The better Final Fantasy game?

noodler · 25-04-2011 1:48pm

Anyway, enough petty squables about the role of nostalgia in determining my favourite FF.

I have FF4 installing onto my PSP as we speak so I hope the small screen will help me through the fact the game is 20 years old.

Retr0gamer · 25-04-2011 2:31pm

Well my opinion is as valid as yours noodler, unfortunately for you.

Mindkiller wrote: »

People say that VII's materia system is derivative but IX's equipment system thingy has far more in common with VI's esper system than any other game. Not that that's a bad thing or anything.

Well VII's system is very similar to FFVI's and FFIX's. However the big difference is that FFVI gives unique abilities to it's characters and FFIX limits spells and abilities to each character making each character standout and making each character standout. In FFVII each character is a blank slate with pretty much the same stats. That on it's own is not a bad thing, FFV and FF Tactics used the same fully customisable characters. However there was a hell of a lot of strategy to creating characters in those two games. In FFVII it really doesn't matter what matter you put on a character they all end up pretty much the same other than their limit breakers. There's negative effects to putting some materia on characters but the game is so piss easy that the best route to take is just load up characters with as much materia as you can and you'll be fine. It's all a bit boring and simple really. Even FF1 and Dragon Quest 1 are more involving in terms of battle system. You haveto manage resources in those game whereas in FFVII you've so much MP that it's not a concern. It's all a bit simple. It never ruins the game at least since it ticks along nicely since it's easy enough and the game is well paced but it's a bit 'my first RPG'.

noodler · 25-04-2011 4:57pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well my opinion is as valid as yours noodler, unfortunately for you.

Now be fair, your opinion on which is better was never a problem - it was just the way you sought to lessen the importance of anyone with an opinion contary to your own.

About 2 hours into FF4 now, its beautiful. The sprites jump off the screen and the load times between battles and changing locations are non-existant (I would have enjoyed the PS1 FF6 alot more if it had recieved this kind of treatment).

The whole thing is moving at some pace, already been to around 4 towns and as many Dungeons. Dungeon crawling is a little much this early on but the aforementioned load times do help move it along.

Theres also an-autopilot opion in battles if you just push select which also helps for some of the battles you have no chance of losing.

Enjoying the story too - bit like 6 though where everything feels a little skindeep but thats just the limitations of the age I guess.

Mindkiller · 25-04-2011 4:58pm

I don't know about anyone else but I found FFVI to be one of the most patronisingly easy RPGs I've ever played.

The blank statement argument is a valid point, but with IX and VI I found that there were too many crappy characters whose individual unique skills didn't really do much. Gau in particular comes to mind. Edgar's tools are useless later on. Off the top of my head, Terra, Shadow, Locke, Sabin, whoever the blue mage was and Celes were the only 'good' characters. Everyone else was like filler. And in the end the only abilities that really matter are their magic skills.

IX is slightly better in that regard. Eiko and Amarant are the only ones that I found a waste of space.

noodler · 25-04-2011 8:04pm

Mindkiller wrote: »

I don't know about anyone else but I found FFVI to be one of the most patronisingly easy RPGs I've ever played.

The blank statement argument is a valid point, but with IX and VI I found that there were too many crappy characters whose individual unique skills didn't really do much. Gau in particular comes to mind. Edgar's tools are useless later on. Off the top of my head, Terra, Shadow, Locke, Sabin, whoever the blue mage was and Celes were the only 'good' characters. Everyone else was like filler. And in the end the only abilities that really matter are their magic skills.

IX is slightly better in that regard. Eiko and Amarant are the only ones that I found a waste of space.

Sure 8 only had 6 playable characters and two of them were redundant.

Aurongroove · 25-04-2011 8:23pm

Eiko and Amarant are both awesome!!.

9 did a great job of not making certain people suck. Even Quina, who let's face it, is most at risk of sucking, has some really deadly **** and is probably my favourite character. The most sucky person is Zidane really, and even he's not that bad. and he has the strongest trance abilities.

Actually speaking of trance. I feel a lot of FF9's job of not making certain people suck had to do with the toning down of the "limit break-y-overdrive-y" moves.

in FF7 (which I'm playing at the moment) especially RedXIII and Yuffie, but also Vincent, Cait-Sith and Tifa are laughing stocks because of their lv4 limit breaks compared to Barret, Cloud and Cid (and Aries).

I usually end up leaving Yuffie and RedXIII in lv3, for their "chain attack" style limitbreaks. Have Cait Sith use his defensive limits in-case he ends up killing the damn team, and for Tifa, just settling for a sensible "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hit, hit, hit"

the final weapon "max damage game" dosn't really help balance things either and are further downers for Tifa and Vincent.

