not escorting the tiny frail old man across the crosswalk here, Tellah is packing some serious heat. Dude's got Black Magic, White Magic, and a Recall mechanic the game does not explain (I am given to understand that it selects a spell out of a random list?). He has many spells and more HP than Cecil. If Rydia is anything like him when she grows up, she's gonna be terrifyin
Fun fact, Tellah doesn't level up much cause lvl 20, but his physical stats (except HP) actually decrease when he does, which really feel like another beautiful example of narration through gameplay.
Not that it matters. The General has a mechanic where he yells 'attack!' and provokes an immediate attack from his subordinates, but seeing as Cecil deletes them all with lethal speed, this group is dispensed with quickly, and the General ends up running away. Coward.
Fun Fact: The General gives more xp than the cronies if you actually kill him, especially if you manually kill only two of his three goons first rather than simply spamming Darkness. Letting him flee also prevented 100% bestiary completion in prior versions, but this was fixed in the Pixel Remaster so entries locked in single scripted fights are simply added to the bestiary with '0 killed' if you clear the fight.
She's lv 1, has 30 HP, 10 MP, and doesn't know any magic. Her only summon is Chocobo. And, tragically, the goal is to avoid putting her in high-stress situations where she might have an anime breakdown and summon unfathomable power.
Also fun fact - her starting staff can be used as an item while in battle to cast a magic arrow spell for 0 MP which acts as quite a cost-effective method of damage-dealing while she's still tiny and weak - since it's free you can even Autobattle it!. Alternatively, buy her Baby's First Bow and let her have at it. Casters need to go in the back row and that means letting them autoattack with a staff or something is a certified Bad Time you need to avoid under any circumstances.
Yeah, so, we're not escorting the tiny frail old man across the crosswalk here, Tellah is packing some serious heat. Dude's got Black Magic, White Magic, and a Recall mechanic the game does not explain (I am given to understand that it selects a spell out of a random list?). He has many spells and more HP than Cecil. If Rydia is anything like him when she grows up, she's gonna be terrifying.
Tellah's very funny at this stage because it's like the game handing you a .44 Desert Eagle with only one magazine an hour in. He has incredible out-of-proportion firepower for this stage of the game, but only 90 MP, so he's only good for like three -ga tier spells before he's down to frantically spamming Osmose to top up or taking a nap before Matlock. Recall, as far as I'm aware, has him randomly choose from a selection of possible spells, including ones you can't normally select like Tornado, or just losing his turn.
Which is where my issue with the ATB system is really located. Because I have two magic users, and I just got them, so I don't have their spell lists memorized. And Black Magic and White Magic are in two different lists under two different Commands, plus Rydia's Summon and Tellah's Recall. And they also don't have that much MP, so some turns I need them to just attack. Time freezes when I'm in the menus, but if I open White Magic, decide what I need right now is a Damage spell, tab out to go into Black Magic, that's ATB time. If I go check my spells then decide I don't have enough MP and have Tellah attack this round, that's ATB time.
Making it even worse is the fact that at this stage of the game you're Cecil carting around an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old. They have glass bones and paper skin, and Cecil doesn't have a taunt function. Even with backrow defensive buffs, one mislaid input letting the enemy get a turn might just mean one of your charges getting folded like an omelette. It's not that bad now, but...
At the top of Damcyan Castle, Tellah finds his daughter, dead or grievously injured - and, next to her, terrified and confused, the very man who stole her away.
So what's he going to do?
If you guessed 'enter a fight scene,' then congratulation, you are on FFIV's wavelength.
Oh, he did it! He did the meme!
It's a really tragic scene, in a way. You don't actually control Tellah - he's scripted by the AI - but putting him on this side of the screen makes it feel like it's 'us' doing that. But he's not using any of his deadly magic, either - all he's doing he's using physical attack, shouting at the bard to "Shut up!' and "Die!" as the bard just cowers and does nothing. It's just… an old man, desperately taking out his grief and sorrow by beating up the man he's projecting blame for all this onto, a man who himself is a victim, with his feeble fists. It's pathetic, in the non-derogatory sense; it inspires pathos.
Rydia tells him that she lost her mom and she's handling it better than he is and he should get a hold of himself, to which Edward is understandably pissed and tells them both to fuck off, and that (less understandably) he's just going to stay by the dead Anna's side forever. Cecil tries to appeal to his royal position, that he has a duty to his people and all those who died for him, which similarly fails to find purchase with the grief-stricken man.
Edward is so funny. Rydia straight-up tells him "dude i'm 8 and i lost my entire family like two days ago, you don't see me still crying about it" and then Cecil backhands him in the mouth with a Dark Knight gauntlet and he still is like "oh you need a ruby for your girl? i'll grab the keys to the Jag".
