/vr/ - Retro Games

>Syndicational!!

Oh man, that was a good laugh.

>>5149793
I don't know. I like 7 and 8 better much more

>>5149793
nostalgia

>>5149793
It wasn't until there was a huge online backlash against VII about a decade ago, then other games of the series started getting hyped up to the moon to serve as a counterbalance to VII's popularity. VI was the first, then that fell off, then people started hyping IX and V to the moon, that still lingers a little bit, now I'm seeing VIII as new prized choice of contrarians.

VI always had high reviews, but it wasn't as beloved and popular back in the day as it became after VII came out.

>>5149813
VI was better than VII, though. Nothing contrarian about stating the truth.

The only thing VII has going for it is the cutscenes.

>>5149793

Because it's fun, has a great story, villain, and cast of likable and memorable characters. It boasts am amazing soundtrack too and is very visually appealing for an SNES RPG. It also has a way of drawing in people who aren't typically fans of RPGs due to it being probably the easiest in the series and the smoothest battle flow (The ATB guages dont freeze during actions).

I admit some bias because it is my favorite in the series, but it was the third i played (After 1 and 4) and VII, while really cool at the time, just didnt do it for me the same way VI did. Vii's popularity really stems from how it was the 'first' for a lot of people and in a lot of ways like 3D graphics and scenes, but for those who played the ones that came before it there are many who just don't find it as special.

Thats just my take on it though.

It lacks the nice CG cutscenes and everything, but FF6 has a few things going for it:

- Nobuo Uematsu's score defined how JRPGs are supposed to be composed. Even decades later the entire genre is still referencing instrumentation and compositional choices that he made with FF6. It's easily one of the greatest video game OSTs ever composed.
- The story was miles away from anything at the time, with the bad guy actually winning, and the game having this much darker and more desperate feel, unlike many RPGs of the time.
- Cool magical steampunk setting with lovely sprite and environment graphics made by Square at the top of its game.
- Well realized characters that are both archetypal yet more complex than they first seem. All the main characters have interesting backstories which have some moments of heavy emotional weight.
- Interesting two-part game design, with a more linear first part, before letting you loose to explore in the 2nd half of the game. Tons and tons of secrets to discover and little details to find.
- Fun battle system that covered almost every skill level of player, with loads of memorable boss fights and enemy types.
- Has one of the best video game villains of all time.

In short, it was Square pooling everything they had ever learned about making RPGs into the ultimate game. It's the absolute finest expression of the classic 16 bit JRPG, pushing the genre as far as they could possibly take it. A stunning, monumental statement, and the last word in the genre before the 32 bit generation started.

>>5149875

>miles away from anything at the time

I want to specifically point to the opera house sequence for that statement. A scene like that is easy to pull off in modern gaming, but I cannot begin to express how unique that was at the time and the manner in which they pulled it off with the limitations they had is still amazing to me.

Good characters, story, music, combat, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDMWp1oLoA0

Besides Breath of Fire 2 this is the only other intro that gives me goosebumps.

>>5149813
>It wasn't until there was a huge online backlash against VII about a decade ago
So nice to finally see someone acknowledge this. 6 is still a 10/10 game, but people need to get over their contrarianism over 7.

>>5149813
nah basically what happened is that when FF7 came out, you had old series fans and new fans. Old series fans split on whether FF7 was the best, and new fans all loved FF7.

Basically you had a substantial faction of FF fans who never really went all-in on FF7 being the best, but the were a small voice in first few years after FF7 came out. When remakes started coming out and new fans started poking around older games in the series, that's when fans of the older games had their chance to hype up their favorites. I'm pretty sure that's how the vocal FF6 contingent came to be.

FF6 has the kind of elaborate cutscenes and plot stuff you see in FF7+ games (Opera House, Kefka and the apocalypse, etc.), as well as an accessible well-designed interface. But the pacing is more similar to the other SNES games and it features a very large cast of playable characters for a JRPG. The game's major weak points aren't the kind of things that really make it different from FF7 especially for casual players. The FF6 stat system is unbalanced and easy to abuse, everyone can learn every spell, and there are some major glitches that affect gameplay in notable ways. The characterization is more surface-level, but the pace is faster so you don't notice as much.

This makes it the perfect choice for someone who wants an obvious favorite that isn't FF7 or FF10. Those that don't pick 6 probably pick 9.

>>5149875
>it was Square pooling everything they had ever learned about making RPGs into the ultimate game.
Good thing this is bullshit because if I had to take this seriously it would be a tremendously bad demonstration of what they supposedly learned up to that point.
Then again most Square games are mediocre so it kind of makes sense for FVI to be the emblem of that mediocrity.

>Takes a massive shit on your faggot fantasy games.

>>5149921
Please don't start up a fanbase war, it's the last thing this board needs.

>>5149921
>>5149935
I agree, think before you act. What would JoJo do?

>>5149970
>What would JoJo do?
Which one?

>>5149970
>What would JoJo do?
What's that one horizontal shmup with the bara men?

>>5149921

C'mere faggot

>>5149793
>Why is Final Fantasy 6 always seen as the best Final Fantasy game?
only by weeb brainlets, 8 is better, if I wanted a movie or a story I'd fucking watch/read it.

>>5149979
>using FFVIII of all things as a counter to "weeb brainlets"
Refine that bait a bit sonny. That game is teenager melodrama incarnate.

>>5149985
>That game is teenager melodrama incarnate.
still a better "game"

>>5149974
take your pick
>>5149975
Cho Aniki

>>5149990

(whatever)

>>5149875
>In short, it was Square pooling everything they had ever learned about making RPGs into the ultimate game
Honestly they kind of dropped the ball with the combat balance in my opinion.

The defense-piercing trait on an attack is far too important for how many of those their are.

Healing goes being a scarce and important ability and resource, to every character having easy access to Cure magic and plenty of mana just a few hours into the game.

Esper stat boosts is a good idea that sucks in practice because MagPwr is so much more useful than every other stat.

