/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2651021]

Is FF2 the black sheep of the series, or is there a mainline game that's even more harshly panned by critics?

I don't even understand the hate this game gets. Because your characters don't level up? Similar mechanics are found in Final Fantasy Legend, and a lot of people praised the second game without saying anything negative about character growth.

>B-but you have to beat up your own party members to get HP!

No you don't. Plenty of people play through the game without sparring against their own party members.

And there's nothing weird about it. If you hit your sparring partner enough times, isn't their skin going to thicken and become more resilient to physical blows? Why is it strange for the developers to apply the same logic here?

You have the tools to grind if you want to use them, but no one is forcing you to play the game a certain way.

[Anonymous No.2651059]

>>2651021
I'm guessing that to an outsider, the system seems a lot more troublesome than it actually is when you're playing the game. Leveling up is simpler easier. It's a direct progression, all your stats increase and that's just a lot more comforting than having to "grind" specific stats by doing certain things during battles.

The only thing in II that should have been handled better is the magic system. Instead of restricting levels to the individual spells, you should have been getting more skilled at the element itself. Healing magic, fire magic, etc.

Clearly Square thought so too since that's how it is in the SaGa games. I don't know why they didn't change it in the remakes seeing as how the remakes have the infinitely better MP system already.

II has a better plot and characters than IV.

[Anonymous No.2651072]

>>2651021
It's because the entire system is broken to where the difficulty curve goes straight to hell, all but a few spells spells are useless in the face of regular attacks, and the blood sword bypasses entire boss battles in turn 2.

[Anonymous No.2651075]

>>2651021
The game offers a system that can be abused, so people abuse it and then complain about it. It's just like retards complaining about drawing magic in VIII. II tried something new and the progression system is more intuitive unless you're autistic over grinding. Thing is, most console RPG fans ARE autistic over grinding.

>>2651059
>II has a better plot and characters than IV.
Indeed, not that that's a huge achivement, all a game really has to do to be in that level is not pull a "nevermind everything that just happened, we have to beat these guys from the moon nobody ever mentioned before just because lol".

[Anonymous No.2651080]

>>2651059
>Instead of restricting levels to the individual spells, you should have been getting more skilled at the element itself. Healing magic, fire magic, etc.

That's an interesting idea, but it would require extensive reworking on FF2's element system. The fire element is reserved by the Fire spell alone, so specializing in the fire element would affect just that one spell.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Final_Fantasy_II_Elements

The system would have to abandon restrictive elements like this and start lumping all destructive magic into the same category instead.

[Anonymous No.2651084]

>>2651021
Having the characters' stats increase depending on what happens in battle is an interesting feature, but FFII didn't handle it very well at all, and I don't think any of the ports / remakes fixed that, either. In order for HP / MP to increase, you generally have to lose a LOT in a single battle, and it just drags things out pointlessly.

People like to grind stats by attacking each other early on because it makes the rest of the game less of a pain. Spells take far too long to level up, and as their costs increase, your MP has a harder time keeping up. It's a neat system that needs to be rebalanced.

[Anonymous No.2651090]

The stat system was never an issue for me, the constant paper-thin characters getting killed off every five minutes until the cool badass guy joins that party after they've been keeping his seat warm ruined it for me

[Anonymous No.2651091]

>>2651059
>It's a direct progression, all your stats increase and that's just a lot more comforting than having to "grind" specific stats by doing certain things during battles.
That's just one way to handle level ups. You can just as well require the player to spend points to develop the character into a certain direction.

[Anonymous No.2651101]

>>2651084
>In order for HP / MP to increase, you generally have to lose a LOT in a single battle, and it just drags things out pointlessly.

Enemies hit harder as you progress in the game. Undead enemies in particular, because their damage is based on a percentage of your maximum HP.

About mid-way into the game, you start taking such tremendous amounts of damage that large HP gains are inevitable.

>your MP has a harder time keeping up.

No it doesn't. With the cost of spells scaling with level, you're depleting your MP more quickly, and thus your MP is more likely to increase. Anyone in a dedicated magic-user role will gain MP quickly.

