@Dezzy Name one thing done well with the release, starting with the announcement, right from the start of FF Versus-XIII FFXV?
Sure, Square Enix knows what "Priced accordingly" is. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was $30 3 weeks after launch, and Deus Ex:MD is like $7.99.
@Ralizah I have split mindset for XII, or even VIII. On one hand I want it on Switch for portability. On the other hand it would be nice to just buy them on X1 and have the total library including XIII trilogy all on one platform for once and be pretty sure it will be backward compatible for generations rather than rebuying them over and over.
@NEStalgia I thought, briefly, about nabbing XII for PS4, because it's cheaper and will have trophy support. Then I remembered how much I wanted a portable verison of this game. If meaningless trophies start making me opt for inferior (to me, at least) versions of a game that I'll enjoy less, it's time to opt out. It's why I disabled trophy notifications on my PS4 and Vita.
@Ralizah Compulsive gambler? Yeah for me it's not a matter of trophies. Portability is awesome (though I had 7, 9, 10 portable on Vita and never played them...well 10, a little.) It's more about assembling the entire library in one place like I did with KH on PS4. XIII trilogy right now is only on X1. Plus the fact that I won't have to rebuy them for the next console.....that's kind of a nice thing.
@NEStalgia I don't really care about having my library in one place, or accessing them in the future, because as long as I have a Switch, I'll have access to my digital Switch games.
The Vita versions... I mean, that tiny screen doesn't really do a lot of those games justice. The Switch's enormous 720p display is more suited to the task.
With that said, beyond FF7, which I make a point of buying on everything, I'll likely not be repurchasing games I already own on other platforms like IX, X, and X-2.
I passed on XII Remastered, so I don't mind paying full price for that one. It's an amazing game, even if it doesn't feel much like a Final Fantasy game. Seeing how the series has turned out, maybe that's a good thing.
@Ralizah It's weird, I never get rid of a console, I have them all. But I don't think I've once ever plugged in an old console either. I'm much more likely to try to move the games to the current machine. You're a PC gamer, you understand the importance of games being playable on new machines years after you bought them
As for Switch, that's going to be the console with the shortest operational life due to the battery and tiny fan bearings. Not a problem for a currently used device, but in terms of preserving them forever, it will be harder than with other consoles. Plus the moment a machine comes out with a screen viewable in bright daylight like a phone, the Switch will join 3DS and Vita in a box in the basement.
For most things I favor Switch if possible. But FF series is one of those "in my library for life" kind of series. If it's on Switch it's transient once again. If it's on X1 it stays with the console for at least another generation, potentially more into the future. If it's on PS4....I still believe PS4 games will be PS5 compatible.....but Sony's more of a wildcard with that. They'll try restrictions where they can. Plus FFXIII trilogy is still X1 bound. It's a hard call. I already have IX and X/X2 on PS4 (and Vita) so that confuses the matter more until some deep sales happen elsewhere for those two. I hate loading up each console and seeing PART of a game anthology on each
And IX will likely remain one of my all time favorite games and favorite FF.
I haven't played much of XII so it's all new to me. I have the PS2 version but never delved far into it. At the time it didn't seem FF-like. Then XIII happened and XII seemed a lot more FF like. But I don't know how the total feel differs.
Then again it's an action game series now so......
Its screen is pretty much only viewable under direct sunlight.
Well, anyway, the difference is that PC is a platform, so not having old games be playable would be pretty disastrous. It's not like people keep around old PCs to play their old PC games on like they do with consoles.
The brilliant thing is that, being an open platform, no one company really has the power to unilaterally decide what you can play and what you can't on PC. Thus... emulation, mods (real mods, not mods that have been approved by corporate committee), piracy, free online, countless store fronts, etc.
Still haven't played IX, btw. The character models look deformed and creep me out. With that said, I'm planning on playing it this year (not on Switch; I have the original PS1 disc, so I'm going full retro and playing it on a PS1).
I'm crossing my fingers that XBox is becoming a "platform" as well...they're making the right noises about it. A closed "platform" like Steam, but still. That's where my debate is coming form
Haven't played the best FF ever? For shame! Certainly not everyone agrees with all the VII hype and X hype dominating, but personally I just think IX hits all the right notes. The sweet themes of the series, the classic fantasy world it started with, the story never gets too convoluted (cough FFVII) and it's just a charming game from top to bottom with a great battle system to boot. It's fun and memorable, overloaded with charm. It starts out very very very slow in the prologue, but it picks up once you get to the theater. It's just a more personal story than the huge overarching planet destroying "ALIENS" theme of VII and....whatever dream time travel thing X was trying to do To me IX is FF, and all the others are impostors. The mandatory card game thing is annoying though. That's the one hiccup.
