Final Fantasy IV Turns XV 125
Jeremy Parish, keeper of the retronaut flame, has a nice post on his personal site marking the fifteenth anniversary of FFIV. Released in the states as Final Fantasy II for the SNES, the game chronicles the adventures of dark knight turned paladin Cecil and his wacky band of cohorts. It's still one of my favorite games in the series. From the article: "Tiny sprite theatrics notwithstanding, FFIV had something called moxie. It boldly featured one of those videogame plots where things happen for seemingly arbitrary reasons and there's a lot of traveling back and forth and into dungeons on mini-quests to justify endless killing random monsters and fighting bosses. I guess that's not moxie, really. But whatever it was, it drove dark knight Cecil Harvey across the entire world, into the dwarf-infested depths and eventually to the frickin' moon, so it would be silly to split hairs."
A new holiday! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A new holiday! (Score:2)
Take care, ho! [mac.com]
Slow news day? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Slow news day? (Score:3, Funny)
Odds are you'll be enjoying those 4 beers from the comforts of your dorm room, alone, playing final fantasy IV, reminiscing about Star Trek, and setting the kitchen timer so that you remember to call your mom before 9pm and wish her a happy birthday.
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Sorry, you had a typo there, and I felt compelled to fix it.
Re:Slow news day? (Score:1, Redundant)
Fixed again.
Rob (Would also accept "FF7")
Re:Slow news day? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I know what you mean... my favorite part of FF8 was the Laguna "backstory." Once Squall met Laguna in the present I lost interest.
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
BTW, Squall's friends were totally useless and whined quite a bit, but Squall himself was a very effective leader and kept to himself most of the time. If you want whiny and useless, take a look at Tidus.
Rob
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He did quite well with the Garden, in fact. Squall doesn't believe that he's a good leader, but that doesn't mean that he isn't. It is possible for someone to have a lone-wolf personality yet at the same time have leadership skills, you know.
Indeed, why Squall to lead the Garden when he doesn't even want to? Why does he have to babysit some impossibly stupid comrades from killing themselves?
Both good questions, but they aren't really criticisms of the
Re:Slow news day? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slow news day? (Score:3, Funny)
Fixed your typo of a correction of a typo of a correction of a typo. No need to be temporal bigots, after all.
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
Or, as I like to call it, "Squaresoft Presents: DRAW FOREVER"
Re:Slow news day? (Score:1, Troll)
Rob
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
It's the only FF game that I never got around to beating (after a memory card failure at the end of disc 3). I just didn't find it worth my time.
FF6 on the other hand had great chara
Re:Slow news day? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, here's another one. You don't "draw cards," BTW.
Also, the characters are interchangeable.
If you mean gameplay-wise, they're much like those in most of the other FFs. The characters in FF2, FF3, and FF5 are completely interchangeable (and FF1 as well if you bring the character creation screen into consideration), while those in all of the FFs from FF6 on are nearly completely interchangeable. Except maybe FF9, I don't remember much about that one.
As for FF8's plot, it was pretty weak. The game didn't really gear up until about Disc 3, and at least one scene that's important to understanding Squall's character development is optional. But the story (which, as you should know, is not the same as the plot) is pretty good, certainly better than FF6's or FF4's. (FF6's plot was worse than FF8's too; it fell totally apart halfway through.)
The combat system can be horribly abused in the late game to make everyone into hideous nuke characters (if you power-level), but for the majority of the game, there is rich diversity in the characters abilities that most later FF games has not had.
That diversity ain't that rich. There's very little difference between how Cyan's sword techniques distinguish him and how Squall's Renzokuken distinguishes him, for instance. The only real difference between the two is that you can use Cyan's techniques at any time. (And you can use Squall's limit break at almost any time if you know what you're doing.) The only diversity in FF6 is the sheer number of characters, and that damages other parts of the game far more than it benefits the battle system.
