Final Fantasy 7....by a non gamer

ancapailldorcha · 16-04-2012 6:46pm

I'm pretty sure I've seen posts of yours moaning about Ted Woolsey's FFVI localisation Retr0. Something about puns and bad jokes.

Retr0gamer · 16-04-2012 7:20pm

Yeah I did about 10 years ago when I was young and stupid. It was the hip thing to do if you were a FF fan

Now that I've matured and read some interviews with him and played the games again it's actually remarkable what he did and how he managed to get the stories feel and mean across in English which took up a lot more of the cartridges ROM than japanese does. I think at the time when emulation was new we thought the FF games were a lot deeper and intellectual in japanese and were shortchanged by the goofy english translations but the japanese versions are just as goofy. It got so bad that some people made fan translations that tried to make the games edgier by adding in swearing, now they were embarassing.

I made the mistake of also thinking he was responsible for all of Squares SNEs translations such as the god awful FF4/2 one. However he only came on board with Secret of Mana, not the best translation in the world but he also managed to knock that one out in 4 weeks, which is quite an amazing achievement considering. So I take back everything I said about Ted Woolsey, he was a great localiser.

However I'll never forgive him for Shadow Madness, a game up there with Legend of Dragoon for crappiness.

ancapailldorcha · 16-04-2012 7:23pm

I read somewhere, he did FFVI in a month. You can't blame the localiser for a crap game though. He can only do so much with a script.

Retr0gamer · 16-04-2012 7:32pm

Tell that to the Metal Gear fans trying to blame MGS2's crapiness on Audrey Kakou.

It was Mana he did in a month. He had a lot more time on FFVI which turned out great.

As for Shadow Madness, it wasn't a crap translation, Ted formed a development team and tried to make a japanese style JRPG. If you have played the result you'd understand

It was western so didn't need a translation, the game was just crap!

ancapailldorcha · 16-04-2012 7:46pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Tell that to the Metal Gear fans trying to blame MGS2's crapiness on Audrey Kakou.

It was Mana he did in a month. He had a lot more time on FFVI which turned out great.

As for Shadow Madness, it wasn't a crap translation, Ted formed a development team and tried to make a japanese style JRPG. If you have played the result you'd understand It was western so didn't need a translation, the game was just crap!

Can't blame him for trying. I had no idea he actually tried to make one himself.

Retr0gamer · 16-04-2012 7:48pm

Well it did try an awful lot of new ideas, just none of it worked at all. Can't blame him the guys for trying.

Mindkiller · 16-04-2012 7:55pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think at the time when emulation was new we thought the FF games were a lot deeper and intellectual in japanese and were shortchanged by the goofy english translations but the japanese versions are just as goofy. It got so bad that some people made fan translations that tried to make the games edgier by adding in swearing, now they were embarassing.

If there's one thing that pisses me off it's these pretentious weeaboo sorts that must play everything and watch everything in its original Japanese. Like they'd watch an anime and not notice how horrible the jap VA is and **** all over the English one. I understand why it makes sense in certain cases to avoid horrible dubbing, like in movies. But some localisation efforts are really, really good. Like FFXII, or (playing atm) Vagrant Story. Sure, the original intention or whatever may get corrupted and lost in the localisation process, but you have to love that pseudo-Shakespearian thing they bring to the 'Ivalice' games (I've heard that VS is set in Ivalice though I'm not sure if that's just a retcon).

Credit must be given to the fans who translated FFV though.

Love the way they say 'deifacted nethicite' in FFXII as well. Pure nonsense word but it's manipulations and deviations like that that set FFXII's translation apart from lots of other games.

Tell that to the Metal Gear fans trying to blame MGS2's crapiness on Audrey Kakou.

I've heard it argued now that Metal Gears Solid 2 is being revalued as some ambitious attempt at postmodern expression in video games or something. I don't really see it tbh. Maybe in a really superficial way.. maybe.

ancapailldorcha · 16-04-2012 8:31pm

Deifacted sort of resembles deity and refacted (if that's a word).
I saw MGS2 for what it was: a turd. You'd be mad to blame the translation team for that.
Shakespearean english is amazing and VS is set in Ivalice btw.