FWIW, I actually played it the first time emulated on PC....but using a legit PS1 disc...so I got a little FSAA out of it. That was cool when you could just play PS1 games on a PC without being a decryption/copy protection controversy. You still buy the game, just not a console. But I had to buy it again on PS4 this past year on a sale (that's an enhanced version which is really nice.) Not sure how it will land on Switch.
Still haven't played IX, btw. The character models look deformed and creep me out. With that said, I'm planning on playing it this year (not on Switch; I have the original PS1 disc, so I'm going full retro and playing it on a PS1).
Playing FF9 is one of the entry requirements for posting in this thread! Get it done.
You should rethink your retro plan though. The newer PS4/Steam/Switch version is far superior. They updated the 3D character models (which they almost never do for games this old) and added a speed booster option for the battles (FF9 has ridiculously slow fights). It makes it the superior version by far. Playing it on the portable Switch screen will be the perfect platform for it. Because the pre-rendered backgrounds are stuck at lower resolution, a handheld is better than playing on a big screen.
@ReaderRagfihs@Dezzy So, I looked up footage of the original and the remaster on PS4 and... the loading times seems pretty close. I timed it. Roughly 15 seconds in the original and 10 in the remaster.
I also timed the end of the battle (from when the victory chime starts to when it goes to the world map), and the times were pretty similar.
Doesn't seem like a huge difference overall. Am I missing something? And does the HD port have anything else to make it appealing (other than the HD character models, which seem to clash a bit with the pre-rendered backdrops)?
@Ralizah
The battle speed thing is different than the loading time. There's an option in the menu to make the general battle speed faster. Which is hugely beneficial.
The 3D models only really clash with the backgrounds on a big screen because of the resolution. On the Switch it'd look great.
@Dezzy Name one thing done well with the release, starting with the announcement, right from the start of FF Versus-XIII FFXV?
Well that's not too hard.
1) Changing the name to XV was a good move. Given that it was so loosely connected to XIII anyway, and given that the XIII trilogy wasn't that well received by the general audience, it's hard to imagine the game would've sold 8 million copies if it was still called Versus XIII.
I really can't wait for The Zodiac Age on Switch. Final Fantasy XII reminds me a lot of Xenoblade Chronicles, but without a lot of the baffling and frustrating design choices often found in those games.
@Dezzy I prefer the much more realistic and grounded political intrigue of FFXII to the bland revenge story-inscrutable metaphysical shenaniganry in XC.
The characters in FFXII aren't great, but Balthier and Fran are pretty neat and develop nicely over the course of the game. Also, it doesn't make me endure British Wakka the whole time like XC does. And, even if Vaan kind of sucks, he fades into the background over the course of the adventure, whereas Shulk, who develops poorly over the course of the game, is kept front-and-center.
Crucially, FFXII is a ton of fun. Very customizable characters. The gambit system is really deep and fun to mess with, even if it's gaming marmite. The mark system, especially, kept me coming back long after I would have quit other games: the combination of open world and Monster Hunter elements worked brilliantly here.
Not sure how I feel about that hidden superboss that takes, like, four hours to kill (I got bored after an hour and stopped fighting him in the PS2 version), but at least you can save in the middle of the fight!
@Dezzy Yeah, but the point is it was a disaster from day 1....it was announced as a XIII-spinoff before XIII even launched and ended up being 15, even though it was meant as a spinoff title, and really isn't suitable at all as a main-line FF. And now instead of TWO large FF series with TWO large audiences, they have a split main FF that's a mess. There was no reason to genre change FF. It was a known brand with a loyal audience, and there's no reason an ARPG spinoff FF couldn't run alongside it the same way Persona split from SMT. Instead they just turn FF into an ARPG, remove the JRPG from the main series...and now shifted that to Bravely and Octopath?
Everything about FF is a diaster. I can't help but wonder if the record sales of it are that it really sold well, or if the faithful just bought it 2-3 times because it was cheaper to rebuy it each time the "complete" edition came out than all the DLC. I know I've contributed to the sales 3 times now......and I still haven't even played it.... darn them for cancelling the last DLC.
@Snaplocket The cast was cliche but the story was endless plot twists. If you didn't find it exciting, I think you're burned out on Japanese storytelling in general. Of course if we're using FFX, FFXIII as a baseline for unpredictability, I feel the need to point out that nonsensical/incomprehensible/unpredictable are in fact, not synonyms.
@Ralizah I guess I can see not being into space magic though, which is what XC resorts to. It's interesting, but still more comprehensible than Sin, Jenova, and the Fal'Cies. Lack of that stuff is why I like IX so much. Cliche, but sensible.
