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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
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speaking seriously this is a good reminder that I need to buy an external drive, i just haven't gotten around to it but i will soon i swear
- Location
- Italy
Hahaha, of course!
That D: near "DATA" is screaming in agony.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
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FFVIII isn't longer than FFVII, it just has a lot more images to showcase. FFIX is shorter than FFVIII and has about the same level of "you need to see this one", so it's likely going to require less images.
FFT, on the other hand, despite being way shorter than even FFVI, is going to require a ton more images simply due to the nature of the game; I'd not be surprised if the amount of total images was twice that of FFVIII.
FFT, on the other hand, despite being way shorter than even FFVI, is going to require a ton more images simply due to the nature of the game; I'd not be surprised if the amount of total images was twice that of FFVIII.
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Damn, I can hear Omi's drive crying from here.
Totally Omicron For Reals said:
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VIII was "shorter" than VII in that I had less things to say about it, but objectively speaking it took me 23 more hours to finish than VII did. Sure, a lot of that is Drawing spells, playing Triple Triad, and fast-forwarding through battles, but that's still time, it's just time that's less interesting to talk about. VIII is longer than VII, at least if you don't use veteran tactics to break the game on Disc 1 and win every battle in one attack the whole rest of the game, it's just less dense with interesting narrative content, and a lot of its content is optional, which is another way of saying missable.
Which is another way of saying the game is just more of a slog.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
I see that I should clarify what I mean a bit better. My fault, and apologies for it.
Let me instead ask you a question: which would you say, between FFVII and FFVIII, is the game that has more story to it? More events that happen, more plot beats, more plot twists, more character development, more revelations, just more stuff taking place?
Because that is what I refer to when I say that FFVII is the longest Final Fantasy. It has the longer story.
If a game is 80% meaningless busywork and tiresome meandering around, it might take a lot longer in terms of hours, but in terms of updates and images you'll need to capture to properly convey the experience (remember, that's what sparked this discussion, the information about the number of screenshots you had collected), you'll need a lot less, because you only need one screenshot of "and then I went through a desert for three hours", and it'll only cover perhaps three lines of update, if you feel like commenting on the views you encountered in the desert.
Does any of that makes sense to you? The games are going to grow more tiresome and annoying, but in terms of actual meaningful length, they'll also be growing a lot shorter, at least in my opinion. Whether those two cancel out... well, you'll tell us when you play through them, I imagine.
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Speaking of screenshots, SE just opened up a fun future possibility for this Let's Play. They announced a port of Triangle Tactics, which is a game that's super similar to FFT, to VR. Imagine now how fun screenshots are going to get if that rumored FFT remake turns out to be VR exclusive.
It honestly seems like the most appropriate future just so there will never be an actual best way to play FFT
It honestly seems like the most appropriate future just so there will never be an actual best way to play FFT
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It does, but I think there's a rift between our perspectives here that's caused by the fact that I'm the one writing this Let's Play. Remember: I have to play the games before I can write about them. All these hundreds of thousands of words correspond to actual gameplay time that I have to spend at my computer engaging with the game! And I am doing this because I enjoy having things to talk about these games. I don't enjoy having nothing to write about or going through hours of tedious content that's not fun to engage with and gets summed up in three lines.
If the game is longer, more tiresome to play, and there is less story content to play, then it's going to take me even longer to actually get through the games. These things don't cancel out; they compound. If I have to play more of a game I enjoy less in order to write the same amount, then these updates are only going to get further and further apart, and the time it takes to complete each game in this Let's Play will only grow. You don't consider that 'meaningful length' because it's not story and characterization, it's not the stuff that you're here to read about and that I'm here to write about, but all length is meaningful to me because I have to actually play the game.
VII took me 51+ hours to finish and 6 months to write about. VIII took me 73+ hours to finish and 8 months to write about. A ~50% increase in play time led to a ~33% increase in Let's Play time. The causation isn't direct because I got delayed by a bunch of stuff in my life, but realistically this will also happen with future game because life doesn't stop happening. It's very likely that any further increase in actual play time will also result in an increase in Let's Play completion time, even if the LP end up 'weighing' fewer words for lack of things to talk about.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
I know about that, and do sympathize with it - I'm sorry if it came across as if I didn't.
