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- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
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- She/Her
This thread also made SV's 10x10 retrospective too (Number None did as well)
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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
This thread also made SV's 10x10 retrospective too (Number None did as well)
- Location
- Brittany, France
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- He/Him
Amazing news!
Thank you to everyone who voted for this foolish and hubristic undertaking to win this award, and thank you to everyone who's reading it now, going into its third year.
I wish I'd had a special post locked and loaded for January 1st/the end of Winter fest as a special celebration but, alas, I had to leave to tend to some family business so it'll be a few days before I can write anything.
The urge to start FFIX is gnawing at the back of my mind like a hungry raccoon trapped in a trash can though, every moment putting it off is a new frustration! But I'm away from my computer so, alas.
Thank you to everyone who voted for this foolish and hubristic undertaking to win this award, and thank you to everyone who's reading it now, going into its third year.
I wish I'd had a special post locked and loaded for January 1st/the end of Winter fest as a special celebration but, alas, I had to leave to tend to some family business so it'll be a few days before I can write anything.
The urge to start FFIX is gnawing at the back of my mind like a hungry raccoon trapped in a trash can though, every moment putting it off is a new frustration! But I'm away from my computer so, alas.
IX does have a decade-old mobile port if you're in the mood to add a hilarious gimmick to the next months of this thread
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- She/Her/He/Him
Thank you for making this great Let's Play, it's been an absolute blast following it and all the intresting discussions! It's great seeing analysis that places equal focus on gameplay and story, how all of that is communicated to players and what that means. It's a breath of fresh air.
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- Brittany, France
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As funny as the thought is, this is as good a post as any to mention the topic - I think I am currently leaning in the direction of a straight emulation of the PSX game.IX does have a decade-old mobile port if you're in the mood to add a hilarious gimmick to the next months of this thread
The texture and models are gonna be a bit low res but it didn't bother me overmuch in VIII and I don't super trust/have some ethical issues with the AI upscaling of background textures by a mod like Moguri; the main thing I'm worried about is random encounters and steal rates getting tedious, but hopefully an emulator's native ability to accelerate the game and save scum steal attempts (should it prove necessary, which judging from some comments it will) should be enough to make it tolerable.
The save states also help with the card game, because that shit is way too random.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
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I have been playing FFIX for over two decades now. It's one of my favorite games.
I still have no fucking idea how Tetra Master works
At least its wholly disconnected from the main gameplay loop unlike Triple Triad
Yyeah went in starting a new game on the switch port to play along and it took me a bit to realize just how obnoxiously random it is. checked to see if there was anything major locked behind it and then dropped messing with THAT like a hot rock.
From some guide:
There are three steps to a card battle:
- Temporary attack and defense values are generated for the attacking and defending cards, respectively, within their respective ranges.
- A number is generated randomly between zero and the attack and defense values.
- The numbers generated in Step 2 are subtracted from the numbers generated in Step 1. The winner is the card with the biggest remaining number.
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Step 2+3 should have halving the value from 1 as its expected result, so based on your description the goal should still be to get the biggest possible value in 1.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Yeah, but it's still a very random process. There's few things as disheartening as counting on a victory due to pitting a card with a value guaranteed to be around a few thousands against a card that is guaranteed to be no higher than twenty, and then see the latter win.
And it wouldn't be that hard to fix either - just have each player start with a fixed amount of points that they can distribute between cards, with a card's level determining how much is the maximum amount of point it can hold and the attack and defense value determining how much of that amount is shorn off with each fight. Behold, strategy that still allows for upsets if a player is reckless or the battlefield is unsuited to their attack arrows. I really don't know why they went with such a random process, it completely removes any value from the game, making it just a more complicated version of betting on dice rolls.
And it wouldn't be that hard to fix either - just have each player start with a fixed amount of points that they can distribute between cards, with a card's level determining how much is the maximum amount of point it can hold and the attack and defense value determining how much of that amount is shorn off with each fight. Behold, strategy that still allows for upsets if a player is reckless or the battlefield is unsuited to their attack arrows. I really don't know why they went with such a random process, it completely removes any value from the game, making it just a more complicated version of betting on dice rolls.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
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- She/Her
It's especially weird considering IX also features one of the best minigames in the series, Chocobo Hot & Cold.
Which is also RNG dependent. I think the only one that isn't is the Frog Catching.
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Many things in FF9 are RNG dependent. It's like the biggest problem I have with the game.
I still love it overall, but like, someone making that was smoking something weird.
Edit: I'll admit though... I actually kinda like Tetra master?
It's got issues and I see why people prefer triple triad, but Tetra master having more consistent rules and a larger grid space made me actually experiment with some tactics a few times - like deliberately having a weaker card with a ton of arrows so I could tempt an enemy to use it to flip all of mine, only to then Uno-Reverse them by taking it back.
Still, it definitely needed less RNG. If it was more consistent, it would be remembered as fondly as TT is, instead of being rather maligned.
