/vr/ - Retro Games

>>6539143
>low key
Back to /v/.

>dude what if black mages were useless outside of magic
>and what if you could only cast a tiny number of spells
>and what if we had nothing to recharge MP
>and what if random encounters were so high your black mage would run out of spells to cast before you got through the first floor of the dungeon

>>6539162
>dude what if black mages were useless outside of magic
once you get FIR2, LIT2, ICE2 and above your party is unstoppable
>and what if you could only cast a tiny number of spells
use the inns and save often
>and what if we had nothing to recharge MP
cottages/houses restore MP
>and what if random encounters were so high your black mage would run out of spells to cast before you got through the first floor of the dungeon
you using all your high level spells before the boss? Cringe!

>>6539143
Ultima 1 is better.

>>6539162
black mage is an investment along with the thief

I've always thought it was the best. Actually an RPG where the characters are fill-in-the-blank avatars and the story is very straight forward.

>>6539143
4 5 and 6 are all easily better.

>>6539243
No, Thief is objectively terrible. Alex Jackson picked the game apart and it literally has nothing going for it over any other classes. It does nothing better than any of the alternatives, and it's not even a good "jack of all trades" even if that's what it was attempting to be, which I doubt.

There's only 5 classes in FF1, and 1 wasted party slot.

>>6539335
only if you're metagaming. all jobs are viable, and thief is a perfectly valid way to play. it's an rpg.

>>6539350
>black mage is an investment along with the thief
>thief
>investment

Your logic doesn't apply to the post being replied to, which suggests that the Thief has some sort of metagame potential. It doesn't, and I said as much. Are you one of those people who invites himself into debates with a point that is completely irrelevant to either side of the discussion? Those people are obnoxious twats.

>>6539194
way too wordy, get that bullshit out of here. you think i really wanna play a game where i have to pencil and paper everything a nigga says? no thanks

>>6539357
>Thief has some sort of metagame potential
Post class change, it's an okay martial character who can cast FAST.

>>6539143
2 is already better than 1

>>6539479
Haha that’s a good joke, please tell me you are joking. 2 on the nes is terrible, incredibly slow and grindy with half the bugs from 1 still present. It’s the worst of the nes trio by a large margin. 2 doesn’t have the excuse of being the first game for how shoddily everything comes together.

>>6539143
No

What does White Mage have over Red Mage? I see so many team compositions use both when it feels like such a waste. Red Mage and Black Mage together is so much more useful with double FAST and AOE spells.

>>6539634
red mage is better than white early game, but holy spam and curaga are better late game. red mage falls off a lot after midgame. I always skip red and just go for a white and a black, but it's personal preference.

>>6539143
It's super great if you're like me and really really like AD&D because that's what it is.

>>6539143
No, but I'd definitely say it's the best of the NES trilogy and highly overlooked/underrated. The gameplay is extremely barebones (although I honestly prefer spell charges to MP and wish that Square had developed that idea further), and the storyline and world are the most cookie cutter sword and sorcery fare imaginable. Don't get me wrong, I love a classic fantasy adventure as much as the next guy, but a JRPG really needs to have strong worldbuilding and character arcs -- or at least an extremely likable cast like FF5 -- if it wants to really stand up as an all-time great.

It's also held back by how buggy it is. The fact that a lot of the spells and mechanics just straight-up don't work is a major point against the game, and there's really not much reason to use any class other than Fighters, Black Belts, and Red Mages given that the remaining classes don't work as intended either.

I don't want to be too down on it, though. The fact that it gets the fundamentals right and provides a nice, classic adventure puts it ahead of a lot of games in the series, and it definitely stands out among its contemporaries. But I maintain that FF5-FF9 is the Golden Age for the series and where the best games are found (aside from 8).

>>6539720
>I love a classic fantasy adventure as much as the next guy, but a JRPG really needs to have strong worldbuilding and character arcs
That game is 33 years old dumbass.

>>6539741
And? OP was asking if it's the best in the series, not how it holds up relative to other NES RPGs.

>>6539763
9 is the best. This has already been debated to death.

>>6539506
2 is amazing, idk what your issue with it is. It was the first game in the series to be more cinematic with its characters and had a good story. The MP system was better than the magic charges of 1. Every character started as a blank slate but you could mold them into a certain class or a hybrid of classes depending on how you made them fight. There's a lot of good ideas there. Clearly later remakes polished it a lot but even the original is still good.

>>6539924
9 has one of the worst rosters in the series and makes it borderline unbearable to play

Zidane is a goofy monkey man with oversized cuffs but no sleeves
Garnet is just a girl in ugly orange overalls who's entire "arc" is being cured of mute status effect
Eiko has an obnoxious design and personality
Amarant is equally terribly designed and really serves no purpose
Quina is fucking atrocious

Only Vivi, Freya, and Steiner are any good. They should've dumped the other trash and put in Lani and Beatrix in instead.

>>6539185
>Cringe!

>>6540073
Zidane is a genuinely good and simple (in a positive way) person without thousands layers of edge and 2deep4u like squall and cloud.
Garnet... meh, still better than Tifa and R*noa. She's a girl, what do you except? Her job is it to have a nice ass.
I give you Amarant.
>disrespecting my bro Quina
Lel get filtered pleb.

>>6540073
>od. They should've dumped the other trash and put in Lani and Beatrix in instead.
Final Fantasy IX: Recruiting Beatrix Mod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFC7rOXFXg

>>6539335
>Alex Jackson picked the game apart
link?

>>6539924
9 isn't that good

>Fighter
>Red Mage
>Black Belt
>Black Mage
You can't compete with this.

>>6539143
5 is highkey better.

>>6539715
Yeah nah. It was heavily influenced by D&D Basic, not AD&D, but the game mechanics are not similar in the slightest.

>>6539162
>dude what if black mages were useless outside of magic

So you're asking for multiclassing in videogame in 1987? You know there was red mage?

>and what if you could only cast a tiny number of spells

How old are you? This is a holdover from previous paper RPGs. It was abandoned and followed Dragonquest eventually.

>and what if we had nothing to recharge MP

because they majorly unbalance the gameplay if they were always on tap?

>and what if random encounters were so high your black mage would run out of spells to cast before you got through the first floor of the dungeon

the other problem is the black mage's buff spells were broken in the game that shipped. Thats what makes OP wrong. The game as shipped had egregious programming errors.

>>6539634
higher base hp pool i think as levels climb. and since they wear the same endgame armors, White Mage also has undead sweeps.

>>6540107
>disrespecting my bro Quina

Um, excuse me, Quina is a fine lady

>>6540205
Are you retarded the combat system and the magic system are all AD&D--Kawazu who designed them admitted so himself. D&D Basic and the Mystara campaign were also very influential on JRPGs, but Basic's rules are more similar to AD&D than not in any case.