>FFII didn't handle it very well at all

I'm guessing this assessment is based on playing the game for maybe 15 - 30 minutes, at most.

Having played through most adaptations of the game at least twice, I can assure you you're very much misinformed.

[Anonymous No.2651109]

I have a feeling that most people run into trouble with stat decreases. This game punishes you hard if you try to make a party of well-rounded paladins instead of specializing.

[Anonymous No.2651112]

If I have an issue with FF2, it's with the original game. The game seemingly lures you into thinking you can do anything, but then doesn't tell you about a ton of penalties and mechanics that basically force your characters into specific classes. Things like weapons giving ridiculous penalties to magic and stat reductions seem like a way to add challenge, but most of all, it limits your options.

I mean, seriously, the game allows your characters to do anything. You can mix-match spells and equipment however you want, which absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, the original release punishes you too much for not specializing in specific areas, so all that fun you could be having with your mage knight hybrid or bulky priest guy or whatever else goes down the toilet.

The rest of the system isn't bad at all and there really is no need to beat yourself up or do other dumb stuff, but you're highly encouraged to give your characters specific roles from the very beginning of the game. Hell, I don't have scans of the manual, but according to a transcript I found on a Japanese site, it even flatout says to "avoid building Red Mage type characters", and that's a waste when you have a system that potentially gives you freedom to build your characters how you want.

The Wonderswan Color and Dawn of Souls releases give you a lot more freedom in this regard, which is why I find them so much more fun. I can't comment on the Origins version, but it seems to be very close to the WSC version.

[Anonymous No.2651121]

>>2651112
I've played through both the famicom and origins version, and they seemed about identical in that regard. I'm suprised you said the WSC version was more forgiving.

[Anonymous No.2651126]

>>2651112

I don't think the INT / Soul penalties found on weapons in the Famicom version are too restrictive. Some weapons don't impose penalties at all. Off the top of my head, bare-handed attacks, knives and the Masamune are all safe to use. Most types of staves impose something like a -5 INT / Soul penalty, which is marginal.

The power of any of these weapons should be sufficient if you're taking a multi-classed fighter / mage build into consideration.

Shields are another matter entirely. I believe all of those impose a -70 INT / Soul penalty. So a fighter / mage character would either have to go without a shield, or consider dual-wielding. The game does apply bonus damage if you equip a weapon without a shield, though. I believe your damage output gets boosted by 50%, because you're gripping the weapon with both hands.

Even if you do decide to deck your fighter / mage out with heavy weapons and armor, you could always have the character specialize in buffs, debuffs and instant-KO spells, as these won't be affected by your equipment penalties.

[Anonymous No.2651127]

>>2651080
How so? I was thinking that using Fire would contribute say, 1 point to your "Fire Element" specialization. You'll need 10 points to reach level two and obviously that requirement will increase as you gain more levels. Casting Fira, Firaga and Firaja would contribute more of those experience points.

The tiers should cap out at a certain level, too. So, after passing level 10, Fire doesn't get too much of an increase in damage output anymore so you're forced to upgrade to the higher tiered spells.

[Anonymous No.2651135]

>>2651127
>How so?

There aren't tiers of elemental spells in FF2. You have one Fire spell and only one Fire spell. There's no Fira, Firaga, etc.

I did have an idea for implementing spell tiers, though. It could involve spell combos. For instance, if two characters are chanting a Fire spell, then they unleash Fira simultaneously, increasing the magnitude of the spell's damage. If three characters chant the Fire spell, then they'll unleash Firaga. If all four characters chant the Fire spell, then Firaja.

[Anonymous No.2651250]

>>2651021
I still see more people playing 2 than 3. People's complaints about 2 indicate that they want to like it. People just flat out don't care about 3, for the most part.

[Anonymous No.2651253]

>>2651250
I'd care more about FFIII if that WSC remake had been released.

[Anonymous No.2651271]

>>2651250
Everything in III was done better in other FF games, specifically V. Also III didn't get released enough times to really justify many opinions on it.

[Anonymous No.2651276]

>>2651250
FF3 is like a prototype for FF5. Every good idea FF3 had was taken and improved upon by 5, so 3 is really overshadowed.