Retr0gamer · 16-04-2012 8:45pm

Mindkiller wrote: »

Like FFXII, or (playing atm) Vagrant Story. Sure, the original intention or whatever may get corrupted and lost in the localisation process, but you have to love that pseudo-Shakespearian thing they bring to the 'Ivalice' games (I've heard that VS is set in Ivalice though I'm not sure if that's just a retcon).

Ah, Alexander O. Smith's work. By far the best localiser out there. As for Vagrant Story being in Ivalice, apparently it is but anyone that's played it can see it was a total retcon.

Mindkiller wrote: »

I've heard it argued now that Metal Gears Solid 2 is being revalued as some ambitious attempt at postmodern expression in video games or something. I don't really see it tbh. Maybe in a really superficial way.. maybe.

As Audrey herself said, it was one of the worst scripts she has ever read in her life. MGS2 does have quite a few clever ideas and it you could call 'post modern' if you are pretentious enough. It even succeeds at them to tell the truth. Doesn't help that the surrounding script is awful.

Anyway some thoughts on FFVII's story. It's not awful. I do agree totally that it's full of some excellent moments as well. However I think these moments are far better than the overall story. Not a bad thing before people give out, a lot of the Dragon Quests do a similar thing.

I think the characters in the game are excellently fleshed out with the exception of Vincent, he seemed a bit rushed. Each character gets their moment in the in the spotlight and they are some of the highlights of the games, the small vignettes that show what type of character they are. The characters backstories are all wonderful and the highlight narratively speaking.

The main narrative holding it all together is a bit weak in parts and mostly you can tell the game was very rushed. I'd say they had the characters backstories all nicely fleshed out in a design document and I remember reading that they were making up the story that tied it all together right up to the last minute. It starts off great, Midgar is just wonderful but once you leave midgar it loses a bit of steam. The areas outside midgar are all a bit disjointed and the world doesn't really mesh, not really helped by wildly fluctuating art styles, another by product of the crazy development process. Some plot points are nicely fleshed out while others like the sephiroth clones seem to get forgotten about. Some of it also gets washed over by the localisation, I'm guessing most of use never realised what the sephiroth we were chasing really was on our first time through the game.

It's an interesting one though, there's a book ready to be written on the development of this game and the influences that kept creeping in during the production of the game. It's unfortunate we might not find out about it.

Anyway the plot might get lost a bit towards the end but the pace never lets up which is very good thing. I found myself always wanting to see what was next and being rewarded all the time with great personal vignettes between the characters.

I think Square could to well to look at FFVII to see what went wrong with the series. It's all gone a bit Michael Bay. The best parts of FFVII weren't the contrived cutscenes with the Weapons, although they were entertaining. Mine were the date in Golden Saucer, Red XIII finding out about his father. the Zack and Cloud subquests. No action, just some great character drama. It's that character drama that holds the story together towards the end when it starts to fall apart a bit and starts becoming a weird Chrono Trigger knock off.

FFVII's best parts for me weren't the over the top summons or CG. Nor was it the delusions of pretention, after all the message of the over arching story didn't go beyond the average episode of Captain Planet. It's just some good character drama which carries the game. Even the story itself for all the nitpicking I could do on it is still excellently paced which in a PS1 is a rare and very good thing. There's not a boring moment, you just have to look at something like Xenogears to see how badly paced a JRPG story can get.

And before the moaning starts I'll try say something to calm people down, Persona 3 and 4 are kind of the same. The overarching narrative isn't what matters but the character interaction does.

ride-the-spiral · 16-04-2012 8:47pm

Vagrant Story's localisation is amazing. Definitely one of the best Shakespearean scripts for a game (although calling one two of your characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was a bit much, and Romeo Guildenstern no less!) I don't think XII worked nearly as well.

EDIT: I agree with what you say about characters driving the story. That being said some of my favourite parts of VIII are the action parts. For example

the assassination attempt on Edea

I find to be just amazing. Having just finished The Last Story made me think about it a lot more though as even though the story itself wasn't that great, the dialogue between the characters is incredibly well written and I consider the characters to be some of the most realistic I've seen in a JRPG at least. My most memorable parts of VII are just some of the small lines that the characters say after events, I think they capture the emotions quite well.

