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I've played FF1 (light warriors) FF2 (both the "Marie" and "Cecil" versions, also known as IV and USA2) so I'm pretty familiar with the interface. But I'm now playing FFVI (as you call it, my game claims to be III) and I can't figure out how to rearrange Terra's magic spells. On the other games, you arrange both Items and Spells by simply clicking first one, then another and they switch places. The Item rearrange on VI works this way, but the spells don't.

I have huge gaps in Terra's Magic menu and the spells are arranged haphazardly, making it annoying to find the right one in battle scenes. I've tried various combinations of buttons, holding down various buttons while clicking others, etc. etc. I've tried using the status and the skills menu.

How the heck do you do it? Or is there no way to do it? (another of Square's "screw you user" features?)

also, how the heck do you target multiple enemies with magic spells? The right/left buttons work on the other games, you just go far right or far left and it gives you the option of picking them all, but not on this game. Are my controls just screwed up?

thanks

-retro gamer

This post has been edited by docweasel on 15th March 2009 06:31

I thought you could do that (re: magic) but never bothered. Hit the 'L' or 'R' shoulder pad when selecting an enemy or ally to select all of the appropriate type. This does not work with all spells.

This post has been edited by DoILookLikeAWaiter? on 15th March 2009 08:33

I can't get it work with _any_ spells, other than in non-battle situation when you cast Cure on all your party. In battle situations, Fire, Cure, Pearl, nothing but that one guy on the raft's heal spell (which does nothing BUT heal all) works on multiples. It seems like all spells are only for single, and some stuff, like the autocrossbow is _only_ multiple. Real pain in the ass to have to singly kill very weak enemies that pop up every five steps.

Eh, SE screws up all their titles in some way, shape or form, seems like they never game-test any of them with actual gamers.

R and L buttons worked on the advance version.

And spells are ordered by type in this game(Attack, Status, Or healing) If you go to config you can change that order, other than that its the random order.

Oh and if you thought spell order was bad, wait til you get Rage.

Yeah, I don't mind they are ordered by type, but there are gaps of like 10-12 slots between "types", not to mention even within the types they are randomly ordered, so the 3 types of fire spells are several scrolls apart.

I'm using a SNES emu. I don't know what version this is.

There's probably something wrong with your rom. Multi-targeting is available for a large number of white and black magic (including the basic fire, ice, bolt, cure, etc.), and I have no idea why the L or R buttons aren't working for you. No good answer here - saying that Square didn't test out the game adequately is a bit of a premature accusation.

And yeah, it's annoying that there are large gaps in between spells, but there's no way around that. In FF VI many characters can use the same spell sets, and the order can't be changed.

EDIT: Yomama's got a point. Check your control settings and make sure that L and R are where you think they are.

This post has been edited by laszlow on 15th March 2009 18:18

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END SPOILER

Are you sure your pressing the right buttons, docweasel?

I'm not really sure how the '3 different fire spells' can be 'scrolls apart'. I'm pretty sure they're close no matter what. It can be annoying to find your cure spells in the middle of a hectic battle though.

come on guys, give me a little credit
I'm pushing the right buttons. Read my post before you accuse me of being a moron. I said, the L-R buttons work correctly re-ordering the Items, just as they did in all the other games, i.e. you click one item, then another, and they swap positions. Seems like Magic Spells should do this as well.

I just got done with the Cecil/Kain version (ii? iv?) and it worked fine. The L-R buttons work fine for walking (or how could I even play the game?) and for targeting, they just won't work for A. hitting multiple targets and 2. moving spells around.

As to the person above who says "I don't see how they can be muliple scrolls apart":

Imagine you in a battle screen. You pick magic. You want to choose your magic spell. The empty spaces (with no spell) between slots are 10-12 or even more between the various spells. The window is like 3 slots high. You do the math.

Lastly, to the person defending their game-testing, I'm referring to a heck of a lot more than this single issue and more than this cart or title for their slip-slod development and porting issues. I've played a bunch of SEnix titles and I have plenty of complaints about their interfaces, features, etc. etc.

Thanks for responding, but please don't accuse me of being an idiot when you didn't read my post all the way through. (yes, I'm pushing the right buttons, yes the directional arrows work in most other instances, telling me they are assigned properly)

Look, I don't mean to be accusing you of anything, but are we talking about the same L and R buttons? You don't use the L and R shoulder buttons (not part of the directional pad) at no point during FF II / IV. You don't use them for walking.