FF4 is similarly inspired by 2, but in this case it's like they went the opposite direction. Everything interesting about FF2 was stripped out like they were intentionally trying to make 4 as generic as possible. And then they realized they made the game too boring so they threw some aliens in.

[Anonymous No.2651286]

>>2651253
Why didn't they release it? If not for the WS then for PS1.

[Anonymous No.2651291]

>>2651080
Black, White, Green, Time. Problem solved.

[Anonymous No.2651303]

>>2651286
FF3 never got a PS1 or GBA remake, even in Japan. It's the most neglected (main line) game of the series over there as well.

[Anonymous No.2651310]

>>2651250

I would have liked FF3 more if the classes were better balanced. Too many of them end up obsolete half-way through the game, and then there are literally useless classes like the Bard. When you get to Eureka, the only viable party setup is a combination of Ninjas and Sages, or fully-equipped Onion Knights.

Bosses fought earlier in the story also force you to use certain classes, which discourages the player from experimenting with the system. I recall at least three major class changes being necessary to advance the story: There was the need for Scholars in one of the battles that took place on the Floating Continent, Paladins / Dark Knights being needed for an entire section of the game, then Dragoons during the Garuda battle.

Don't even get me started on the Mini dungeons.

[Anonymous No.2651324]

>>2651310
Also what makes it more of a chore compared to V and I (two of the prime class based FFs) is that there's no real reason to mix and match and no option for a real advancement in classes. In V you could gain abilities from classes and it made things like grinding fun because of the goals presented to you, not so with III where you were just kind of hoping stuff would happen.

[Anonymous No.2651328]

>>2651303
From what I understand they dropped the WSC port after the system got sidelined by the GBA and instead released a simpler conversion of FF4. They felt a GBA port couldn't just reuse the existing WSC assets and avoided it altogether.
Yet they didn't have problems reusing the WSC assets for 1 and 2 on the PS1.

[Anonymous No.2651331]

>>2651286
When we developed FF3, the volume of content in the game was so huge that the cartridge was completely full, and when new platforms emerged, there simply wasn’t enough storage space available for an update of FF3, because that would have required new graphics, music and other content. There was also a difficulty with how much manpower it would take to remake all of that content.

[Anonymous No.2651334]

Nothing wrong with the levelling system, plenty have other games like TES use it just fine.

[Anonymous No.2651337]

>>2651286
http://www.unseen64.net/2012/10/11/final-fantasy-3-wonderswan-color-cancelled/

[Anonymous No.2651338]

>>2651328
FF4 Advance is based on the wonderswan version assets as well, it's not an snes conversion.

[Anonymous No.2651343]

>>2651338
wonderswan vs snes

[Anonymous No.2651345]

>>2651328
>From what I understand
By that, you mean from what you just completely pulled out of your ass?

[Anonymous No.2651401]

>>2651345
Maybe your Japanese is better than mine:
>ワンダースワン等でのリメイクが見送られた理由として、田中弘道は、『I』から順々にリメイクすると『III』がリメイクされる頃にはハードが世代交代してしまうということ、およびFC版ではハードの限界を超えるプログラムがされていたため移植先のハードにも相応のスペックが要求されることを挙げている

[Anonymous No.2651410]

>>2651337

The graphics style does look nice. Since they had already produced some assets for the WSC mockups, I wonder why they didn't attempt to reuse them for a PS1 or GBA port.

I attempted to translate the character names from the mockup:

ケール Kale
エスプリ Esprit
アーム Arm
レゾン Raison

[Anonymous No.2651434]

>>2651410
Why not PS2 at that point?

[Anonymous No.2651441]

>>2651310
>Don't even get me started on the Mini dungeons.
Fuckdamn shitcunts, that just sent me back to a horrible horrible time.

[Anonymous No.2651473]

>>2651109
No it doesn't. You can raise strength and soul without either one degrading one another while strength and magic stats constantly battle one another.

[Anonymous No.2651608]

Speaking of Job Systems, I wish you could assign more than one ability in FFV. Like, general levels or something should have been able to help you reach that.

[Anonymous No.2651612]

FF2 is fun though, I remember you start in a ship or something like that then you go to a castle and then to a room where your gf comes in and talks some girly shit.

