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[Dark Schala]

Caves. So many caves.

Oh, yeah. Though FF4 had that same problem. What drags FF4's dungeons down are the expanse of some of the rooms (and thus you feel like you're triggering more encounters as you cross the larger rooms), and those darned towers.

And they have this inconsistency:

Oh, did you notice that the battle background is hilariously the Watery Pass one? There are no underground rivers in this dungeon!

even if I'm not in a dungeon with a lot of water they use the same battle background squaresoft what is this

The town design was pretty sparse to, Zozo is the only one that stands out.

I love how Zozo is designed from a dungeon standpoint. It's so good.

Outside of that, I don't remember a lot of FF6's dungeons outside of their aesthetic quality as opposed to their map design or their gimmicks. It's weird that I can remember FF5's but I can't remember FF6's...

 

[Meccanical]

I loved Zozo because of how much of a shit hole it was.

There were dead bodies in the street and nobody was going to bury them because the entire town is populated by scumbags.

It's the FF version of Metro City.

 

[Dark Schala]

Everybody lies. </House>

 

[tiggerkiddo]

I didn't hate the caves so much as the long string of similar looking towers back to back to back. VI's superior soundtrack meant I never got bored of exploring caves.

 

[APZonerunner]

Yo FF community peeps. Just wanted to drop a link to this -- a bunch of FF fans and fan sites got together to produce a digital magazine celebrating 25 years of the series... just full of articles and stuff on FF in general. It's got contributions from myself, Kagari, Aeana and other GAF folks.

You can find it here! I don't really post in this thread, but I'm as enamoured as you guys are.. though, I admit, more with old FF. Playing FF9 for the umpteenth time right now, and... sooo goooood.

 

[Buttons]

Yo FF community peeps. Just wanted to drop a link to this -- a bunch of FF fans and fan sites got together to produce a digital magazine celebrating 25 years of the series... just full of articles and stuff on FF in general. It's got contributions from myself, Kagari, Aeana and other GAF folks.

You can find it here! I don't really post in this thread, but I'm as enamoured as you guys are.. though, I admit, more with old FF. Playing FF9 for the umpteenth time right now, and... sooo goooood.

What amazing work. Reading through it right now. ^^

 

[Seda]

Yo FF community peeps. Just wanted to drop a link to this -- a bunch of FF fans and fan sites got together to produce a digital magazine celebrating 25 years of the series... just full of articles and stuff on FF in general. It's got contributions from myself, Kagari, Aeana and other GAF folks.

You can find it here! I don't really post in this thread, but I'm as enamoured as you guys are.. though, I admit, more with old FF. Playing FF9 for the umpteenth time right now, and... sooo goooood.

There was a thread specifically for this on gaming side. Cool stuff.

 

[jaxword]

Holy shit, I didn't know Nomura designed these.









Granted looking at these now it's kind of obvious he did, you can see similarities in other designs he did.

Where'd those come from? The FF6 monster design sketches have been hidden for over a decade, that's really awesome.

 

[Meccanical]

Where'd those come from? The FF6 monster design sketches have been hidden for over a decade, that's really awesome.

Apparently they are from that huge 25th anniversary Ultimania that SE compiled.

I wonder what other stuff they have in their vaults.

 

[jaxword]

Apparently they are from that huge 25th anniversary Ultimania that SE compiled.

I wonder what other stuff they have in their vaults.

Seriously, this is actually pretty game-changing.

For years, people ragged on Nomura and claimed Amano's monstrous designs were superior...and now this is perfect evidence that is not true.

I wonder if Nomura designed Angel-Kefka?

And I wonder if we could get the Exdeath Nomura design?

 

[Meccanical]

I wonder if Nomura designed Angel-Kefka?

He did actually though the final spritework is quite different.

Looking at Neo Exdeath, it does seems like it's something he did as well, I would love for the concept art for that to surface one day.

 

[jaxword]

He did actually though the final spritework is quite different.



Looking at Neo Exdeath, it does seems like it's something he did as well, I would love for the concept art for that to surface one day.

Pretty cool that this is further evidence that Nomura was experimenting with a proto-Sephiroth angel concept there.

I'm going to PM to continue this...thanks a lot for posting it.

 

[Crash Station]

There was a thread specifically for this on gaming side. Cool stuff.

Oh shit, where? Not seeing it.