It's just, the discussion was about the amount of footage you would need to capture, and I said, you'll need to capture less, because the games have less important footage to capture (due to less footage being directly relevant to the story). My specific post was in answer to "you'll need more storage space", remember? You needing more time to play through something is obviously not good, for you or for the thread, and I understand why it would prompt you to jump in and correct me about game length, but in the context I was talking about, it wasn't really relevant.
I do apologize if that irked you. I can't imagine it's enjoyable to consider that a game might be less fun to play if you're already committed to playing it, and wanting to vent about it is normal. It's just, that wasn't the form of length that was relevant to the discussion.
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You opened this by saying "FFVIII isn't longer than FFVII, it just has a lot more images to showcase." This is, very explicitly, a statement that the game isn't as long, which isn't true! It is in fact longer! That's just an objective fact! You then went on to clarify that there is a thing you were talking about without making it explicit that you consider meaningful length, which, okay, but I had to explain that this is not in fact something that I consider real or meaningful for my own experience of the gameplay. This whole 'but I was actually talking about image count' is weird because you literally started by saying, VIII isn't longer than VII, which is objectively untrue and I had to correct. If you see this as not relevant to your actual point then whatever, but like, I am responding to the actual words that you used.
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anyway i've downloaded a psp emulator so i could check both versions of tactics and several hours later it is my regret to inform you that this is now a Dissidia: Final Fantasy let's play thread. rest of the series is never getting done this is my life now. no thought only ex burst
I'm OK with this. Are you playing the objectively more complete release, Duodecim?
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
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Let's Play The Only Good Fighting Game Ever Released [Now Playing: Dissidia 012 - Duodecim]
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I am, although for some reason I can't quite figure out it feels like I'm having a lot more trouble winning fights in Duodecim than I did briefly playing the first before it was pointed out to me that Duodecim was just a more complete game, even just playing the same characters in simple battle mode.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
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"There is no mercy, compassion in the world. Embrace the chaos, for in the end that is all. Now the universe is broken- lost its force. Turn your back on all you have loved; for it is gone in a second."
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- Him/He
Well, the good news is (assuming we get you strapped back on the wagon) we'll have two games before a new console reminds you of all the other great games from the era you could be playing.
...although I never played or watched dissidia. It was the first 'lets put FF into a blender' game long before FF14, and released sometime after the biggest spike of 'lets write fanfiction where all the FF characters go to school and are taught by other FF characters' that I recall.
What's it like?
In terms of gameplay, it's one of the most incredible fighting games ever designed. I played both releases for about 500 hours. Moveset customization is neat, and the bravery system* leads to some neat interactions. The visuals are spectacular. Duodecim's RPG mode helped me out.
In terms of story, well, it's nothing profound, but seeing these characters interact with each other is cool, and some thought is put into it. It's enjoyable seeing what they do with characters from older games, who are somewhat more fleshed out by necessity. Everyone has a more or less complete character arc and tons of side stories and interactions. Most of the Cosmos characters have partial amnesia for plot reasons, so their character devolution is more explicable.
Surprisingly, there are not that many spoilers. Outside of the lore library and such, most events from the mainline games are referred to vaguely and obliquely, with a preference for references and narrative parallels, so it's entirely possible to play the entire game and see all the scenes where, say, Squall and Laguna are talking, and come out of the credits in total unawareness of what the connection between the two is.
* The Bravery System was basically copied wholesale for Exalted Third Edition, which I always found easily understandable
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Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
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It does admittedly flanderize the characters a bit; Squall serves as something of a team dad to Zidane and Bartz even though Bartz is older than him and his whole arc in 8 was about how he's not actually as mature or cool as he projects
Aside from what was already stated, it also inspired the combat system of my favorite TRPG, the 3rd edition of Exalted. See, Dissidia doesn't work like a normal fighting game. You have one type of move that builds up 'brave points', and then finishing moves that convert your BP into actual damage, to put it very simply.
Exalted decided to just straight up copy that for an easier time portraying epic wuxia-style fights without needing to give everybody a hundred hit points or something.
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I have barely touched the Story mode because I want to avoid spoilers for games I haven't played yet (though judging by the way it seems like every character was plucked from their timeline and have fuzzy or no memory of their original lives, I probably needn't worry about that), so I can't speak for the narrative, but gameplay wise:
Dissidia is a 3D fighting game using a unique 'Bravery' system. Each combattant has a Bravery gauge, and basic attacks drain the enemy's Bravery to add it to your own. Bravery is separate from HP, which can only be depleted by HP attacks; an HP attack deals damage equal to your Bravery score. So opponents are fighting to drain and stock Bravery before expending it in big HP attacks that actually wear down the enemy's health, with Bravery reseting after an HP attack so it must be gained again and puts the character who just attacked in a position of weakness. (Exalted players will immediately recognize this as Literally The Ex3 Combat System).