>>6539357
Who the fuck cares about metagame in an NES RPG that’s basically meant to be Diet DnD? This obsession with playing optimally only cannibalizes your own fun.

>>6539335
>Alex Jackson
literally whom?

Never liked this game all that much. They clearly wanted to make a D&D style game, but its lacking just about everything that makes a tabletop rpg fun. All it has is straightforward combat, find the next town quests, some npcs with a single line of dialog, and shops where you can buy better gear (and only buy, despite the game having a thief class). Its a good thing that the sequels moved away from trying to ape a tabletop rpg and became more cinematic.

>>6540709
and just to clarify what I mean when I say its lacking the fun things about tabletop rpgs. I mean the actual roleplaying, getting into character and inventing creative solutions to the problems that are thrown at you. In FF all you ever do is just attack attack attack.

>>6539634
White mage can use the full party heal while red mages can't if I remember correctly. Probably some other useful spells I'm not remembering

>>6540194
this

The remakes on the GBA are far superior, also FF3 on the NES is just this game but better.

>>6539350
Thief doesn't even have any special abilities at all. It's literally a weaker fighter than fighter, a weaker black mage than black mage, a weaker fighter/mage than red mage. Everything Thief does, Red Mage does better. Everything.

>>6539741
And The Three Musketeers is 280 years old, your point?

>>6540263
>So you're asking for multiclassing in videogame in 1987?
Didn't Wizardry have that in some manner? Change your class but retain some aspects of your previous class?

>>6539162
Git gud.

>>6539473
Red mage is also a martial character who can cast FAST and can also wear armor that doesn't fucking suck

>>6541030
depends on the version. If you're a min maxer, yea don't bother, but they're not such dead weight to be useless. Id almost argue that thief is in there as a challenge.

>>6541236
"Running away better" in an easy JRPG is not a special ability.

>>6541249
this is literally a feature in other final fantasy games. It's pretty useful to low-level runs. Keep power leveling tho.

>>6539143
It's very good but filled with bugs that bring it down. I would say that FF3 expands on everything in it in the right way and is the better game as a result, but FF1 is definitely still worth playing and a classic.

>>6541272
I've done No Sphere Grid and New Game-, anon.

>>6541031
Books made 300 years ago weren't put under the same restrictions as games were 30 years ago.

>>6541249
Isn't his improved escape rate bugged so it doesn't work in the original?

>>6539185
Is that an actual rom hack?

>>6541304
Except for, you know, "don't upset literally every noble, royal, or the Pope"

>>6539143
Yes.

...But only the Origins version.

>>6541324
It's more in terms of size limitations. Three Musketeers is a series of what, 5 books that are 400 pages each? You can't cram a lot of depth into an early NES game due to space restrictions.

>>6541354
Three Musketeers is the first part of the The d'Artagnan Romances, and it's closer to 600 pages.

>>6541283
So why you ragging on thief? Do a thief solo run or STFU.

I always liked 2 and 3 more. For me, 2, 3, and 5 are the best of the series, though 3 really has to be played with one of the balancing patches from RHDN or else 70% of the other classes end up being completely useless.

>>6543430
>liked 2

Finally someone in this insane world I can relate to.

It's a bit like chess - a good game, but objectively speaking a major reason for its enduring popularity is its historical significance and the community and knowledge that's built up on it.

>>6540709
I don't think there's a Thief class in any JRPG besides PSII that lets you steal from shops

>>6543801
It's a bug ridden mess.

>>6543801
chess is timeless

>>6543802
I'm pretty sure there's a character in Star Ocean 2 that can pickpocket from all NPCs or something wacky like that, unfortunately doing so causes the morally righteous characters in your party to get mad at you.

>>6540193
My favourite party setup. All easily work together and carry me through multiple playthroughs.

A game can be fun without being THE BEST

>>6544990
just about anyone in SO2 can become a pickpocket. Some NPCs have pretty good stuff.

>>6539350
If this were DnD I would 100% agree, but video game RPG =/= tabletop RPG. Furthermore, FF1 isn't exactly a game where you can immerse yourself in a role with disadvantages. It's an all mechanics, no role play kind of game

>>6541032

i'm not saying the concept didn't exist. but Wizardry has zero character graphics.

also FF and DQ were attempts to simplify the paper game. Wizardry was an attempt to carry it over largely.

>>6545292
People absolutely play games for flavor. Thief is a different way of playing. It's called thief, not clown or farmer, but thief and that adds something to some people. If it's nothing but mechanics to you, that's you.

>>6545230
Alright then... is it low key the most fun in the series?

>>6545713
No, that goes to FF12

FF3 NES is my favorite, followed by FF5. 1 is great, but jobs feel balanced enough that it's hard to do challenge runs that are actually challenging.

>>6540263
You think multiclassing in video games was something special or new in the year fucking 1987? How fucking ignorant are you?

>>6543791
2 gets way too much hate for things that are also present in other FF games. It has always amazed me how there are people complaining about 2 being unbalanced, meanwhile games like FF4 and FF6 are just as broken, if not worse. Moreover, the sole fact that it was the first FF game to really have characters and a story, combined with pretty ambitious gameplay mechanics for its time, should make it worth a playthrough.

>>6545749
People love to parrot youtubers and blindly follow reviews. 2 is great- the only issue I have is the slightly clunky implementation of the conversation system. Interesting concept though, and I definitely prefer it overall to 4. It led to the SaGa series too which is probably my favorite JRPG series.

Saw this thread on the front page, you boomers are insufferable. Imagine even considering that FF1 could possibly be the best FF. If your answer isn’t FFVIII, FFIX or FFX then you are wrong and have been for the last 15 years.

>>6543430
Which version of 2 is actually playable? I swear all the ones I’ve played are glitchy and garbage. Like I get raped by some lvl 50 thing in the first twenty minutes of the game. I played the psp version

>>6545749
I really like the concept of you get stronger based on what skills you use. Feels hollow to use magic in other FFs when there's no outright reward for doing so. At least in 2 I am always working toward something when I focus on lightning for example and get rewarded for it.

>>6545781
PSP is the best imo. You can veer off course if you go too far west of Altair right away and you encounter later game monsters. Just go follow the story at first and it has you going east where it's reasonable. It's not an open world game despite mostly allowing you to access the whole world early on.

>>6545769
I played 2 on the PS1 way back in the day and that game is painful. I've never watched a youtuber talk about it. I can safely say, it is a painful game. Many things work against that game. The rotating 4th character, who will be under leveled. Also they steal all the gear you gave them when they leave the pt. The dungeons are brutally long at times with high encounter rates. Then there's a dungeon with 2 paths. You can go the wrong way all the way to the end of one path, and nothing will happen, cause it's the 2nd location and it won't progress the story, you have to go back out and to the correct one first...and then back.

I won't say the game sucks, I played it all of once, and it stayed with me. That's certainly powerful in an artistic way. It haunts me and I have no desire to play it again. Like anything i ate when I had food poisoning.