I'm one of the contributors btw

 

[RPGCrazied]

Got my FF XII CE today. Such a treat playing this in HD for the first time, now that I have a computer that can run PCSX2 flawlessly. Just got to Giza plains. I forgot how much I hate the license board, I mean, specially for equipping items. Love the Gambit system though.

 

[Meccanical]

Got my FF XII CE today. Such a treat playing this in HD for the first time, now that I have a computer that can run PCSX2 flawlessly. Just got to Giza plains. I forgot how much I hate the license board, I mean, specially for equipping items. Love the Gambit system though.

I would really love to get my hands on the IZJS version of the game one day.

In other news a lot of new monster concept showing up over at the wikia.

Behold Neo Exdeath swimming in babes.

And the MESH himself.

 

[jaxword]

Ha, I knew it, I've been arguing for years that Nomura designed Gilgamesh.

 

[Tizoc]

OK so with Ninja I need to learn Dual Weild, then stick with that class or to any other class I prefer for any of my other party members.
With Dragoon I should just learn Ignore Elivation and not bother with the Jump, correct?
Sorry hadn't played the game in a while due to backlog and work ^_^;

 

[jaxword]

OK so with Ninja I need to learn Dual Weild, then stick with that class or to any other class I prefer for any of my other party members.
With Dragoon I should just learn Ignore Elivation and not bother with the Jump, correct?
Sorry hadn't played the game in a while due to backlog and work ^_^;

Dragoons are a lot of fun if used right. You have to learn to read the turn order so as to ensure the target doesn't have a turn and can move.

Ignore Elevation is fine as a skill, but there's not TOO many uses for it in this game, sadly. Move +2 is a bit better most of the time.

Remember that dual Wield basically breaks the game as any character with it can become a one-shot killer.

 

[Professor Beef]

Ignore Elevation has too few uses to stick it on a character. I tend to learn everything as a Dragoon anyways, but that's only because I always have a dedicated Dragoon since they're so powerful.

 

[Perfo]

Finally I got my own copies T.T

 

[Narolf]

We love to say "Look forward to it!" a lot here at Square Enix; but I'd like to ask all of you what your most anticipated "Look forward to it!" moment is for 2013. It could be a game release, a game announcement, a new console announcement, or just a great gaming moment with your friends!

Let us know below!

http://na.square-enix.com/go/thread...Anticipated_Moment_of_2013?pg=1&sdb=1&num=837​

 

[Xux]

A lot of Type-0 replies on that first page...what was the most realistic fate of that again? I'm guessing the PSP market isn't the best right now.

 

[Narolf]

If I didn't miss any of the latest news, Type-0 would get a Vita port along with its western release. Going to take yet another shot at the dark, but I would expect it to be an international version Japan will get shortly after with all the new features, same as previous FF games.

 

[Tizoc]

Really liking the story of FF Tatics, although atm I've started Chapter 3.

Spoiler

I don't care whether Ovelia is a double or the actual princess, either way she'd be a puppet in the hands of those who want to rule Ivalice, poor girl =/

 

[Meccanical]

Ovelia's life is indeed a tale of tragedy.

She is whisked to and fro by forces not only does she not understand but wants no part of.

 

[Dark Schala]

Maybe it's because I've played FF6 fewer times than a lot of people on GAF, but man...

I know FF4 was the point where they started getting more cinematic with their cutscenes, but it's even more apparent in FF6. And I'm a person who generally dislikes lengthy cutscenes, but here they're not as bad because they're woven into the gameplay better.

For example, here's an excerpt from what I want to post either today or tomorrow in the GAF Plays thread:

I think this game is the obvious turning point as to the fact that they wanted to make Final Fantasy more cinematic. Final Fantasy IV certainly was like that before, with its fixation on narrative and fixed character jobs. But Final Fantasy VI had the advantage of time (ie: Squaresoft getting used to the Super Famicom, working with the SPC 700 and Mode 7 a little more to achieve desired more cinematic results). It&#8217;s rather interesting, though, because Sakaguchi stepped down from directing the game after most of it had been completed (though he&#8217;d written the story and directed a lot of the event scenes (before handing that job and directorship over to Kitase).

Wait, I&#8217;m getting ahead of myself.

So&#8230; FF6 is cinematic. You can tell that from the title screen alone.

Opening Theme (up to 1:12)

When you start up the game and leave it running for a little while, you get a little scene depicting the camera moving down, showing stormy clouds, and down to focus on a faraway town in the shadows, with only the lights from their houses visible. This ends up setting the mood of the game a little bit, and it kind of changes what the player&#8217;s first impression going into the game is going to be like.

