Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic

Quote (Asylum Outpatient @ 13th July 2008 15:50)

FFXII

Jobs.  I worry that the trend in FF seems to be moving away from skillsets and more towards freeforming. Any character can perform any ability and fill any role.  I understand that it's necessary when you have foes with literally millions of HP, but Ozma showed us in FF9 that there's more to making a battle difficult than just attrition.  Some foes aren't loaded with HP, but are still difficult.  I like characters with actual strengths and weaknesses.

Honestly, I prefered the way that VII and XII did it.. anyone can be anything. You can mold each character into what you want.. it gives you a bit more freedom.. that way in XII I can choose who is gonna be an archer and who is a swordsman etc. Which is the reason why X-2's battle system was my favorite in the series. Class change at anytime in the battle was awesome to me. I like the freedom of all that. Why put restrictions on the characters? There are always ways to make it difficult if that's what you're looking for. You don't need to restrict a character to not being able to use this magic or that weapon to make it challenging.

VII of course limited what weapons each person used but the materia system allowed you to customize pretty well. However, the sphere grid in X allowed you to learn anyone elses abilities once you got past your own.

How is it that I started playing IV first and ending up loving pretty much all that came after it also.. I don't know.. I know usually if you start early you hated the latter and if you started recently you can't stand to play the older FFs.. why am I not that way? Couldn't tell you, but I like the direction that the series heads is. I think had they kept it the same as it was 15 years ago I would have abandoned the series after VII out of boredom.

This post has been edited by Sephiroth on 24th July 2008 22:12

--------------------

Climhazzard is the timeless evil robot who runs some of the cool stuff at CoN (mostly logging chat, since there are no quizzes at the moment), all the while watching and waiting for his moment to take over the world. -Tiddles

Most FF games seems to be good to me, hard to find a major flaw.

but what can be improved is the balance. (both character/class balance and balance of err system?)

As for character/class balances, In some FF games, main character's stats are overpowered

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

(cough FF7/FF8 cough*)

I don't know about NES version of FF1 too well, but I believe Warrior > Thief all the way? O.o

In some of the old FFs, only thing thief did was steal and run, although their jobs in a battle continue to increase (first mug, then they start having more active skills)

regarding on status magic
And what about spells? Some status magics (in certain FF games, mostly old school), rarely works because at least 70% of the monster have full resistance to it, and it has 30% ish landing rate on those who don't (no i'm not talking about skills like "death/break" ) and there's no point of casting frog when you can kill your opponent in 2~3 hits. If they have more defense/health, chances are they're probably resistant to status magic as well.

regarding on black magic and summon...
in SNES version, Ultima and Meteor don't have major difference in MP cost while they damage difference is .... !!
consider FF7. Bahamut can do maximum of 9999 damage while KotR do 9999 x 13.


regarding on equipments
I don't know how it is like with recent games like FF12, but from what I've seen, equipments give major difference to melee damage while they dont' make a major difference in major
consider you get a magic staff in FF6, the most you can get is 7 magic while you can have 100+ with ragarok/Illumina? xD


regarding on 9999 limits
mostly regarding on FF7 and FF8. In endgame, you cast ultima and do 9999 damage. You use 4x cut and you do 9999 x 4. ....
in FF7 it's mostly about KotR/cloud's ultimate/mime (you name it).
and FF8, Squall's limit and aura? xD
fire 3 anyone? anyone?



but most of the balance issues seems to get better as they make new games
besides FF isn't multiplayer based except FF11 and it is like a open-RPG (meaning it's not intended for balance, but to have many option you can do in the world like mastering all types of spell/skill [FF6,7,8,10] to become superman, breed chocobos, etc).



--------------------

I will be there...

Quote (Sephiroth @ 24th July 2008 22:01)

Quote (Sephiroth)

Honestly, I prefered the way that VII and XII did it.. anyone can be anything. You can mold each character into what you want.. it gives you a bit more freedom.. that way in XII I can choose who is gonna be an archer and who is a swordsman etc. Which is the reason why X-2's battle system was my favorite in the series. Class change at anytime in the battle was awesome to me. I like the freedom of all that. Why put restrictions on the characters? There are always ways to make it difficult if that's what you're looking for. You don't need to restrict a character to not being able to use this magic or that weapon to make it challenging.

I like the direction that the series heads is. I think had they kept it the same as it was 15 years ago I would have abandoned the series after VII out of boredom.

Different strokes, I suppose.