8 and 10 were stupid aswell,
especially 10, the best limit break in the game are Wakka's strength reels and Yuna's Overdrive summon and and no one else (especially not Kimari and Rikku) come anywhere near

seraphimvc · 26-04-2011 1:56am

blue mage always sucks tbh (gau,quitis's ulti, quina, kimahri)

their skills are very situational and thats what makes them unique. the ff7's enemy skill is prob the best presentation of 'blue mage' (such an irony, since anyone can use it -_-)

i totally agree that ff7's biggest flaw was all you need to use is 3 characters you like, and it is the only game in the ps1 FFs that suffers this problem because the leveled up materias are transferable. i used cloud+cid+tifa as my fulltime characters, the rest of the characters have like 20+ levels behind them in the end. such a pity that i still havent seen Aeries's limit 4

(who in the right mind would grind aeries to limit 4 when you hit world map???)

8 you have different GF suitablility to different characters and 9 the weapons skills are not transferable. while the ps2 era ffx suffers the same thing in the late game and 12 gets worse, you got all characters pretty early in the game and you can ignore most of them if you wish (which is why they get a remake battle system for international version).

noodler · 26-04-2011 9:38am

seraphimvc wrote: »

such a pity that i still havent seen Aeries's limit 4 (who in the right mind would grind aeries to limit 4 when you hit world map???)

It takes a little bit of work but I think the criteria are to kill x number of people and perform the current limit break x numbers of times. So killing is easy enough with Aeris with her better magic and summons and then you just but her into angry mode (can't remember the status term but it lasts between battles and is the opposite of sad but it makes the limit bar fill faster).

seraphimvc wrote: »

8 you have different GF suitablility to different characters and 9 the weapons skills are not transferable. while the ps2 era ffx suffers the same thing in the late game and 12 gets worse, you got all characters pretty early in the game and you can ignore most of them if you wish (which is why they get a remake battle system for international version).

8 was crap for that as well I'd agree.

In X it didn't bother me, I think X made the greatest use of charcters in the modern era FF games

Tidus for the wolves and other agile creatures
Wakka for the flying ones
Auron for anything armoured
Lulu with her magic for elemental weaknesses
Kimhari..probably the weakest but decent physical strength
Rikku for mixing and she could also kill robots in one hit
Yuna was a one man army/white mage as well

I agree you could go wherever you wanted on the Sphere Grid late game but were talking pretty late.

RedXIV · 26-04-2011 9:45am

noodler wrote: »

It takes a little bit of work but I think the criteria are to kill x number of people and perform the current limit break x numbers of times. So killing is easy enough with Aeris with her better magic and summons and then you just but her into angry mode (can't remember the status term but it lasts between battles and is the opposite of sad but it makes the limit bar fill faster).

Each limit 1 per level needs to have 80 monsters killed and you need to use that level's limit 1 8 times to get limit 2. Also, the "angry mode" is Hyper, which can be achieved by applying the item of the same name.

Also for Aeries lvl 4 limit, there is a bit of work around actually GETTING the level 4 limit, Can't remember it exactly now but you need to get it off the guy you get the keystone from for the temple of the ancients.

noodler wrote: »

8 was crap for that as well I'd agree.

In X it didn't bother me, I think X made the greatest use of charcters in the modern era FF games

Tidus for the wolves and other agile creatures
Wakka for the flying ones
Auron for anything armoured
Lulu with her magic for elemental weaknesses
Kimhari..probably the weakest but decent physical strength
Rikku for mixing and she could also kill robots in one hit
Yuna was a one man army/white mage as well

I agree you could go wherever you wanted on the Sphere Grid late game but were talking pretty late.

I'd have to agree here, when I got FFX (all those years ago

) it really was the first RPG to really drill the point home that strategy is important and picking the right person is crucial. I thought FFX was a little easy but a well designed game. Although I liked Legend of Dragoon so my taste is not to be trusted

seraphimvc · 26-04-2011 10:26am

noodler wrote: »

It takes a little bit of work but I think the criteria are to kill x number of people and perform the current limit break x numbers of times. So killing is easy enough with Aeris with her better magic and summons and then you just but her into angry mode (can't remember the status term but it lasts between battles and is the opposite of sad but it makes the limit bar fill faster).

ohya the item trick makes the limit bar fills quicker!
i keep aeris most of the time in my team but i still havent seen her limit4 after so many times of gameplay Q_Q

noodler wrote: »

8 was crap for that as well I'd agree.

