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Final Fantasy I & II GBA

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darscot

Member
I just finished one and it was way to easy. My characters where just to powerful. I never stopped to level up but they ended up too high. I found myself only playing to get through it but didn't really enjoy it. It held me untill around the point were you wake the sleeping prince.

So here's my questions is part II harder?

If you played it on the NES what level were your guys at completion. I thought mine were in the 30's on the NES but double that on the GBA. Does this sound right or am I just forgeting?
 
Well, I believe every technical aspect of the game's battle/level-up system was, so to speak, lightened up. Levelling is faster, enemies have fewer HP, levelling up provides greater bonuses, etc. All the numbers were tweaked to bring the old game's brutally tough difficulty down to today's standard. They seem to have overcompensated though. Frankly, I prefer slight ease to the murderous difficulty of the original. The lack of a need to level up is a welcome change. Who actually enjoys running around in grass and hitting A madly until you're 'strong' enough to proceed to the next challenge?
 
The insane encounter rate in FFI GBA means you're forced to level up whether you intend to or not. I found the same was true to a certain extent in FFII. If you want a challenge which hurts if you don't level up, you need the bonus extra game that comes after FFII, which throws underpowered characters at overpowered monsters (to start with, at least...)
 
I agree I dont think you should ever have to level up. They went way to far though I strolled through dungeons like I beautiful day at the beach. The main reason I mentioned that I didnt level up is so guys didnt say well if you level up for three hours of course it's going to be easy.
 
darscot said:
I just finished one and it was way to easy. My characters where just to powerful. I never stopped to level up but they ended up too high.
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I agree, it was far too much fun and never really felt like tepid, tedious work (which I think is the mark of a good RPG).
 
Mzo said:
I agree, it was far too much fun and never really felt like tepid, tedious work (which I think is the mark of a good RPG).
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I actually felt the opposite it wasn't fun because there was no challenge. I loved it for the NES were you had like one character left alive and are fleeing for you life just trying to make it out to save. I don't recall any of my characters ever being killed.
 
iapetus said:
The insane encounter rate in FFI GBA means you're forced to level up whether you intend to or not.
Click to expand...

Exactly--I was at a ridiculous level 83 when I got to the final boss. And never have I felt so heavily penalized for coming to a dead end in a dungeon map--it could easily mean five or six (easy, tedious) encounters before getting back to the intersection to try another route.
 
I think I was around the 73 mark myslef but avoided some of those dead ends through memory. I also only went into one of the bonus dungeons as I felt they were making my characters too powerful.
 
FFI DoS would have been twice as good with half the encounters. Soul of Chaos dungeons also have too many easy enemies even late in, such as the Black Goblins that appear even on higher floors of late dungeons. Why have you fight battles where you cannot lose, will not suffer enough attrition to matter, and won't gain any substantial experience? I was perfectly capable of killing Chaos at level 35 in the original.

I love RPGs that offer a constant challenge and require strategy and planning (Dragon Quarter) or are at least incredibly fun (like Paper Mario). I get so sick of games that just throw in fight after fight to make you waste time.

Right now I'm loving Star Ocean 3's flexibility, including the awesome Gutsy Bunny that makes backtracking much more fun. I also loved the limited encounters of Parasite Eve and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Of course, for a remake like Dawn of souls, just lowering the encouner rate significantly would be great.

I got a little fed up with FFII's high encounters too, but the game still had some challenge (still not actually hard though) so it was ok. Just don't stack or single target berserk ever if you want challenge.
 
Bumping an old topic for Hilarity. Was playing the third Soul of Chaos dungeon, Hellfire Chasm, on FFI last night, and came across this person. Looks like the translators at Square Enix got bored writing scripts for the millions of NPC's in those dungeons. :lol

burnination.jpg


The Soul of Chaos dungeons are awesome though. Some of the floors are incredibly weird and random (I came across some that have mini-overworlds) and fighting the bosses from the old Final Fantasies is fun. I was sad that they did not have Gilgamesh's music for the fight with him though. :)
 
^Haha

I'd heard that FFI was supposed to be easy on the GBA, but DAMN. Aren't the new dungeons supposed to be pretty hard though?
 
The floors themselves in the new dungeons are pretty easy, none of the random battles really are a problem. Which is a good thing IMO, I don't want to be slogging through 40 floors of impossible battles. Some of the bosses are tough though, I've died a few times on them.
 