Of course then there's games like XIII that have terrible action sequences along with terrible character dialogue. :pac:

ancapailldorcha · 16-04-2012 8:55pm

ride-the-spiral wrote: »

Vagrant Story's localisation is amazing. Definitely one of the best Shakespearean scripts for a game (although calling one two of your characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was a bit much, and Romeo Guildenstern no less!) I don't think XII worked nearly as well.

You're being awfully complementary, Retr0.
Matsuno (the director and one of the best storytellers in gaming) left the project before it was finished. I don't know what stage the story was at but I'd have loved to know what the finished product would have been like. Apparently, manly heroes aren't popular in Japan and Basch, who resembles Ashley Riot was replaced with Vaan. Just a guess on my part, mind.
FFVII's story didn't have the same punch it had in Midgar. They'd set up a really cool Sci-fi environment and left it for a world map resembling FFVI in a lot of ways. That said the story has some great moments like

the WEAPONS

, Nibelheim, Kalm and so on which made me keep at it and see what would be next.
I'd prefer it if they'd fleshed out Sephiroth's backstory instead of saying he's the top SOLDIER and I was somewhat disappointed with him as a villain. Then I played Crisis Core which completely redeemed him in my eyes.
FFVII certainly has flaws but, like someone has already said, the overall experience of the game is way more than enough to outweigh them.
So long as you never ever go near the PC version.

Retr0gamer · 16-04-2012 9:05pm

Outside Midgar the game just feels a little too rustic. It's quite juxtaposed to the steampunk world of Midgar. A few places like Wutai stick out like a sore thumb. It's just a theory but I think the artists had created these places and they were then slotted into the story. It's not like they've done that before either, FFXIII was pretty much the same.

As for Sephiroth, I thought he turned a bit too quickly, it's kind of my only problem. As for Crisis Core I thought narratively that game was god awful other than letting us see sephiroth in happier days. Maybe being controlled by Jenova quite early on but still it's just too convenient.

He's no Kefka that's for sure :P I love that crazy clown.

ancapailldorcha · 16-04-2012 9:26pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

As for Sephiroth, I thought he turned a bit too quickly, it's kind of my only problem. As for Crisis Core I thought narratively that game was god awful other than letting us see sephiroth in happier days. Maybe being controlled by Jenova quite early on but still it's just too convenient.

I always felt like they never went into his backstory enough for it to be a big deal that he turned. I think they did a great job in Crisis Core in that through Zack, a rookie, we got to see him for a while as the legendary hero which made me sympathise with him somewhat. Seeing Cloud again was cool as well.

RedXIV · 17-04-2012 9:42am

OK so last night we started again with the shinra massacre. More than once were there comments made about the atmosphere and its spookiness. Unfortunately she didn't quite make the connection with the blood trail on the floor and as such, couldn't get out of the specimen room for ages because from where she was looking, it looked the like hall leading out was on the upper level rather than the lower one. Looking at it with her, its a reasonable mistake to make but there was a "ah balls" moment when she finally got it.

She is also taking to the story well and starting to learn a bit more about Sephiroth. We've gone through pronouncing his name as well a few times

but she really enjoyed (and completely nailed) the elevator boss and Rufus. She's really starting to understand the materia system now, for example, identifying that Enemy Skill materia is useless to her at the moment, cover is useless in a one man battle etc. This may not sound like a big deal to most people in here but for her this is well worth recognising as an achievement.

Rather comically, the motorbike mini game was a fun distraction but a lot harder than realised. She thought X was to speed up which is forgivable and the rather simple AI of the red bikers trying to draw you away working well on her, leaving her with Tifa on 10HP and Barret on 80HP at the start of the rollerball boss at the end. She took this well though, and set up everyone to be cured and tore through the boss. Like everyone I know who played the game the first time through, was thoroughly disgusted with Barret's MindBlow limit break

After leaving the city of Midgar, she's quite intrigued by the fact she's on a world map. And after a small bit of confusion about directions (walking northeast on the screen doesn't = walking northeast on the map) she got to Kalm.