>>6546525
I never bothered teaching the rotating 4th anything, I always just saw them as a damage booster for your mains and as an extra meat shield. It was an interesting concept but would have worked better if you could choose which of them remaining ones you wanted to keep to the end.

I think most people dislike the game because "you have to attack your own characters to level" which is just not true. PS1, GBA, and PSP all use the same easy-type setting so I can't compare those to the NES, but it's normal to finish those with low stats (compared to other FFs where everyone's 9999 HP/999 MP). My last run of FF2 I was around 1500 HP and 150 MP and steamrolled everything without a problem. If anything the biggest flaw is the game is too easy and later versions should have restored the NES levels of challenge to it.

It has the least amount of fucking stupid storyshit drama that shouldn't be in videogames, so yes.

>>6545735
Uhh, I dunno. What exactly is multiclassing?

>>6546605
This guy gets it.

>>6546605
Kill yourself, grumpy old Gen Xer # 6469052478.

>>6539402
>nigga
Get the fuck out faggot ass zoomer, you're not even a nigger.

>>6546602
>PS1, GBA, and PSP all use the same easy-type setting

No, all 3 are not the same. The PS1 version still features stat loses. While the PS1 has an easy mode, the GBA just is the PS1 easy mode with no other difficulty options.

>>6545731
get out

>>6547617
Hey fuck you buddy, I've played all every mainline FF games, and multiple spinoffs and FF12 is the only one I broke 100+ hours on without needing to grind (looking at you FFX postgame).

>>6539143
>low key
huh?

>>6546525
FF2 definitely was brutal, but wasn't that just what most JRPGs (or just dungeon crawlers in general) during that time were like? I mean during the NES/Famicom era. FF1 also had a bunch of empty rooms and dead ends (see pic related) just to fuck with the player, I guess. I agree that FF2 is probably the hardest out of the 3 NES/FC FFs, though.

>>6545882
Agreed. There are lots of people who claim that FF2's flaws all come from the leveling system, but that's just seriously disingenuous, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with the concept itself at all and even FF2's implementation of it isn't even that bad. Sure, later SaGa games did a better job at it but that doesn't make FF2's system unbearable. In fact, I'd even say it's much better than the "standard" leveling system present in most other FF games. The system forces you to, like you said, use magic more often, even during just random encounters. In fact, it might be the only FF game in which I had ever used magic frequently during fights that were not bosses.
I believe this might also be the reason why people often call FF2 grindy: because they barely use magic outside of boss battles. Obviously, by just holding down A on attack all the time, you won't level up magic; and when you get to the pandaemonium without any magic leveled up, of course, you will have problems, although the later ports of it are very easy, so you should still be able to beat it.

>>6545769
people love to parrot youtubers and youtubers love to parrot randoms from internet forums. It's so fucking obvious that ProJared just regurgitated whatever he heard on the internet. He said that FF2's leveling system is garbage and SaGa games apparently do a much better job at it, but what the fuck does he know? He's definitely never played a SaGa game in his life and most people who like SaGa games also don't have too many issues with FF2's system. And the fact that he called it "grindy", despite having played through the piss easy GBA version, just proves that he doesn't know enough about the system to really criticize it.

>>6548441
Yea, it's not impossibly hard, but its a rough niche game. I think losing your 4th is the biggest drawback. The game is designed for a party of 4 and you constantly are given weak ones to babysit. The final member just comes too late. I liken ff2 to lost levels, it just felt more rough than fun to me. That said, if you're into it, I think it's worth playing.

>>6539924
>stupid post-modern art style
>story is almost worst in the series
>black mage is literally a nerd self-insert, loved by bugmen and trannies

>>6548142
12 is great. Just needed to replace Vaan with a Bangaa and it would be GOAT.

>>6548507
Absolutely masterful bait

>Is Final Fantasy 1 low key the best of the series?
yea it has the most SOUL
the term 'final' fantasy only made sense for the first game
should call it continued fantasy or something

>>6539143
You are low key the dumbest millennial fry cook alive.

1 is amazing in it's simplicity. Amazing game, especially the PS1 version. I think this game has a special charm the rest don't.
2, even with the stat experience system aside, isn't very entertaining. It's too bland a story to be enjoyable.
3 is frustrating to play, either version. Probably the worst of the SquareSoft era. Story isn't worth the time.
4 is a very basic game, but memorable and the characters lovable. Easily my favorite. I like how all the characters feel so different.
5 kinda falls apart at the end and goes on too long. It becomes tedious.
6 I haven't played in a long ass time, but remember enjoying it.
7 is kinda shit. The first disc is amazing and the Materia system is great for customisation, but the game climaxes with Hojo and the final disc feels so fucking what. Sephiroth and Jenova needed dialog.
8 I feel conflicted on. I like the setting, music and characters. I am apathetic towards the Junction system. It's annoying to go back to, but I think the hate is overblown.
9 is easily the best of the PS1 and a nice amalgamation of the franchise. Taking parts of I and IV especially, throwing in some Dragon Ball Z, story is entertaining all the way through and the AP Skill system is probably my favorite of the franchise.

>>6550865
Legendary bad taste.

>>6550865
Based

>>6549220
>should call it continued fantasy or something
faggot fantasy would have been better

>>6550865
>3
>Frustrating to play
>5
>Tedious
how can you be this bad at handling jobs

>>6539143
Definitely not retard

>>6540821
>The remakes on the GBA are far superior
/thread
With the Vancian magic system hack there is no reason to play the NES version.

>>6550865
>It's too bland a story to be enjoyable.

FF2's one of my favorite stories in the series, though maybe that's not saying much. I like how it felt like you were being issued missions for the greater cause and rising in rank from among the resistance starting from "maybe we can trust you to deliver this message" to the point you're the only one who can go into the bowels of Hell itself to kill the villain.

>>6539143
I beat the game with

Fighter
Fighter
White Mage
Black Mage

but i kind of wish i'd used black belt because two fighers were fucking expensive and i had no lategame weapons for my second fighter.

>>6551808
or did i restart with a black belt?
i can't fucking remember.

>>6540821
/post

>>6539402
Not everyone is black, Anon

>>6539335
>Alex Jackson
Literally who

>>6539147
>Back to /v/
Even worse; back to facebook/twitter

>>6550947
The game doesn't really promote Dual Classing ala D&D, mixing and matching for Synergy. FFX-2's Dress Spheres do the job system better because of how they are implemented.

>>6548464
FF2 feels bad to me because I enjoy traditional MP-efficiency-focused dungeon conquering, and in FF2 the faster you finish battles the less you get out of them. Viewing enemies as punching bags to train on rather than threats to eliminate feels weird to me. And of course, Esuna leveling is ridiculous no matter how you slice it.
The game made me start imagining a different sort of RPG where you had training sessions in towns, or something else that wouldn't feel as dumb as "sorry, I can't practice casting Esuna on healthy people unless we're in combat with something."