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Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
While that's a fair criticism, in some cases it actually works to its advantage; people mentioned Hot&Cold, and while I don't want to go into too much details - I already feel the discussion is starting to veer into spoiler territory, which I would rather avoid - that's one minigame that is actually helped by the randomization element. It'd be boring without it, whereas it's quite fun with it included.
Like all things, RNG is the sort of gameplay element that can be effective when used appropriately - it's just that Tetra Master doesn't use it appropriately.
I know you had some mixed reactions to emulating FF8. The good news is that the character models in FF9 are much more readable. The bad news is that the vanilla prerendered backgrounds are very crunchy. I remember you'd experimented with post processing effects with FF8, and it might be worth trying them out again here. If you're using Duckstation, the Display "crt/crt-consumer" Post-Processing effect is IMO the best at bringing out the "intended" visuals without going overboard with giant scanlines or smearing. Give it a try and maybe bump the Gamma up a point or two if it's a little too dark.
Either way, a happy New Year to everyone who's made it this far. Don't forget, you're here forever.
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
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- She/They
Oh absolutely. There's plenty of situations where an amount of RNG is hopeful. It's just that it very much feels that at some point, they got a little bit addicted to it.
Chocobo hot and cold is great fun though.
...Actually, don't know if this is part of the old release, but I think that Key Items tend to have little bit's of extra information to them if you check them in your inventory. Making a note of this in case it's consistent so Omi doesn't miss it.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
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- He/Him
Good, good, this will help you get into the correct mindset to play FF9's main character.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Every single item does, not just Key Items. In fact, it's the only way to know when specific pieces of equipment have unique properties; it's good practice to check every single item in FFIX at least once with select (or perhaps it's square? I don't remember, but one of those two buttons, or maybe even both) because the utility of some items is sometimes not apparent from the basic description.
re: emulating FF9 - I mean, I have a playthrough in progress right now and it's pretty okay. As one of the last PSX games, like many late-in-the-generation games it uses what it has very well, although a certain crunchyness to the textures is going to be present just due to the televisions it was designed to look good on.
With that said, I feel like the current furor over 'AI' overlooks the non-overhyped-by-techbros use of the various technologies abusing the name. 'Upscaling backgrounds to which the original models and renders have probably been trashed decades ago by Squeenix' is on the benign side of it. So I personally don't find the Moguri mod offputting, but this ain't my Let's Play.
On the other hand, fidelity to the original experience isn't a bad thing, either. The Pixel Remasters and War of the Lions are comparatively minor changes, basically just bringing them to a modern level of graphical polish and quality-of-life features in the former and reverting mechanical changes, adding a bit more content and a generally more readable translation in the latter, and Duckstation does have a pretty durn good CRT filter.
With that said, I feel like the current furor over 'AI' overlooks the non-overhyped-by-techbros use of the various technologies abusing the name. 'Upscaling backgrounds to which the original models and renders have probably been trashed decades ago by Squeenix' is on the benign side of it. So I personally don't find the Moguri mod offputting, but this ain't my Let's Play.
On the other hand, fidelity to the original experience isn't a bad thing, either. The Pixel Remasters and War of the Lions are comparatively minor changes, basically just bringing them to a modern level of graphical polish and quality-of-life features in the former and reverting mechanical changes, adding a bit more content and a generally more readable translation in the latter, and Duckstation does have a pretty durn good CRT filter.
Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
For the last age and a half, I've been using CRT Royale through ReShade. And while it may not be perfect it is definitely far better than not using it. Might require some fiddling but it's not a super complex shader to get to personal preference.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Thank you for your discretion, and I agree that discussion is veering into spoiler territory.
To be fair, Vamo alla Flamenco is doing a lot of heavy lifting
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
...Hm. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it... I'm not sure I've ever played FFIX not on a CRT screen? I don't remember when my family got our first non-CRT television relative to when the last time I used my old PS2 was (and I don't recall if we ever while I was growing up had a television that would be high-resolution by modern standards, and of course whatever the hardware was I'd have been sitting some distance away...), and I've never played a ported or emulated version. So it might not just be nostalgia goggles that have me thinking of the prerendered graphics as not crunchy.Cypocryphy said:
If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, IIRC that was in the PSX version, aye.The3rdCorinthian said:
Ah, I'd forgotten it was all items; thanks. And I also think it's Select.Egleris said:
Pretty sure by the time FF9 was made, it was in fact being made for non-crts and that america was just behind the times.
Even other ps1 games like SOTN weren't made with CRTs in mind and stuff like Dracula's eye glow were just pure coincidence. The whole 'PS1 games were intended to be viewed on CRTs' thing is entirely overblown.
Even other ps1 games like SOTN weren't made with CRTs in mind and stuff like Dracula's eye glow were just pure coincidence. The whole 'PS1 games were intended to be viewed on CRTs' thing is entirely overblown.
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- He/Him
I believe CRTs remained the dominant display well into the 2000s. FF9 is a 2000 game.