[Anonymous No.2651623]

>>2651021
FF2 is easily my favorite final fantasy sure it may have some bullshit monster closets but the story, characters and game mechanics more than make up for all of that. Beating up your own party members is like training together and sparring I don't do it myself but people who hate on it are delusional thinking other FF games are hard or something.

[Anonymous No.2651662]

>>2651608
The basic job is good enough for that.
Having an extra cross-class ability is enough, anyway. Game is easy to break as it is, too.

[Anonymous No.2651698]

>>2651343
Know if anyone has hacked/patched the snes version with those graphics?

[Anonymous No.2652037]

>>2651612
You're thinking of the wrong FF2.

[Anonymous No.2652057]

>>2652037
My whole life.... is a lie...

[Anonymous No.2652079]

>>2652057
It's been a while since I saw someone confused by this. In the late 90s/early naughties, it happened all the time because the only way to get II, III, and V in English was with fan translations. But now you can buy all of them as rereleases and they've fixed the original numbers ("II" was IV and "III" was VI) so in threads like this one nobody stops to mention the retitled versions.

[Anonymous No.2652095]

>>2651250
2 has people going on about how they want to like it because there's not much else there

The job system from 3 was perfected in V and Tactics

[Anonymous No.2652116]

>>2652095
Not much else like it out there*

[Anonymous No.2652297]

>>2651021
>>2651021
People hate it because they are too casual for it. It is the best one on NES.

[Anonymous No.2652319]

>>2652095
>not much else there
"What is SaGa"

[Anonymous No.2652367]

>>2652319
Not much else implies there is something else out there like it, but not a lot.

If I meant it was the literally only game, I would have said nothing.

[Anonymous No.2652516]

Does anyone really find this game hard? May be just my nature of grinding for equipment(which took less than an hour) but it kinda isn't. A good rule of thumb is to take every encounter. For example, instead of warping out of dungeons, you instead should walk out, so that way you can get more pocket change and work more towards expanding your levels.

Another thing to do is specialize. This is important. While it may be tempting to have a party where everyone is a jack of all trades, it makes things needlessly complicated and won't help you in the long run. A red mage is fine, but it shouldn't be your whole party. Firion is my fighter, Maria is my black mage, and Guy is (technically) my Red Mage, when in reality is more of a guy I dump white mage spells on. There's only a handful spells that deserve your attention. Not because others are bad, but because it's not worth the hassle of making them better, and others are flat out bugged. The basic elemental spells are ones that definitely should be leveled up, and later on Toad and Mini aren't bad spells to level up either if you want to cheese the game even more.

Cure is the only white mage spell that matters. The others like I said, aren't bad, but it's not practical to waste your time on them. You can heal in battle or out of and it still gets a decent amount points, so shoot for this one the best that you can. Using other spells like rails esuna just gets the job done, and chances are you won't level them much unless you go out your way.

Last thing: you probably won't make out a spell or stat, this is okay. Choose curraisses over armor when you can, don't overly deck out your black mage, and read the mechanics if you need so that way you can know the best ways to level up. Some stats are bugged or work weird, so reading the mechanics can allow you to work around that. This all assuming you're playing the famicom release.

Is this good, guys?

[Anonymous No.2652525]

>>2652516
I made a lot of spelling errors, Dammit.

[Anonymous No.2652535]

I think it was mostly cause if luck didnt' favour you, could have have a character with almost no HP near the endgame and have to run back to a weaker area to let the enemies beat on them,

That actually happened to me. My 'healing' character was rarely getting hit by mobs so his HP about halfway through the game was ass, so when he DID get hit. He died.
Instantly.

This was before I even knew how the leveling system in that game worked, so you can imagine how frustrated tiny little anon was at the game.

[Anonymous No.2652568]

>>2651021
>Because your characters don't level up? Similar mechanics are found in Final Fantasy Legend, and a lot of people praised the second game without saying anything negative about character growth.
Uh, because those games kind of refined those particular mechanics?