Also @Omicron you mentioned the 'Recall' command in one of your older posts. I didn't see anyone tell you about it, so what it does is that Tellah has forgotten most of his spells. 'Recall' is him trying to remember them and cast them, but it doesn't always work, and when it does the spell chosen is basically random. IDK how it works in the pixel remaster, but in the GBA version I found it to just be a waste of a turn.
Yeah, I don't know what they changed for the PR but the original already had her go Technicolor Mode like this when summoning. It was a nice visual cue to understand she was bringing forth SUPERIOR MAGICAL POWERS FROM BEYOND THE MORTAL COIL.
Fun fact, Tellah doesn't level up much cause lvl 20, but his physical stats (except HP) actually decrease when he does, which really feel like another beautiful example of narration through gameplay.
Can't even hold it over Rydia. She's also mourning, but she's just a child yet; she's not going to understand why her words are more likely to upset him than actually help.
I'd just like to note for the record that, based on the evidence at hand, Rosa immediately set out to find Cecil's dumb ass on her own, went through a desert, got magical heatstroke, and still only thinks about his safety while she's delirious. He does not deserve her. No one deserves her.
Anna's body isn't even cold yet and Tellah is already setting out on a course of revenge, not merely not waiting for the rest of the group, but actively pushing them away.
Fun Fact. Some versions of the game, though I am told not this one, have a secret hidden Developers Room where you talk to sprites representing the dev team. In the GBA version, one is the script guy, who comments about the updated translation and how many errors they had to fix.
Fun Fact. Some versions of the game, though I am told not this one, have a secret hidden Developers Room where you talk to sprites representing the dev team. In the GBA version, one is the script guy, who comments about the updated translation and how many errors they had to fix.
Which is where my issue with the ATB system is really located. Because I have two magic users, and I just got them, so I don't have their spell lists memorized. And Black Magic and White Magic are in two different lists under two different Commands, plus Rydia's Summon and Tellah's Recall. And they also don't have that much MP, so some turns I need them to just attack. Time freezes when I'm in the menus, but if I open White Magic, decide what I need right now is a Damage spell, tab out to go into Black Magic, that's ATB time. If I go check my spells then decide I don't have enough MP and have Tellah attack this round, that's ATB time.
It's not crippling. I'm still beating encounters without difficulty. But it's frustrating. It just grates. It makes me feel like I can't think through my decisions without being punished for it.
Sssorta. You can actually talk to your companions in the field about most topics, which occasionally gets surreal when they're particularly private. There is, however, a bunch of conversations that can only be triggered at camp.
The main advantage of the camp is that everyone's here, and all of their menus are accessible, so you can level everyone up, change their equipment and talk to them without fiddling with the party menu.
It's also where other party members get to talk to your dog, which is the main reason to visit camp to begin with.
When he realizes that Cecil is also in love, but that his loved one might still be saved, he does some kind of psychological transference and decides he'll help him save her like he couldn't save Rosa.
They also notably keep him named Edward rather than Gilbert as in the Japanese for the sake of tradition (the SNES/SFC version having only had space for 6 characters for names)
Fun Fact- according to the Ultimania, Gil the currency was first minted in this world in Damacyan, and it's called such because Gilbert is a common name for Damacyan royals, so it was a King Gilbert who was in charge of creating the currency and whose face was originally on it.
We come back to this now. Zap already beat me to the punch on how the SNES translation hid this from the player - it even went so far as to include 'the package opened on its own!' as a line when you walked into Mist. And I'm just forever irked that the original version turned out to be this blunt. It's called a bomb ring ffs. Even if Cecil were a fucking idiot - and as much as I love him, Cecil Harvey definitely picks up the Final Fantasy Himbo Protagonist Blitzball from time to time - if the menu can just up and identify it so clearly, it must be obvious what this thing is going to do when he gets to where he's going. Yeah, trapped between duty and morality and all that, but the dynamic duo have to be looking at this thing and going 'this is a trap. this is so clearly a trap. this is obviously a trap' all the way from Baron to the mountains, and it just shit me to find out that all this time that Rosenkain and Cecilstern just looked at this thing and went 'eh, sure why not' and put the thing in a pocket before marching off. It's such a small change in the overall sense but Jesus.
"We trigger our bomb rings when we come to Mist Village and burn it behind us, with nothing to show for our remorse but this tiny child and the presumption that once, King Baron was righteous."
Yeah, it wasn't trying to be subtle in the JP version, and the Pixel Remasters are fairly faithful to the original versions. The remakes and remasters though put a bit more ambiguity into it though, even though it's a plot twist that occurs maybe ten minutes after the opening crawl and thus doesn't need to be particularly subtle.
