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FINAL FANTASY Community Thread: XV Mainline Entries and Counting
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
tiggerkiddo
Member
The FF8 anniversary thread reminded me how awesome and terrifying the Lunatic Pandora was. The music was awesome and the interior was crazy looking. Thought it was weird how all of the monsters inside were so weak.
I'm aiming to get all of them maxed this playthrough. It's like an addiction. I spend idle moments in class plotting out how many more I need to do.
A friend of mine who's living and teaching in Japan bought these chocolates for her husband for Valentine's Day. I don't know that I could even eat them, they're so pretty.
It's probably a good thing I live half a world away from the Square Enix store because I'd be busted broke if I didn't.
Huh, this all sounds pretty awesome. I'm going to have to check this out. I'm also playing Lightning Returns at the moment, and the issues are piling up enough that I'm starting to think now is not the time for it.
It's probably a good thing I live half a world away from the Square Enix store because I'd be busted broke if I didn't.
Huh, this all sounds pretty awesome. I'm going to have to check this out. I'm also playing Lightning Returns at the moment, and the issues are piling up enough that I'm starting to think now is not the time for it.
Makoto Yuki
Banned
A friend of mine who's living and teaching in Japan bought these chocolates for her husband for Valentine's Day. I don't know that I could even eat them, they're so pretty.
It's probably a good thing I live half a world away from the Square Enix store because I'd be busted broke if I didn't.
Still not Valentine's Day here in SoCal, but I must say, the FFVIII 15th anniversary is so close to V-day, It must have been intentional. Right?
I bet the Red Summon Materia is filled with cherries. Or the wisdom of the Ancients, but I bet cherries taste better.
A friend of mine who's living and teaching in Japan bought these chocolates for her husband for Valentine's Day. I don't know that I could even eat them, they're so pretty.
It's probably a good thing I live half a world away from the Square Enix store because I'd be busted broke if I didn't.
Anyway to get these overseas?! :O
Professor Beef
Banned
tiggerkiddo
Member
That SE store would leave me so broke. Any cactuar stuff that I could get my hands on, I would buy it no questions asked. Only thing cactuar I have is a little stuffed doll that hangs from my car mirror
Sadly, the red materia is filled with boring ol' white chocolate, and not Ifrit's fiery red blood or the power of 13 knights. But I agree -- they could have at least made it cherry-filled; what a missed opportunity, right?!
Being that it's food might make it a little harder to acquire the usual import way, I'd guess. If you know someone in Japan, probably best to ask them. If my friend goes to their cafe again, I can ask her to check into it. I believe they came out to about $30.
My dream FF merchandise has always been super high-quality, tennisball-sized materia marbles. I'd be alllll over those in a heartbeat. I guess for now, chocolates will have to do.
Love to get some! Thanks it looks delicious.
FF9 ATB speed-up hack oh man~
Professor Beef
Banned
SuperChoco
Member
Call me when there's a skip summon animation button. Especially for Ark.
...But a step in the right direction.
tiggerkiddo
Member
I don't use summons enough in IX to care but that sounds awesome. I wonder just how faster the ATB moves.
Makoto Yuki
Banned
Pretty cool, but you know what would have been better? A fast forward button, Chrono Cross new game plus style. It would make the battles go faster, and would probably make getting Excalibur II less of a a pain. If I recall correctly, FFXII International Zodiac Job edition had a speed up button. Something like that, but for FFIX.
OH MAN OH MAN. I might enjoy FF9 again this way!
Pretty cool, but you know what would have been better? A fast forward button, Chrono Cross new game plus style. It would make the battles go faster, and would probably make getting Excalibur II less of a a pain. If I recall correctly, FFXII International Zodiac Job edition had a speed up button. Something like that, but for FFIX.
You can't ask that from fan-hack though.
Makoto Yuki
Banned
I know, I just think more games should have a feature like that.
Edit: I don't think I would use fan-hacks anyways, I prefer to experience a game as they were meant to be played. Even if they are slow and cumbersome at times, like FFIX's battle system. Maybe someday they will remake FFIX with a smoother/faster battle system. Till then, I'm just gonna crank up the battle speed and teach everyone Auto-Haste.
tiggerkiddo
Member
How about they give me a run button in FF4?
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Too busy playing Bravely Default myself. But it's going.
Red Mage
Member
...which version are you playing? Most releases do. However, then you realize how high the encounter rate really is. xD
I can experience plenty of joy in my heart. I just feel that the VIII world is relatively uninteresting and, ironically enough, forgetable. I wouldn't mind visiting Midgar IRL, or riding Figaro Castle underground. There's no Subterrainian World with dwarves or flying castles of a lost civilization in the sky. It lacks a Crystal Tower of Floating Continent. Even Lunatic Pandora felt meh to me.
It's not a bad game, mind you, I'd just put it low on my list of realized and interesting worlds.
Man I hear that. Bravely Default is like a love letter.
Red Mage
Member
I didn't realize BD had Gilgamesh in it. = o
I'm going to start it after I finish my current playthrough of IX.