Easily obtainable equipment drops in the WoR grant elemental resistances that completely trivialize dragon bosses that would otherwise be fun and challenging.

Enemy design doesn't keep pace with character growth. Even at modest levels(40), you can easily have four characters that all have the ability to put out nearly 10k damage per turn (2 ultima-casters, Sabin's Bum Rush, and then a Genji+Offering melee attacker). That's over half of Kefka's health in one round of attacks. At high levels, you can end the fight in 1 move with decent luck on a Genji+Offering attack. And if that fails, you can just chain-cast 5 Ultimas to finish the job.

>>5149985
Playing it as an adult it's about a kid with PTSD struggling to adjust to the transition into adulthood after losing part of his soul through the destruction of his childhood.

It's surprisingly authentic to the experience of someone who grew up with neglectful parents and lost all their friends as they moved on through schools. He has intelligence and skill but just can't help feeling lonely all the time anyway. It's not that he doesn't care, it's that he's just not brave enough to love.

All of the Final Fantasies after and including FF7 are written that way and are generally superior to the writing in your typical anime due to the extended development of the characters.

I mean except for FF12 which just has a banging battle system and totally fucked up real life development to fuck up it's characters.

>>5150087

ff12 = politics + everyone thought Star Wars Episode 1 was cool briefly

6 feels like a dress rehearsal for 7. A lot of story beats, character traits and gameplay concepts got recycled or remixed for 7, and 6fags often point to this as an argument in their favor in the 6 vs 7 gay fanboy slapfight wars, but to me that just means 7 is kind of a better version of 6, especially since 6 falls apart and loses focus after the introduction of World of Ruin in a way 7 never really does.

>>5149921
Akitoshi pls go

>>5150096
people still really don't seem to understand that 80% of WoR is optional

>>5149793
>Why is Final Fantasy 6 always seen as the best Final Fantasy game?

because it's the least worst

Call me whatever you want but I hate how you are forced to use pretty much all the characters in the final dungeon, even more considering how Sabin and Edgar are the only useful characters in the game.

>>5150105
yes, and that was a bad decision.

>>5150112
99% of real life is optional and unstructured so I guess you hate that too?

>>5150109
Sabin and Edgar aren't even top tier.

Most useful characters are Gau, Terra, Mog, Setzer, Strago, and Shadow. Sabin and Edgar are in the middle with Cyan on top of them most of the time.

>>5150096

This whole post gave me cancer.

>>5150119
No, the problem with it is if you leave things as optional, the game now has to account for hypothetical players who never played that optional content. This works for things that really don't intersect with the main story much like plot-unrelated sidequests or endgame superbosses or something, but when only 3 of the 14 party members are absolutely required for reaching the end of the game in the WoR, having any story-relevant optional content there is outside of that would create a massive butterfly effect of having to account for players who never did it, which means, realistically, characters stop being relevant the second you step outside of their personal optional material in the WoR because it would be impossible to do it in any other way. You can't involve Relm or Shadow or Locke heavily in the story anymore because they can't be too plot-essential for a a player who missed them. And the stupid thing is that, hardly anybody is going to even miss out on the optional content, especially in the modern age, because why would you? Guides are easily available and people playing a lengthy JRPG are going to want to see as much content as they can their fist time through. Whatever replay value (which presumably is the entire point of making content optional) the feeling "you can get Shadow in the WoR? I totally missed that!" has is dubious at best. Most people aren't going to play the whole game over for it, they're just going to be annoyed they missed out on something. Long games really don't need replay value injected into them in the first place, as opposed to something like Starfox 64 which greatly benefits from extra replay value due to its short length.

>>5150143
This is why I hope if the FF7 remake ever comes out (it wont) they just make Yuffie and Vincent unavoidable additions to the party so there's no issues with integrating them into the story. Although even in the original game that wasn't that much of a problem in 7 because there was only 2 variables they ever had to account for.

These posts are probably high-heresy to the reactionary anti-"casual" mindset, but that's not the point. Final Fantasy games could certainly stand to be made more difficult, but hamstringing your plot and characters just to make things missable is pointless and adds nothing.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention when I was fellating FF6 that it has the single greatest RPG ending in the history of the genre, maybe even the greatest ending in the history of video games.

>>5149793
Because it is.

>>5150143
Except the game accounts for exactly which characters you brought in the ending and they stay relevant to the story either way.

It's called an ensemble cast you actual retard.

>>5150124
what is cyan useful for?

>>5150105
of course people understand but who wants to go slog through the last dungeon before you've seen everything?

>>5150112
nah I love that part of the game. The only thing they should have done differently is have one more you had to complete to before the final assault on Kefka's tower. That way you'd have a chance to get the main story back on track before the end and regain a little of the momentum lost after the Floating Continent.

>>5150421
why do you need to see everything?

>>5150124
Isn't Cyan actually really low just because of his battle ability devouring a lot of time?

>>5150436
why do you play the game at all?

>>5150459
Nope. Compare Cyan's damage while just using Dispatch compared to Edgar and Sabin. Note that for most of the game Cyan has superior defenses as well.

It's different if you use Espers to control stat gains but you can also use Retort/Slash/Quadra Slam without missing anyone else's turn unless you specifically bring fast characters or auto-haste.

There is situational usage for his last 4 Swd Techniques as well, but mostly Dispatch is just ridiculously OP and is far more reliable than anything Sabin or Edgar can do for damage until you get Bum Rush.

Air Anchor is a better instakill than Cleave for how long that one takes to charge up, but Cleave negates death counters and Air Anchor doesn't.

>>5150470
to play the parts I enjoy because I want to

no one is going to care whether I 100% something or not, least of all me

>>5150476
So what does this have to do with
>>5150105
>people still really don't seem to understand that 80% of WoR is optional
Sure you can skip it if you want, but most people don't want to. They play through the bulk of the content of the game because that's what they enjoy.

It's like, telling people to just skip the WoR isn't really addressing the complaint. They could just quit the game at that point to roughly the same effect.

>>5150018
>to every character having easy access to Cure magic and plenty of mana just a few hours into the game.
Characters with a low Magic stat (Like Cyan) cure like ass and deal less magic damage, though.