>>6552565
Also, FF2's system encourages narrow specialization, like characters only casting one damage spell the whole game or only using one weapon type, so you end up with less variety in your actions and equipment than the character-class style of its predecessor and its sequel.
If you already have strong knowledge of the game you can branch out from that a bit, but a first-time player who's actually playing it for themselves and not following a walkthrough is going to see extreme specialization as the obvious strong choice, so that'll be their experience of FF2.

Why hasn't there been a ROM hack of FF2 yet that changes the gameplay to that of a standard RPG with experience points and levels?

>>6553217
because that'd be boring? If anything, romhack Romancing SaGa 3 to be Final Fantasy 2. No need to get rid of something that made the game unique.

>>6539143
I loved how the team were sort of blank vessels you could attach any personality you wanted. The modern day equivalent would be building a team of cacs

>>6553585
How is making it have good gameplay, rather than shitty SaGa gameplay, boring? I hated the SaGa gameplay 21 years ago when I first played them, and I still hate them now. They're otherwise good games cursed by excessively "innovative" gameplay that actually isn't fun at all.

>>6554336
>good gameplay

I'd rather FF continued the experience system of 2 rather than just going back to doing what every other RPG did. At least it felt more unique. Not sure why you dislike it so much. You do X, you get X buffed. It's the most logical system and it's nice to get those constant rewards instead of waiting 20 minutes between levels where all your points are upgraded all at once.

>>6550865
Very similar to my feelings through the first 6 games. I didn't like where the art direction started heading for FF6, nor did I care much for the characters, but it was still enjoyable enough. I lost interest in the franchise after that.

>>6554351
>Not sure why you dislike it so much.
I could explain why I prefer traditional JRPG gameplay to SaGa gameplay, but historically speaking it's usually gotten me flamed and my thoughts are considered weird, so I think I'll sit this one out. The three SaGa games might be worth watching an LP of sometime though, since they look like solid games overall even if the gameplay isn't my thing.

>>6539143
Oops guys wrong picture. Forgot a 0 too.

>>6554470
Literally WHY does anyone like this game? Is it the FF7 effect, where people bought a new console and this was their first FF? As a game it's pretty bad. Mostly linear ''dungeons'', no sidequests until the very end, and they're terrible, blitzball sucks dicks, bad characters, and no explorable world map.

>>6554497
i don't hate it, but it's pretty unmemorable
i remember the tidus memes about as much as the actual storyline

>>6550865
tbqh you really sound like a nostalgiafag

>>6554336
>How is making it have good gameplay, rather than shitty SaGa gameplay, boring?
because traditional JRPG gameplay is extremely mundane? Especially in the case of FF, it's stupidly simple with a bunch of spells that just iterate on each other. Every fight boils down to "just do a lot of damage" while also making sure to constantly cast cheap AoE heals. How you could prefer this traditional gameplay over SaGa's, especially in games like FF4 where your party composition is literally pre-defined, with very little customization, is beyond me. Even just adding the LP system present in most SaGa games would make most FF games much, much better (see FF5:VD for a partial (=only enemies have LP) integration of that).
>"innovative"
When you compare Romancing SaGa 2 to other JRPGs of that time, you'll immediately notice how far ahead it was with its very non-linear structure and inheritance system. There was no other JRPG at that time which was anything like it. So yeah, I'd say quite a few SaGa games are definitely innovative. No need to deny that just because you don't like the gameplay.

>>6553217
There's absolutely nothing wrong with FF2's leveling system. Most of its issues are just bugs or questionable design choices fixed in the rebalancing patch. FF4 and FF6 have lots of romhacking tools, so you could use that to port FF2 over to newer FF versions, if you're that desperate.

>>6554470
Unironically the most soulful. The heightened production values and especially the voice acting go a long way in making the characters really come to life. If you go into it expecting it to play like FF1-9 expect to be sorely disappointed but it's a great game in its own right. All the charm of the first 9 with the innovations that came with 'modern' FFs.
Also
>Lulu has better tits than Tifa
>Yuna shows her feet in the first 3-5 hours of the game
What's not to love?

>>6554880
meant to reply to>>6554497

>>6554880
I hate that trope of two different colored eyes. It's so typical in anime when the character is so bland the artists are like "what do we do to make them stand out, oh I know, just have one eye be a different color!" You see it all the time, it's so lazy.

>>6554886
Nothing bland about Yuna but too bad her eyes remind me of Chris-chan
Wait, does this mean she's confirmed autistic?

>>6554829
>especially in games like FF4 where your party composition is literally pre-defined, with very little customization
Because I don't give a shit about customization? Like... at all? Some people care a lot, but customization has never, since the first time I played a JRPG 21 years ago, been something I've given even the vaguest rat's ass about.

>>6554829
>No need to deny that
Sorry if the quotation marks gave the wrong idea. Probably could have been clearer there. Romancing SaGa absolutely was a unique game, and most of its ideas are good ones.

The thing is though, there's actually a whole lot of "re-inventing the wheel" that I don't enjoy in JRPGs. Take Tales of Zestiria. In that game, most equipment comes with a trade-off. Most equipment raises one stat while lowering the other three. The idea is that it adds to the depth of strategy, makes you think more carefully about which equipment you put on, all that bunch of shit.

(continued)

>>6555170
To me though, it completely fucking misses the point of what JRPGs originally were. I like getting more powerful and seeing insurmountable monsters slowly becoming your equal, and then going on from there to slowly become completely harmless. I like coming across a new town and enjoying the surge of power that comes from buying that new sword to raise your Attack from 82 to 110.

I've felt this way since 2000, when Square started trying to change things up every single game during the late PS1 era. I thought at the time that with Final Fantasy 8, the idea of monsters leveling up with you so that they always present a challenge kneecaps one of the basic premises of RPGs. Instead of constantly ascending to greater and greater heights, the game feels more like a treadmill where you never really feel more powerful because even the starting monsters will always be on your level.

And as for Zestiria's equipment in particular, even if I didn't find it paralyzingly confusing, I just don't think the 'trade-off' way of doing things is very fun. I don't want to have to debate "Okay, this weapon raises my attack, but lowers my defense to the point of basically being a wet paper bag." Some might find that adds an extra layer of strategy, and that's fine, but I find it annoying and think it muddles one of the fundamental building blocks of the NES and SNES RPGs I grew up on: the sense of progression from buying an indisputably superior new set of weapons and armor for a new and more dangerous set of monsters.

Yes but only the GBA version

>>6555173
>Micro
manofculture.jpg

>>6554497
Kek, FFX is unironically amazing, and I like pretty much all /vr/ numbered FFs except for 8. Eat shit.

>>6550909
>>should call it continued fantasy or something
>faggot fantasy would have been better
fictitious fantasies

>>6555172
I never played Zestiria, but you're right about FF8 being bullshit.