The point of the Pixel Remasters though is to be the 'Definitive Edition' of the Original Games, with the scuff polished out and given a nice face lift, but otherwise kept as faithful to the original release as possible. There's only one real exception to this and it's because it was a scene they couldn't do justice to on the original hardware and deserved Special Love And Care. (We won't see it until FF6, though veterans of the game who haven't played the Remaster yet can probably figure out Which One I'm Talking About)
I'm always interested in the discussion this thread has going about how later ports and remakes changed things up and modernized (or not) the games, but for this reason I'm glad I went with the Pixel Remaster series. I straight-up couldn't play an emulated NES or SNES version of the games with all their jank and old-school design sensibilities, but while the later versions did a lot of interesting things and the 3D versions of FF3 and FFIV are especially impressive, I'm vibing more with the PR philosophy of trying to make a Definitive Version of the NES/SNES games.
Final Fantasy is, as you may have noted, obsessed with moving away from turn-based combat (the best kind of RPG combat bar none) at all costs. Regardless of how appropriate, effective, or good the system is, the further it moves the game from turn-based the harder the Final Fantasy developers push it.
This wouldn't be too much of a problem, except Final Fantasy developers are absolutely atrocious at real-time combat design and literally the only game in the entire line that's had real-time combat I would describe as even 'passable' is the VII Remake. And Stranger of Paradise, but that was just Nioh with an FF skin AFAIK and was not made by the Final Fantasy teams at all.
You can see that here; the design decision to have time bars instead of turn order is alright, but the decision to have time keep moving while you're in your action menu is baffling. It certainly doesn't increase realism - you're playing an experienced, blooded knight who knows exactly what he's doing in a fight, he's not going to dither over whether he's going to Sword Everyone or Sword One Person, time passing while the menu is open is anti-diegetic in fact!
It's just such an obvious brainbug the FF staff have got and it's so consistent and I've never understood the driving desire to get rid of the thing the games are famous for and the team is good at in favour of a thing that they are terrible at and the games are not famous for.
I have a lot of thoughts about FF7R's peculiar system, most of them centered around the game's insistence on making me do things that aren't "play Tifa and punch things until they explode."
All this ATB hate is kind of blowing my mind, honestly. VI was my first Final Fantasy, so that's just kind of always how it was for me. How's the water, right?
In actual truth, my first FF was VIII, I played a chunk of FF7, and I went through 90% of IX. I have memories of the ATB system - but they are shrouded in the distant fog of twenty years ago. In the years between, I have played a mix of 'true' turn by turn (they endured a fair while into the handheld era, I think; Golden Sun was a staple of my teenage gaming experience) and real-time action games. The only FF games I've played since, aside from a few brief forrays into emulators and DS ports over the years, are FF7R and FFXIV, with 7R doing its weird take on ATB-based real time action and FFXIV being... FFXIV.
So all of this is not so much totally new as 'oh god, I had forgotten about this nonsense."
Fun fact, Tellah doesn't level up much cause lvl 20, but his physical stats (except HP) actually decrease when he does, which really feel like another beautiful example of narration through gameplay.
Making it even worse is the fact that at this stage of the game you're Cecil carting around an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old. They have glass bones and paper skin, and Cecil doesn't have a taunt function. Even with backrow defensive buffs, one mislaid input letting the enemy get a turn might just mean one of your charges getting folded like an omelette. It's not that bad now, but...
You know, it's striking me now that this was actually a solved problem in the previous game, where you had the Knight's Guard and the Viking's Provoke to control enemy aggro, but I guess the Dark Knight was never trained to protect people
Also @Omicron you mentioned the 'Recall' command in one of your older posts. I didn't see anyone tell you about it, so what it does is that Tellah has forgotten most of his spells. 'Recall' is him trying to remember them and cast them, but it doesn't always work, and when it does the spell chosen is basically random. IDK how it works in the pixel remaster, but in the GBA version I found it to just be a waste of a turn.
Most of the time I've used it so far it just cast Thunder or skipped his turn. I guess the low chance of triggering a particularly powerful spell like Tornado can be nice, but if I see Tellah again I'm not sure I'll make much use of Recall still.
Fun Fact. Some versions of the game, though I am told not this one, have a secret hidden Developers Room where you talk to sprites representing the dev team. In the GBA version, one is the script guy, who comments about the updated translation and how many errors they had to fix.
I don't know if that's in there, but I did note that in lieu of the naming screen from the previous games, there is a guy in Kaipo you can go to who can just... change your character names for you? Now, on the one hand, it would make sense for Cecil to take on an assumed name while traveling and hiding from Baron, on the other hand he is impossible to disguise and the only man in the world who looks like himself, and also apparently this change takes effect everywhere and people will just call you by your new name, which-
Actually you know what, I have a fair few friends who'd love nothing more than for there to just be A Guy you can hit up who changes your legal name immediately and without question and has everyone in the world instantly know that this is now your correct name and to never call you by the old one again, hm.
