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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:
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.
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A year ago I replayed FFIV (3D remake on Steam) in preparation for FFXIV Endwalker, and when I got to that part I went "oh. Oh. Of course. Sidurgu and Rielle."

Omicron said:
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.
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I assume it's due to the limitations of the hardware at the time leading to pared-down cutscene presentation, but I always felt it was a little odd that the Crystal of Damcyan was stolen and Golbez had done the whole thing with marching into the Crystal Room with troops killing anyone in their way, but what we actually see right before we enter Damcyan is the Red Wings airships flying by and doing a bombing run.

In other words, we don't actually see any infantry being dismounted from those airships, or being picked back up. Initially I thought the dying residents of Damcyan were injured by the bombardment, but from Edward's account the troops actually went in themselves.

ZerbanDaGreat said:
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...

... there's a lot of game to go...
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I admit I've been pondering this since I played through the earlier Pixel Remasters myself with their "true" turn-based, and I don't actually know if that system would help in cases like this either.

Or rather, the case that I had to handle with my own aforementioned playthrough, where by far the most Game Overs I had in FFIV was in the grinding of low-level enemies between leaving Baron and entering the Mist Cave. Because at the time the party consisted of Edge Tank and Floor Tank Cecil and Kain, and one of the random encounters in the overworld was groups of Cockatrices up to six at a time. Each of them had a chance of Petrifying a character, and FFIV 3D didn't have any way for Cecil to use AoE (due to Darkness being changed to an attack buff, rather than a screen-clear). So there was a significant chance for me to not have any Gold Needles on hand to cure that Petrify (due to lack of gil), and the Cockatrices just ending the game.

And thinking about how it would go with a "true" turn-based system like the earlier games, that would also mean the party going with their two actions, then the Cockatrices all going with a chance to Petrify.
 
Connelly said:
If you prefer turns, you won't like real action and viceversa, anyway!
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Thing is, I like both. I've sunk so many hours into TWEWY, so many. This is the game that makes random fights fun and almost meditative. And on the other side, bow before my collection of amateur RPG Maker games (including one called Last Scenario, lol. It's good, if not well-balanced)!

It's specifically ATB I dislike because I feel everything it does can be accomplished by just modifying normal turn-based combat so you could get more turns depending on your speed stat and so that some actions would delay your next turn or take two turns, etc. About the only thing you can't do easily here is what we've seen in the first boss fight: delaying your attacks until something changes with the enemy in real time. And how often does FF take advantage of that?

Now, for all I catastrophize about it, it's not really a deal-breaker or anything. ATB is tolerable. You can get used to it to the point that it almost doesn't bother you anymore. Once you learn the moveset and the pace of battles, it's not a huge deal.

It's just pointless and irritating, and I think sticking with the regular turn-based combat and iterating on it would have done the series good.
 
Yeah, it's not like ATB is a deal breaker or anything, it just increases the wait time between getting turns (paradoxically, since it's intended to make the game more dynamic) and requires you to have a "default battle plan" that you can deploy without thinking when you're facing new enemies so you don't lose too much time thinking in menu. Once you know what each member of your team is capable of, it's not difficult to handle or anything. It's just mostly superfluous, at least in the way most of the FF series uses it.
 
So, now that you have Rydia, I'm going to tell you that there are four Secret summons in this game; Goblin, Cocktrice, Bomb, and Mind Flayer. And you are not going to get them without trying and wasting a shitload of time. They are enemy drops, and enemy drops in this game were fucking stupid.

Enemies have four possible item drops; common, uncommon, rare and lolfucku. 2 of those summons are dropped from enemies are on the third slot. 2 are on certain enemies in the fourth slot, which is a 1/1280 chance to drop. And there are multiple of these. One is for the Ultimate Armor, another is for Rosa's best Bow. It is NOT worth it.

The DS remake made some changes as well. You might have noticed in the dessert is a massive enemy called the Sand Worm. Despite its massive size it's simply not a threat. Not so in the DS version; It's as dangerous as it's massive size suggests it is. Also, the Octomamoth gets angry about halfway into the fight and starts hitting really hard.

The biggest change is Whyt; He is exclusive summon to the DS version of the game. The IOs, android and PC versions of the 3d remake have removed him. Whyt can have his named changed to whatever you want, and is a Whytkin; effectively a larval Summonable Beast. When Whyt is summoned, he replaces Rydia in battle and acts automatically, based on the abilities the player assigns it prior to battle. Whyt uses Rydia's HP and equipment, has infinite MP, and will act three times before dismissing himself.
Whyt's stats are based of how well you do on mini games that you can play on the touch pad, explaining why he was removed from the other versions. Do good enough and you can get all his stats to 99. Right now you would only be able to play Rydia's minigame, which is a math one which effects his Intelligence.
 