>>6554497
>As a game it's pretty bad. Mostly linear ''dungeons'', no sidequests until the very end, and they're terrible, no explorable world map.
>a game needs these to be good

.....you've got to be

>blitzball sucks dicks, bad characters

oh yea, you're a foolio

>>6554497
bumping so I have time to type out a reply

>>6554497
It's not the FF7 effect, but unlike FF7 liking 10 the best is actually a valid opinion.
First off, what do most people associate with Squaresoft games? Amazing, beautiful graphics and sound. So right off the bat FF7 is the most un-Squaresoft game they ever made.
Disgusting textureless polygons, horrifically low-poly models, and cheap MIDI instruments that were actually a downgrade from 6's meant 7 aged like dogshit compared to 8 and 9, whereas 10 wasn't completely overshadowed aesthetically by 11 and 12 and still looks gorgeous to this day.
>b-but my FMVs and prerendered backgrounds!!
8 and 9 did them too, and much better. They also returned in 10 where the gap between the pre-rendered stuff and the ingame engine graphics was much smaller than for any of the PS1 games, least of all 7.
It's getting late, I'll continue this tomorrow.

>>6556238
FF7's soundtrack, despite being midi, is fucking incredible and insanely atmospheric. I have no idea how they pulled it off. The graphics are ass though you're completely right.

test

>>6539162
4 black mages, is literally the easiest part.

>>6556238
FF7's polygon graphics were still mindblowing for their time. Everyone at my school was obsessed with at that game, from the korean wannabe gangsters, the AP nerds, and the football team, literally every 80s cliche stereotype was playing it. I'd even go so far as to say it aged better than 8. I see pics of 8 with its jaggies and low res textures but FF7's models have a certain aesthetic you don't see hardly anywhere else (Threads of Fate is the only one I can think of off hand). I love the color gradient look of it.

>>6555172
>>6555170
so you like traditional JRPG combat for its simplicity and dislike anything that goes beyond it as that adds more complexity to it? I personally don't agree with that since I like being challenged and absolutely hate steam-rolling encounters and bosses, but I respect your opinion. I also wonder why you found SaGa games annoying unless you deliberately refused to learn any of the new systems.

>>6557005
early 3d is still endearing because they're like the sprites of polygons, people who dislike them are basic bitches

>>6557182
I like early 3D. FF8 is also early 3D.

>>6539281
I wish there were more games like it, all I can think of is FTL but that's not an RPG

>>6557005
>FF7's polygon graphics were still mindblowing for their time.
no they weren't
this is the same year games crash 2 and gran turismo were out
ff7's character models are embarrasing next to crash 2, and yet it's it's a fully 3d game!
hell, even resident evil (1996) has much better character models
i get it was their first 3D FF and first on the playstation, so it was going to be rough, but don't pretend like it ever looked good

>>6557005
>FF7's polygon graphics were still mindblowing for their time.
I like the general look of FF7, it's got a neat, charming aesthetic. But was it mind blowing for its time? Are you out of your goddamn mind? Squaresoft barely had any experience with while making the damn game, if anything FF7 was behind in terms of graphics of that time.

>>6558684
>Squaresoft barely had any experience with
Meant to say with 3D

>>6558674
I thought the models were pretty good given the quantity and the year of release.

>>6558691
They were. You're being talked down to by people who weren't even born when it came out.

>>6558691
>>6558704
samefagging
It was mainly the overworld models I was complaining about. Those are charming but completely indefensible.
The in-battle models are fine but are severely wanting for textures. Wild Arms was already out, there really was no excuse for these models to be as undetailed as they were.

>>6552031
The uncultured and virgin who
Vs
>>6540708
The cultured and chad whom

>>6558674
But Crash in that pic is still just color gradient polygons. How's it any different? His nose is just a black pentagon there, not really blowing FF7 out of the water or anything, though I think both look really nice.

>>6558736
>Wild Arms was already out, there really was no excuse for these models to be as undetailed as they were.
Wild Arms looked like this outside of battles, and there was really no excuse for that when FFVII came out one month later without looking like an SNES game.

>>6558907
You do realize that the overwhelming majority of PS1 RPGs remained 2D even after FF7?

Okay, I'll say it now
1-Best D&D feeling. It captures tabletop adventures the best
2-Failed experiment that was afterwards done well with the romancing saga series
3-The first one that manages to not feel extremely dated (with things likedamage numbers and attacks going from one downed enemy to the next)
4-First one to have a decent story, sadly limited by the capacity of the SNES but nonetheless memorable (albeit overly dramatic and tropey)
5-A turn towards a more lighthearted tone and arguably the best job system
6-Tried to experiment with a lack of protagonist focus. Although it worked for me its still subjective. Dark tone and aesthetics clash with easy difficulty
7-The most overrated game ever, I'm not even going to discuss it
8-One of the best stories (dramatic and tropey, undoubtly, but not necessarily bad) and interesting characters and setting get fucked hard by arcane and difficult to comprehend gameplay (if the solution to a bad system is to break it then its still fucked)
9-Big homage to all the early games of the series with a pulp fantasy tone with less edge and stylised characters like 5 did. Divides the fanbase more than skub
10-Arguably the best story, its not even an argument. Succesful experiment with the ATB system that became the favorite of a lot of players
11-Extremely dated MMORPG, interesting to see how the genre was before WoW existed, but so many aspects are confusing and slow
12-Its biggest strenght is working with a pre-stablished world and making it big for fans who enjoy exploring. The open license system is fucking awful and unintuitive, job system of zodiac is superior
13-Given tons of shit when it came out, needless to say its not that bad. High difficulty with some dick battles makes it interesting
14-Moderm MMORPG, objetively better than its competitors like WoW. Best music of the entire series, not even an argument
15-See 13 but open world. The game is good but the ending is an absolute mess because they ran out of time

>>6559118
This.
Except that I've never played the 3d ones besides X

>>6559305
lets be honest, none of the games are garbage and definitely it ultimately boils down to personal preference. With the exception of XI and II I never failed to have fun with any of them

>>6559085
>You do realize that the overwhelming majority of PS1 RPGs remained 2D even after FF7?
Exactly - remember, we're talking about FFVII's graphics being great for the time. They absolutely were when placed within the context of other games in the genre, anyone who says otherwise couldn't have been alive when it was released, or their contrarianism has overtaken their memory.