Zantetsuken88
Member
You know, not only did the speed of FFIX's battles never bother me at all, but I didn't even notice they were slow. Am I broken? Maybe just easy to please
You gotta be kidding me. I used to fantasise as a kid about growing up in a Garden like Balamb. Training to use magic and summon GF's. I loved that world!! Different strokes I guess!
Makoto Yuki
Banned
That's understandable, I'm just saying, the game gets hate from people with no real reason. The fans who do love it, love it quite a bit. It's not my favorite FF world either, especially during the 4th disk, I do find its locations and cities quite beautiful though. If I could visit a FF world I'd buy an Airship ticket to Midgar like you.
You know, not only did the speed of FFIX's battles never bother me at all, but I didn't even notice they were slow. Am I broken? Maybe just easy to please
I honestly never noticed it until this latest playthrough, where I played it right after FF8. The problem with FF9's battles is two fold: first, the ATB is really, really slow. Second, because FF9 has the best production values of all three PSX FFs, it also has the most unnecessary camera angles and color flares before ANYTHING can happen.
badcrumble
Member
That's nice, but FF9's problem honestly isn't the speed of the ATB (outside of the very early parts of the game), it's that the ATB never, ever pauses during animations* so you get a bunch of turns queued up into each other and moves execute *long* after their commands were actually entered.
This might actually make that problem *worse*.
What FF9 needs is simultaneous actions in battle a la FFX-2 and beyond.
*(This is also why Auto-Regen is so overpowered in FF9 - you can just cast a summon spell or whatever and while the animation is going on your entire party will get back to full health)
Zantetsuken88
Member
Oh my god - is your username named after Mrs Badcrumble of Eddie Izzard fame...?
Also - on topic. Yeah now that you guys mention it, I do totally see where you're coming from with all these issues. I must just be super tolerant as it never bothered me. The one thing that did bother me was the slow-down due to FFIX raping the playstation hardware. I loved the simultaneous nature of FFX-2's ATB system.
tiggerkiddo
Member
The speed of FF IX battles never bothered me all that much, the fights barely lasted any time for me.
hipsterpants
Member
So I've been playing Bravely Default and the game is great but the story isn't really grabbing me so far. Also Agnes is awful and Tiz kind of sucks as well. The writing is definitely not this game's strength.
So this got me wondering about stories in FF games. I've noticed that in the oh so many FF threads over the past few months how people say they can deal with a terrible story in XV if the gameplay is good. But whenever I see people talk about FFs the story is always part of the reason someone hates or loves that particular game. Like I don't think I've ever seen someone say "well the story of FF whatever sucked but the gameplay was fun!" like they don't seem to really be interchangeable. It also applies that whenever people talk about which FFs they hate, they tend to find the whole package shitty despite some individual aspects being good. No one ever says "the story/gameplay of VIII sucked but the gameplay/story was good" its just "VIII sucked."
Maybe its the fact that people actually say that they'd be okay with XV's story being ass as long as we have airships and chocobos and freedom and whatever. It just seems completely absurd to me. If XIII has been written by an actual writer I probably would have loved it even while legions of people who are still buying FF when they think it peaked 20 years ago complain online. Back to my original statement, its not like the fun gameplay makes up for the fact that I have to play as these shit characters for hours on end.
So this got me wondering about stories in FF games. I've noticed that in the oh so many FF threads over the past few months how people say they can deal with a terrible story in XV if the gameplay is good. But whenever I see people talk about FFs the story is always part of the reason someone hates or loves that particular game. Like I don't think I've ever seen someone say "well the story of FF whatever sucked but the gameplay was fun!" like they don't seem to really be interchangeable. It also applies that whenever people talk about which FFs they hate, they tend to find the whole package shitty despite some individual aspects being good. No one ever says "the story/gameplay of VIII sucked but the gameplay/story was good" its just "VIII sucked."
Maybe its the fact that people actually say that they'd be okay with XV's story being ass as long as we have airships and chocobos and freedom and whatever. It just seems completely absurd to me. If XIII has been written by an actual writer I probably would have loved it even while legions of people who are still buying FF when they think it peaked 20 years ago complain online. Back to my original statement, its not like the fun gameplay makes up for the fact that I have to play as these shit characters for hours on end.
I've not played Bravely Default but I'll respond because I think the topic is interesting.
It's an interesting set of questions / musings since a lot of people look for a lot of different things, and weigh the individual importance of gameplay or story (or more nuanced subcategories) uniquely. And I agree that both sentiments of prioritizing gameplay and yet criticizing a game harshly because of terrible trimmings of story or characters seem to be very prominent, which do sort of seem at odds. One reason I think is because it's easier to dismiss a game because you don't take to the game's general presentaion, rather than examine something mechanically or such that doesn't gel with you. It's an initial resonance that everyone has an immediate response to. I think back to that recent UsGamer article about Final Fantasy XIII not being so bad, and most of the article content and forum discussion seemed to resolve around the trilogy's characters (Lightning, mostly) and its plot/story. Of course, there is some discussion about "linearity" and corridors, but not to the same extent, I feel. And typically the gameplay discussion doesn't seem to extend a lot farther than that.