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BeepSmile said:
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.
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The ATB here is a very simple, boring implementation, but adding time pressure can add fun spice. My favorite implementation is Bravely Default.
Everything is turn-based, right up until a character does a supermove. Then their theme music starts to play, buffing them until it finishes after 90 real seconds and the regular enemy theme comes back. But, if the theme music gets interrupted by another character doing a super move and starting their theme music, both buffs continue for that theme. And right before that one comes to a close you arrange it so a third character grabs the aux cord.
So you have long phases of calm, relaxed planning and preparation followed by frantic periods of executing things as fast as possible to not waste valuable theme music time.
 
crankers said:
So, now that you have Rydia, I'm going to tell you that there are four Secret summons in this game; Goblin, Cocktrice, Bomb, and Mind Flayer. And you were not going to get them without trying and wasting a shitload of time. They are enemy drops, and enemy drops in this game were fucking stupid.

Enemies have four possible item drops; common, uncommon, rare, and lolfucku. 2 of those summons are dropped from enemies are on the third slot. 2 are on certain enemies in the fourth slot, which is a 1/1280 chance to drop. And there are multiple of these. One is for the Ultimate Armor, another is for Rosa's best Bow. It is NOT worth it.

The DS remake made some changes as well. You might have noticed in the dessert a massive enemy called the Sand Worm. Despite it's massive size it's simply not a threat. Not so in the DS version; It's as dangerous as it's massive size suggests it is. Also, the Octomamoth gets angry about halfway into the fight and starts hitting really hard.

The biggest change is Whyt; He is exclusive summon to the DS version of the game. The IOs, android and PC versions of the 3d remake have removed him. Whyt can have his named changed to whatever you want, and is a Whytkin; effectively a larval Summonable Beast. When Whyt is summoned, he replaces Rydia in battle and acts automatically, based on the abilities the player assigns it prior to battle. Whyt uses Rydia's HP and equipment, has infinite MP, and will act three times before dismissing himself.
Whyt's stats are based of how well you do on mini games that you can play on the touch pad, explaining why he was removed from the there versions. Do good enough and you can get all his stats to 99. Right now you would only be able to play Rydia's minigame, which is a math one which effects his Intelligence.
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Fucking Pink Tails.

For context, thats the item needed to get the best armor.

You will not get the pink tail. The enemy carrying it has a 1/64 chance to drop it.

that enemy? Has a 1/64 chance of showing up in any random encounter, in a single small room of a single dungeon, making the drop chances effectively 1/4096.
 
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Ah, Pink Tail grinding.

*stops stirring the cocoa cup and looks away to the infinite, a single tear across the face*

I remember Pink Tail grinding...
 
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crankers said:
So, now that you have Rydia, I'm going to tell you that there are four Secret summons in this game; Goblin, Cocktrice, Bomb, and Mind Flayer. And you were not going to get them without trying and wasting a shitload of time. They are enemy drops, and enemy drops in this game were fucking stupid.
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To put a note on this. Steam puts getting all four secret summons has the third rarest achievement globally.
 
Omicron said:
I'm not sold on the character-class structure vs the job structure of FF3 by default, but I'm keeping an open mind.
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I'll say that honestly? I enjoy both in different ways. It's fun to break a game wide open with free-class changing (or in later games, just character customizability through things like GFs and Junctioning to use a game you've mentioned being familiar with), but it's also fun to have pre-designed characters so I don't get issues like locking up over decisions. I'm currently replaying FFV to get that done before you do, and boy there's a lot of customization you can do between party members that constantly has me second-guessing myself. Also, avoids later game issues of brain goblins making me want to min-max everything. You already skipped over one instance of it in FF3 where "if you job-swap everyone right before they level up they get better HP from things like Knight and Viking", but it can be exponentially worse in later games with the differences possible between just playing the game without thinking about it and using all the systems available to you. As in, easily 50+ stat points of difference.

And for a quick chime-in on the ATB system, one positive bit of fun to consider: just think about how much fun Haste and Slow are going to be now, with the ability to effectively take 4 turns for every 1 of the enemy.
 
illhousen said:
Thing is, I like both. I've sunk so many hours into TWEWY, so many. This is the game that makes random fights fun and almost meditative. And on the other side, bow before my collection of amateur RPG Maker games (including one called Last Scenario, lol. It's good, if not well-balanced)!