>>6559496
>They absolutely were when placed within the context of other games in the genre
I'm not him but I couldn't disagree more, there are plenty of examples of games of that same and previous year that objetively look way better than FFVII and thus it is undeniable that VII is subpar in the graphics department

for fucks sake, why do you want to defend all the aspects of the game? It is clear that you personally love it but its asinine to try so hard with such obstinate arguments, trying so hard to deny its flaws like if it was perfect

>>6559496
"you're just too young" is not really an argument for something that anyone can look up
you don't need to be 40 years old to check out games from around that time and form a conclusion about this
"you're too young" only works in more subjective conversations, like trying to explain to a 14 year old how NES graphics didn't seem simple at the time, it's not so easy to imagine for someone who wasn't there

>>6559496
ff7's graphics were ok at best, the background cgi was excellent, and the cgi video was up there as well (bar the rendered in-game models.. i get they wanted consistency... but ff8 proved that they really shouldn't have done that), but the in-game character models were pretty bad, very minimal for a playstation game, acceptable only for very early titles, but the psx had been out for over 2 years at that point, with much better examples in the 3d-models-over-static-backgrounds category

>>6559512
>I'm not him but I couldn't disagree more, there are plenty of examples of games of that same and previous year that objetively look way better than FFVII
In the same genre? Major RPG releases in the year before FFVII's release were Super Mario RPG, Persona 1, King's Field III, Legacy of Kain, Terranigma, and Daggerfall. Some of these were very technically impressive in their own way (Daggerfall's scale especially), but I think FFVII achieved a level of polish thanks to the prerendered backgrounds so the more janky models didn't stand out so much. It didn't have the "best graphics ever", of course something like Quake was more impressive technically, but it's just plain revisionism to say it didn't impress people back then. You can't discount the impressiveness of prerendered backgrounds, I mean a game like Riven was gorgeous and blew people away and that was all pre-rendered screens. It's very narrow-minded to single out a single facet that's comparatively poor like its untextured models and conclude it must not have impressed people in 1997.

>>6559698
no, I'm not going to read that fuckhueg wall of text, I have no fucking interest at all in discussing your awful opinion, FF7's graphics are bad and everyone knows they are bad,
you are just absolutely delusional
end

>>6559714
That sucks, I typed it out hoping to have a discussion. Why would you come here? I don't have a personal attachment to the idea the game had good graphics but I think it's interesting to share stories about what people thought when these games came out.

>>6559716
whateverr the fuck you say

>>6559512
>plenty of examples of games of that same and previous year that objetively look way better than FFVII and thus it is undeniable that VII is subpar in the graphics department
What pre-FFVII RPG looks better on the PS1? Name one.

>>6559698
nobody is talking about the quality of the prerendered graphics

Low poly is peak soul.

>OP: FF1 thread
>FF7 fans: FF7 thread?

>>6558674
>ff7's character models are embarrasing next to crash 2
but this technically isn't true
the reason crash can have more detail is because of smaller levels, and assets peppered through the disc multiple times to accomodate the read speed
it's a fascinating work around if you care to research it
given the immensity of ff7, it's a crime to say it looks bad given the content and disparity of content between the two games

>>6559118
>7-The most overrated game ever, I'm not even going to discuss it
that is very disingenious for someone who is claiming an opinion on upwards of 15 games in the franchise
the materia system was revolutionary and gave context to the magic people use in the world
you could customize everyone, although this did leave everyone feeling rather like blank slates
the minigames, love them or hate them are a core part of ff7's identity
and don't even try to right off the cultural impact, three cd's, a company switching from primarily pretty much nintendo second party devs to being at sony's side
remember the ads? it would cost $1200 in cartridges to get ff7 in n64

>>6559512
>VII is subpar in the graphics department
this isn't true considering the size of the game, the others were smaller and had workarounds

>>6559967
crash can have better character models.. because the levels are smaller...
you know we're talking about ff7, right? the game where most of the time, the only 3d on the screen are character models? you don't think the backgrounds strain the psx, do you? they're just single frames of mjpeg video decoded by a dedicated decoder (MDEC), it's basically free

>>6559619
>"you're just too young" is not really an argument for something that anyone can look up
you can't look up the context and experience of being alive at that time, you will always just be forming an opinion from present day
it's a good point, if you were alive to see ff7 launch you would have been wowed

>>6559978
>that is very disingenious for
not even going to discuss it

>>6559721>>6559714
>go to social media site
>refuse to engage
so this is the power of the incel race

>>6559989
>4chan
>social media
ah, I see, it all makes sense now
just go fuck off back to redlt or facebook

>>6559983
so what are you intending to convey? are you saying the backgrounds look bad? the character models?
I was saying that the levels in crash and the graphics were placed several times so that it worked
even newer games were starting to do this, the ps4 and xbox one have games install to the hdd with repeating data

>>6559992
>yargh I am a pirate
>go back to ye reddit

>>6559992
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_social_media
Stop being retarded.

>>6559978
let me just say the following
you see 15 games being mentioned and because your baby's first jrpg is not praised you cry like a whore about it and type a fuckhueg wall of text trying really hard to change someone's opinion

it doesn't matter if VII is good or not, its fans are rabid, obsessed and annoying

>>6560004
>writes off one of the most significant games of all time
>throws a bitch fit because someone calls him out

>>6560006
>throws a bitch fit because someone didn't praise his baby's first jrpg

>>6560004
>rabid, obsessed and annoying
And you're none of those things right? You're an intellectual.

>Top tier
V, IX, XIV
>Great tier
I, III, VI, X
>Good tier
VIII, XII, XIII, XV
>Flawed
II, XI
>Eat a dick nigger tier
VII

>>6559845
Much more to talk about with 7 than with 1. And all the 7 discussion started when I negatively compared it to 10, which I (correctly) stated is the best in the franchise.

>>6559845
FF7 fans suck mad dick
they try so hard to validate their feelings ("I feel good playing the game, ergo it must be good") that they always go out of their way to let everyone know their opinion, shitposting in any thread remotedly relevant, and more hilariously they fall for absolutely any bait whatsoever that you lay for them

Here's the real Tier List
>God Tier
FF Tactics, Vagrant Story
>Top Tier
FFTA, FFXII
>Everything else tier
All other Final Fantasy games

>>6560029
t. Yasumi Matsuno's simp

>>6560016
I can't imagine a person going into the FF series without awareness of any cultural context, just completely going in blind without knowing fan perception, and singling out VII as shit while saying III, VI and X were great, II was flawed but better than VII, and so on. It sort of betrays a deranged mind whose critical faculties have been warped by spending too much time arguing with fans online, no one should take you seriously.

>>6560009
I can't even make it through the game once, so,

>>6560016
Move VIII up to great, move II up to top, then bump I down to flawed and III down to Eat a dick nigger tier, and this is accurate

>>6560060
holy based

>>6560035
Yasumi Matsuno is based

It's good but FFXI is low key the best for more or less remaking the idea of FFI but done better. The series started as Japanese D&D homage and so making an MMO is a natural extension to the first's games ideas, something that never could have happened since it couldn't have been online when the series started. You can once again make your own character and role play, it feels like a proper sequel to the first game and the other titles went on some wild tangent.

>>6560107
I tried Nasomi a couple of days ago and wanted to mcfucking kill myself due to how unintuitive, arcane and confusing everything was

At least FF1 has a better story than 7. That twist at the end is better than all of 7's melodrama combined.