I know alot of you were looking forward to this but I'm afraid to tell you, she's not that fond of the level of narrative here. We have stopped in the caves of Mt. Nibel with Sephiroth as a team member mainly because of gamers thumb and boredom. An interesting take on boredom though as she wants to play more but she wants to get back into the adventure. Although she is disgusted with the thought of Sephiroth killing Cloud's mother (as he reveals at the start of the flashback).

Other than that, not a lot was talked about. She said Cloud was her favourite character until this flashback and now he's boring her. She's gotten into the habit now of checking the shops for everything that might be of use and through all the leveling up she's been doing while lost, she's at a nice level to deal with just about anything. Hopefully the flashback won't put her off it too much and we'll get the rest of the game completed also.

P.S. we have also passed the 10 hour mark as set down in the original constraints and show no sign of stopping! Huzzah for the addictive nature of games!

Retr0gamer · 17-04-2012 10:09am

RedXIV wrote: »

OK so last night we started again with the shinra massacre. More than once were there comments made about the atmosphere and its spookiness. Unfortunately she didn't quite make the connection with the blood trail on the floor and as such, couldn't get out of the specimen room for ages because from where she was looking, it looked the like hall leading out was on the upper level rather than the lower one. Looking at it with her, its a reasonable mistake to make but there was a "ah balls" moment when she finally got it.

Tell her to turn on the indicators in the field, the ones that show entrances and exits. Those old PS1 RPGs with the prerendered backdrops can be confusing, especially for a newbie so it's always good to keep it on. FFVII isn't too confusing, it's no legend of dragoon, but I remember a few facepalm moments when I couldn't advance the plot because I couldn't find an entrance to the next area.

keane2097 · 17-04-2012 10:28am

Yeah happens everyone I reckon, no shame in using the arrows.

Retr0gamer · 17-04-2012 10:34am

Let's you know where to go and saves you feeling like a mong.

Memnoch · 17-04-2012 5:24pm

This thread is the best one in a long time. Thanks for sharing OP.

I remember being stuck in the construction maze and also in the train graveyard for a good bit. I'm not sure but I think I MIGHT have died to Reno the first time around as well. It was definitely a tough fight either way.

I'm not sure quite when I figured out that pressing select turned on the indicators. +1 for jumping in without even bothering with the controls part in the manual. Even after that I only used them when stuck. I just didn't like the look of them on the screen.

Also regarding Sephiroth:

After the Shinra massacre I was convinced that Sephiroth was going to join up with me. I couldn't wait to get such a clearly overpowered and bad ass character on my side. A guy who hated Shinra as much as Avalanche, enemy of my enemy etc. Even when it was getting more and more obvious that this wasn't going to be, I kept deluding myself and believing it would happen. It was only very late in disc one that I finally had to accept this was not going to be. Man was I disappointed.

Downlinz · 17-04-2012 6:41pm

Kalm flashback is probably the most tedious moment in the game, backstory and its significance just feels too heavy at that stage of the game. If she gets past that the game really opens up from there.

MitchKoobski · 17-04-2012 7:23pm

If she makes it far enough, her reaction to finding the Zolom impaled on the tree should be good.

RedXIV · 18-04-2012 4:12pm

Let us continue.....

So we left at the point of trawling through the caves with Sephiroth which we already classified as tedious. But fair play to her, she picked it all up and blasted her way through it all before I got home. A little disappointed I wasn't around for that, especially to talk through some of the themes. For example, out of nowhere in one of the battles she was in, she asked ".....hey, is Cloud an Ancient too?". But she seemed a bit happier with the storyline once it got to the parts where you were just watching what happened instead of controlling Cloud through a memory which she classed as "lazy and unnecessary".

So I caught up with her at the Chocobo farm, where she told me she'd just been in a fight with a giant chicken with two monsters protecting it.....before she had bought the lure?! I'd never seen this happen before and made it hard to convince her to spend 2000 gil on the materia from Billy. She also missed the choco/mog materia, again, a struggle not to say anything but have to be fair in this.