Final Fantasy II is now playable, and most magic is now usable, but offensive magic is HORRIBLY underpowered still, unless facing enemies who are weak to a specific spell. I just finished Soul of Rebirth, which was a nice epilogue and was pretty challenging overall. Almost every fight required Protect and Berserk. That said, the bosses are still mostly easy, especially if you abuse Berserk. Ultima, which now requires killing Ultima Weapon, is still completely useless.

FFII is now much more challenging than FFI, but that just means that there is a remote possibity of occasionally dying.
 
I've gone through all 4 special dungeons in FF1, haven't even bothered fighting Chaos yet. I'm at Deathgaze in the wind dungeon, then I'm gonna go back and try my luck against Shinryu for that sexy sword.
 
The Soul of Chaos dungeons were pretty neat, shame about the way floors are ordered though, takes a lot of planning or repeat visits just to earn 100% enemy/item values. I actually thought about going for them, but slogging through the 30+floor dungeons wasn't something I cared to do more than once.

Haven't tried FFII, though I did finish it on Origins years ago. Prepare for one of the best soundtracks in the franchise if you do play it. That overworld theme is stunning.
 
It goes up gradually

10 floors (earth) (ff3?)

20 floors (fire) (ff4)

30 floors (water) (ff5)

40 floors (wind) (ff6)

I WILL DEFEAT SHINRYU AND GET MY RAGNAROK
 
FF1 basically felt like playing with a Gameshark attached. The new dungeons were a cool premise, until you saw how repetitive they are. It was VERY annoying getting all the monsters filled out for my FAQ.

The new bosses were also a cool idea, until you actually got to them, and they had uncharacteristic attacks that made it feel like you were just fighting a similar-looking sprite, not the familiar boss.

The new ways to stack attack power/hits and the obscene new items added, and MP system just made the game a joke to play through.

*doesn't mind fighting around, is used to it*

FF2 is also too easy to level up..fine at first but then it gets really, really annoying when you get up to Fire 12 just through regular play, when it would be about Fire 6 in the earlier versions. Soul of Rebirth was really fun..it was pretty tough (until you get Scott's sword, anyway).

This song? http://www.metroid2002.com/redscarlet/FF02-PSX-09-Overworld Theme.mp3

The added verse helped out, and the battle song was changed from ear-bleeding to my actually wanting to get into fights.

Still, the best version of 1 that I have is still my Wonderswan Color version (to play), and 2 is the JP PS1 version.

Still wish FF3 came out on the WSC.. :(
 
The one big difference I noticed in the FF remake is, in my original NES play, I had 4 level 30 characters (two fighters, a black and white mage) take out Chaos in one round. (Nuke, swing, swing). In the GBA FF, it took me a long as time to beat him.
I found that odd.
 
Chaos (and many other bosses) have more HP. He was upped from 2,000 to 20,000 in the GBA game, which doesn't even matter with all the stackable items.
 
Oh yeah, something that's been bugging me since I played the original FF2.
What the fuck are up with those empty rooms, where you start two (I think) tiles into them?
 
Just to annoy you that they're a dead-end with higher encounter rates. At least they were dropped onward (and 3's parts where you have to be a Toad or Mini).
 
You can spam/stack those (except Haste) along with Strength Potions (for Attack) and Speed Drinks (for hits, up to 24? or more). So yeah. In the PS version of FF1 it was said that damage would go over 9999, but I never tried in any of them. So gogogo.

Can be stacked: Tmpr spell / Saber spell (caster only) / Giant Gauntlet / Power Drink / Speed Drink. Defensively, the Blink / Protect / Invis / Protect2 / Invis2 / White Robe / Defender can be stacked too.
 
The new dungeons were a cool premise, until you saw how repetitive they are.
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Did you not see the burninate guy??? Seriously though, the variety of different kinds of floors, be it random overworlds, deserts, or little towns full of NPC's saying wacky things are keeping me interested.
 
I only played the Japanese version of the game; my US one is unopened.

So no burninate guy for me (and I haven't played GBA 1 in English yet).

Plus I wrote a guide on where enemies are found, so that made the bonus dungeons very repetitive. Although not bad the first time around.
 
aceface said:
More good stuff:
heylisten.jpg

:lol
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:lol That's funny. I didn't really get the reference at first. I've been wanting to pick this up, but I may wait to see if I can get a good price on a used copy off Ebay or something. I never had a GBA, so now that I got a DS I'm picking up a lot of old GBA classics on the cheap.
 
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