>>5150105
The problem is that you really don't get anything out of it if you skip it, other games give you content variations if you choose not to do something, WoR just means you're losing on content for no good reason.

>>5150490
>Sure you can skip it if you want, but most people don't want to.
Most people don't have ocd or autism anon.

>>5150496
Why would you ever have him do either of those things

>>5150518
>you really don't get anything out of it if you skip it
you get time

lets be clear, the reason you don't like it isn't because it's doing anything wrong, it's because of your own sense of entitlement makes you unhappy whenever things aren't ideal or in some state of perfectly boring compromise and zero-sum negation

>>5149895
the only true oldfag in this thread

this happened to me too, because FF7 was technically my first RPG (I played stuff like PS III but I was too young to get it)

>>5149793
Because it's the best Final Fantasy game.

Perhaps you'd next like to ask why the ocean is seen as the wettest body of water?

>>5150496
Yeah but he still gets a fine tank of mana to use for healing between battles. It's usually more than enough to get the job done.
When you pick your party to leave Narshe, you strongly consider taking Celes as she's the only healer, and you probably stock up on tonics and potions for between-battle healing. After Zozo that's simply no longer an issue. You can have literally anyone be your between-battle healer, and then anyone with reasonable magic power can heal in battle.

Now I'm not saying that between-battle healing is some kind of amazing game mechanic, but it was there and in a game where party composition is a major factor, something like having a healer or not is a big deal.

>>5150521
Because you only heal when necessary, and when it's not necessary you can be slicing things up and tanking hits. Plus, a few hundred mana goes a long way between battles.

>>5150523
let's be clear, now you're just baiting like a moron and not actually paying attention to anything anyone says.

>>5150523
>you get time
What time? In a game with zero replay value?
Skipping content for time can be good in a game that does encourage multiple playthrough thanks to having actual content and content variation, in fact it's a great thing, sometimes even a bit of a challenge, but this just isn't the case for FFVI in any way you slice it.
>lets be clear, the reason you don't like it isn't because it's doing anything wrong
Not really, I don't even really care about it since it's a mediocre game all around, but this is a pathetic attempt at defending the WoR being as cheap as it is.
You don't really gain anything by skippin WoR content, not even time since if you want to actually experience everything the game has to offer then you'll have to either start back from a savefile or start the game all over again just for a few things you missed in a linear game with no actual roleplay or variations, which is also why having something like Shadow dying on the floating continent is dumb since it doesn't lead to anything, the game straight up erases Shadow from history if you do.

Granted, WoR is actually the better part of an otherwise joke of a game, I don't even dislike it as much as I dislike everything else the game has to offer outside of visual values and music, it's just lazily put together.

>>5150546
>WoR being as cheap
What's "cheap" about WoR?

>>5150546
>What time? In a game with zero replay value?
you get time in real life you gigantic fat waste of life

Seriously this is why I would never make a game that doesn't lock you out of content forever no matter how many times you replay, no matter what you do the first time you play it

>>5150548
That its "nonlinearity" doesn't have any actual thought put into it, all the party members have the same exact quest no matter when you do that, it's incredibly wasted potential, and again, it doesn't really give you any real incentive to skip things either, it's just a bunch of lazily put together subquests you can do in any order, and I don't want to sound like a fanboy dick by saying this, but it's incredibly disappointing coming from games like Romancing SaGa 2, which actually had major care in giving you both massive freedom of progression and questlines that change dynamically depending on what, when and how you do things and was done just a year before FFVI.
It's incredibly embarassing and cheap, and this is without considering the quality of the rest of the game, which is absolutely pathetic and a massive step back from FFV even in the series' context, I won't even try to compare it with SaGa again on that point because no FF game stands even remotely a chance when it comes to actual gameplay.
>>5150558
Then why are you wasting yours shitposting with strawmen on the retro board if your IRL time is so important to you?

>>5149819
>VI was better than VII
Only the first half of VI.

>>5150565
Da fuk yo on about? 6 starts out good and making the 2nd half more open world and non-linear makes it even better.

>>5149813
I don't remember anyone hyping up V. It was always IV and VI.

>>5150561
>Then why are you wasting yours shitposting with strawmen on the retro board if your IRL time is so important to you?
Like everyone else on 4chan I'm planning a series of murders and waiting for the dates to line up

>>5150582
Nomura's favorite FFs are 5 and tactics because you can grind your units up and they can learn any ability

isn't that hilariously ironic

>>5150561
alright, I mean I think you're overstating the case by quite a bit but can't really argue with any of those points. FF6 isn't my favorite game by any means but gameplay-wise as far as the series goes, I really don't mind having complete freedom to just go do a pile of subquests in whatever order I want. My main complaint is the unbalanced gear and equipment you can get early on that trivializes everything else.

>>5150595
Those are actually my favorites as well.

Was I actually Nomura all along?

>>5150679
Depends, are you a horrible character designer?

>>5150681
I don't have an artistic bone in my body.

>>5149793
Don't know. It's a very flawed game, but still fun as hell.

>>5149793
>Why is Final Fantasy 6 always seen as the best Final Fantasy game?
Blowback from the sheer quantity of fanwank autism that Final Fantasy 7 provoked. Final Fantasy 7 is one of my all time favorite games, and I consider it one of the best video games ever made. Nobody in 1997 had ever seen anything like it.

But boy, was the fanbase fucking stupid. FF7 came out right around the time it was cool to be "emo", so fans did dumb shit like imagining Cloud as being emo even though he's actually a deadpan snarker who keeps his shit together most of the time (you know, unless he's being mindfucked while it dawns on him that his entire life is a cruel joke, and even then he mostly keeps it together) or people going on forums and describing their marathon cry sessions when Aerith dies, like they were trying to prove who was the saddest and most broken up over her death. I can't think of any other game that had the balls to kill off the female love interest, that was one of the great twists in video game history, but man, people were so bent out of shape over it, scouring the game for ways of reviving her, and writing the shittiest fan fiction about her revival that you could possibly imagine.