It's specifically ATB I dislike because I feel everything it does can be accomplished by just modifying normal turn-based combat so you could get more turns depending on your speed stat and so that some actions would delay your next turn or take two turns, etc. About the only thing you can't do easily here is what we've seen in the first boss fight: delaying your attacks until something changes with the enemy in real time. And how often does FF take advantage of that?

Now, for all I catastrophize about it, it's not really a deal-breaker or anything. ATB is tolerable. You can get used to it to the point that it almost doesn't bother you anymore. Once you learn the moveset and the pace of battles, it's not a huge deal.

It's just pointless and irritating, and I think sticking with the regular turn-based combat and iterating on it would have done the series good.
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A JRPG that does the dynamic, changing, mixed realtime and pause combat with different character and enemy speeds and interrupts and so on really well is Grandia. Sadly, that's in 1997 so it's 6 years from FFIV so we can't dunk on Final Fantasy for using the inferior system for the effect they're after for a few games yet XD.

I know Final Fantasy pioneered ATB, but were there other games of the same era with similar ideas?
 
Connelly said:
If you prefer turns, you won't like real action and viceversa, anyway!
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Not to dismiss your argument entirely, but I would like to point out that, as someone with a lifelong love of turn-by-turn RPGs and a FromSoft veteran, I do in fact like both live action and turn by turn and it's the middle-ground approach that is bothering me :V

Baam_35th said:
Wtf, now I'm getting alerts?? Still, I'm happy about it, I really enjoy this thread.
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I have gone and bothered the Operators about it, who told me the issue had been solved somehow. You're welcome!

Egleris said:
Yeah, it's not like ATB is a deal breaker or anything, it just increases the wait time between getting turns (paradoxically, since it's intended to make the game more dynamic) and requires you to have a "default battle plan" that you can deploy without thinking when you're facing new enemies so you don't lose too much time thinking in menu. Once you know what each member of your team is capable of, it's not difficult to handle or anything. It's just mostly superfluous, at least in the way most of the FF series uses it.
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I expect this will stabilize at some point in the game, but so far the rotating cast, while great from a narrative perspective, has been a pain in the ass in terms of working out a battle plan. I just went through a whole dungeon misunderstanding what Edward's Heal command actually does, and right now I'm starring at Rosa's command list wondering "what the fuck is Pray."

Normally I'd just look it up on the final fantasy wiki, but the pages which explain these commands sometimes also contain unmarked plot spoilers.

Khona Moshr said:
So @Omicron do you have any thoughts on how the Music usage has changed between games?
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Sadly, no.

I realize this may be a bit surprising or disappointing of a statement, but the fact of the matter is, I have a bad musical ear and a worse musical memory for anything that does not include vocals. Unless I have been exposed to it for hours upon hours over years, the moment an instrumental piece leaves my mind, it's gone.

So for instance, lately I've been playing Shadowrun: Dragonfall, replaying Elden Ring, and of course the Final Fantasy series. If I try my hardest, I can remember the opening menu theme from Dragonfall and Elden Ring, and the Pandaemonium theme from FF2. That's about it. I can't remember anything else about the music of any of these games without being directly exposed to it. If I put on the soundtrack of one of them, it would refresh my memory, and I might be able to comment on it, but I straight up can't do any comparative work between these soundtracks without essentially putting on the playlist and live-writing my comments, and even then it would be tepid commentary at best.

This is not helped by the fact that due to the significant time in each game spent running through dungeons or on the overworld fighting identical battles against random mobs, with these encounters always stopping the ambient music dead to replace it with a generic battle theme, which happens like every thirty seconds, I mostly play the games with the sound turned off and listening to something else like a video or a podcast, except during scripted story scenes and dialogue. I realize this is sacrilegious, but, well.

The one thing that's striking to me in FFIV is how it often kills its soundtrack for dramatic effect - it's very cinematic that way. The moment silence would emphasize the gravity or tension of a moment in a film, the BGM cuts off.
Cyn said:
Quick question, by every final fantasy game, do you mean every mainline game, or EVERY game?
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Every mainline game, most likely replacing XI by X-2.

Kadmus said:
A JRPG that does the dynamic, changing, mixed realtime and pause combat with different character and enemy speeds and interrupts and so on really well is Grandia. Sadly, that's in 1997 so it's 6 years from FFIV so we can't dunk on Final Fantasy for using the inferior system for the effect they're after for a few games yet XD.