Check it: http://www.coderetard.com/wp-content/uploa...ze_snes_top.jpg - check the two buttons on the top.

And yeah, I also feel justified in my testing comment. There is no error in magic spell placement or multi-targeting in FF VI. The magic spell placement is static and based on spell order - as you learn more magic, the spell list will fill out, and you can't order spells how you like them. This might not be perfectly geared for everyone's preferences, but it is not an error. I can assure you that in correctly-configured, legitimate copies of FF VI spell multitargeting works for spells that are able to multitarget. Flare, Life, Quick, and certain other spells are only usable on single targets, but for the base elemental spells (Fire/Ice/Bolt) multitargeting works perfectly if your L and R buttons (not to be confused with the directional pad) work properly.

This post has been edited by laszlow on 16th March 2009 03:55

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

First, it's my personal opinion that SquidEnix does (or did) some unnecessarily crappy user interfaces back in the day, and we're still paying the price. Ok, it's not a bug it's a feature: it still sucks, it's still poor design and it still detracts from gameplay. And, why are there blank spaces. I understand, ok, the spells are ordered how you got them. But who several spaces apart? Why do they have to be ordered that way anyway? On the other games I mentioned they are not.

On the buttons, as I said THREE TIMES NOW, they work fine for re-ordering Items, so they aren't the wrong buttons. Unless they stupidly used different buttons for re-ordering items and spells. In any case, as I said in the first post, I've tried ALL the buttons, none work.

Since no one seems capable or willing to actually _read_ my initial post and post helpful dialog, but instead accuse me of being an idiot, this thread seems to be pretty useless.

I believe there's a confusion here. You want to use the L-R buttons to rearrange the spells and people are telling you they are for multitargeting a spell inside a battle. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

Yes, you can't reorder spells like you want and yes it is annoying when you have only a handful of them, but that way you can easily keep track of what you're missing. It doesn't bother me that much because I keep the cursor on memory and rarely change the spell I use unless is a boss battle.

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"Love, and do what you will" Saint Augustine

I'm pretty sure the main problem is he is confusing L(eft) and R(ight) on the directional pad with the L and R buttons on the 'shoulders' of the SNES controller. Also, his panties are all in a twist.

Moderator Edit

I highly doubt that pointing out such things will make the situation any better, and I'm pretty sure someone else already mentioned the same thing. Let's not make people's tensions worse, shall we? -R51

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 16th March 2009 18:04

Is there ANY way to re-arrange spells even in the newer versions?

Or, better yet, is there ANY way to re-arrange the RAGES in the newer versions?

(CAN'T-FIND-RAGE RAGE!!!)

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

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If my panties are in in a twist, as you say (I'm female, btw, and find the allusion somewhat sexist and asinine) it's because people are ignoring or not reading my post or my question. I'm not confusing jack. I've stated (this will be FOUR times now) that the L-R directional buttons work fine for re-ordering Items, and they worked fine for re-ordering Items AND Spells in FFI, both versions of II (the Marie/Fiorel/Guy one and the Cecil/Kain one) but not in this one (with Terra/Cyan/Cele/Locke).

If I'm annoyed, it's because I figured a community dedicated to discussing such an old game would be helpful and glad just to see people still playing it. Instead, I get condescension, misinformation, irrelevant info, accused of being a moron, accused of confusing buttons (I _do_ know how to play NES games, thanks, just having a prob with one feature on one game)

Also, Why do you bother to allow the option of closing your own thread of you just open it back up again? People have now resorted to repeating the same useless info that they did before.


Jesus.

Quote (docweasel @ 16th March 2009 20:36)

If my panties are in in a twist, as you say (I'm female, btw, and find the allusion somewhat sexist and asinine) it's because people are ignoring or not reading my post or my question. I'm not confusing jack. I've stated (this will be FOUR times now) that the L-R directional buttons work fine for re-ordering Items, and they worked fine for re-ordering Items AND Spells in FFI, both versions of II (the Marie/Fiorel/Guy one and the Cecil/Kain one) but not in this one (with Terra/Cyan/Cele/Locke).

If I'm annoyed, it's because I figured a community dedicated to discussing such an old game would be helpful and glad just to see people still playing it. Instead, I get condescension, misinformation, irrelevant info, accused of being a moron, accused of confusing buttons (I _do_ know how to play NES games, thanks, just having a prob with one feature on one game)

Also, Why do you bother to allow the option of closing your own thread of you just open it back up again? People have now resorted to repeating the same useless info that they did before.