So in order to distinguish themselves from the giant wave of retarded new final fantasy fans, some lads from the old school got to talking about 6 as the superior game, and as much fondness as I have for 6, having grown up with the game and played through it so many times that I've forgotten more about the game than most people will ever know, I respectfully disagree.

My only consolation is that the emo tards got the game of their dreams in Final Fantasy 8, so Final Fantasy 7 fans are no longer under pressure to distance themselves from My Little Pony-tier fanwankery.because everyone realizes what special snowflakes FF8 fans are.

>>5150961
You sound upset VII was selling like crazy but VI was still the popular more liked game.

>>5150143
>he wrote all these words because he was buttmad that he missed his boy Shadow in the WoR
Just imagine.

>>5150970
It's not. Only by oldfag contrarians who hate the FF7 fandumb

>>5151347
he has a point though: aside from being a completionist, what do you get in the WoR storywise out of Shadow? Nothing, just a few extremely unlikely dream sequences that are vague and don't really contribute much of anything to the main storyline. I'd have much rather the WoR continued the linear narrative of the WoB where characters like Shadow are given their chance to shine.

>>5151356
Just admit you're a storyfag and move on. The series got progressively worse the more it focused on story over gameplay.

>>5150961
>But boy, was the fanbase fucking stupid. FF7 came out right around the time it was cool to be "emo"

>>5151404
The materia system is an improvement over the magicite system in every way

>>5151428
Yes, but it's not an improvement over V's god-tier job system.

>>5151432
Well, I'd say it has some advantages and disadvantages. FF7 system is basically a more granular version of the FF5 job system that also decouples specific abilities from individual characters. This leads to a much larger potential for build variety, but also leads to more grey hybrid builds with no real character. So on the one hand you can accomplish some crazy shit by stacking counter materia and such, but you can also just put a boring mix of materia on each character so that they all have good flexibility, good HP, good magic power, etc. There were definitely scenarios where I just didn't even give a shit who had which materia.

>>5151460
You can easily beat the entire game with just Restore+All, and Enemy Skill if you know where to find them. It's brainless.

>>5151475
All unmodded final fantaisies except maybe the NES ones are braindead easy

>>5149813
VI was super popular back in the day and received much praise actually the success of VI is half the reason why there was so much hype for VII when it came out.

>>5151475
That's more a content issue, not a problem with the system.

>>5149813
Well most ,if not all,FF games are garbage

>>5151647
okay but isn't that just because of your retroactive self loathing where you hate everything that you happened to like a year before

>>5150961
>I can't think of any other game that had the balls to kill off the female love interest
Phantasy Star II
Honestly what happened in Liva-a-Live and even Bahamut Lagoon's trolling were somewhat more inspired.

FF7 is a great game it's just that killing Aeris wasn't really all that ballsy. I was more shocked by Celes attempting suicide.

>>5149813
Hello, Zoomer here. I tried playing both FFVI and FFVII. I liked FFVI and will play it again, Celes best girl. I got bored of FFVII when you leave midgar or whatever and after doing the mouth to mouth and Parade walk, I dropped it.
I was born after both came out

>>5150109
Gogo was fucking busted as shit if you got creative

>>5150143
Too long; Didn't Read

>>5151707
Not really I mean his stats suck so he's basically just a weaker copy of better characters

>>5149921
a dead series vs a series touted as -the- quintessential JRPG series of all time.

:thinking: what did he mean by this?

Because you can tell that FF VI was the game when the very best Square had to offer sat down and decided to have fun
>everyone got to make their own character, as if they are participating in a tabletop game
>funny intermixing character storylines ranging from sad to funny
>games dares to both be funny (Sabins questline) and sad (stranded Celes is shit at fishing)

Of course, the game isn't perfect (it's a buggy mess and balance is off), but you can tell that the guys making it just had FUN with VI. It's like game night with your friends.

>>5149976
>pic
made me laugh.

>>5150143
You are right, but at the time it was harder to get information, the game provided a lot of replayability.

>>5150546
>What time? In a game with zero replay value?
I can't think of better retro games that provide more content than FFVI, at least WoR.

>>5151897
I feel very sorry for you if that's the case and you aren't just baiting.

>>5151634
Absolute fucking bullshit zoomer revisionism. Squares games were not that popular in the west prior to FFVII's release. Their only SNES game that sold well was Mario RPG. FF7 sold because of a huge marketing push from Sony.

>>5151695
>I got bored of FFVII when you leave midgar or whatever and after doing the mouth to mouth and Parade walk, I dropped it.
not surprised. The things I like least about FF7

1. Minigames (Some are good but on the whole have aged terribly)
2. Pacing & Cutscenes (starts off well but drags after leaving midgar)
3. Various aspects of the battle system.

I can imagine a lot of people dropping it any time around that point (give or take a few hours of progress)

>>5152062
Probably just internet fan revisionism. Final Fantasy's niche fanbase in the west were very passionate about the series and Squaresoft in general, to the point that there was even a whole site dedicated entirely to square RPGs. This was before FF7 (the site actually had the domain www.square.net)

>>5150961
Dude, FF7 came out in 1997. Emo wasn't a thing until the 2000s, everyone dressed like Britney Spears or Eminem or whatever. It was the normiest of times.

>>5152090
While I wouldn't deny a niche passionate fanbase existed for FF in the west pre-FF7, saying FF was a hugely popular franchise here on the level of Mario, Zelda, or Sonic prior to 7's release is horseshit. The series didn't even have a European release until 7, Mystic Quest notwithstanding.
>>5152131
Emo wasn't popular, but thanks to grunge and nu metal, angst and brooding depression was considered hip in the 90s.

FF7 Cloud wasn't depressing, you're confusing with Advent Children.

>i don't believe this

Cloud is a smarmy faggot But I still like him better than Squall

>>5149793
It's pretty much the best of the sprite-based Final Fantasy games. And yes, I have played Final Fantasy V and the job system isn't anywhere near as cool as people make it out to be.

