/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8262106]

Let's talk about this retro classic

[Anonymous No.8262113]

international zodiac job system made me question if video games are even good. you set everyone on auto attack and auto heal and just watch the game beat itself

[Anonymous No.8262146]

>>8262106
The single player MMO...

It looked good and high end when it came out but is it any good?

[Anonymous No.8262431]

Most boring FF I've played. License system is shit, combat is an MMO but easier and simpler, pointless status effect bloat and easily missed important spells and shit just lying around in the field. Also, terrible pacing and characters that are barely fleshed out if at all.

Wish more of the Ivalice games were actually good.

[Anonymous No.8262472]

>>8262106
It's a really fun Monster Hunting RPG. The world is beautiful and fun to explore and the hunts are fun.
The characters are wet rags and the story is nothing to write home about, as you don't even get to see the most interesting parts.

[Anonymous No.8262841]

>>8262106
>Plot kicks off with unexpected treacherous shenanigans
>You know you'll end up teaming up with the "traitor"
>Maybe I'm just supposed to think the obvious and maybe what happened is EXACTLY what it looks like, BUT there's more to it and some redemption involved. I'll just keep--
>IDENTICAL TWINS
I don't think I've ever dropped a game out of feeling uninterested in the plot or just "over" it, but I stopped playing like a half hour after the "reveal" and never really picked it up again.

[Anonymous No.8262842]

>>8262113
they were testing out the FF13 battle system with the zodiac update. FF13 plays itself.

[Anonymous No.8262848]

Played the entirety of vanilla FFXII about a year ago, completed every side quest and all. I have never felt more burned out by completing a video game in my life. Absolutely, undeniably the least rewarding and most painfully boring game I have ever masochistically forced myself to endure.

It may have been a technical marvel, but literally everything else about it is BORING AS FUCK. Without the FF title attached to it this game would have been largely ignored by everyone except the most diehard JRPG fans.

[Anonymous No.8262875]

It has one of the most immersive game worlds ever. The architecture and design are all nice. I personally like Rabanastre and the Tomb of Raithwall, where you fight the equally impressive Garuda.

[Anonymous No.8263013]

>>8262106
not retro

[Anonymous No.8263113]

Make a few changes, and it would be a timeless classic. As is, it’s a big meh. Why do the japs insist on pre pubescent gender-ambiguous main characters?

[Anonymous No.8263125]

They should have made Basch the main character like they originally intended

[Anonymous No.8263140]

>>8263125
The average player might not have wanted to fuck Basch

[Anonymous No.8263146]

>>8263140
You mean 11 year old Japanese girls?

[Anonymous No.8263154]

I enjoyed most of it. Unfortunately the last few hours of the game feel a bit rushed and anticlimactic. It's a nice world to explore though.

[Anonymous No.8263170]

>>8263125
Basch wasn't intended to be the main character, he's a character who was mostly unchanged during development. Vaan was originally a more manly character with a slightly different backstory.

>aan's early name was "Aqua" (アクア, as seen in Akihiko Yoshida's concept art) and intended to be an Iyashi kei character (癒し系, "therapeutic type", a kind of Japanese stock character). Vaan is known for going over several personality changes over the course of development, originally written as a rugged and world-worn character until the developers reconsidered the target demographic and Vaan was rewritten to be more effeminate. After Kouhei Takeda was cast as his voice, the developers rewrote Vaan to match the energetic personality his voice lent to the character. The executive producer of Final Fantasy XII, Akitoshi Kawazu, has said in an interview that character design is one of the areas the developers mull over extensively, and is one of the most difficult things to decide on.[3]

>When commenting on Vaan, Kawazu said Vaan in particular is a little bit younger than the series is used to, and there are many people on the development team who aren't necessarily feeling he is the right character to be the main, because it clashes with the other characters and game environments, but also commented it's traditional for Japanese RPGs to start out with a young, inexperienced character, who grows throughout the story, and that having the lead be a younger immature character is somewhat expected. He also said that doesn't necessarily mean the producers and designers always like that, but that certain concessions must be made to cater for what the market wants. Vaan's status as main character was a decision made to appeal to the game's intended demographic, causing focus to shift from a more masculine written role to a younger and more energetic one.