As for the differences between the Junction system and the Esper system, there aren't that many as far as interchangeability is concerned. Just as it takes a while to hard-level everyone into using the best magic in FF6, it takes a while to build everyone's GFs and magic stocks up in FF8. The difference is that FF8's advancement methods are far more enjoyable--if you know what you're doing, of course.
Rob
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
Well, yeah. I can see you're having a great time being smug at us, Mr. Expert, but you've actually kind of damned the game out of your own mouth there, you know?
If the opening part of a game teaches players -- in excruciating detail -- how to use a deadly boring technique, then players will tend to use that technique and get bored. Games are meant to be fun, and if the fun stuff is so well hid
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
Did you perhaps try reading the manual? Also, there were more tutorials in the game than just that one. One of them quite clearly states that the GFs have various abilities that make your life easier. This stuff
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You've accidentally pointed out why argument about whether or not FF6's gameplay is better than FF7's is silly. The gameplay of the games is so similar that it's really easy to refer to the widgets in FF6 as "materia" without even realizing that you made a mistake.
Rob
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
Also, you should try FF5, where your characters *are* completely interchangeable, given time.
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No, no you shouldn't, unless you like brutal levelling slogs, a villian that is actually a talking tree turned evil, and the final boss's grudge monster's grudge monster. FF5 is an actually un-fun FF game. The dialogue's pretty trite too.
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Not that I played them all, the ones on PS2 have completely failed to keep me interested, they all seem too much 8 for me, with WAY too much cinamatics. I don't have time to sit though 8 hours of pointless angst.
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
Interesting, I found Kuja to be far and away the most interesting villian in the series... he actually has a believably human motiv, other than "I'M INSANE" or, "I'M EVIL". It's a complex combination of, pride, jellousy, and narsicism that lead him to where he is... he's a tragic character that actually mimics the behavior of the hero, had he been on the other side. Unfortunate that his creator's saught to dress him up in the most unappealing clothes ever, so noone would like to admit to finding him interes
Re:Slow news day? (Score:2)
Sepheroth was cool, but for different, and more asesthetic, reason. I wanted to BE him, he looked awsome, and he was the ultimate bad-ass. A good foil, though, to the unsure, apathetic Cloud. Cloud would be listening to emo and reading Squall's Myspace account, while Seperoth
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Tell me if this sounds crazy...
The day of Lavos always begun when you stepped through the portal to 1999 AD. And all the portals moved through time along with what was happening. Going to 600ad at endgame took you to a point where Magus was defeated, not back to he original point where Queen Leene was still kidnapped. Like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, "the clock in Truce Village is always ticking".
Theref
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conFused (Score:2, Funny)
In non-mathematics major terms : Final Fantasy 9 Turns 15
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Children's Television doesn't work anymore? (Score:2)
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hey, brain farts happen to the best of us.
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Even I missed the joke, and I was the one that wrote it! Just label me pathetic.
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Most Compelling Set of Characters (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if you disagree, it certainly had the best ninja-sorceress love affair
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FFVI's story might have been more grandiose, but after the first half it just tappered off into individual story lines. There's nothing wrong with gaining insight on your individual character's struggles, but FFIV's story seemed more concise throughout the whole game.
Also, while FFVI does have possibly the best RPG villian of all time (I will give it that cred), it was easy to see from a mile away that the rest
Re:Most Compelling Set of Characters (Score:2)
I always found it fun turn Mog into a killing machine - between his equipment and stats after killing countless dinosaurs, I was able to get to Kefka and annhiliate him with no help after deliberately murdering the other party members.
Re:Most Compelling Set of Characters (Score:2)
Speaking of which, I've always thought that someone should write an opera based on FF6. The libretto practically writes itself and the game's score could be adapted for an opera.
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FF4 is the best. (Score:2)
It is difficult without being ridiculously so. The boss enemies are tough, and you don't have ridiculous limit breaks or way overpowered summons to do the job for you (FF4 summons are weak compared to those in the later games, IMO).