On a rather comical note, while trying to find a chocobo to catch, she decided to attack the "giant snake" with gusto. "I'm just gonna kill the damn snake" was the quote after getting pissed off trying to find chocobo's. In her defence, she fought valiantly, and then Tifa got knocked out of the fray, and within seconds, so had Red XIII, leaving her with Cloud who took Beta full force to the face. She pretty much accepted she needed the chocobo then.

I think what annoyed her the most about catch them was the fact she was buying the most expensive greens to keep the chocobo occupied and from what I can see, the more expensive ones don't last anywhere near as long as the cheaper ones. After a furious amount of time on it, she finally pulled it off with 2 characters throwing greens and one fighting to get her chocobo, hurrah!

After getting the chocobo, she runs towards the cave and in a style that I'm sure MitchKoobski above will appreciate, she went ":eek:.......fuuuuuuuuck" upon seeing the impaled zolem.

She got through the mythril mines without much incident, again, i felt bad for not sharing acquired knowledge such as getting enemy skills or stealing one of the best weapons in the game here but she found all the materia etc so I was happy enough to leave her with it. However, upon leaving the caves, the forest as you exit is where I always get Yuffie and without a doubt, this has been the hardest thing to keep quiet about. On one hand, I've never beaten the game without her so I'd like to see how it affects the story, but on the other, I want herself to experience as much as possible. very torn, but as I said at the start, I'll keep this all to myself.

She has completely skipped fort condor and gone toward Junon where she fought Bottomswell with ease. At this point, its worth nothing she's around level 20 and has ice2/fire2/bolt2 from the amount of fights she's been in. She is definitely starting to look overpowered here. Although she does still seem to favour an all out attack, she has been trying out materia as she gets it. She was using Heal materia for ages without realising what its doing just to find out. Again she recognised the bubble attack in this boss as something to attempt to fix herself but didn't catch it in time (it disappears when

you use magic on it

, just for anyone who didn't know)

Jesus she hates the mini games though. The CPR thing she thought was boring, "why can't I just cast cure?!" and the dolphin jump mini game was greeted with such disgust that she gave up after 2 mins. She has got her first summon though, Shiva is now in her possession!

She hasn't progressed any further, once again suffering from gamers thumb and gamers neck apparently, but mainly because she doesn't like the dolphin mini game. She's starting to get a bit more into the story, Sephiroth is starting to get the awe factor and she's curious about the ancients as well. At the moment she reckoned she could see herself potentially replaying a game like this and i think, considering she's put in at least 3 hours a day for the last 3 days, that we may have a convert on our hands gentlemen!

Hopefully the dolphin mini-game won't hamper her too much so I can see her get annoyed with the marching mini games coming

till next time!

Retr0gamer · 18-04-2012 4:24pm

RedXIV wrote: »

I think what annoyed her the most about catch them was the fact she was buying the most expensive greens to keep the chocobo occupied and from what I can see, the more expensive ones don't last anywhere near as long as the cheaper ones. After a furious amount of time on it, she finally pulled it off with 2 characters throwing greens and one fighting to get her chocobo, hurrah!

I don't think it's the greens, catching a chocobo is just a pain in the hoop at early levels especially when you haven't done it before.

I think maybe you should mention Yuffie. I almost completely missed her except a friend told me about her. Would be a big shame to mis out on her because her subquest is one of the best in the game. Also it makes no difference to the story at all if you miss her and Vincent. Just pretend she's playing it back in the day and heard it in the playground.

The mini-games in FFVII are a big weak point. They range from a decent distraction, such as the motorbike race to downright god awful, one of the worst being the dolphin. I can see that square put them in to mess around with the hardware and as a distraction but they'd be better off not putting them in at all since most aren't fun.

Mindkiller · 18-04-2012 5:06pm

Mini-games suck unless they're like a game within a game like Blitzball or Triple Triad. FFX-2 had god knows how many stupid, boring minigames. It was barely an RPG. Really hated that one where you went around shooting monsters.

_AVALANCHE_ · 18-04-2012 5:09pm

Did anyone get Yuffie first time without being told or cheating? I doubt it.