In X it didn't bother me, I think X made the greatest use of charcters in the modern era FF games

Tidus for the wolves and other agile creatures
Wakka for the flying ones
Auron for anything armoured
Lulu with her magic for elemental weaknesses
Kimhari..probably the weakest but decent physical strength
Rikku for mixing and she could also kill robots in one hit
Yuna was a one man army/white mage as well

I agree you could go wherever you wanted on the Sphere Grid late game but were talking pretty late.

ya, ffx is actually kinda perfect in early-mid game(the first 10hours, depends on whenever you get to Anima:pac:), the monsters are designed that you will need to switch between the designated charcaters (except kimahri..........). when i made my post all i remember was that my gamesave on tidus/auron/wakka completed the whole grid XD

Retr0gamer · 26-04-2011 11:29am

As long as you know the exact criteria to getting to the next limit level then it's actually very easy to get all the way to limit level 4 with all characters before the end of disc one without grinding, I did it on my second playthrough.

noodler · 26-04-2011 11:49am

I finally get the Spoony Bard reference in FF games

FF4 spoilert

After less than 5 hours of play yesterday (According to the in-game clock) I have already converted Cecil to a Paladin. Is that normal? Feels like I am flying through it -only positive about Paladin is that maybe Cecil will be a bit weaker now - his darkness attack was ripping through all and sundry until now and not leaving other characters much to do

seraphimvc · 26-04-2011 11:58am

Retr0gamer wrote: »

As long as you know the exact criteria to getting to the next limit level then it's actually very easy to get all the way to limit level 4 with all characters before the end of disc one without grinding, I did it on my second playthrough.

i remember i did get the mytril thing to exchange for the limit4, but level2 and 3 limit are an a** to get to, there is no way anyone can get to see her all limits without purposely focus on grinding her. or maybe i did get to see limit4 in my last game play many years ago :P is the angel thingy right? can barely remember that lol

RedXIV · 26-04-2011 1:14pm

For your memory

Retr0gamer · 26-04-2011 2:33pm

noodler wrote: »

FF4 spoilert
After less than 5 hours of play yesterday (According to the in-game clock) I have already converted Cecil to a Paladin. Is that normal? Feels like I am flying through it -only positive about Paladin is that maybe Cecil will be a bit weaker now - his darkness attack was ripping through all and sundry until now and not leaving other characters much to do

That's not all that far into the game really. FF4 is pretty short anyway and I heard the new version has been made easier.

seraphimvc wrote: »

i remember i did get the mytril thing to exchange for the limit4, but level2 and 3 limit are an a** to get to, there is no way anyone can get to see her all limits without purposely focus on grinding her. or maybe i did get to see limit4 in my last game play many years ago :P is the angel thingy right? can barely remember that lol

It's actually really easy to do with all the characters. If I remember correctly to get the second limit break you need to kill 8 enemies with your limit break. Then to upgrade to the next level of limit breaks that character has to kill 50 enemies by themselves. So if you are in battle with 5 enemies get the character you want to level up to kill them all with a summon and you are 1/10th of the way there. For aeris it's a bit different since some of her limits don't kill enemies soyou just have to cast them a certain number of times or kill enemies by herself. So if you know exactly what the criteria are for levelling up your limit breaks it's very easy to do. I had all my characters with the exception of vincent and Yuffie ready for level 4 limit breaks before the end of disc 1 on my second playthrough since I knew what the exact criteria were.

Aurongroove · 26-04-2011 3:22pm

there is a spot in the forest by fort condor where you can quickly get all limit break it's possible to have at that stage.

the capperwire enemies show up in teams of 5 and there flying dudes in teams of three. so you can quickly gain fast kill numbers, these guys also do amazing damage for that part of the game. so the limit breaks will keep coming with or without hyper (buy hyper makes it immeasurably faster).

Keep in mind:

if you have only the 1st limit break of a lv, then you need to do the limit break a few times to get the second one, if you have both and you want to move up a level, you need to kill enemies.

Aries 2nd lv2 limit break "fury brand" gives a limit break to each of her teammates, so lets say a flying dude hits cloud, tifa and aries and gives them all limit breaks, use cloud's & tifa's first, then Aries fury brand, which will grants cloud and tifa a 2nd limit break each.

also for Tifa's 1st level limit breaks to count, they must not "miss",
so if you need to do 6 "dolphin blows" to get "meteor strike" then any limit break where the actual move Dolphin blow misses, it dosn't count tword the six needed to gain meteor strike. To be on the safe side, you're better off just going for a hit rather then risking the miss on a"yeah!" when your looking to get her 2nd level limit breaks.

In a single day (not sure how many minutes/hours) with the help of fury brand and the item "Hyper". you can basically end up with all the limit breaks it;s possible to get (so cloud, tifa, barret, red and yuffie level 3 limit 2) and Aries lv4. you don't have Vincent, Cid or Cait Sith on your team yet.

but once you do, there's a spot for Vincent (Vincent has no 2nd level limit breaks; it's one transformation per level, so he just needs kills) the forest outside rocket town has enemy numbers of 6, 5 and 2 per encounter. you can quickly get his kill rating up.
Cat sith dosnt need to be worried about (kill a few get to lv 2, your're done!) and Cid can use the same forest to get the kill figures up, but other wise, you'll have to find strong enemy and get by with something like fury status and cover materia to keep the 1st level limits breaks coming.

The better Final Fantasy game?

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