[Anonymous No.2652678]

>>2652535
I noticed something like this with Maria when I kept her in the back row because close-range physical attacks actually can't hit your back row characters, so her HP was abysmal compared to everyone else's. Moving her ass up front changed that.

[Anonymous No.2652680]

>>2652678
There literally is little reason to keep someone in the back row.

[Anonymous No.2652769]

>>2652535
I had that problem with the fourth character. When I got Leonhart he barely had 1000 HP while the rest of the party had 5000 and more.
And they couldn't cast spells for most so trying to teach them before they left again seemed pointless.

[Anonymous No.2652916]

How would one go about fighting the final boss?

[Anonymous No.2653318]

>>2651021
2 is freaking great. At least the remakes are, they're games where you make a good mage by having them be a mage for a long time, and make a Fighter by training them that way. The systems aren't perfect, but they're much more interesting than typical leveling systems.

The black sheep in my opinion is Final Fantasy IV. Up to that point, each game had focused on new and interesting character progression systems, experimenting with giving the player more freedom over how to play the game.

IV is the one that throws that all out the window, gives you preset characters you can barely customize at all. All with the goal of making the game more story and character driven, except the story and characters are still terribly written so what's left is a boring game on all levels

Of course that's the one that became super popular with people because it takes no thought and you can just coast through and "win" because that's what's important to people.

[Anonymous No.2653321]

II is a decent game, better than the rap it usually gets, but it's not the customization galore people make it out to be. A lot of trap options, broken options, bugs and in the end it all matters little because all battles are just damage races with little strategy.

>>2653318
In all honesty, IV became that popular in the West because it was the first FF game after the first one to be localized and also marketed heavily. Of course it ranks highly in Japan as well, exactly because they love DQ and mindless grinding.

[Anonymous No.2653348]

>>2653321
After years of people telling me to play DQ, trying and always getting bored I finally realized that those people were also FFIV fans and that's just the kind of RPGs they like.

The last one I tried was I like DQIV also actually. It's the one where you play through with a bunch of different characters. I wanted to kill myself it was so boring. I swear it was just wandering around with a guy where the only option in combat was attack, and then just when I thought I might finally get into something more interesting it switched characters and I was back to fighting pretty much the same monsters and only being able to attack again.

[Anonymous No.2653373]

Is Soul of Rebirth worth investing time into?
I treated the extra characters like baggage so they all weak and naked for most part and keep dying.

[Anonymous No.2653440]

>>2653373

Soul of Rebirth was the only half-way decent post-game content in the FF GBA ports. It's just not very long. You move through only three areas, and the gist of the game is grinding in preparation for the final boss.

[Anonymous No.2653482]

>Is FF2 the black sheep of the series, or is there a mainline game that's even more harshly panned
Depends on who you're talking about. VIII and XIII could compete to a degree.

[Anonymous No.2653631]

>>2651021

>This thread again

I like FFII too OP but give it a rest

[Anonymous No.2653636]

>>2653440

I dunno, I liked seeing Gilgamesh in FFI's extra dungeons

[Anonymous No.2654662]

Are the blood swords for the final boss cheating? Remember, the boss can drain your hp too, and hits hard.

[Anonymous No.2657119]

>>2652680
There is, they can't be hit by anything.

Save for some special abilities that deal low damage and aoe spells.

I guess having a party member with low max hp triggers the autism of most people, even when said party member doesn't even need hp.

[Anonymous No.2657136]

which FF haves the most resemblance to Basic D&D?

[Anonymous No.2657140]

>>2657136
FF I and III because they use the same Vancian magic system. FFI is basically an off-brand AD&D game (and it was a miracle of localization that Square didn't get sued for pretty much using beholders in their game)

[Anonymous No.2657148]

>>2657136
1-3 mostly to different degrees. Though really the SaGa games are closer to it than FF2.

[||D.||.||\/||.||D No.2657162]

>>2652680
As opposed to metaphorically little reason?

[Anonymous No.2657164]

>>2657140
Well, they DID use Beholders in the original JP release. That was changed for the US release, and later JP releases, as well.

ビホルダー (Bihorudaa) was the katakana for it, before it was changed.

[Anonymous No.2657181]

>>2657164
>in some parallel dimension, FF didn't even reach 2 because Square got their pants sued off.