Of the 3D games I have played FFVII, FFIX, X and XII, and to be honest I don't know why people love VI so much.

>>5152131
>Emo wasn't a thing until the 2000s

>Emo, which began as a post-hardcore subgenre, was part of the 1980s hardcore punk scene in Washington, D.C. as something different from the violent part of the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene.

>>5151665
Nei was never a love interest to Rolf, their relationship was not fleshed out that much, and even then that's a really obscure example that most people don't know about.

And Celes doesn't attempt suicide if you actually succeed in rescuing Cid. It's a massive pain in the ass, but if all you feed him is healthy fish, he recovers

>>5149895
This. Old fans disliked the series moving further away from its D&D /Ultima roots by completely removing classes, among other changes

>>5152167
Emo wasn't mainstream until 2002.

>>5149793
Because few games can hope to have the emotional draw final fantasy 6 has.

>>5152285
And for what it's worth I still played through FF7 and enjoyed it. Even though I noted the things I didn't like as I played, I was plenty impressed by the game as a whole. It definitely took some time for the dust to settle before I really had a chance to think about how it stacked up vs the older titles.

And it definitely wasn't a case of backlash or anything like that for me, I actually really liked how popular FF7 was because it meant more people I could talk to about the series. Certainly there are things I like about FF7 more than FF6. I remember appreciating that the aesthetics on the final descent to fight Sephiroth were appropriately epic and magical, after the depressing literal pile of junk in Final Fantasy 6. Looking back, I do appreciate Kefka's final level a little better than I did as a kid, but I still like 7's better.

>>5152162
I think it's OK in V but the job system really shines in Final Fantasy Tactics.

>>5152308
The only game that ever had an emotional draw on me was Xenogears, and I think that's partly because I was so exhausted by time I finally got to the end of it.

>>5152162
The job system is only half the fun of FFV. Yeah its fun to mess around with party set up but it'll all be for nothing if there isn't something to enforce said system mechanics. Its amazing how you can tackle the game in so many different ways and all your options are near viable to one another.
>>5152338
FFT job system isn't that much different from V aside from putting job level requirements to unlock other jobs.

>>5149793
Not sure, it's not even the best SNES Final Fantasy. I prefer IV. IV and IX are probably my favorites.

>>5152405
The 3D tactical format makes a huge difference. Ranged attacks become much more important. Movement becomes almost as important as speed. Speed also matters more because battles have more turns, as well as having 5 characters in a battle meaning more party combinations are possible.

It just adds so much more depth to the build possibilities. The Knight's great equipment options come with major mobility and ranged drawbacks. Dragoon's "Jump" or Ninja's "Throw" become a great long-range attacks usable by other melee classes. Ninja becomes an even more compelling base class due to the great speed and move/jump ratings. You can learn the Time Mage's Teleport and put it on an Archer to easily warp on top of a battlement for maximum bow range. The faith system means that many all-or-nothing type spells (such as Haste) can still be used effectively by low-magic classes. And Haste makes a big difference in Final Fantasy Tactics.

That's all in addition to the same kinds of dynamics you have in FF5.

>>5149901
Well, what's your example of a great jur puh guh then

>>5152180
hahaha you backpeddling faggot holy shit

>>5151967
Not an argument.

>>5149793
Mix of reality and nostalgia. It is the one installment that would do most with a proper enhanced remake, having the character specific mechanics be more indepth would fix a lot of the issues with every character ending up more-or-less the same; spamming the standard attack for 9999 damage.

For example Celes' Runic could be an actual ability tree that deals with countering magic and working in conjunction with the spells and magicite equipped. Kind of an Anti-Magic Magic Knight.

>>5152809
I don't think you understand what final fantasy is about now

>>5152813
I don't get what you're saying...

>>5152815
You're talking about complex mechanics and differentiating characters, but what they like is casualizing and streamlining the gameplay while focusing on the story. Final Fantasy is above all about the characters as people within a narrative, and the gameplay is progressively becoming a better reflection of the character's identity, but the focus is on a storylike experience rather than mechanical depth or puzzleaction.

The ideal state of a Final Fantasy game is a 10 hour solid movie type experience that just happens to have a bunch of rpg shit in it. Final Fantasy is about games becoming anime or live action and enrolling you as one of the awesome people in the show, or maybe all of them.

It will never be about hot mechanical puzzles unless it's outside of the main series and they're never going to do it in a remake of a main series title.

>>5152820
>and they're never going to do it in a remake of a main series title.
but they did
FFVI is just the first game where they completely gave up on the idea of balancing their games
coincidentally it's also the first FF that didn't have heavy involvement from Sakaguchi

>>5152820
>You're talking about complex mechanics and differentiating characters, but what they like is casualizing and streamlining the gameplay while focusing on the story. Final Fantasy is above all about the characters as people within a narrative, and the gameplay is progressively becoming a better reflection of the character's identity, but the focus is on a storylike experience rather than mechanical depth or puzzleaction.

As if the two can't exist in the same game, enforcing a character's story and journey through gameplay elements is literally what an RPG is...

>The ideal state of a Final Fantasy game is a 10 hour solid movie type experience that just happens to have a bunch of rpg shit in it. Final Fantasy is about games becoming anime or live action and enrolling you as one of the awesome people in the show, or maybe all of them.

...why do you play games?

>It will never be about hot mechanical puzzles unless it's outside of the main series and they're never going to do it in a remake of a main series title.

Have you played the DS remake of FFIV, it's one of the most challenging RPG experiences they've ever done and it's still faithful to the original. While it's not incredibly technical, each boss has is a challenge that requires a strategy.
It's 15 that started the trend of bucking gameplay for a narrative and it wasn't a huge success.

>>5152824
FFIV is balanced, it's just really difficult. That boss is the exception to the rule.

>>5149875
>In short, it was Square pooling everything they had ever learned about making RPGs into the ultimate game
No, it was more like they dropped everything they should have learned from prior FFs to focus on story and setpieces.

