Final Fantasy 7....by a non gamer

ancapailldorcha

How do you get FFVI on your phone?

martineatworld

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

How do you get FFVI on your phone?

Emulators on smartphones.

The Sony Xperia Play is currently king if you're looking for a phone with emulation abilities, I can't recommend it enough.

ancapailldorcha

Are those legal? Are there any good sites where one could get the software and the games? I might try FF6 to compare it with the PS1 version.

ancapailldorcha

You said she likes love stories so maybe FFVIII would be worth a shot? FFX would probably be the better option as it has a superior battles system.

martineatworld

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Are those legal? Are there any good sites where one could get the software and the games? I might try FF6 to compare it with the PS1 version.

Afaik:

Emulators are legal.
Roms of games you do not own are not. Roms of games you own still aren't legal either due to circumventing copyright protection or something. Someone more knowledgable than me could tell you.

We're not allowed talk about piracy here, so no one can help you with that.

Retr0gamer

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

You said she likes love stories so maybe FFVIII would be worth a shot? FFX would probably be the better option as it has a superior battles system.

If she likes stories she can do well to stay the hell away from FFVIII. The story is absolutely god awful. As for the battle system I'd say stay the hell away from it as well. If she'd going into it blind she'll have loads of trouble at the start and battles will be really boring since she'll just constantly summon GF's which is the wrong way to play that game. The battle system may be gloriously broken but if you don't know what you are doing, basically me when I played it first, it's stupidly unintuitive and complicated.

If she actually likes the love story in FFVIII I'd recommend RedXIV to get a new GF for being a lost cause :P

I wouldn't recommend FFX either. The battle system is great but since the areas and linear and quite short the encounter rate is through the roof. Battles are exactly swift either. I found it a slog at times with those random battles.

The big differences between the SNES and PS1 version of FF6 is that the music isn't butched in the SNEs version and it's a much faster paced and enjoyable game due to the lack of random battles. Also saving Shadow isn't horribly broken in the SNES version by said random battles.

martineatworld wrote: »

Afaik:

Emulators are legal.
Roms of games you do not own are not. Roms of games you own still aren't legal either due to circumventing copyright protection or something. Someone more knowledgable than me could tell you.

We're not allowed talk about piracy here, so no one can help you with that.

The roms are illegal but don't be surprised when you don't get arrested for trying to play a 20 year old game. Not that I'd condone this behaviour or ever did this myself...

blackwave

Actually can I ask how is she finding the soundtrack to the game? Its probably one of my favourite soundtracks for a game, so just interested to see how a non-gamer actually finds it?

keane2097

I never summoned GFs in FFVIII because the cut scenes took too long.

RedXIV

blackwave wrote: »

Actually can I ask how is she finding the soundtrack to the game? Its probably one of my favourite soundtracks for a game, so just interested to see how a non-gamer actually finds it?

She's been a fan of it since I took her to video game live, the concert for video game soundtracks, in particular Aeris's theme. She's been a fan of a few parts of the music, she thought the boss battle music was good, and as mentioned previously in the thread, she thought the Shinra massacre was done very well.


As regards the other games, i do have a fair collection of other RPG's I could expose her too, but I believe the whole idea of playing this is to understand why I used to say Final Fantasy was an amazing series of games. I think I'll probably go with 9 next and if she's hungry for more, I may try moving onto something else, I really enjoyed chrono trigger so possibly that one could be next?

Retr0gamer

I love the FFVII soundtrack but my god the samples that are used are terrible. Compared to FFVI which is on inferior hardware I don't know what went wrong sine that game has much better sampled instruments. Possibly it was rushed or else Nobuo Uematsu was building up a samples collection for the hardware and wasn't finished yet. Thankfully the compositions save it. At least with FF8 he had a much better sample library.

Aurongroove

Suikoden II would be perfect as the next game, if you could find a copy.