I don't know if that's in there, but I did note that in lieu of the naming screen from the previous games, there is a guy in Kaipo you can go to who can just... change your character names for you? Now, on the one hand, it would make sense for Cecil to take on an assumed name while traveling and hiding from Baron, on the other hand he is impossible to disguise and the only man in the world who looks like himself, and also apparently this change takes effect everywhere and people will just call you by your new name, which-
Actually you know what, I have a fair few friends who'd love nothing more than for there to just be A Guy you can hit up who changes your legal name immediately and without question and has everyone in the world instantly know that this is now your correct name and to never call you by the old one again, hm.
I don't know if that's in there, but I did note that in lieu of the naming screen from the previous games, there is a guy in Kaipo you can go to who can just... change your character names for you? Now, on the one hand, it would make sense for Cecil to take on an assumed name while traveling and hiding from Baron, on the other hand he is impossible to disguise and the only man in the world who looks like himself, and also apparently this change takes effect everywhere and people will just call you by your new name, which-
Actually you know what, I have a fair few friends who'd love nothing more than for there to just be A Guy you can hit up who changes your legal name immediately and without question and has everyone in the world instantly know that this is now your correct name and to never call you by the old one again, hm.
He had a whole THING in the DS remake, where his sudden inability to change names caused by the voice acting gave him an identity crisis. He appears throughout the game trying a different [x]ingway name/hobby every time and gives items if you help him with it (Mappingway, Jammingway, Lovingway...)
He had a whole THING in the DS remake, where his sudden inability to change names caused by the voice acting gave him an identity crisis. He appears throughout the game trying a different [x]ingway name/hobby every time and gives items if you help him with it (Mappingway, Jammingway, Lovingway...)
But FFIV is different. It's not looking like we have jobs here, instead each character has their own custom class. And magic isn't bought, it's learned as we level up - and so after her first fight, Rydia climbs to lv 2, and instantly learns her three most basic spells, Blizzard (damage), Cure (healing), and Sight (utility). She's not just a summoner, then; she has capability for both black and white magic on top of summoning. That's… honestly impressive.
As someone who bounced 100% off the turn-based/real time hybrid a decade ago and never tried a FF game since, can anyone link me to an argument as to why "a timer for when you make desicions in these RPGs is good, actually" please?
Because I vaguely recall stopping playing as soon as I saw a bar shift while reading the menus in the first figgt of whatever game it was.
Not gonna go into detail due to spoilers, but I remember that being plot-relevant in a way that really impressed me back when I was first playing FFIV on the gameboy.
Protip: you go to the game configuration, and in addition of the Wait mode, increase the battle speed as well. Presto: essentially no gauge fill waiting and you still benefit of the waiting in menus (I'm pretty sure you can do this in FFIV, but if you don't, you definitely can in FFV or at least FFVI).
Besides, it's not about the ATB system being good or bad. It's simply a matter of being different. Both turn based and real action times systems, to any degree that they might be, promote strategizing in one way or another. In an ideal world, one would promote your tenth dimensional chess skills, while the other wants you to be adaptable to the what's happening NOW.
At its core, ATB takes a middle ground to allow you some reaction time compared to real action, and some dynamism compared to turn based. YMMV on whether you personally like it or not, that's fair. If you prefer turns, it'll be too fast; if you prefer real action, it's too slow. But guess what? If you prefer turns, you won't like real action and viceversa, anyway! So it just means you have to approach it as its own thing instead, and in that regard it works pretty well, even if you still don't like it.
If anything, I feel that people stress themselves out too much about being pressured by the pace. Final Fantasy isn't an incredibly hard series. The start of each game is reasonably easy, enough that you can get familiarized with how things work, and by the time the hard stuff actually shows up, you've already gotten used (or should have, at least to a reasonable degree) to navigate the menus with a decent familiarity and speed without impairing your playing to a point where you crash against a wall. Particularly with this one, where the characters are very defined and their commands and spells are mostly set in stone; and I can't recall if they let you in FFIV, but I know later games allow you to configure how your spells are listed to your liking, so can just go straight for your favorite without scrolling down and down your magic submenu.
Maybe it's less a dislike of ATB itself, and more of the menu driven combat at all?
It's fair to dislike the ATB system, but the straight demonization is just blown out of proportion. If it was so bad as some people portend, such rejection would have affected the public reception a lot more. But Square just kept tinkering with the system until FFX (not the most exciting version of ATB for me, but probably the best one in the sense of waiting for a character to be ready) before evolving it into the ADB system for FFXII and KH, which was basically the same but allowing the player to move a character in space. Instead of, dunno, shelving the series after FFV or FFVI because people stopped playing FFIV at the middle and so they didn't buy the next ones. But that didn't happen.