I just worry that at some point (if we aren't there already), we cross the line from strategy and tactics to attrition and nonsense. The more cookie-cutter the characters become, the huger the monsters have to become to challenge you. We have fights now that take several hours, and really, there comes a point where it's just not fun anymore. We've gone from WarMech with 2000 HP to Yiazmat with 50 million. I can't help but ask: what's next? A hundred million?

As to "why put restrictions on the characters", I'm of the opinion that Black Mages shouldn't be able to wield heavy swords and armor, and Knights shouldn't be able to cast complex magic. It just makes more sense than turning on a square and all of a sudden you can wield Ragnarok and cast Ultima.

I guess where I'm going with this is that I feel the more "different" we try to make the characters, the more alike they become, there's less and less strategy involved in the fights. It's just "innovation" for the sake of innovation, not really improving.

--------------------

You don't scare me, you talking blobs of oozing slop! I am impervious to pain!

Final Fantasy IV This may sound sad to say, but some of the characters who ''die '', actually need to die and not come back..

Final Fantasy VI
- Actually a pick a main character, rather than confusing the fanbase.
- Make it clear who Terra is in love with, King Edgar, Locke, Leo ?
-More backstory for characters like Mog, Umaro and Gogo

Final Fantasy VII
- Fix the translation, plot-holes, and make the storyline more clear.
- Make Jenova the final boss, make it clear that she's the true villian
- Make Cloud save Aerith at the temple, and then later make her die at the Northen Cave. It will give Cloud more of a reason, to loose his mind
- Don't make Barrett such a stereotypical character, and actually a person
- Cloud x Aerith, Not Cloud x Tifa, Tifa took Cloud for granted she had her chance, want her to feel her regert, while Aerith actually tries to like Cloud

Final Fantasy VIII
- Keep Eyes on me in the original Japanese translation
- As somebody else said, Edea should be the villain until the very last CD, She needs to be more cruel, mind-controlling, destory towns and maybe even kill off a character Squall loves, to test his depression.
- Get rid of the flying Balamb Garden and the battle between Gardens
- Rinoa should stop being so flirty and pretending to act hard-done- by in front of Squall, Rinoa needs to just be herself and a better role-model.

Final Fantasy IX Just keep the Trance saved for the next battle
- Make Eiko a older character, so the Garnet- Zidane- Eiko love triangle is more mature and more intresting, plus it may teach Garnet something

Final Fantasy X - Some of the voice acting needs improveing
- Don't make the adventre so linear in one straight line, one path..

Final Fantasy XII Ugh ! don't create, or put Vaan in the game and make Ashe, or Basche the main character of the game. Vaan is awful xd
- Make the battle system the actual Final Fantasy battle system
- The game seems to be too dry, sandy, dull and borning, liven it up.
- Have more storyline within the game, rather than just graphics..

Quote (Starfish @ 4th September 2008 02:43)

Final Fantasy IV This may sound sad to say, but some of the characters who ''die '', actually need to die and not come back..

Final Fantasy VI
- Actually a pick a main character, rather than confusing the fanbase.
- Make it clear who Terra is in love with, King Edgar, Locke, Leo ?
-More backstory for characters like Mog, Umaro and Gogo

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

- They do, it's Terra, without her nothing would have happened, the team wouldn't have met beyond Locke, Edgar, Sabin and Banon, Locke and Edgar would have died in the raid on Figaro without the fire magic against the magictek armour, Sabin then wouldn't have met his brother again getting seperated from the group so Cyan would have died i the Doma attack and Gau would still be on the veldt
Locke would ave died so Celes would be executed

Next Terra wouldn't have gone Esper so they would have gone to Zozo and met Ramuh to learn about the Espers, or gone to find more a the magitek facility

The gate to the Esper world would never get opened and thus Kefka would never have gained the power he needed for to move the statues but taking the Magicite at Thamasa

So to recap:

Major storypoint 1: Escaping Narshe and Figaro, Terra is the reason why Narshe wants her dead and why Kefka attacks Figaro

Major storypoint 2: Seperating and meeting new friends, Terra is the reason they need to get back to Narshe in a hurry and thus why they take the river

Major Storypoint 3: Meeting the Espers and invading Vector, Terra goes nuts, flies to Zozo, and is catatonic, as such to save her the heroes go to Vector

Major Storypoint 4: Opening the gate to the Esper's World, Terra is the only one who can open it, which causes them to destroy Vector then fly to Thamasa triggering:

Major Storypoint 5: The Espers are genocided in Thamasa by Kefka, this is bcause Terra both opened the gate and convinced Yura and his gang to come with them to Thamasa

Then the world of Balance Ends


- Terra loves the children, no main character, the children are what made her human enough to live without magic

- Mog, Umaro and Gogo are secret characters with no impact on the story, not aquiring them would mean you'd miss some story if they have a large impact on the story

This post has been edited by Dark Paladin Danny on 4th September 2008 08:12

Ummm... probably add more circumstances where unnamed soldiers effect the storyline, or occasionally hire mercanaries/ get soldiers to fight with you untill they die/one fight

--------------------

Whats up?