>>5150018
>Healing goes being a scarce and important ability and resource, to every character having easy access to Cure magic and plenty of mana just a few hours into the game.

The game's only 25 hours long unless you're really completing everything, though. A few hours without healing magic is a significant portion.

Making your parties from four characters to three characters since VII was bad.

play brave new world if you like the game and are interested in a version with some updated mechanics. i really like what the creator did with the esper system, it makes every character unique (although some are definitely better than others) and fixes the stupid "just add magic power and use ultima" shit.

it'd be perfect if that asshole didn't decide he had to mess with the script.

>>5149793
because squaresoft has never written a decent story

>>5151695
>I got bored of FFVII
boomer here, I dropped that shit right before the ending - wasn't worth grinding more

>>5152946
Not even Vagrant Story?

>>5149813
This nigga knows what's up. FFVI's status of being the absolute best in the series was always a meme from bitter fans that couldn't accept that FFVII was the most popular entry in the game. Shame, because all that did was just hurt all of those games mentioned's reputations.

>>5152889
>A few hours without healing magic is a significant portion.
Yeah, that's kind of the point. To happen so suddenly at that particular point in the game smacks of carelessness and lazy gameplay tuning.

For the first several hours of the game, you have to think about healing. You have to decide how much gp to allocate for potions and whether to use them or Celes or Terra's mana-based healing in the field. Eventually you have to build a party at a point when Celes is the only healer you have. This part all feels reasonably well-balanced and tuned.

Then there's a plot event and you basically never have to think about potions or putting a healer in your party for the remaining 90% of the game. It's not like when you near the end of the game and have found late-game rewards or done a lot of grinding that changes how you play the game. This is just dropped in your lap. An easy way to balance this would have been to make each character's mana pools be meaningfully different.

>>5150096
>A lot of story beats, character traits and gameplay concepts got recycled or remixed for 7,

Yeah, and FF6 felt like an emo version of FF5 with half the classes turned into separate characters and the other half into random abilities/items.

Having played FF5 first, FF6 felt boring as shit.

And the minigames were annoying and forced. I want to play an RPG, not a minigame segment.

>>5150582
>I don't remember anyone hyping up V.

That's because it wasn't even released overseas.

>>5153049
>>5153047
Yeah I think another big reason why older fans have such fondness for VI in the US is that there was such a delay between the release of FFIV and FFVI, with nothing in-between except Mystic Quest. So you had this 3 year wait (which feels like an eternity to a kid), and then finally it's released and the game's presentation is on a whole new level in terms of graphics, interface, and narrative.

>>5149879
This. That entire segment is a goddamn masterpiece.

>>5152946
do you even know what a decent story is

>>5152825
>...why do you play games?
do you even know what a game is?

>>5152740
Oh yes, because people to this day still wax nostalgic about Celes fated suicide attempt.

Fuck off, nitpicking faggot. Nobody cares about your obscure and pedantic exceptions

>>5152930
>it'd be perfect if that asshole didn't decide he had to mess with the script
That shit is incredibly annoying, and to top it off their "clean" version just replaces the out-of-place cussing with even worse lolsorandom shit.

>>5149921
>not 2
LMFAO

>>5153756
Why you so mad you fat ugly unloved mudslime sack of fetid waste

>>5154161
Isn't it past your bed-time, kiddo? Why don't you have anything left to say about Final Fantasy?

>>5149819
VII looks pretty and cool

>>5154203
because you're so ugly and unlikable it literally paralyzes thought in free-thinking human beings by power of sheer disgust. a survival strategy shared by both islam and the fucking blobfish

even thinking of a way to converse with someone so completely distasteful and banal as yourself takes such a herculean effort that nobody can actually manage it unless they put their entire life on hold just to put you and your kind in your place

>>5154302
Does your mother know that you're up this late browse 4chan and shitposting in an otherwise fine thread about Final Fantasy?

>>5154317
are you seriously trying to accuse me of the dumb shit that you started? you really are a fucking mudslime aren't you

do you read this shit from a handbook or do you actually waste braincells remembering these asinine strategies

>>5154328

>>5150474
>but mostly Dispatch is just ridiculously OP
Drill is straight up better than Dispatch to the point of having more than half again the battle power - 120 to 191 - AND it's not randomly targeted. You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

>>5149819
wrong.

This Cyan debate is literally straight out of GameFAGs. It pains me to admit this, but I used to lurk the FFVI board, and these stupid faggots constantly assert that Cyan is a good unit. The fact is you need to use 'Psycho Cyan' or pump his magic stat to unreasonable levels to make his double Tempest setup worthwhile. The Figaro brothers are the best characters in the game, and this is undisputed with actual facts.

>>5152285
It started moving away from them as early as IV if not earlier, with predetermined characters and a heavy focus on story over gameplay.

>>5149793
Not in Japan, it's not even seen as the best of the SNES trio (that honor belongs to FF4)

FF10 is the most popular there with FF7 a close second.

>>5150163
FF6 used to have my favourite ending ever, until I played Lufia 2. That shit brings a tear to my eyes every time.

>>5150143
But WoR wasn’t largely optional for replay value; it’s not like you had a branching story based on your actions or anything. It was optional to give players the choice of where to go and what to do.
If you can’t finish the game because there’s an undetermined number of story events scattered across the map you haven’t done yet or even found, that would be a fucking pain in the ass and would prevent many players from finishing the game.
The solution to this is to make WoR linear to keep it simple. But look at all the posts praising the 2nd half’s freedom of exploration and tell us that’s a good idea.
The other solution is to do WoR exactly how they did. Players who want to see everything can see everything, players who don’t give a shit about Shadow can skip Shadow and do the rest. The system works.