[Anonymous No.2657203]

>>2657181
>some nameless employee at the localization offices of NOA single-handedly saved Square as a company.

[Anonymous No.2657218]

>>2657164
It wasn't just Beholders, although I guess that's the one monster D&D seems to care about the copyright most for some reason. If you're able to grab a D&D monster handbook, compare it to FF1's bestiary sometime. Whoever was in charge of creating FF1's monsters literally just copied almost everything out of the book. Even with generic stuff like Dragons, the color-to-elemental ability correlation is exactly the same.

FF2 is where they started coming up with more original monsters and created most of the monsters that would be FF hallmarks like Behemoths and Bombs. I mean they were still copying stuff from ancient mythology and such, but they weren't blatantly ripping off another copyrighted property for designs and abilities at least.

[Anonymous No.2657232]

>>2657119
But being in the back row also lowers defense...which isn't a big deal in the back row. The hp thing is pretty big for me because I have that image that when I need my mage most, they get potshotted, and due to low hp they die.

[Anonymous No.2657348]

>>2651021
>And there's nothing weird about it. If you hit your sparring partner enough times, isn't their skin going to thicken and become more resilient to physical blows? Why is it strange for the developers to apply the same logic here?

Is this really true? If I hit myself enough times can I become a superhuman in real life?

[Anonymous No.2657349]

>>2657348
Yes.

Source: I'm a scientist.

[Anonymous No.2657351]

>>2657349
How many times do I have to hit myself?

[Anonymous No.2657362]

>>2657351
Several.

[Anonymous No.2657543]

>You will never play a pen and paper or board game with Kawazu

[Anonymous No.2657567]

>>2657543
>Kawazu invites you to play a boardgame with him
>doesn't give you the rule book
>begins stripping at random points
>everything is in simple sentences
>slaps you across the face when you make certain decisions
>the entire boardgame is made of bootleg looking monopoly and risk pieces

[Anonymous No.2657584]

>>2653440
Maybe I should have grinded more. The fucking boss battle took me over an hour. All because I was too lazy to track back and wanted to see if I could handle him the way I was.

[Anonymous No.2657762]

>>2657349
Always trust Dr. Lugae.

[Anonymous No.2658667]

>>2657218
Sure, they basically ripped off just about everything in the MM, but I think his point was that Beholders were an actual D&D creation that wasn't a rip from some form of ancient mythology so there isn't any "room for doubt" in that department.

[Anonymous No.2658689]

>>2658667
The thing that confuses me is it's not the only one. As near as I can tell "Marillith" (aka Kary the fire fiend in the English version) is an original D&D creature, as are Mindflayers and a few others. Yet FF still gets away with using those for some reason. They're names were changed in the English NES game, but they have their original names in the FF1 remakes. I just don't understand why the Beholder is the only one that caused lawsuit threats.

[Anonymous No.2658702]

>>2658689
Marilith is a middle eastern mythical beastie and the estate of HP Lovecraft takes a dim view of TSR claiming that illithids are an entirely original creation.

[Anonymous No.2658719]

>>2658702
As near as I can tell (it's nearly impossible to find anything about Marilith online that isn't D&D related), the name might be an alternate name for Lilith, but aside from being a female demon she has nothing in common with the D&D Marilith. The D&D monster seems to be a mashup of the Hindu god Kali and a Lamia or a Naga. So they took a bunch of unrelated things and mixed them into something completely different. And a Beholder is a giant eyeball with tentacles. Originality is relative with this stuff.

[Anonymous No.2658725]

>>2658667
Why do some claim that the Japanese didn't know DnD and based their RPGs on DnD derivatives like Ultima or Wizardry?

[Anonymous No.2658728]

>>2658725
There are some people who don't believe that Japan had access to American table top RPGS in the 70s and 80s because of the language barrier or some shit. Those people are just wrong.

That said, Dragon Quest was heavily inspired by Ultima and Wizardry, the creators have said as much. And Japanese RPG video games are all heavily influenced by Dragon Quest.

[Anonymous No.2660050]

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kusoge/kusoge-finalfantasy6.htm

lel