The rune system works like Materia, and the front line back line idea is expanded upon so it would help with the notion that different JRPG's have different battle systems and there is 100+ characters so you can let a player do their own thing.
a player might miss dozens of players but get others. Luca Blight is also a good villain and the story-line is very powerful.

as a game it's probably aged better then FF7 as well.

Retr0gamer

Suikoden 2 I would highly recommend but for one thing. It's so rare and sought after that it goes for a very high price. Still though it's the best RPG on the PS1 by a long margin. The story is very moving and a lot more grounded in reality than other RPGs. The battle system is simplistic but extremely fast with no loading times, a rarity for PS1 games. It also looks gorgeous with some of the bets 2D sprite and background art of the era. And of course there's Luca Blight who is up there with SHODAN and Kefka as gamings best villian.

Aurongroove

JRPGs I've given to my sis and she's played through:

Breath of Fire III
Grandia
Wild Arms
Suikoden II


I gave her FF, VII, VIII and IX, but she didn't enjoy them and stopped playing once she reached a particular point.

RedXIV

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Suikoden 2 I would highly recommend but for one thing. It's so rare and sought after that it goes for a very high price. Still though it's the best RPG on the PS1 by a long margin. The story is very moving and a lot more grounded in reality than other RPGs. The battle system is simplistic but extremely fast with no loading times, a rarity for PS1 games. It also looks gorgeous with some of the bets 2D sprite and background art of the era. And of course there's Luca Blight who is up there with SHODAN and Kefka as gamings best villian.

I actually have a copy of this I think, but haven't played it yet.


Does this get me a ban from the JRPG forum?

Aurongroove

No, it gets you the most enjoyable 30-60 hours of gaming you're going to experience this year.

Not having played Suikoden II is as big a deal as not having played FF7.

Sit back and enjoy it next time you get a week off.

and dont worry about missing characters. there are 100+ players in Suik II and if some die during a large scale battle they stay dead! (and their little ending will say "died in Greenhill battle" or whatever).

Mindkiller

Retr0gamer wrote: »

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

I have a very naughty PSP, but she's not naughty enough to emulate FFVI at a decent framerate. Frameskip makes me eyes go bleary.

Retr0gamer

Aurongroove wrote: »

Not having played Suikoden II is as big a deal as not having played FF7.

No, it's a bigger deal. Suikoden 2 is way better.The amount of love the developers put into that game. The opening alone is filled with animations that aren't used in any other part of the game, the only other 2D game I seen with that much attention to detail was the equally amazing Mother 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823C6UWOo6w

Retr0gamer

Mindkiller wrote: »

I have a very naughty PSP, but she's not naughty enough to emulate FFVI at a decent framerate. Frameskip makes me eyes go bleary.

So SNES emulation is still awful on it? Best not emulate it on PSP then. Frameskip is headache inducingly awful.

Mindkiller

It's improved a lot, but I still haven't found any emulator or emulator setting that can play any of the Square rpgs smoothly. You almost always need to set frameskip to at least 1. The only time I use them is as a go between for PC emulation, ie, copy the saves over and back again. Overall the PS1 port actually comes out as the better option on PSP, crappy load times aside. I suppose you could go with the GBA one as well, which emulates perfectly. But it looks and sounds weird.

I'd like to know what the situation is with the Sony phones. I'd be surprised if it was any better, tbh.

Andy!!

Mindkiller wrote: »

I'd like to know what the situation is with the Sony phones. I'd be surprised if it was any better, tbh.

Overall I've been dissapointed with playing games on an Xperia Play in general. Emulator apps cost money, don't run perfect, etc. Shame. It's good as a distraction on the bus but I would say a PSP is still better for serious gaming.

Memnoch

RedXIV wrote: »

She's been a fan of it since I took her to video game live, the concert for video game soundtracks, in particular Aeris's theme. She's been a fan of a few parts of the music, she thought the boss battle music was good, and as mentioned previously in the thread, she thought the Shinra massacre was done very well.