[Anonymous No.8263214]

How easy is the original?

[Anonymous No.8263259]

Didn't making this game completely burn out Matsuno? He left before the game was complete. I'm curious to know how much autism he would have put into the game. I can only assume that bullshit with not opening certain chests to obtain the best weapon was his doing.

[Anonymous No.8263298]

>>8262106
It was the first final fantasy that I completed properly.
I got this game for my 16th birthday in 2007.
I finished it a month later.
I could never get the zodiac spear though.

[Anonymous No.8263456]

>>8263214
It’s actually above average in terms of difficulty IMO (unless you’re doing side content, in which case God help you). The game gives you a lot of neat options for optimizing your builds, so experimenting can be really rewarding if you’re into that sort of thing.

The real struggle is with how incredibly slow the pacing and combat can be. Grinding for rare weapons is even worse— there’s definitely a reason for the fast forward mechanic they added in the Zodiac Age.

[Anonymous No.8264072]

>>8262842
i don't want them to do the 13 battle system ever again but it required more thought than most FF games. certainly more than this game

[Anonymous No.8264153]

I hate the original US version.
I patched and played IZJS on PCSX2 in 2012 and it looked and played FAR better, like night and day. QOL improvements made it a pleasure to beat 100%, even fighting Yazmat wasn't too bad a slog.
I bought the Zodiac Age on Switch and again, it is awesome, BUT in my older age only managed to make it about 98% through the game before Elder Scrolling it(stopping because I get tired of it), 156 hours in. Still worth it because I'll definitely come back to it, which makes it worth the $30 I paid for it.

The music is awesome. The design is also awesome. Top-notch art design.
Also, huge Star Wars Trilogy vibes from the game.

[Anonymous No.8264471]

>>8263170
>Basch wasn't intended to be the main character
The way the opening sequence is shot certainly makes it seem like he is going to be the protagonist.
> it's traditional for Japanese RPGs to start out with a young, inexperienced character, who grows throughout the story, and that having the lead be a younger immature character is somewhat expected. He also said that doesn't necessarily mean the producers and designers always like that, but that certain concessions must be made to cater for what the market wants. Vaan's status as main character was a decision made to appeal to the game's intended demographic, causing focus to shift from a more masculine written role to a younger and more energetic one.
That's all fine, almost all characters undergo numerous changes during development. But if marketing mucks around too much, too late in the process, there isn't going to be time to actually deliver on their demands. You can't just change a story's protagonist with no consequences to the rest of the story. And if it's too late in the production process to fix the rest of story to match the protagonist that marketing wants, you get a mess like Final Fantasy XII.

[Anonymous No.8264478]

>>8264153
>Star Wars Trilogy vibes
aesthetic is definitely influenced by the prequels.

[Anonymous No.8264497]

>>8264478
Balthear, Fran, and their airship are basically Han and Chewy. BASICALLY though.
Vaan has some Luke traits, Basch has some Obi Wan and Han traits mixed together. There's an EVIL EMPIRE full of stupid bri'ish-speaking officers.
Lots of homage to Star Wars and it does have Prequel aesthetics. Rabinastre is Naboo, Archades is Coriscant, etc.

[Anonymous No.8264512]

>>8262472
This. All the problems with development clearly on display, but based Kawazu made what he could of it.

[Anonymous No.8264514]

I'd also like to say that I get why some people hate the game, and I can't really argue with them. I love it, but a huge part of that is how it takes place in Ivalice, the music, the mark-hunting, etc. People that have heavily citiqued the game make valid arguments. And as I said, I hate the OG US release. Items suck in that and the license board is WAY too open. Same way the Sphere Grid in FFX is too open at the end of the game. Everyone becomes the same and strategy against enemies goes away.

[Anonymous No.8264518]

Has the craziest character designs in the whole series.

[Anonymous No.8264520]

>>8262106
The combat is shit.

But, you can't hate FF12 for this reason and also like Ultima 7 at the same time, because that's just as guilty.