I know Final Fantasy pioneered ATB, but were there other games of the same era with similar ideas?
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GRANDIA???

HOLY SHIT

SOMEBODY ELSE PLAYED GRANDIA???
 
Omicron said:
GRANDIA???

HOLY SHIT

SOMEBODY ELSE PLAYED GRANDIA???
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It's a solid nostalgia game for me, one of those games I played at exactly the right time in my life for it to stick with me no matter how dated it is. Or how awful the voice-acting is. The combat system remains pretty good, I think!

(It is also on Steam if you weren't aware.)
 
Omicron said:
I expect this will stabilize at some point in the game, but so far the rotating cast, while great from a narrative perspective, has been a pain in the ass in terms of working out a battle plan. I just went through a whole dungeon misunderstanding what Edward's Heal command actually does, and right now I'm starring at Rosa's command list wondering "what the fuck is Pray."

Normally I'd just look it up on the final fantasy wiki, but the pages which explain these commands sometimes also contain unmarked plot spoilers.
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according to the wiki, it's a 50/50 attempt to Cure spell the party for free or fail to do anything.

The DS version apparently added an MP heal to it?

Not sure what version of mechanics the pixel remaster is on though.
 
Omicron said:
Interesting also that the game seems to be pulling freely from previous games - notably FF2.
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My take on that is that, just as FFIII is essentially "FFI but better", FFIV is essentially "FFII but better". Of course, FFIII changed the paradigm enough that all Final Fantasy after it tried their best to synthesize elements of ALL the preceding fantasies, but I think it's undeniable that FFII was owed the lion share of the inspiration where FFIV is concerned.

Omicron said:
I expect this will stabilize at some point in the game, but so far the rotating cast, while great from a narrative perspective, has been a pain in the ass in terms of working out a battle plan.
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And a key element of this similarity is that the cast will keep rotating, although you'll slowly accrue permanent members until you have the endgame team. You'll figure out when you have the final team in hand easily enough, but until then, outside of Cecil, getting the hang of the other characters quickly as soon as you get them is pretty much mandatory; FFIV has the second largest cast in the series, so just be prepared for it.
 
Connelly said:
t's fair to dislike the ATB system, but the straight demonization is just blown out of proportion
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I guess it wasn't awful in x-2? X really didn't feel like atb, but I guess it did have character speed stuff. XII let you automate stuff enough I never really felt pressured. It was pretty brutal in XIII though. I found myself not engaging at all with half the jobs in the game because they required me to actually think about what I was doing and half my team would wipe in the time I was doing that. Though part of that is down to being combined with other mechanics like story gated level caps preventing grinding.
 
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Wiggy said:
X really didn't feel like atb, but I guess it did have character speed stuff.
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FFX is the only one after FFIII to be turn based rather than ATB; it didn't feel like it was using ATB because it wasn't. In fact, it's probably one of the better implementations of turn based combat I've come across in RPG, since turn order can actually be manipulated and thus the fact that the game is turn based adds an additional element of strategy to the battle by having to consider long term consequences in addition to short term ones, which is something that RPG almost never have. FFX has plenty of its own faults, but the turn-based approach to combat is probably one of the aspects where it's superior to most other titles in the series.
 
Egleris said:
FFX is the only one after FFIII to be turn based rather than ATB; it didn't feel like it was using ATB because it wasn't. In fact, it's probably one of the better implementations of turn based combat I've come across in RPG, since turn order can actually be manipulated and thus the fact that the game is turn based adds an additional element of strategy to the battle by having to consider long term consequences in addition to short term ones, which is something that RPG almost never have. FFX has plenty of its own faults, but the turn-based approach to combat is probably one of the aspects where it's superior to most other titles in the series.
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Yeah, FFX was my first final fantasy, and it was really fun, even if heavy duty nostalgia is probably blind me to a lot of its flaws lol. All the time magic and turn manipulation stuff was great. Hell, valefor is probably my favorite summon just because of it.
 
Omicron said:
realize this may be a bit surprising or disappointing of a statement, but the fact of the matter is, I have a bad musical ear and a worse musical memory for anything that does not include vocals. Unless I have been exposed to it for hours upon hours over years, the moment an instrumental piece leaves my mind, it's gone
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A little disappointing, since this is the game where they start telling abit of characters characzation through Leitmofits, and can finally start having unique battle and character themes through the improve hardware of the SNES.
 
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