As regards the other games, i do have a fair collection of other RPG's I could expose her too, but I believe the whole idea of playing this is to understand why I used to say Final Fantasy was an amazing series of games. I think I'll probably go with 9 next and if she's hungry for more, I may try moving onto something else, I really enjoyed chrono trigger so possibly that one could be next?

I'm sure you'll get a ton of different opinions on this, but I'd say if you want to cement her as an RPG lover then you should get her to play X next. Especially since it will be out in HD soon.

IX seems to be very loved by the people who started off with the older FFs. Maybe because it is supposed to be the ultimate homage to those first few games. While I enjoyed it I wasn't blown away by it and I was left very dissatisfied by the ending. X on the other hand was one of the few games to replicate the pure gaming joy I felt with VII. That being said, IX has very cute characters and Vivi which is something that might appeal to female gamers. And the art really is lovely, it does feel, very much, like a story book world.

Suikoden II is absolutely fantastic. I also loved Breath of Fire III. That also had a really involving story line with engaging and memorable characters and the dragon system was pure win.

Mindkiller

Memnoch wrote: »

IX seems to be very loved by the people who started off with the older FFs. Maybe because it is supposed to be the ultimate homage to those first few games.

Definitely agree with this. I do think that IX is probably better than X, but for someone getting into this series it just makes more sense to play a game like X as it's so accessible. I wouldn't recommend a newcomer play a game like VI or XII or IX first, even if they're all much better than X. And I know it's a terrible analogy but you wouldn't get into Joyce or Pynchon with Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow. FF isn't quite on that level, obviously. But I think it's always better to work backwards from the more popular ones.

Retr0gamer

FFX however as I mentioned has a nasty encounter rate and a slow battle system, might not be for someone who doesn't like random encounters. I'd actually recommend Persona 3/4, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne or Grandia ahead of FFX. FFX has a great battle system and I love any battle that allows you to manipulate turn order but those games I mention do that and do it better imo. Grandia however is the only one I'd recommend to someone not looking for a stiff challenge.

One the other hand FFX's story is nicely paced and has that cracking ending. FFX might be a good change in style and pace.

SteelyDanJalapeno

Finishing up college soon, and i'll have the whole summer free before I start actual work forever! i'm devising a list of activities to keep me busy over the summer months, its filled with tv shows that I've heard great stuff about, and know, top of the list is FFVII

Mindkiller

Retr0gamer wrote: »

FFX however as I mentioned has a nasty encounter rate and a slow battle system, might not be for someone who doesn't like random encounters. I'd actually recommend Persona 3/4, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne or Grandia ahead of FFX. FFX has a great battle system and I love any battle that allows you to manipulate turn order but those games I mention do that and do it better imo. Grandia however is the only one I'd recommend to someone not looking for a stiff challenge.

One the other hand FFX's story is nicely paced and has that cracking ending. FFX might be a good change in style and pace.

See now, they're all great games. Especially Nocturne. But they're not exactly the kind of games I'd recommend to someone who's just trying out JRPGs for the first time. Seems like most people are recommending stuff they think is the best rather than stuff they'd think a newcomer might like (which is where I was trying to go with that horrible book analogy a minute ago). FFX is really accessible, has great characters and cool cutscenes. Nocturne is a bit obtuse and doesn't get good until about 15 hours in or so.

ancapailldorcha

Is there any chance of Suikoden/Suikoden II coming to PSN?

Retr0gamer

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Is there any chance of Suikoden/Suikoden II coming to PSN?

They might be on the US store? However Suikoden 2 is actually a bit better in PAL format. The US translation is dsigracefully bad (put together in about a week by some very talented localisers but working under ridiculous pressure) and the PAL one is an awful lot better.

ghostchant

Suikoden 1 is definitely on the US store anyway, picked it up a good while ago. Haven't checked it in a while though so not sure about 2.

keane2097

Am I the only person who thought the characters in X were mostly awful?

_AVALANCHE_

keane2097 wrote: »

Am I the only person who thought the characters in X were mostly awful?

NO!

God awful ****e game, the first to put me off the series!

CAN'T understand the love for it on here at all!!