/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3038174

FF2 is my favorite game in the series, and I've played damn near every one. Rather, I've completed damn near every one. I lost interest in FF13 very quickly.

Fuck your shitty poll.

The DoS version of FF1 is radically different from the original game. Enemy stats are toned down, items are made cheaper, characters have MP instead of spells-per-level, etc. You're essentially playing the game on cruise control.

As for the story, FF1 is very minimalistic. You're sent out to gather four key items before taking on the final boss, and your characters are just blank slates. The game definitely emphasizes gameplay over plot.

FF2's characters are more developed and have identities and backstories. You can nonetheless develop their skills however you want. FF2's plot follows a consistent series of quests, as assigned to you by Fynn's princess, Hilda. Guest characters constantly join and leave the party under various circumstances as you progress.

FF2's mechanics were considered pretty experimental at the time, because your stats and skills leveled up individually as they were put to use, as opposed to your characters gaining traditional experience levels like in most other FF games. The system is similar to, say, Morrowind. The more you swing a sword, the more likely your strength and sword skill level are going to increase; the more you take damage from attacks, the more likely your HP will increase; and so on.

Since so many people still misunderstand the mechanics involved in handedness and dual-wielding, I will offer a comprehensive explanation in this post.

>WEAPONS DEAL LESS DAMAGE WHEN EQUIPPED IN YOUR OFF-HAND
Each character's handedness is noted on the status screen. Any weapons placed in a character's off-hand will deal less damage.

>WEAPONS GRANT EVASION BONUSES
Weapons give at least 1% evasion per weapon mastery level. This means dual-wielding two swords at max sword mastery will result in +32% evasion. Some special weapons grant higher evasion bonuses. For instance, the Defender sword grants +8% evasion per level of sword mastery.

If your agility and weapon masteries are high enough, dual-wielding is a perfectly viable option. You *can* achieve max evasion without the use of a shield.

>YOU CAN WIELD A SINGLE WEAPON WITH BOTH HANDS
Equip a weapon in your primary hand, but leave your off-hand empty. The game will apply something like a 1.5x damage bonus to your attack.

>THE AEGIS SHIELD DOUBLES YOUR NUMBER OF HITS
Equip the Aegis Shield in your primary hand and it will cause the weapon in your off-hand to score twice as many hits. The weapon still won't deal as much damage as if it were held in your primary hand, though.

>YOU CAN DUAL-WIELD SHIELDS
"Attacking" an enemy will have no effect, but you'll nonetheless gain twice as much experience with your shield mastery. It's a good way to build evasion early on.

>KNIVES ARE NOT USELESS
They have the highest accuracy out of any weapon category in the game. They're extremely useful early on before your characters have been sufficiently built up to handle less accurate weapons like axes.

The Ripper knife has a notable effect: For each successful hit you score, the Ripper deals +20 damage that ignores the enemy's defense. This is quite useful for dealing damage to enemies that are otherwise highly resistant to physical attacks.

Final Fantasy II was my personal favorite, and yes, I have played and finished the entire main series, and even some of the spin-offs.

I guess the degree of character customization has a lot to do with it. Any character can be made to specialize in anything, and if you feel particularly grindy, you can make them specialize simultaneously in everything at once. There's also the whole open-world feel going for it, or at least sort of open. You still have to advance all the plot-related elements before you can head into the final dungeon.

I prefer games with a higher difficulty curve, as well. If a game doesn't challenge you enough, then it doesn't feel very rewarding to finish it. This is one of the reasons why I don't go back and replay FF7 - you can breeze right through the game without even trying to grind or exploiting any particular skills or party setups. The earlier FF games were a lot more fun in that you had to play around with everything and discover effective class setups or cheap strategies for yourself. Hell, it was practically necessary, given all the lethal status effects enemies were constantly trying to stick on you.

>>2503495
>2 is one of the worst games ever made and should be avoided

Or possibly you just don't know how to play it. I've beaten the game 6 times now, and no complaints here.

2's mechanics are unconventional compared to later FF staples, but it's by no means broken. You don't *have* to hit your party members to level up. Insisting on doing it anyway, and then turning around to complain about how broken the game is, is a rather invalid point. Just play the game the way it's supposed to be played.

Honestly, I wish they had removed the ability to target your own characters with physical or magical attacks in the remakes. That might have put a stop to all the criticism. The game is otherwise very similar to the SaGa series, and I don't hear anyone complaining about SaGa's mechanics. The main difference is that you can't hit your own characters to increase their stats in those games.

>>2487101

I tried to balance all factors. Even though I don't like repeating FFX's unskippable cutscenes, I still rank the game high on the list because of the massive replayability.

I forgot FF9. I'd probably rank it just before the 13 Trilogy. There are just too many things that upset me about that game - "Active Time Events," inexplicably vanishing side-quests, the Excalibur II side-quest, long FMVs and cutscenes every five seconds, missable items hidden everywhere, laggy battle sequences with needlessly long animations, every character is locked into a single class and can't have their skills or proficiencies customized, weird statistical limits... There may be others I'm forgetting.

I finished the game once, and that was enough for me.