>>5154764
japanese people have shit taste anyway

So, a while ago I went into FF and played 1, 2, 7, 8 and 10.
And every single one was incredibly broken from a mechanical standpoint. Either from fundamentally flawed systems, like in 2 and 8, where the former is inherently incentivizing grindy behavior, while the latter completely defeats the point of having a level up system and in fact punishes you for levelling. Or by shoving in mechanics for no reason, like in 10 - why have percentage-based attacks, poison effects and the like when the kinds of enemies that it would be wise to use them on (ones that are high on health or armor, as well as bosses) are immune to them and ordinary enemies are killed too quickly for these effects to be worthwhile? Why have a money system when the game is entirely linear, thus meaning that resource management is a total moot point? Why even have random encounters that just serve to pad the straight line from A to B, when you could at least give the game interesting pre-set fights where all mechanics are useful and can be used cleverly?
Why have a system where every single character is a carbon copy of each other and can learn the exact same skills?
Also, why is Scan even a skill when most of its function could be replicated by hit feedback for elemental weaknesses, as well as well-designed visual clues for special rules in fights?
I don't even remember that clearly what was wrong with FF7, but IIRC it was related to the real-time mechanics as well as the front/back-row system.

What about the other games? Are 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. any better in this regard? Or is this just part of the franchise, in order to honor FF1's situation where they literally didn't have the money to not make it completely broken?

I'm really trying hard to understand how these games became so popular, despite the massively flawed mechanics.

>>5154764
based nips, they know what's up

>>5154834
play FFIV for the DS, set it on active and the fastest battle speed
III is also balanced (both versions)
V is balanced provided you don't grind the job

6 doesn't get good until the World of Ruin.

I despise the pacing in VI. I like the game, I'm ok with its mechanics but the pacing is just wrong. In 15 fucking minutes a whole lot of shit happens. Maybe it's just me.

>>5155415
It has better pacing than the PSX games desu

>>5154509
by the time you get the drill cyan can use the drill as soon as you pick him up.

>>5154834
you DEFINITELY did not actually play X based on your bitching about status ailments, because a ton of bosses are vulnerable to certain statuses that make the fights much easier.

>>5155591
This is not to say that Edgar isn't better once he gets endgame equipment that makes him a super tank who can constantly hop around stabbing shit with the holy lance

Which makes him better by being a less effective version of Mog.

it's all kind of a silly argument when every character is magnitudes stronger than they ever need to be to tear apart everything you actually end up fighting against, and they all just continuously outpace everything you fight, the game is hardest right at the beginning and only gets easier as you play unless you specifically avoid leveling up.

>>5154834
>What about the other games? Are 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. any better in this regard?
>4
FF4 is probably the least-broken Final Fantasy game, followed by FF5. In FF4, you can even trivially run away from random encounters in just a few seconds in most cases, which is unusually nice for a game from 1991.
>5
FF5 is both more elaborate and more refined than FF4 and is superior in many ways. But, all the extra complexity does mean there are more ways to exploit and break the system. There's also lots of incentive to grind to unlock job abilities.
>6
Whether FF6 is that bad or not depends on perspective I think. FF6 has a lot of serious flaws which are brought up elsewhere in the thread. That said, if you play through without thinking too hard the game is reasonably balanced and can be completed in a reasonable amount of time with minimal grinding.

>>5155635
Also I should note that by "least broken" with regards to FF4 I'm ignoring some of the obviously massive broken shit like the 64 door glitch. If we're talking about obscure exploitable glitches, FF4 has lots of those.

>>5152062
absolute fucking bullshit underage faggot history reality denialism. square games aka ff6/ chrono trigger was popular. alot of people around me were hyped for it and it got mention in some game mags. dont know what rock you live under underage but your denial of reality is never good. plus underage so not around during this time. fuck off troll

>>5152145
>saying FF was a hugely popular franchise here on the level of Mario, Zelda, or Sonic prior to 7's release is horseshit
Sure, but no one claimed that.

>>5155591
You get the drill pretty much immediately after the scenario split. Dispatch is also only barely better than Pummel.

>>5149793
Because 6 is afraid of 7,8,9

>>5155802
Oh man I totally thought you had to get it after the forbidden island in figaro instead of after narshe, though to be fair I also -didn't care- the last time I played.

Ok yeah for that segment and after pearl lance+dragoon boots Edgar is probably better, which is admittedly like half the game.

I'm still not that impressed by Sabin though, he doesn't seem that great at low levels (until you skip the gap and get bum rush) and only seems to make an easy game more convenient at higher levels.

Terra/Setzer/Mog/Gau is best team

>>5155596
I certainly didn't power game it and haven't used any guides. I wanted to actually experience the game like a normal player.
IIRC I got to the boss on that airship when I lost interest. From what I remember, I tried to use a percentage-based attack to weaken it, as well as poison, which it both was immune to. Could you tell me what I missed on my path?

>>5155638
I don't care about that kind of shit, only about the actual mechanics - glitches can be excused to a degree, fundamentally broken mechanics that should have been caught in QA can't.

>>5155635
Thanks, now I'm actually interested taking another dive into FF games. While I dislike the gameplay of the ones that I played until now, they are certainly unique, so I'm quite curios.
I think FF1's fakeout where you defeat the evil dude and then cross the bridge and the real game begins with a full-screen title screen was high art.

>>5152928
IX had 4

What was in the chest?

>>5156334
The Zanbetsuken sword.

>>5156170
>I don't care about that kind of shit, only about the actual mechanics
Yeah, basically, the thing with FF4 is that it doesn't have a lot of ambitious ideas. Characters have fixed classes and your party is chosen for you as you progress. But stats are well-balanced. They vary significantly from char to char and can be substantially modified by equipment. Party size maxes out at 5 rather than 3 or 4.

The progression system is straightforward, where XP is distributed to the party and you gain levels that make you stronger. There are no downsides to leveling except in relation to something called "relative agility" which you're not likely to notice on a normal playthrough. (essentially, actual speeds of enemies and characters are set at the beginning of battle based on Cecil's agility using a floor function that can lead to relative speed differences depending only on how fast Cecil is). But though there are no downsides to leveling, you can still play the game as intended for modest challenge. The Final Battle is about as exciting and challenging as you can get for a simple, straightforward JRPG battle system with no gimmicks.

>>5156170
doesn't sound like you tried enough statuses, that boss in particular (evrae) is weak to slow. you'll find a lot of bosses are vulnerable to one or two status ailments that are really helpful, but you'll have to see what worts.