It tells the player several things, but I&#8217;ll hold off on listing them until we get through this next bit first.

I&#8217;m not particularly fond of this sort of game design, where scenes come before gameplay. But I understand what they want to accomplish. These are technical feats on the SFC, so I completely get it. And it doesn&#8217;t really bug me much either. It&#8217;s just that when developers go overboard and make their cutscenes and narrative the centerpiece of their game design and philosophy that I take issue with it. I don't enjoy that sort of thing at all because I'm here to play a game not watch a movie. Though I&#8217;m one of those bozos who thinks Final Fantasy should be less cinematic (which is why I was incredibly indifferent to the Agni&#8217;s Philosophy tech demo), but I digress.

Opening Theme (Part B) (Up until 2:21)

I&#8217;ve always liked these kinds of things in video games, actually, and I sort of miss them. Yeah, we still get them now, but they generally seem to serve as credits or opening scenes rather than giving the player a general view of what the game world is supposed to be like. I remember falling deeply in love with the Illusion of Gaia one when I was little, for example. It seamlessly blended in with the title screen, let me know parts of the narrative, let me understand the world that I was about to run through when playing the game, etc. Sure, the text is sloppy, and it isn&#8217;t that well-directed, but I really liked it for some reason. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past one is really freaking impressive and I remember being hooked on watching it too.

In general, I like this opening sequence. It does a lot of stuff that I'm going to get into explaining in the GAF Plays thread. Because Square had more experience with the console at that point, they were able to craft and direct dialogue and atmospheric scenes to work with their story. In some cases, I think it's good... because I can scroll through dialogue quickly because I read pretty fast. If I had to sit there and listen to voice actors recite the lines, I'd be ridiculously bored with the game, no question.

And because they were able to use one sprite throughout the entirety of the game (outside of some scenes and battle stuff--Terra is the most obvious one here), they were able to weave story with the battle gameplay. It's an interesting thing design-wise, but I'll get into that not in this entry (because it's already long), but in a future one when I get more characters in the party.

 

[Meccanical]

FF6 definitely did the most to try to bridge the gap between narrative and gameplay, you can see some of this continue into the PSX titles in different ways.

Why they suddenly stopped this practice I will never understand. One title in particular could have really really really used some of those.

 

[Joe Lee]

Really liking the story of FF Tatics, although atm I've started Chapter 3.

Spoiler

I don't care whether Ovelia is a double or the actual princess, either way she'd be a puppet in the hands of those who want to rule Ivalice, poor girl =/

To this day, I've still enjoyed Tactics more than any of the mainline games. Didn't particularly care for FFTA though in retrospect and haven't bothered with A2.

 

[Dark Schala]

FF6 definitely did the most to try to bridge the gap between narrative and gameplay, you can see some of this continue into the PSX titles in different ways.

Why they suddenly stopped this practice I will never understand. One title in particular could have really really really used some of those.

I tried so hard not to fire shots at the particular title you're referring to, but I started typing things, re-reading them and then deleting the comments because I don't want to be an ass and get jumped on for being incredibly blunt.

Man, looking at this screen:

...makes me realize how they really tried to get a lot out of CRT blending when they could for atmosphere (so it's probably best to play this game with a filter, but I'm not going to do that). I don't know if you were around for it, but we were discussing something similar in the SonicGAF thread, and this was pointed out:

But Sonic 3 has some great background stuff. The foreground stuff is alright, but the backgrounds are very detailed.

*snip*

Sonic & Knuckles' backgrounds being vibrant is a given.

agh, unfiltered Sonic 3 screenshots. That game abused the hell out of CRT blending, and doesn't look right without it:

A lot of late-generation Genesis games are guilty of that, actually. Ristar, notably, has a lot of vertical banding-style gradients that don't work without the Genesis's shitty composite.

But seeing as even Sega was pushing out ports of these things with clean pixels to the PC in the mid-90s (and the Saturn, if we count Jam), I can't say as it fazes me in this particular case. Plus, I dunno, I rather like clean pixel art (says the guy who spent $80 on a Genesis with an S-Video mod just to keep those pixels relatively clean...).