>>6560279
Everything you like is actually bad and everything you dislike is good. See, I can do it too.

>>6560279
>cloud's memory is actually zacks
>aerith dying being spoiled to high heavens
>no one resurrected like in 4
>sepherioth, genoma, and the life stream

>>6560279
thanks for proving that FF7 fans are retarded by falling for your post
they don't even have the basic decency to admit the story is fucking awful

as for the post itself, i don't know if I can say the story of 1 is good. Everything in FF1 feels just like a long D&D campaign (for good and ill) and the twist at the end certainly feels like it came from nowhere just to catch the "players" off guard, but doesn't feel satisfying due to not having any foreshadowing or hint, the typical "I need to give the guys a big surprise to end this in a a good note"
T.-GM who has pulled that shit countless times with his players, lmao

>>6560303
>exaggerating this badly because you felt personally insulted

>>6560318
its all shit, all those points are massive shit, just because other stuff is shit too doesn't stop it from being shit melodrama

>>6560336
FF1 felt like going on a real adventure, seeing the planet is dying and slowly restoring it by killing each fiend. No one saw Garland being the final boss when they played it back in the day. 7 may have had more diverse locales but didn't feel like as much of an adventure since the focus was on Cloud and Midgar rather than in 1 when the heroes were not important, it was the journey that was the main focus.

>>6560336
>disliking the lore of ff7 but praising ff1's basic by the books
oh my, the bad guy was a puppet again, wow

>>6560346
>No one saw Garland being the final boss
that's what I think isn't actually that great, feels a bit like bullshit that comes out of the ass of the writer, a typical GM move for surprise's sake that doesn't make much sense

admittedly, it is still cool and memorable nonetheless (bullshit twists are fun after all), but I don't think it objetively makes it a good story
I have no fucking reason to like the characters in VII

>>6560349
can't you leave? the adults are talking and we don't want your shitposts interrupting the thread

>>6560356
Cid's cool. Red's okay. The rest weren't that great. Was the character designer for 7 different than the one from 6? I know Nomura had a hand in both but I don't know about the rest of the team.

>>6560362
If I remember correctly, VI was a work between Amano and Nomura, with other lad designing the figaro brothers and Nomura made all the work of designing in VII
why do you ask?

>>6559484
I don't hate any ff games, not even mystic quest and its amazing ost

>>6560356
for a game that needs no story at all, the garland thing is actually kinda neat. Don't look at too deeply and its better than other games of that era with the minimal blah villains

>>6560028
such is the fate of any game which is the first in it's series to reach the mainstream

>>6561157
If FFVII sold 5000 copies like Panzer Dragoon Saga this board would be filled with people calling it tragically underrated kino. People are just being contrarian, the game is great regardless of its mainstream success.

>>6560016
You forgot to rank the best one

>>6561432
bravelyt default/second and I'm barely joking

>>6561259
>this board would be filled with people calling it tragically underrated kino
yes, and they for once would be fucking humble enough to say the following:

"the game, despite having ugly as fuck models and shitty story is underrated kino"

Can you see the difference? its not that the game isn't good, its that the fans can't stop eating gigantic cock and must defend to kingdom's fuck that it is perfect when the game is extremely fucking far from perfect and a trillion kilometers away from being the best of the series

>>6561565
>a world where FF7 fans are a humble few

>>6561565
It was a tremendous leap over the previous games in the series. If FFVII had the same effort put into it as FFVI then we'd have had 10 towns that looked like Kalm. I think it's crazy people bend over backwards to defend the shit-tier derivative worldbuilding of the NES and SNES games, their trivial, boring gameplay systems and their barebones plot and characterization. If I wanted to play a retro tile-based RPG I'd play a Dragon Quest or Ultima, FFVII was the first interesting FF game because it doubled down on what the franchise does best: spectacle. It was the first one that took me to another world instead of to a dozen permutations of the "town" tileset.

>>6559845
holy shit this. Fuck all the fags who derail this thread with this garbage. /vr/ already has like 2 FF7 threads, no need to hijack an FF1 thread.

>>6561907
Alright uh what's everyone's favorite town? For me, it's Crescent Lake.

>>6561891
Oh hey, I'm not the only person to point out how samey every town in FF6 is. That's nice to see.

>>6561891
nigga, I don't fucking care, shut up, just fucking shut up about your piece of shit

>>6561926
I personally can't like any of the towns because of the limitations making all of them too similar
Although, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, Pravoka certainly is memorable enough for me to distinguish it from the rest

>>6561891
your only fucking defense is shitting on everything else
just shut the fuck up, I can't comprehend how can't you see why nobody likes you, shut up

>>6557162
>I like being challenged

Same, of course. You can have a simple, traditional JRPG and still have it be very challenging. The NES Dragon Quest games are as basic as you can get, and they're still difficult as hell.

When I said that I enjoyed a sense of growing stronger, I didn't mean that I wanted games to become progressively and progressively easier. Quite the opposite. I want to feel as though both my characters, as well as the enemies I face, get stronger. Start the game off as babies fighting babies, end as demi-gods fighting demi-gods. FF8's design isn't bad because it makes the game difficult (it doesn't); it's bad because it completely kneecaps that sense of growth and change.

>I also wonder why you found SaGa games annoying unless you deliberately refused to learn any of the new systems.

In fairness to SaGa, I haven't played any of them since I was 13 or so. My tastes in gaming have changed and become a bit more open-minded, so I might enjoy them more now.

(continued)

>>6562137
On the subject of customization, since you said that you don't like pre-defined parties, I've actually always loved pre-defined parties from a story perspective and wish more games went the route of FF4, Phantasy Star 4, and Grandia.

To me, the 'revolving door' system adds a sort of dynamism to the story. Whenever I'm replaying a game that uses it and know that it's a character's last dungeon or boss fight, I appreciate them more during that time. If a character dies (common in those games), I like the transition from their absence being keenly felt and mentions of them being frequent, to their absence being normalized and the storyline mostly moving on. I like how "early game" characters can sometimes feel like they're in an entirely different world from "late game" characters, and how it can almost feel like a crossover if the two ever meet (like Sue and Gadwin showing up towards the end of Grandia after being absent during the second half and meeting Rapp). The party that makes it to the final boss also feels special or like some kind of elite club, for the simple fact that they made it all the way through to the end.

There's nothing wrong at all though with having the main cast be always present. That's nice in its own way, even if I wish the revolving door system wasn't so nonexistent.