It has some of the best characters, remembered by their personalities and character development, not their outlandish character designs like Cloud & Co. It had a reasonable plot that was actually completed and
Such a good game (Score:2)
Re:Such a good game (Score:2)
Yeah, FF4 had a simple combat system that was actually quite nice. I just hated the long cutscenes all the time. Story is fine, but at least let me skip it if I've already seen it. It got to the point where I'd just hit the turbo button to advance the dialog while I went off and did something else.
The Point (Score:5, Insightful)
Complicated situation re: villian? Check.
Complicated relationships with multiple party members (other than angsty crap)? Check.
Good balance between different characters (a huge rarity in FF post-IV)? Check.
Good music? Check.
There are also a few VERY important things that FFIV did that others mostly do not:
Tie the characters around the story (class change as plot device, the designers' ability to create dungeons with a set party in mind).
It was an pretty good bit of technological workmanship, considering it was almost wholely designed for the NES.
First to do ATB.
ATB.
ATB.
Did I mention Active Time Battle?
People talk about how "deep" the newer RPGs are compared to the older ones. This is completely untrue. People often confuse "depth" with complexity, and say that either something is deep being it is overly complex, or because the writer hides the ball. One need only look to shakespeare to show that it is quality, not quantity or complexity, of character that makes a good plot. FFIV didn't have overly complex characters, nor massive amounts of dialogue to flesh them out, but the game used every bit that it did to create quality characters that worked well off each other.
Cheers, FFIV. Still the best.
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So far as FFs go, only FF7 and FF10 really s
Oh yeah, tons of plot emphasis in FF7-on (Score:1, Insightful)
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Rob
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Not really the same, because they're married already (or at least common-law or something). A better translation hints that Cecil and Rosa have been sleeping together on a long-term basis.
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Never mind the pair of small children in your party for a good part of the game.
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Square needs to break their stupid mold. I like FFs, but I'm sick of playing some whiney boy pining over some mage girl.
Re:Oh yeah, tons of plot emphasis in FF7-on (Score:1)
You obviously don't play any final fantasy games
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Re:ff7 (Score:5, Insightful)
FF7 was a tech demo and an unfinished, poorly-told story, and is where the series started falling apart. Did anyone understand the FF7 storyline on the first (or even the second) time through the game? Yeah, me either. The characters were awful. By the end of FF7 I was hoping that Sephiroth would win and wipe out all these whiny asshats and their little angst, too. The only thing that was revolutionary was the ZOMG 3D graphics, and even they were poorly done and grainy.
FF8 and FF9 were more of the same pre-rendered BS with half-done stories written by crackheads. FF8 had an interesting (though annoying) magic system. FF9 was completely unremarkable. I gave up on Final Fantasy after that, so I can't comment on FF10. Maybe it truly is better, but I'm more inclined to believe that it's about as "better" as FF7.
This fanboyism and weird love for FF7 is just another example of the rift between gamers who remember what games were like before Sony destroyed the industry by making it "cool" and gamers who remember their "first Playstation". This is not a rant about how all games were better or how we only had 2D and we liked it uphill both ways forty miles butt naked in the snow. It's a rant about how Sony threw money at dev houses to steal them from Nintendo and produced a whole generation of EA-style overhyped, underdelivered, shoddy, games that cater to people who buy games because of how "cool" a game is. FF7 is "cool". I only wish that Squaresoft had actually bothered to finish the game and make it "good" as well.
Re:ff7 (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, God, not this crap again. How many times is this chestnut going to get trotted out before someone finally decides to shoot it and turn it into glue?
I've played FF since it came out in 1990, and I still think that FF7, FF8, and FFX are superior to any of the ones previous. And i
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For one thing, that's flatout wrong. There were several 3D RPGs before FF7: Wild Arms 1, for starters. Now, I'm not going to compare these two, they're totally different, and I would agree that FF7 comes out on top, but saying that it's revolutionary is a bit of a stretch. If you step back from graphics, though, FF7 hardly does anything more than FF6 did, it just does it with a bit mo
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
The first is that you don't speak Japanese. Okay, I can't blame you for that, but it means that the localization team screwed you over. The original story team can't be blamed for the things that were mangled or glossed over in the English version.