Jesus.

I reopened it simply because I thought that there might be a better answer that wouldn't make you angry, and as far as I'm concerned, Sandyboots' answer did an excellent job of that. Yes, someone else gave another answer that annoyed you, I see that. However, as much as it makes you angry, none of us are on your machine while you're emulating, so people do ask questions that you might find condescending. If you were on the phone with tech support for your PC, they would probably ask you if all the wires are connected properly. Would you then accuse that person of condescending?

Now, I don't remember myself as it's been a very long time since I last played, and even longer since I last tried this. However, I thought that you COULD reorder some menu items by using the status window for each character; of course, I might be well off base given that I haven't played in a while and can't exactly check from my office.

If that doesn't work, then I suppose there's no way to do the reordering. If it does, it answers GMH's question as well.

If the L/R shoulder buttons do not work for you, the problem most certainly is on your end, which makes it impossible for us to diagnose. It's not accusing you of being a moron (in fact, in reading the thread, you're the first person to use that word). We're happy to talk about this game and all the others covered on the site, but I humbly suggest that you might be a little bit defensive on this issue.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I hate mods who are last word freaks. Why couldn't you have just put it in a PM?

And where the heck is the "Strategies" section on this site that's referred to continuously in the Walkthrough but doesn't appear in the Menu?

Personally, I found the answers I needed to most stuff here:
http://www.ffwa.org/ff6/

Little bit better organized, better wording and more accurate.

"Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate... HATE."

"Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop."

Moderator Edit

You're not making this situation any better with spam posts. Stop it now. -R51

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 19th March 2009 11:05

Quote (docweasel @ 19th March 2009 02:28)

I hate mods who are last word freaks. Why couldn't you have just put it in a PM?

And where the heck is the "Strategies" section on this site that's referred to continuously in the Walkthrough but doesn't appear in the Menu?

Personally, I found the answers I needed to most stuff here:
http://www.ffwa.org/ff6/

Little bit better organized, better wording and more accurate.

It's a well-known fact that the FF6 walkthrough is one of the weaker portions of the site; it was picked up back in, oh, about 2001 and we've never had bandwidth in our project load to improve upon it (though it, like many other projects, is still in our list of things to do).

If there are portions of the site that you feel you have the ability to improve, by all means, visit the comments and suggestions forum or contact one of the staff directly; other than that, I will be happy to PM you to explain anything you want explained with regards to the operation of this site.

Beyond that, if anyone has anything further to add to the actual topic at hand, please feel free to do so.

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 19th March 2009 11:07

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I don't mean to add fuel to a fire, but I think I may have something constructive to add. First, there seemed to be some confusion as to which buttons the TC was referring to.

When one refers to L-R, these are not the same thing as Left-Right (part of the "+" directional pad, the other parts being up and down). For this game, L-R in the menus (out of battle) serve to change pages, essentially. For the rage list, you can scroll through a "page" at a time with those keys, in the equip and relic menus, you can change characters quickly with them, etc.

Secondly, the actual (first) question seems to be on spell organization. The spells are organized by their type (black=attack, white=healing, gray=effect). The game does NOT let you individually re-arrange spells. And that's no major hindrance. What you CAN do is to re-arrange the types using the Config menu. That is, you can have one of the 6 combinations of Attack, Healing, and Effect. This will be true for battle or out of battle menus. The reason it was done that way is for programming simplicity, as it only requires 3 bits of a save slot's ram to remember the whole magic order. If you could individually re-order spell lists by character, you'd need 58*12*8 bits to store that info. If it was only re-ordered universally, it would still be 58*8 bits to store. With very limited real space to use for saves, they opted to used the re-order by broad category method. And like I said, it's no real hindrance, since you can just use cursor memory to have the cursor go to where you want and keep going there until you change it. And as for all those spaces, they'll be gone if you learn all the spells.

The rage list's order is a much better complaint. It has no real order to it (it's the order of the enemies as stored in the game's look up table). The battle menu does compress the spaces for it, but the order is chaotic, so that you eventually learn the crazy order if you use it enough. I think the intent there was to prevent you from really knowing what you're picking, but I can't back that up. A hacker known as assassin came up with a great solution (only if you're emulating) which will put the rages into alphabetical order, so at least you can find what you're looking for, and it doesn't even require extra save space.

This post has been edited by Ogopogo on 19th March 2009 14:55

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