The roster of playable characters was very simple in the original release: Each game in the series is represented by its lead protagonist and its most significant villain. That means Cloud and Sephiroth for VII, but it also means Cecil and Golbez (rather than Zeromus) for IV and an aggregate 'Onion Knight' character vs the Cloud of Darkness (rather than Xande) for III, which gives an idea of which antagonists were considered huge duds in their own games. Each character has its own unique fighting style based on some trait from the game they were for; in Cloud or Squall's case it's very obvious (gunblade/buster sword, Limit Breaks directly borrowed), but in the case of older games it's lead to interesting interpretations - for instance, Firion is a 'weapon user' fighting with a variety of weapons, to represent II's particular skill system based on individual weapon classes. Some characters are better at Bravery attacks, some at HP attacks; some are better at range, some close-up. Terra's Bravery attacks, for instance, fire homing spells like Fire or Blizzard that can hit powerfully and at range, but her moves are low-priority so an enemy up close can hit her through her start-up animation, so you want to ideally be away from the enemy. Her HP attacks are huge spells like Flood or Tornado, with the latter surrounding her with three individual tornados that circle the screen while she chants, forcing the enemy to either stay far away or risk getting hit while approaching her to break her out of the attack.
Each character has an EX Gauge. When it's maxed out, they can enter EX Mode, a transformation that grants a number of benefits like passive regeneration and modifying their attacks. If you successfully hit an enemy with a HP attack while in EX Mode, you will cause a special finishing move called EX Burst, requiring you to enter special inputs to maximize damage and tremendously hurting your opponent. EX Modes and EX Bursts are based on iconic Limit Breaks, boss phase transitions, or similar things: Terra, for instance, enters Trance and turns into her Esper form, allowing her to fly freely, and her EX Burst is Riot Blade, based on her desperation attack from FFVI that we never saw in this Let's Play. Ultimecia, meanwhile, Junctions Griever, and her final attack involves Time Stop, which is cool.
It's really, really fun to just take any of these characters that we previously only saw in turn-based/ATB systems, a gameplay that's very stiff and obviously more symbolic of the actual battle happening in the story than it is literal, and getting to play them as superpowered fighters zooming around the battlefield and actually hitting things with their swords. Like, I can play Squall and actually get to jump around and hit things with the gunblade and see them fly away, it feels real in a way RPG mechanics never quite do (though of course I love them for different reasons; I am much more of an RPG player than a fighting game player). And of course, getting to actually play the villains is tremendous fun; I absolutely suck ass at using Ultimecia's toolkit but I'm going to keep at it anyway because being the Evil Sorceress and raining death spells down on foes while doing evil little twirls is just incredibly fun.
The game doesn't necessarily explain itself very well, though - it never taught me that there was an actual Block function, just to Dodge enemy attacks, which isn't always practical. I get the strong impression that I don't fully understand the mechanics, both in combat and out of combat - there's actually a leveling system where you can unlock new moves for player characters, which is weird, and it's hard to find guides that explain things to you as a total newbie as opposed to assuming pre-established knowledge.
One thing I've remarked is that all characters have a ground toolkit and an aerial toolkit, so Terra casts Fire while on the ground and Blizzard while in the air. However, I've never actually seen her cast Fire, because even though the characters don't technically 'fly' (they fall if you don't keep them in the air through repeated actions), aerial action is so easy that it's incredibly likely to just spend an entire fight while in the air. It actually takes effort to bring a character down so you can leverage their ground moves; the default is for everyone to jump in the air and then stay there chasing each other with dashes and double jumps for the rest of the fight, which is a weird experience!
If anything, though, that makes this game a pretty faithful video game rendition of the final fight in Advent Children.
In fairness, Bartz is not portrayed as a responsible and goal-oriented person in Dissidia—he's shown as world-wise, confident, and emotionally stable, but his tendency to wander off and get hooked on sidequests clashes with Squall's professional and to-the-point mission focus.
That's why his character arc is less about him wanting to be seen to be mature and cool and more about accepting that no, he can't just do it alone; he has to rely on others even if those people and their actions don't match with his philosophy. He learns this in his own game, but again, amnesia.