>>5155842
sabin is great all throughout, his blitzes outdamage most other attacks but you have to make sure you're using physical ones until you get his mag. power up. setzer blows dick.

>>5156382
and i know the fixed dice thing is busted i just hate the character

>>5156370
>Yeah, basically, the thing with FF4 is that it doesn't have a lot of ambitious ideas
I'd say introducing a new battle system that proved to be successful enough to be used in games not made by square (Baten Kaitos Origins, Grandia, Panzer Dragoon Saga etc.) and making almost every boss have a unique gimmick is good enough
What's the point of making unique character development systems if they're so unbalanced you can break the game over your knee by abusing them?
I think FF's best contributions to the turn based RPG genre were ATB and CTB. It's a pitty Square didn't focus more time on improving them or adding new mechanics to them

>>5155842
>he doesn't seem that great at low levels
Aurabolt is slightly better than Fire 2/Ice 2/Bolt 2, free, and is of an element that doesn't get resisted often and is a pretty common weakness. Fire Dance is stronger than them when they're multitargeted.

Sure, Gau is better when you know how to use him, but Sabin and Edgar are both easily #2 and #3 because free and consistent random encounter sweeping and high power single target abilities make the WoB a joke when they're around.

>>5156385
he's a nice man with an amazing aesthetic who just happens to gamble a lot because of his suicidal depression and inability to forget about the joys in life despite that

>>5156565
Shhh... Setzer and Cait Sith are killer if you savestate scum

Because not enough people played FF9

>>5149813
>Everyone who has a different opinion than me is a contrarian lol.

Nope. FFV is legit the only Final Fantasy game that is halfway interesting in a mechanical sense. The job/ability system allows a lot of versatility without making characters overpowered until the very end of the game. It's the perfect balance between the freedom of later games like VI and VII and the restriction of the class systems of earlier games.

FFIX is popular for different reasons. First, it was the very first FF game that had a good localization, so that's a lot of the love right there. But on top of that, it had extremely strong worldbuilding, great character development, and a ton of really cool side characters. The game was a labor of love and it really shows.

FFIX was years ahead of its time. If it was released today with modern graphics, then it would be heralded as the triumphant return of Final Fantasy's glory days.

>>5156609
>The job/ability system allows a lot of versatility without making characters overpowered
Not quite. Bard, Chemist, and Blue Mage are pretty damn overpowered. The real strength of V is that no job is truly bad the way they could be in FF3 or even FFT; even the worst jobs like Berserker, Thief, and Geomancer all synergize with other jobs just fine and aren't all that bad in their own right. It's a lot closer to the ideal than every game after it, but it could be better.

>>5156609
>FFV is legit the only Final Fantasy game that is halfway interesting in a mechanical sense.
I mean, FF2 is pretty fucking interesting.
It doesn't work, but it's interesting and makes me wonder what a skilled developer could do to make the idea actually work.

Generally, Final Fantasy tends into the "interesting" direction in terms of mechanics. If any of those make sense, have more depth than a puddle or are even playable, though, is up to a coin toss.

Because it got released in the west. Personally I think it's fun but very bloated, especially in comparison to IV and V which I think are better (V best of all)

>>5156631
Final Fantasy games are about aesthetic more than anything else and it definitely wins out in that regard

>>5156571
Isn't there a trick to rig Setzer slots to be any combination you want. Been a while since i play VI.
>>5156620
>Bard
No doubt a very good class but its mostly just there until it gets the really good songs like requiem or hero song.Props for Apollo harp and love singing Omega.
>Chemist
The chemist job itself is fine its limited in what it can do by its equipment options and a bit frail.Mix is what's truly overpowered because ffv was made in a time where information was still scattered where the mixes were meant for people to find on their own.That and the fact its cheap in terms AP to learn. I play active just because of this move in order for the game to stay challenge. Its that good.
>Blue mage
Now this class is bonkers and I love/dislike it. Its obviously meant to be a boss destroyer but its too good of one. The OP spells aren't something you need to go out of your way to get aside from Mighty Guard and Death Claw.

>>5149793
Because it's a good game. Contrarianism might be a part of it, but despite FF6's faults it does a lot of good and it really excels in a couple of things.

The bitter fans all comes down to SE seemingly ignoring it for years up until the shitstain mobile rerelease.

>>5152930
>>5153860

To be honest, i've been playing Brave new world and i like the script changes............... except for the random moments where he changed something or made a reference that's been absolutely unnecessary (Soul train? REALLY?!). Otherwise i've felt it's been an enhancement of the original woosley translation.

>>5158718
>bnw
>playing brony-hack
no.
NO.

>>5155842
>Terra/Setzer/Mog/Gau is best team

Objectively not. Terra/Celes/Relm/Mog is the best team; Pretty/Pretty/Cute/Cute

Then followed by Sabin/Cyan/Edgar/Locke; Hunk/Daddy/Handsome/Handsome

>>5160009

>brony hack

I've seen that and no, i will not touch, not even out of curiosity,m that's a crime on humanity.

>>5162338
How is Brave New World MLP related? I thought the brony hack was Filly Fantasy VI.

>>5149798
same here

>>5160435
Relm isn't cute

>>5162412
See in the thread of >>5016997

>>5163485
You are wrong.

>>5149793
>always seen
>always

Isn't the vote slmost always for VII? Hell, Square didn't know that people in the US even liked VI until they took their head out of their butts and realized the west actually has a market for things Japan likes.

>>5149793
chrono trigger is better in every way

>>5162412

It's not, i dunno what that guy was talking about.

>>5163863

No it isn't

>>5152290
You're confusing emo/goth with Hot Topic kids.

Relm is my daughteru

>>5163904

i like your daughter

>>5163891
>>/vr/thread/S4988269#p5015797

tl;dr: MLP references makes the patch "brony" even though, there are few and far in between.

>>5163998

Well i haven't gotten to that point yet and i probably wouldn't have even known if you hadn't told me so thanks?