So when you try to have the sharp as nails pixel thing going on, you're going to lose some colour depth, I guess. And to be fair, Sciz was probably using a bad emu filter because it looks really blurry and not necessarily true to how it would look on an NTSC CRT. These other ones are much better than the one quoted.

Yes, I know FF-GAF doesn't really care about this stuff but I do. You can do so much with a game's atmosphere if your art direction is executed adequately.

 

[jaxword]

I tried so hard not to fire shots at the particular title you're referring to, but I started typing things, re-reading them and then deleting the comments because I don't want to be an ass and get jumped on for being incredibly blunt.

Man, looking at this screen:

This screen also emphasizes the difference in the scale of the cities with the modern FFs. Vector is literally 3 screens of sprites. However, by making it SEEM bigger with the vague city skyline, the player's imagination makes it seem so much larger. Whereas modern FFs put tons of effort into showing a 360 scape full of detail and showing how huge an environment is, i.e., Rabanastre.

The earlier FFs are like playable books.
The later FFs are like playable movies.

 

[Meccanical]

This screen also emphasizes the difference in the scale of the cities with the modern FFs. Vector is literally 3 screens of sprites. However, by making it SEEM bigger with the vague city skyline, the player's imagination makes it seem so much larger. Whereas modern FFs put tons of effort into showing a 360 scape full of detail and showing how huge an environment is, i.e., Rabanastre.

The earlier FFs are like playable books.
The later FFs are like playable movies.

I would say that analogy is pretty spot on.

A lot of things in the older FF titles, 4-6 in particular, really made me feel as if I was either reading a story book or watching a play.

Hell FF6 even features a book turning page by page in its ending(Which is one of the greatest endings ever IMO).

 

[jaxword]

I would say that analogy is pretty spot on.

A lot of things in the older FF titles, 4-6 in particular, really made me feel as if I was either reading a story book or watching a play.

Yes. The LACK of detail is what makes the earlier FFs so fondly remembered over the modern ones, despite the comparison being completely fallacious.

Dissidia proved this--look at how many people complained over Terra not acting and sounding like they expected. A character that they never heard or saw the body language of.

That demonstrates the point: people hear and saw, in the own minds, what they wanted to hear and see in the earlier FFs.

The earlier FFs used the player's imagination to create the worlds and characters.
The newer ones do that all for the player.

 

[Dark Schala]

I'm surprised that no one spotted the morphological error in that screen yet.

This screen also emphasizes the difference in the scale of the cities with the modern FFs. Vector is literally 3 screens of sprites. However, by making it SEEM bigger with the vague city skyline, the player's imagination makes it seem so much larger. Whereas modern FFs put tons of effort into showing a 360 scape full of detail and showing how huge an environment is, i.e., Rabanastre.

The earlier FFs are like playable books.
The later FFs are like playable movies.

It can probably be applied to the games which have the pre-rendered backgrounds. The one that comes to mind is Alexandria's map screens in FF9. You can't go into the majority of the houses, and it's just a few screens of people (who are the ones who breathe life into the town; towns in RPGs are generally known for their people / NPC dialogue / aesthetic design, I think, rather than just how they look or how many places you can raid). Though I have to wonder what people prefer: the 'larger than life' design that FF12/13/13-2 exhibit (ah, let's throw FF10/10-2 in here for kicks despite the player not being able to move the camera freely), or the older design that's kind of like illusion of scale in some cases, but in others you can go in almost every house visible on the screen.

Yeah, I'd say that analogy's pretty accurate. I personally prefer the ones with text just because I read fast and I can get through text in a few seconds rather than sitting there, watching character articulate dialogue because that just takes longer. :|

I dunno. I guess I prefer using my imagination as opposed to having things fed to me. But technologically, this is where video games should go.

Dissidia proved this--look at how many people complained over Terra not acting and sounding like they expected. A character that they never heard or saw the body language of.

lol, Terra's supposed to act like that, though...

Spoiler

I'm not very fond of Terra at all.

 

[Meccanical]

The earlier FFs used the player's imagination to create the worlds and characters.
The newer ones do that all for the player.

That's exactly it.

Yeah, I'd say that analogy's pretty accurate. I personally prefer the ones with text just because I read fast and I can get through text in a few seconds rather than sitting there, watching character articulate dialogue because that just takes longer. :|

I wouldn't have a problem with the dialogue if it was well written.

lol, Terra's supposed to act like that, though...

Spoiler

I'm not very fond of Terra at all.

