Topic: Final Fantasy VII, IX, X, X-2 and XII - Now with 80% more FF VIII

OK, so it's just this game then mostly and not the series as a whole? It's definitely not bad, but I've always heard that it's like a 50-50 split between this and Chrono Trigger for best RPG ever, and I don't think it's close yet. And I looked it up, and this actually came out a year before CT, so that blew my theory. But assuming it doesn't get any worse and I still like it just fine, I'll probably give VII a try when I'm done with this one because I've heard so much about that one, too.

@Xyphon22 Well I just don't really like Final Fantasy too much to begin with. A lot of the other games I cared even less than VI, which was one of the only ones to really get me.

In terms of gameplay I absolutely despise their influence on debuffs and status effects teaching the player to do nothing but spam the best overall attacks without any thought ad nauseam since almost all of the debuffs are utter trash and there's no thought process in choosing the spells that pierce defenses instead of choosing the right weakness. It's a huge failure of Final Fantasy as a whole and while other JRPGs fall into that trap, none of then suck more than Final Fantasy.

Most of the love really just comes from the story and characters. Which is fine, but I need more than that personally.

@EvilLucario Gotcha. Yeah, I had never cared much for the admittedly very little Final Fantasy I had played, but I thought I would give this one a shot since I own it anyway and it's supposed to be amazing. But like you said, there doesn't seem to be any reason to do anything except the special attack, except for the fact that Blitz never works. And I hate random encounters. It is good enough to keep playing, though. Just not best-RPG-ever good.

Are you inputting a Blitz after selecting that....? There's a list of which ones he has at any point of the game

Remember that diagonal inputs are the same as left or right, you don't need to aim diagonally when inputting a blitz.

They say that square has lost their work, There is not a PS4 port neither. Here is a quote from VG247 article:
"The truth of the matter is this: back then, Square didn’t have a proper system for archiving and saving its work after release. Things would be lost – and quickly."
https://www.vg247.com/2018/09/14/isnt-ps4-xbox-switch-port-fi...

@Morpheel What do you mean? I'm being a little facetious saying they NEVER work, but for awhile I blew through everyone using the fire blast one that starts left and loops all the way around to the right, but then suddenly it never worked anymore. Are you saying I can do like LLDRR and it will be exactly the same?

@EvilLucario It should be noted for the masses here though that your taste in games, aside from Xenoblade is just plain weird and masochistic. You're glued to the "ultra hardcore" niche with these things, so you're not really representative of what most gamers will enjoy.

I love SMT as much as the next hardcore RPG nerd, but not every game has to be SMT to be fun. And most gamers wouldn't have any interest in the intricacies of SMT....at times even I don't. Sometimes you just want to play and have fun. There's plenty of other things in life demanding undivided brain power. FF scratches that itch for a lot of people, clearly.

@Xyphon22 if a blitz command says you need to go, for example...

Left, diagonal left-up, up

That simply requires you to input...

Left, left, up.

If you try and aim diagonally in the dpad, chances are you will get the command wrong. Just use left or right for diagonal commands.

@NEStalgia LMAO. Not exactly false there :^]

That said once I find the time to look into mods, I'll give the PS1 RPGs another try. Maybe they're better than I give credit for, who knows. I do like the stories well enough, it's the gameplay I don't exactly feel for.

Although give me some credit, I don't just like the masochist games, I like my Mario and Pokemon (which suffers even harder than Final Fantasy in terms of status debuffs and stuff on the main quest, but at least the postgame and PvP make up for it) a crap-ton as well!

@EvilLucario LOL, well, I think FF, and the PS1 FFs specifically strike a nice balance between "strategic games" and "mindless gameplay" in a way that make them fun for (normal) players. You can go into it with sort of a mindless gameplay attitude, but then you get bosses and such that require you to stop and evaluate, or at least grind a bit and work toward it. No it's not the deep strategy postgame XC bosses have, but it's a reasonable balance between playing with a fun toy and having to solve the puzzle of the battle. It's never been particularly strong on gameplay (except XIII) like I said before, but that doesn't mean it's not fun to play, it's just not technically particularly great gameplay (but not like new Paper Mario card based games that are simply structurally flawed in premise and design.)

Pokemon goes full masochist in the post-game/competitive scene though. It makes SMT look easy at times. I'll give you Mario though!

Started playing FFVII, and started a game in FFIX, this hot off the back of Chocobo’s Dungeon.

I’ll say this. I’m enjoying the game, quite a bit actually, but as expected it’s really hard going back to PSone graphics. SNES graphics I can do. But PSone is rough. I like how they improved FFIX though. That game looks way better than FFVII.

But ya, it’s a fantastic game. And I’m happy to see it doing so well on the eShop. Right now I’m just waiting on Final Fantasy XII, but will kill the time with Darksiders, a second playthrough of Final Fantasy X, Dragons Dogma, and some of the other April releases (Cuphead, Mortal Kombat XI, SteamWorld Quest, etc).

Once FFXII drops though... it’s on. Maaan I wish the FFVII reboot would land on Switch. But that’s a pipe dream. They couldn’t even get FFXV running proper (although I really did like the Pocket version, I may end up going back to finish it). Even Switch Pro won’t get us that reboot. I’ll settle for the XIII Trilogy though.

It's my first time playing Final Fantasy VII, so I'm going easy on it in terms of graphics. I know it's a 22 year old game, so I adjust my expectations accordingly. The only thing that bothers me about the graphics so far is how the environments are reminiscent of Castle Town in OOT (static, and sometimes hard to make out), and sometimes it is a challenge to be able to see where I am and where I need to go. The depth is just too hard to make out, because I mean, there really isn't any. lol

There isn't a 'select' button on Switch.... The minus button (left joy-con) toggles that instead, @Harmonie

@ReaderRagfish @BruceCM Thank you for mentioning that. They really thought things through with this game, huh? I will definitely try it out the next session.

No problem, that's a feature you do need sometimes & is often helpful.... I knew it should be there, so pushed the buttons until I found it

I already got stuck in one room even with that one feature on. After countless battles and even losing my party in one instance and having to restart all of that (countless battles just wear down the party) I just decided to finally look it up online to see how to proceed.

Yikes. So far I'm enjoying the game as a whole, but I hope that doesn't become a habit. Hopefully now that I've seen how they did it in this instance I'll be able to figure it out next time.

How far have you got, @Harmonie .... ? I just returned to Gold Saucer in my replay

You'd all probably just laugh, but where I got stuck was the path from Aerith's (Aeris's?) house to Sector 7 (Tifa's bar) or whatever it is called. The little area with the mechanical hand that you can walk on. I walked around forever in that room and somehow missed the way to get down and progress.

7 is confusing in more ways than one, so don’t worry.