British Wakka....lol...yeah....he must be the same character designer because he even looks like him. Hmm, why, when you describe XII does it sound like XV? Open world? Check. Monster Hunter? Check.
@NEStalgia FF7 is totally incomprehensible. The plot is a huge mess. But it's a... well-executed mess. An evocative mess. Like Xenogears, it's the right mix of bizarre symbolism, metaphysical concepts, disturbing imagery, psychological exploration, and narrative bullmucking to make the incoherent storytelling really land. I like to call this potent cocktail a game's "Evangelion Factor."
XII isn't actually any more open world than something like VII. The beginning and middle are quite linear, and even when the game opens up, it's segmented into zones. What makes it feel open world is the sheer amount of stuff you can do around the map during specific times, and the lack of a transition to a battle screen. It's very cool. Also, one of those few games that just gets better and better the further in you are.
Or I could just have rose-tinted glasses on. But keep in mind I practically 100% completed this game in an age when I didn't even finish 90% of my games.
Doesn't the remaster have a toggle which lets you disable random encounters? If so, you can just disable them whenever you feel the need to search an area thoroughly. No need for battle load times.
The battle speed thing is different than the loading time. There's an option in the menu to make the general battle speed faster. Which is hugely beneficial.
Sounds like the changes made to the re-release of Bravely Default. Which... I'm mixed on. I dunno: turning off random encounters entirely seems like cheating. I did like the increased speed of battles, though, although BD required massive amounts of grinding, and I get the feeling FF9 probably isn't as bad in that regard.
Hopefully the FF9 remaster doesn't literally put cheating and god mode a button press away, with no way to disable it, like FF7 on the PS4. It's the reason I'm not sure I'll ever actually play it on there. I can't swear, in the depths of a heated battle, I won't be tempted to cheat to save my progress. And that... kinda ruins the game for me.
The sad thing is that it'll likely be the same on Switch.
@Ralizah
On FF VII, you can be a "God" by Mastering these specific Important Materias (Sneak Attack + Knights of the Round, Counter Attack + Knights of the Round, Counter Magic + Knights of the Round, W-Summon, MP Turbo + Knights of the Round, MP Absorb + Knights of the Round, Final Attack + Phoenix)
With these setting, you will have a God character, even you can beat Safer Sephiroth WITHOUT touching any buttons.
For FF IX, there is NO Multi hits at all like Omnislash / Lion Heart.
FF IX just only knew 1 Hit Only for each attack. Because of that, the HP for Bosses or Optional Bosses were NOT Exceeding than 100,000 points.
@Ralizah That's the best description of 7 I've ever heard. I still don't get why it works. I enjoyed it when I played it though that was long ago. And yet even reading what the story is today I still don't understand how I could have possibly tolerated it.
One thing is certain. The remake will take the story totally seriously and thus derail everything else good about the original.
@Anti-Matter I think that's one thing I liked about IX is it went back to basics in a lot of ways, and bosses weren't damage sponges anymore.
@ReaderRagfihs Yeah, that's my feeling of 7 and the universe too. The expanded universe is BAD...I never even made it through the PSP prequel. 7 was sensible up to the point when they start doing Jenova and the clones and the....ugh...it makes no sense. The fact that the big bad remains unexplained at all....tapping the energy of Planet...it's just weird. The fact that the planet is called Planet....that's like naming a dog "Dog".
@Anti-Matter Right, I know that it's not horrendously difficult to break FFVII. But that's fine. That requires some level of effort and planning to achieve. It's not literally "Press L3 + R3 to become a god." The worst thing is watching people online defend it. "Have some self-control," I'm told. That's not the point. I shouldn't HAVE to exercise immense self-control to not break the game completely. Using all the tools available to me is a natural gamer instinct. It's like saying Pokemon games aren't overtly easy because you can technically execute Nuzlocke runs. Heck, NSMB isn't brain-dead easy: after all, why don't you have the self-control to play with your feet instead of your hands?!
(This rant obviously wasn't directed at you; I'm just annoyed that I can't fully enjoy my all-time favorite JRPG on PS4)
@NEStalgia Certain things only really work in FFVII because it's an early 3D game and thus still kind of silly-looking. I guarantee you that they'll ruin the Honey Bee Inn. They'll ruin the fun cross-dressing section. They'll ruin the awkward "date" you can go on with Barrett. And the realism will ruin stuff like the Dolphin Jump minigame. What about Red XIII disguising himself as a human?
Ugh.
Yet, I'm still getting FF7:R (should it ever actually release) day one. I can't not, y'know?
I've never actually watched or played any of the supplemental FF7 media, though, and I don't plan to. FF7 is perfect in its own little way, in its own particular context. Making it a movie or designing an action game around a side character just doesn't work for me.
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