Spoiler

Can't say I care for any of the female characters in FF6...maybe Relm, even if she was a brat she was entertaining.

 

[Professor Beef]

Yes Schala...let the hate flow through you...

 

[RPGCrazied]

I have a question for people that have played FF XII through PCSX2. I'm running it in widescreen, and turned it on in the options of the game. It all looks nice until a CG movie plays and it has a black border around it. Any way to fix that? If I put it back to normal its fine. I guess I'll play it this way.

 

[tiggerkiddo]

lol, Terra's supposed to act like that, though...

Spoiler

I'm not very fond of Terra at all.

Of course you aren't...>:O

 

[jaxword]

That's exactly it.

I wouldn't have a problem with the dialogue if it was well written.

Here's the thing: The earlier FFs had just as much poor dialogue and stupid scenes as any other. People just remember them fondly and differently than they actually are--after all, you heard and saw the characters in your own imagination.

FF6 had stupid lines about love, what is love, I want to know what love is, etc.

Just imagine if an FF had those lines today, spoken out loud by, say, Vanille's actress. It'd be youtubed and turned into another The Laughing Scene.

 

[Meccanical]

That's true. However, as the technology improves so must everything else.

If the budget and technology has outpaced your writing ability then you might want to consider either stepping up your writing game or forgo voice acted cut scenes period.

If they don't improve nobody is going to stop complaining, and why should they?

Shit's bad.

 

[jaxword]

I honestly don't think the writing in FF12 was bad. Alexander O. Smith did a great job translating.

Gamer audiences are just spoiled and jaded. They have 10000 movies and videos and youtubes at their fingertips and can literally see exactly the entertainment they want instantly.

When you have a 30 hour story, it's probably inevitable that some parts will not be enjoyable.





That being said, Toriyama is still a terrible writer.

 

[Xux]

FFXII, TA2, and FFXIV have great localizations. I miss FFXIV's dialogue, like,

But you stop to wonder why? Why, out of the plentitude of passably prodigious and pulchritudinous people on the planet, the Twelve saw fit to tip their hats to you? Well, I did.

and

An 'undred pardons, milady! I ain't got no treasure but the jewels 'n' scepter me mum gave me-an' I'll 'happily share 'em with ya if ya fancy a go! As fer wot we found on that cursed rock, I long since slung 'er brinewise, somewhere no fishback'll ever think o' paddlin'.

 

[Meccanical]

I honestly don't think the writing in FF12 was bad. Alexander O. Smith did a great job translating.

Oh no I didn't mean FFXII, that's one of the best localizations ever. I was referring to the XIII series.

Also for no reason other than I find it amusing, here's the propeller cyborg enemy from FF7's concept art, featuring a bonus doodle of Cloud being mauled by a propeller.

 

[jaxword]

Oh no I didn't mean FFXII, that's one of the best localizations ever. I was referring to the XIII series.

Well, yeah, that's why I said Toriyama is an awful writer. Decent idea man, but not a character or drama writer at all. Sort of like George Lucas.


Also, Nomura's Propeller Suit art looks a bit like Nomura's Deepground art.

 

[Xux]

Playin' through FFVII again...I don't remember the monsters being this weird; I always singled out FFVIII as having the randomly weird yet still weirdly interesting monsters.

I finally found my copy of FFXII, too, right when FFVII was starting to get tiring.

 

[Meccanical]

I fondly remember FFVII having weird monsters, the one that stands out is that House you fight in the Sector 5 slums.

 

[jaxword]

I fondly remember FFVII having weird monsters, the one that stands out is that House you fight in the Sector 5 slums.

 

[Meccanical]

Some of Nomura's designs...I wonder if he likes horror movies. Some of these designs are creepy as hell.

He should have designed for a survival horror game. Parasite Eve doesn't count, it wasn't scary.

 

[tiggerkiddo]

Playin' through FFVII again...I don't remember the monsters being this weird; I always singled out FFVIII as having the randomly weird yet still weirdly interesting monsters.

I finally found my copy of FFXII, too, right when FFVII was starting to get tiring.

You need to see the crazy looking monsters in the Underwater Passage in FFV.

 

[Xux]

You need to see the crazy looking monsters in the Underwater Passage in FFV.

Yeah, those are pretty crazy. Man, the monster designer back then was awesome; they need to give him more work.

 

[jaxword]

Yeah, those are pretty crazy. Man, the monster designer back then was awesome; they need to give him more work.