The second is that you simply didn't pay enough attention to detail. Everything is in there somewhere. There are people who have paid the requisite attention, and come up with complete, satisfying
Re:Aeris (Score:2)
Not me. I was actually kind of glad when she died. The main reason why I like FF7 more than most of the other FFs is because of its story. You can talk about plotholes all you want (and I'd say that most of them probably come from your own weak understanding of the plot), and the translation was pretty bad, but at least it tried to have a storyline that went beyond the utter simplicity of the games that came before it. Even today FF7 deals with t
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FSVO "develops." In reality, FF6 doesn't develop any of them in any way beyond the cliche. Of course, you could say the same thing about FF7, with the very arguable exception of Cloud.
And FF7 certainly was revolutionary (or perhaps "influential" is a better word). Before it came out, the console RPG was very much a niche genre in the West, even considering the lower sales of games back then. Now-a-days it's the most popular genre behind the old standbys of sports and act
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FF4 was pretty lame in the villain department. Zemus/Zeromus hated Earthlings so he wanted to destroy them by using the power of the crystals or something. No backstory was given for why he hated them. So your criticism stands.
But FF6 is a different matter entirely. Kefka starts as a general in the Imperial army. The Empire is greedy for land and power (obviously, or it wouldn't be The Empire). So Kefka is already a powerful goon in the goon army. He's also a prick. S
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OK. Why is Kefka a prick? Why
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
You're right, but that fact doesn't make Kefka a good villain, or even a mediocre one. I'm not saying that Kefka should be hard to understand, simply that there should be something to understand.
Kefka was insane because of the Magitek experiment but it also left him with a taste of power. This taste of power gave him cravings for more power.
A reasonable theory, but there's no explanation for what makes power so enticing to
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
Well, Kefka volunteered to be infused with Magitek -- IIRC, he was the first one to volunteer. I suspect that he had a lust for power before the infusion (since he volunteered), but the Magitek experiment pushed him over the edge. OTOH, maybe he something like this planned before the infusion: It is never sta
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
Maybe a reason that actually means something? Everybody wants power. But people want power for different reasons. The reason why Kefka wants power (and the reason he blows things up) isn't specified anywhere.
Which is, it's worth noting, almost EXACTLY the same as Sephiroth's "motivation" for anything in FF7. (Why is Sephy destroying stuff? 'Cause his REAL mommy did, and he's a big mommy's boy.)
Might be a good idea to actually be right before you
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Though it didn't seem very hard to me, others have said this is the most difficult FF ever. I'd be inclined to believe them if I weren't so good at mapping out how memory is used by old console games. You know, stuff like 06FB
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
Never meant to imply that Sephiroth had a great personality, just that it was far better than Kefka's "HOLY SHIT I'M CRAZY" spiel.
His "motive" was, essentially, "I want to blow shit up"
Incorrect. Sephiroth had a strong and clear reason for doing what he did, relating to issues with his birth and heritage. Kefka, on the other hand, was just insane. Not insane for any particular reason that would relate to the plot, just insane.
In all previous FF games (although en
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
I've already addressed this point elsewhere in the thread.
For completeness, in IV, Zemus/Zeromus wanted to wipe out everyone so that Lunarians could colonize the planet rather than hibernating on the damn moon forever, and in V, X-Death just want
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
Ahm... I hear there's video games on the... uh... internets...
Re:ff7 (Score:2)
Agreed. I don't know of any real solution to that problem, so I tend to like structured RPGs with post-game extras. No matter how tough you make high-level enemies, it's entirely possible to kill a few either deliberately (or by accidentally wandering into the area early) and screw up the difficulty curve.
Re:Who gives a fuck (Score:1)
Re:Should FFIV be remade...again? (Score:2)
Rob