RedXIV · 18-04-2012 5:15pm

OK so we're in agreement, Tell her about Yuffie.

I assume telling her that you get her in those woods is enough, I can let her make the mistakes in dialog herself?

_AVALANCHE_ · 18-04-2012 5:22pm

RedXIV wrote: »

OK so we're in agreement, Tell her about Yuffie.

I assume telling her that you get her in those woods is enough, I can let her make the mistakes in dialog herself?

Nope, I'd tell her what to say. She'll only end up at an even higher level than she is now with all the trys it'll take.

And it'd be tedious/headwrecking.

Mindkiller · 18-04-2012 5:24pm

I found it pretty obvious that the ninja in the woods was meant to be a character you could recruit. The only reason I didn't on my first playthrough is because I had no clue what dialogue choices to make. They're too arbitrary to come across by accident. So if you're going to mention Yuffie you might as well mention the dialogue choices. Though I wouldn't bother with Yuffie or Vincent at all tbh.

Newaglish · 18-04-2012 5:27pm

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

Did anyone get Yuffie first time without being told or cheating? I doubt it.

I did. I missed Vincent though, which is possibly stupid enough to cancel that out.

_AVALANCHE_ · 18-04-2012 5:27pm

vincent has some really important flashback story fillers.

Definitely get him.

Retr0gamer · 18-04-2012 5:59pm

You can encounter yuffie in any forest in the game. As for Vincent, thought his backstory was pretty waek and really weakly presented but he's a fan favourite and no point missing out on him. You'll get him if you go back to the mansion to get the optional story about zack and cloud which is missable but essential so might as well get him on the way.

keane2097 · 18-04-2012 6:42pm

Mindkiller wrote: »

Though I wouldn't bother with Yuffie or Vincent at all tbh.

:eek:

ride-the-spiral · 18-04-2012 6:47pm

I hope she isn't too overpowered. I remembering being god awful and getting stuck on every second boss made it all the better when you beat them. :pac:

Mindkiller · 18-04-2012 10:15pm

keane2097 wrote: »

:eek:

Vincent sucks unless you plan on turning him into a monster the whole time. Even then he's only really useful in his purple monster form, whatever it was called, on Disc 1. His physical attacks are crap and his ultimate weapon requires you to kill a bajillion monsters for it to be any good. The actual sidequest you get him in is annoying and obscure, especially without a walkthrough. IMO at least, the game would be much more fun if she'd just skip the mansion and its annoying pumpkins and ying-yang monsters and go straight to the mountains. He really doesn't play all that significant a part in the story either, just the backstory which isn't all that important to the overall story arc, lets be honest. Plus there's a danger that she might want to seek out Dirge of Cerberus afterwards, which cannot be allowed to happen.

Yuffie just plain sucks. She steals your materia, the bitch.:mad: Neither character is really all that necessary to enjoy the story of FFVII, which I'm guessing is the main point of OP's thingy. Though if she can get her without running about grinding in the woods for hours then I'd say go for it.

Retr0gamer · 18-04-2012 10:34pm

Other than Yuffie stealing my materia (upsetting my materia setup the bitch) I thought her Wutai sidequest a great light hearted diversion even if it's one of those places that seems totally out of place in the game.

RedFFWolf · 18-04-2012 11:16pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Other than Yuffie stealing my materia (upsetting my materia setup the bitch) I thought her Wutai sidequest a great light hearted diversion even if it's one of those places that seems totally out of place in the game.

Agreed, the sidequest itself is fun and something unique. From "teaming up" with the Turks to encountering Don Corneo again, it's a great moment, and there are a few more things to do around the town with Yuffie.

I also personally think she's a great character on and off battle to have around - she's quirky I find; disguising herself as a reporter in Junon or feeling sick on the Cargo Ship and Highwind, she has character!

Anyway, on-topic, I hope she continues to play and enjoy. Delving into the storyline and characters in games like this is what makes a game so enjoyable to play! (And the music and graphics too of course)

Aurongroove · 19-04-2012 3:12am

ouu, skipping fort condor and the "woods of eternal powering-up... and Yuffie" and there's nothing 'I' can do about it lol, such sweet torture.