So basically it seems like characters and plot/story seem to get more attention in both criticizing a game and defending it, probably because these things are more emotionally invested; so when thinking about how someone responds to a game, positively or negatively, these things are going to be at the front. Talking about restrictions or freedoms in the gameplay or mechanics is going to be there, lots of people on gaf will discuss these things thoroughly, but those things aren't expected to be as affectionately charged, you know? And least not to as many people.
It's an interesting set of questions / musings since a lot of people look for a lot of different things, and weigh the individual importance of gameplay or story (or more nuanced subcategories) uniquely. And I agree that both sentiments of prioritizing gameplay and yet criticizing a game harshly because of terrible trimmings of story or characters seem to be very prominent, which do sort of seem at odds. One reason I think is because it's easier to dismiss a game because you don't take to the game's general presentaion, rather than examine something mechanically or such that doesn't gel with you. It's an initial resonance that everyone has an immediate response to. I think back to that recent UsGamer article about Final Fantasy XIII not being so bad, and most of the article content and forum discussion seemed to resolve around the trilogy's characters (Lightning, mostly) and its plot/story. Of course, there is some discussion about "linearity" and corridors, but not to the same extent, I feel. And typically the gameplay discussion doesn't seem to extend a lot farther than that.
So basically it seems like characters and plot/story seem to get more attention in both criticizing a game and defending it, probably because these things are more emotionally invested; so when thinking about how someone responds to a game, positively or negatively, these things are going to be at the front. Talking about restrictions or freedoms in the gameplay or mechanics is going to be there, lots of people on gaf will discuss these things thoroughly, but those things aren't expected to be as affectionately charged, you know? And least not to as many people.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Good news guys and girls, Toriyama says Lightning might show up in future FF games. I know Corvo is so excited!
Yeah but I like
d
[Screams Internally]
Like for reals, I actually hate Toriyama and the worst of it is he doesn't seem to know that what he's done is awful. He legit feels he's done a smashing job of things.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Makoto Yuki
Banned
Lightning in FFIV? Sounds about right, she belongs in a bottom tier FF game.
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
I can't bring myself to care about the Lightning announcement one way or another. I liked her in XIII and Dissidia and accepted what happened in XIII-2. LR? The characterization was just... so poor. So poor. Why the fuck did they do the whole
shit? It was inconsistent and just stupid. When she wasn't being hilariously cold and apathetic, she was flying into melodramatic overtures. That's basically all her character was. No character development (any there was was utterly redundant), out of character moments all over the place...
*Sigh*. I'll do a write up later, and it'll be the last one I do on the XIII "trilogy". All my interest died from how poor LR's story was.
"emotionless"
*Sigh*. I'll do a write up later, and it'll be the last one I do on the XIII "trilogy". All my interest died from how poor LR's story was.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Game has Genji Armor.
He's right.
I suspect lightning will be in many more games to come.
As a magic spell. muh muh muh
tiggerkiddo
Member
I KNOW YOU DID NOT JUST GO THERE.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Makoto Yuki
Banned
Think of it this way. FFIV and FFXIII, while not the best Final Fantasy games, are still of a higher quality than most JRPGs.
I remember that but nobody needs divination skills to see that it was bound to happen. It's just a matter of time until the FFIV remake/port and Toriyama's creepy waifu obsession streams cross, and that day The Fall will occur.
*brofist*
Not that I think it's a bad game, but it isn't the master piece many people want to believe it is. The pre-DS growth system is almost non-existent, the story is at the same level as the cheapest of soap operas and Cecil is the worst leader and boyfriend ever. At least it managed to be cool with the sci-fi buildings, Golbez, Cid's beard and the tallest flying lizard in the world.
Son I know you did not just put Final Fantasy 4 in the same category as Final Fantasy XIII.
That isn't even funny, son. That's just WRONG.
Final Fantasy 4 is a fully fledged game with a cast of characters who don't make you want to shove daggers down your throat, 3 explorable world maps, villains with actual goals you can get your head around, and an ending that doesn't rely so heavily on a thirty deus ex pileup that you want to rip your brain out. There are secrets aplenty in the game, and no map is just a straight walk through. It was the first FF to even introduce the ATB, to really assign personalities to its party, and to feature a protagonist who wasn't just a blank slate nice guy.
Yeah, the plot is cheesy, and sure, the gameplay is simplistic, but it's also from an era that was very much that way. FF5 is likewise cheesy, and you'll find that other games Square made around this time had goofy plots, too. Final Fantasy Adventure's Robo Chocobo for instance, or Final Fantasy Legend's final showdown being with a man in a top hat you kill with a chainsaw. In fact, the narmy, cheesy elements of FF4's plot alone set it apart from FF13, which demonstrate how wrong a game without a sense of humor can get.
I'm not saying FF4 is the best game in the series, nor even a masterpiece, but FF 13 is nowhere near even the level of FF4 SNES, and that's without all the improvements the game's picked up over the series of infinite rereleases.