It seems that I have ‘improved’ Final Fantasy 7-12 and Tactics. This brings up an interesting dilemma for me, as the only place I can go now is down, which forces me to critique my favorite video game ever. In all honesty, the thing I dislike most about this game is that there isn’t more of it for me to play.

Final Fantasy VI

Ordinarily, I would say that it needs a translation overhaul, but this was ‘fixed’ for the Advance version. However, I find myself thinking sometimes that they fixed too much. Some of Kefka’s best lines were written out, and some of the old translations sounded better. For example, I think ‘Blow Fish’ sounds better than ‘1000 Needles’. However, I am glad that they fixed much of what they did, since ‘Holy’ sounds so much better than ‘Pearl’.

Speaking of Blue Magic, Strago needs to have more available to him. I love Blue Magic, and 24 spells aren’t enough. Plus, several of the Lores aren’t available until really late in the game. You also need to be able to use Lore and Rage in the Tower of Fanatics. They blew a great chance to get some real mileage out of the Reflect??? Lore, and I despise waste.

I would also like it if the enemies would show any status effects they were under. Your character sprites will spin around, turn colors and sport sunglasses, but the only statuses you can see on enemies are Imp and Muddle, and even those are pretty boring – face the opposite direction for the win.

I know that they meant to do this, but I get so annoyed when you use an instant-kill weapon on an undead enemy, you get the ‘X’, it dies, then it gets beamed back into existence with that slurping sound. FF6 is a picnic, and that is an ant. Also on the annoying quirks, I don’t like that weapons like the Holy Lance do damage with its strike then casts its spell for more damage, but Cyan’s Tempest relies solely on Wind Slash for its damage.

The Coliseum is such a great idea, but there are some things about it I don’t like. In my GBA log, I ended up with around 10 Behemoth Suits. So you can trade those for Snow Scarves, Ward Bangles, Dragon Horns and Gold Hairpins. But what if you want to make some money? After I bought Excalipoor, I was in need, and all five of these items sell for 1 gil each.

Some of the enemies look a bit confusing while you’re fighting them – almost like they were trying to fit too much detail onto the space available. My best example is Daedalus – I can tell what they were trying to make it look like, it just doesn’t quite work. Maybe just the slightest of a graphics upgrade for certain enemies would work.

I think the game could stand to be tweaked a bit in the difficulty department. There isn’t really that much going on to challenge you, but I can’t point to any specific flaw besides easy bosses and random encounters. Maybe it just needs more sidequests? I think some of the CoN ‘rumors’ about the game sound pretty cool – they could incorporate some of those.

I’d like to know more about some of the characters. In the World of Ruin, you get back story on most of the characters – they could develop the characters of Gogo, Siegfried and other characters a bit more. I like Siegfried.

I have a love/hate relationship with Gau, but I can’t decide exactly what I would change about him. I think there should be some kind of point to getting all 255 Rages, and it should be easier to get them all. Put more variety to the monsters you can encounter on the Veldt, and don’t make it so you have to have encountered the monster previously to see it on the Veldt. Maybe if Gau gets all 255 Rages, Strago would die and Gau would take his place kind of like Galuf and Krile in FF5.


--------------------

You don't scare me, you talking blobs of oozing slop! I am impervious to pain!

Quote (Starfish @ 3rd September 2008 21:43)

Final Fantasy IV This may sound sad to say, but some of the characters who ''die '', actually need to die and not come back..

I can say I agree with that. I always did think that dying for the cause would have been better to do than

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Hi, my name is Cid and I can survive a plummit to my death with a giant underworld sealing bomb!

--------------------

Climhazzard is the timeless evil robot who runs some of the cool stuff at CoN (mostly logging chat, since there are no quizzes at the moment), all the while watching and waiting for his moment to take over the world. -Tiddles