I remember in one or two of my later play-through I used to destroy the game for myself by getting to those woods and leaving with everyone including Yuffie with level 3 limit breaks and Fort Condor sorted the **** out.

on the "extra" characters
The first time I played* the game I didn't get Vincent.
well that's not strictly true, the first time I saw the game I actually watched my friend play it up until shorty after "that scene". Anyways he named all the players after people he knew from school, and cloud after himself. Now because of some twisted form of OCD mixed with sentimentality, when I started games of FF7 after that I actually kept those names: as far as I was concerned those were their names not "Cloud and Yuffie, and Barret etc" anyways we found Vincent around the time near the end when you're doing all the messing round and side quests.
and we called him after me! it;s a stupid little point but not whenever I play FF7 I always remember Vincent was "me" in FF7, and for no other reason then sentimentality, as soon as I get him now I usually leave in on my team permanently.

it was only in subsequent RPG I copped on to the fact that you're supposed to name the "main guy" after you. and then finally, like eventually putting 3 weetabix in a bowl instead of two, you begin to leave the players with their original name.

anyways, love the thread, I hope we get to enjoy a reaction to "the scene"

Lahinchians · 19-04-2012 7:04am

best thread I've read in ages! Really hope she sticks with it, tis letting me relive the experience through new eyes.

Atomicjuicer · 19-04-2012 8:01am

Is it too late to advise not telling her how to get Yuffie? Let her play it her own way if possible? You can tell her when she's done with it.

Regarding naming the characters... I named Cloud after a variation of my own name and Aeris after a girl I fancied in RL. Teenage angst + game angst. I had a sweet relationship with the girl in RL (she was very pretty) but then she broke up with me. I clung on to the game character and well you can imagine how that turned out.

RedXIV · 19-04-2012 9:43am

So we had a hiccup yesterday. As she's been playing on the PSP, she's become comfortable with setting it to standby. However, our 1yr old daughter is quite fond of anything with buttons or switches and turned off the game on herself sending her back to the mythril mines. A blow to her progress no doubt but in hindsight, this has quite possibly become a blessing in disguise. While going through the mines, this time she stole the grand glove, a great weapon for Tifa, she got her first enemy skill and she's been playing with materia enough to say that her biggest problem is her lack of "All" materia.

She also went to Fort Condor to participate in the battle which she did 99% completely unaided, a worthy achievement in my eyes. She had no issues with the battle, mainly because she had enough money to max out her troops. While she thought the mini game was slow, this has been the one she's hated the least. Not a fan of the mini games yet but progress has been made.

On Yuffie, I told her she could get her in the woods near junon and lo and behold she told me she's already fought her once! She was giving out about her as she stole 700gil from Tifa and assumed that you'd just see her at another stage. I told her if you got the conversation choices correct you got Yuffie on your team and she told me to say no more. Incredibly the next time she fought Yuffie, she got all the conversation choices bar the last one correct through guesswork. She was not happy after she named her and then she disappeared, but thankfully, 2 fights later she showed up again and Yuffie was added to the party.

She flew through the Junon section again and finally got the dolphin jump to work, leading her up to Junon's upper city. Here she found the beginners hall and spent quite a bit of time in here catching up and confirming stuff she's been guessing until now in the battles and with her materia. She also ran through most of the houses and picked up all the new materia and weapons she could handle. And then we got to the marching mini game and by god she hated that. We were there for about 10 minutes just trying to get into the parade where the ratings are on screen and as expected, we received the grenade from the TV station. We've just hit the training room to get ready for the imperial send off, when gamers thumb set in.

She's starting to realise just how much could be hidden in the game due to the Yuffie side quest. She's curious now to go back and check out the first half of the game to see what she has missed so I told her we could try it again and use the official guide I have as well as all the tips and tricks I've picked up over the years but on a lighter note, we're also talking about what other games she might like in the series.