>>6539143
The remakes are objetively superior but I wish they hadn't lowered the difficulty and had kept the D&D magic system instead of MP systej¡m, even if its technically better it took away the uniqueness
Although on the other hand it made mages a more attractive choice

>>6561926
The elf town because you can see Link's grave

>>6562034
Pravoka's nice because it evokes a port town and also shows how its in a sort of disrepair because of the pirate assholes

>>6561907
>being upset that 7 is so much better than 1

>>6562137
I do see what you mean now, it's just that I feel like most SaGa games encapsulate this thought, of starting the game off as babies fighting against babies, just to end up as demi-gods fighting demi-gods, the best (you start out with simple techs and spells fighting weak enemies and in the end you have lots of different high-level techs and spells fighting really powerful enemies; BR also ensures that they end up really strong).
In most other JRPGs I have played, it felt like I was way too powerful in the end. Unless I deliberately refused to level, as in I purposefully avoided encounters, I ended up steamrolling pretty much everything. Especially SNES-era FF games were pretty bad in that regard. The only FF game where that wasn't the case would probably have to be FF3 (FDS version), but then again this game had one of the most boring final bosses. Unless you wanted to grind until you were level 60+, you had to use this boring party composition where you essentially did the same thing until the boss was dead (which is why I am not a huge fan of hard bosses in games with simple combat systems: as there often is only one, uninventive way to beat them if you don't want to grind).
>>6562142
>Whenever I'm replaying a game that uses it and know that it's a character's last dungeon or boss fight, I appreciate them more during that time.
I can see what you mean, although I believe games like FF4 didn't do a great job at it. FF4 had way too many fake deaths, with pretty much all characters being alive in the end, IIRC. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me why you couldn't just put them in your party. I have nothing against pre-defined parties if there are job/class systems like in FF5 (since my main issue with it is the lack of customization as in every fight ends up being designed for that one specific party composition; plus, it's also just fun to do shit like all-white-mage-runs in FF1).

(cont.)

>>6563007
SF2 also did that stuff with pre-defined parties, although, in my opinion, a bit too much as pretty much all of the, I believe, 40 playable characters were dead (or just unplayable) by the time you reached the final dungeon (which is likely why most people were underleveled once they entered the final dungeon: as they spent too much time leveling up a party that would end up dead/unplayable anyway). At least the game gave you the ability to retrieve items from the other character's inventories, so that's good. SF2 definitely did a good job at the implementation of these "late game" and "early game" characters, but more in a way that you start playing as the parent or grandparent in their teens, of one of the people in the final party. RS2 is also interesting in that regard where it takes up to a millennium, if not more, and dozens of different emperors for you to finally fight against the final boss.

>>6562993
It really has nothing to do with that. It's just that whenever there's a thread about FF1-FF3, people end up talking about other FF games, meanwhile in FF7 threads, nobody seems to derail the thread. If you want to discuss FF7 so badly, then go to the respective threads. There are currently two active FF7 threads, why not go there and not post in an FF1 thread when you clearly don't want to talk about FF1?

>>6563046
>a thread about FF1-FF3, people end up talking about other FF games, meanwhile in FF7 threads, nobody seems to derail the thread
...so ff7 is truly the end all be all..

>>6563046
>Is Final Fantasy 1 low key the best of the series?

This thread is not about 1-3, go make one.

>>6539143
No

>>6563341
wtf is with your reading comprehension? I never claimed this is an FF1-FF3 thread, this is an FF1 thread. I just pointed out that whenever there's a thread about FF1, FF2, or FF3, people start derailing the thread.

>>6564149
>this is an FF1 thread.
>wtf is with your reading comprehension
>best of the series?

oof

>>6539162
FILTERED

>>6540193
>>6545143
What would be a rough party set up? What would be one of the hardest ones to get through?

>>6539335
I dug around for the thread he posted all this stuff in and could only come up with references to his posts and not the posts themselves. Do you have a link?

>>6560109
When I tried Nasomi myself, I was struck by how unbearably awful the players were. Everything takes ten hours to kill because your party has alzheimers and they forget they can cast more than one spell, they forget they have more than one ability, and more than one piece of gear. Rather than getting a head start exping, they'd rather wait for retard number 6 to stop afking in town, because they're so frightened of fighting with 5 people. Unconfident old people who smell bad, and are much less interested in having fun, and more interested in reminiscing how they spent their time 20 years ago.

Also people fishing to pay for items they can't afford because Nasomis (some reportedly outright rulebreaking) friends have a stranglehold on commodities, resulting in zimbabwe levels of inflation and lower level players struggling hard for items that would be commonplace on a normal server. It's one of the worst managed places I've encountered online.

It's one of my all time favourite games, but honestly, I think you're just going to have to accept you missed the boat to Selbina. You could try retail, but SE added in stat vomit and other helpful features of XIV, so it's kind of dead.

>>6565338
>>6540146
Not him, but pic related. We've never getting that link.

>>6565241
4 thieves?

>>6541051
omg a wholesome hecking chungus tranny

>>6565520
4 white mages probably.

>>6539335
>>6540146
>>6552031
>>6565338
>>6565381
I'm not him, but I think this is the link:
<https://marathonrecaps.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/final-fantasy-i-classes-and-front-loading/>

>>6563007
>>6563012
A bit busy at the moment, but thanks for the long replies; they were really fun to read.

>>6550865
holy shit someone really wrote this and hit submit

>>6566067
pretty based desu

>>6563007
>>6563012
>it's just that I feel like most SaGa games encapsulate this thought, of starting the game off as babies fighting against babies, just to end up as demi-gods fighting demi-gods

Yep. Now that I think about it, I'd probably be more okay with the SaGa games now. There's a bedrock of RPG fundamentals I don't enjoy seeing messed with, but that's still a change from when I was 13 (where I wasn't okay with much meaningful change at all).

>SF2 also did that stuff with pre-defined parties, although, in my opinion, a bit too much as pretty much all of the, I believe, 40 playable characters were dead (or just unplayable) by the time you reached the final dungeon (which is likely why most people were underleveled once they entered the final dungeon: as they spent too much time leveling up a party that would end up dead/unplayable anyway). At least the game gave you the ability to retrieve items from the other character's inventories, so that's good. SF2 definitely did a good job at the implementation of these "late game" and "early game" characters, but more in a way that you start playing as the parent or grandparent in their teens, of one of the people in the final party. RS2 is also interesting in that regard where it takes up to a millennium, if not more, and dozens of different emperors for you to finally fight against the final boss.

Alright I have to be honest, these things sound fucking awesome. 40 playable characters mostly being dead, generational system, games spanning a millennium; SaGa sounds incredibly ambitious and original. I always love generation systems. Phantasy Star III, despite being such a trainwreck of a game, still has some genuine quality. There's such an inherent quality to seeing the main protagonist as a young man in his late teens, a grizzled middle-aged father, and a wrinkled elderly grandfather that the game still strikes a chord with me despite being largely horrible.

>>6539143
6 is better since it has Gau who is literally some chimera abomination who can use monster magic.

>>6539143
No but it is a "comfort food" game, to me at least

It's simple and fun, the customization, while lacking compared to it's successors, is good enough to add replay value.

Every playthrough is a blast and you won't convince me otherwise.