She does seem to be taking a shine to the JRPG genre but when I mentioned that the other games in the series don't have materia or the same characters she was a little disappointed/surprised. I've been thinking ahead to what to let her try next. She has said that the random battles are kinda irritating and what she's enjoying the most in this game is the story. I'm tempted to go with FF9 as I think it's a very beginner friendly one, coupled with the fact that I used to play it with our 7yr old (who lovingly dubbed it "The pirate game"). I don't know if the graphics would be a stumbling block or not to her enjoying the incarnations previous to 7 so I'm thinking either 9 or 10 will be next on the list. Any thoughts?

keane2097 · 19-04-2012 9:54am

Definitely go with IX imo.

Atomicjuicer · 19-04-2012 10:01am

I say encourage her to stick with 7 before trying the others out.

I too hated the random battles. 7 had the best story of 7,8,9,10 IMO.

RedXIV · 19-04-2012 10:07am

Atomicjuicer wrote: »

I say encourage her to stick with 7 before trying the others out.

I too hated the random battles. 7 had the best story of 7,8,9,10 IMO.

Oh def get 7 finished, that's not even debatable

Just want to know what she can get her fix from once 7 is over

Atomicjuicer · 19-04-2012 10:11am

Nowhere lol

FFVII was one of a kind

That said - As you've a psp what about crisis core? Has related characters and easy style gameplay!

blackwave · 19-04-2012 10:37am

I say go with IX as well, easy enough to get used to and the story isnt overly complicated either. plus doesnt have the teenage awkwardness of VIII and X

Graphics wise I think IX has actually held up reasonably well, compared to other games of the era, remember even thinking some early PS2 games didnt match the graphics of it in some cases.

Retr0gamer · 19-04-2012 10:39am

FF6 or FF9 would be my recommendation to try next. If she is annoyed at random battles then FF6, it ahs random battles but since there's no load times (unless you play the terrible PS1 port) the battles are quick and painless.

Maybe you should skip the FF series and go with something better and without random battles. Chrono Trigger would be a great one to play possibly the pinnacle of the JRPG genre and absolutely no random battles. Make sure you don't get the PS1 version since it's ruined with load times. Go for the emulated SNES version or the excellent DS verison. Grandia is another great RPG. Battle system is one of the best in any RPG, simple but with loads of depth and a big step up in qulaity compared to FFVII. No random battles either. The story is light hearted fluff but really entertaining, if she likes the OTT melodrama of FFVII there's not much in this until the final act.

If you want her to see just how good JRPGs can get then get the fan translation of Mother 3 for the GBA. No random battles and a storyline that will floor her especially compared to FFVII. It's for me the best JRPG ever made other than it's predecessor Earthbound on the SNES. Earthbound might be one to recommend, however it's a weird one. I think you need some JRPG experience to get the jokes and how it completely subverts the genre and also it's a game that really doesn't make any sense until right at the end. My girlfriend loved it though, was nearly in tears at the end (she balled at the end of Mother 3

). Might be one to come back to. No random battles either.

Mindkiller · 19-04-2012 10:43am

You're going to have a tough enough time getting a copy of FFVI that isn't the PS1 port unless you go the way of emulation. And tbh, playing with emulators on a laptop or computer is never fun. I'd say just go with FFX. It's one of the most popular for good reason.

MitchKoobski · 19-04-2012 10:44am

RedXIV wrote: »

So we had a hiccup yesterday.

I nearly shat meself reading that.

I am genuinely rooting for her now, and everytime I think something has gone wrong I get worried.

Theres something wrong with me.

And yes, FFIX all the way!

Retr0gamer · 19-04-2012 11:09am

Mindkiller wrote: »

You're going to have a tough enough time getting a copy of FFVI that isn't the PS1 port unless you go the way of emulation.

If you've a 'naughty' PSP then there are other ways

RedXIV · 19-04-2012 11:15am

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If you've a 'naughty' PSP then there are other ways

My PSP is not naughty

My Playstation phone on the other hand is one hell of a dirty bitch.

FF6 on the phone ftw!

Retr0gamer · 19-04-2012 11:19am

RedXIV wrote: »

FF6 on the phone ftw!

Do it!

Final Fantasy 7....by a non gamer

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