[Anonymous No.8265642]

I can't put a finger on why I love ff12 so much outside of muh atmosphere. Also wad the first big game I played after moving out. Lot of nostalgic memories wrapped up in this game

[Anonymous No.8265643]

>>8265642
nostalgia sucks.

[Anonymous No.8265651]

>>8262106
From FFX onwards I prefer kingdom-hearts myself. despite the cringe aesthetic

[Anonymous No.8265728]

>>8265643
No it doesn't. It makes otherwise shitty things much more enjoyable, decreasing overall depression and blackpilling.

[Anonymous No.8266124]

I really liked it, probably my favorite FF game because i feel like random encounters are a chore in most of the other games.There's plenty of strategy and hidden content and you can get ridiculously overpowered if you're thorough with secret hunting early on. I found the plot confusing and boring until i read an explanation (pic related, i would never have figured out what the fuck was happening in a hundred years without this).

[Anonymous No.8266149]

>>8266124
The Game is very open despite being final fantasy. I don't know why they didn't use KH combat

[Anonymous No.8266193]

>>8266124
Although the game’s story definitely had its moments of brilliance, it’s really unfortunate that these ideas were delivered so poorly that the went over the heads of like 90% of the audience.

Looking back, I think this is mainly because of the game’s abysmal pacing and lack of memorable CGI clips. FFVII-FFX all had absolutely mind blowing CGI videos that both rewarded progress and moved the story along simultaneously. In XII, whatever CGI videos they included were entirely forgettable, as most of the story was told through real-time cinematics, and not very exciting ones at that. Might just be a case of getting lost in an ocean of ideas.

[Anonymous No.8266406]

>>8262106
the main villain sounds like prince charles

[Anonymous No.8266409]

>>8266149
>KH combat
>why didn't they use button mashing instead of a proper RPG system

[Anonymous No.8266410]

I hated this game so much when it was released that I basically stopped following Final Fantasy. I gave it another fair shot recently and it is really boring. Ashe's miniskirt is about the only positive for this game.

[Anonymous No.8266529]

>>8266410
Are you playing the vanilla PS2 game? Evidently the new HD release is the version that doesn’t suck donkey dick. If I ever decide to play it again it definitely won’t be the OG release— even one time was too many.

[Anonymous No.8266539]

>>8266529
The original version is fine. Zodiac feels like a post game version that limits some of the things you can do with each character by given them locked classes.

The only thing they added that makes the game not "suck" in the eyes of ADHD zoomers is fast forward.

[Anonymous No.8266743]

>>8266539
Did they at least make summons useful? The fact that they were totally useless was what really chapped my ass.

[Anonymous No.8266750]

>>8266539
the original one had fixed license boards for each character, zodiac let you choose jobs for each character, e.g. white mage, archer, etc.

[Anonymous No.8266820]

>>8266539
>in the eyes of ADHD zoomers is fast forward
Some people just value their time more than you. If people are using fast forward a lot it's a sign of bloated game design.

[Anonymous No.8266882]

>>8266750
I mentioned that. There are weapons that are locked out unless you have certain combinations, even if their clearly meant for certain classes, it's really weird. In the original every character can eventually unlock everything. The classes seem like a bit of a conceit desu, you can just assign certain gambits for each character to give them specific roles in the original.
>>8266820
There's nothing 'bloated' in the game's design, it already progresses faster than most RPGs. 'People' are using fast forward in *everything* because they want to rush through for quick fix.

[Anonymous No.8266886]

>>8266409
yeah it's much better to win without pressing any buttons at all

[Anonymous No.8266930]

>>8266886
I unironically like this aspect of the game a lot.
Last time I played it, challenged myself to defeat as many bosses as I could without issuing a single command, and you can get pretty deep with the strategy, given the somewhat crude tools available to you.
I wish more games had this kind of system

[Anonymous No.8267064]

>>8266930
>crude tools
Gambits is a pretty elegant AI programming tool. It's better than the way you assign your party in BGII and Bioware ended up trying a crappy imitation of Gambits in DAO.

[Anonymous No.8267072]

>>8266886
Quit this stale meme. The gambits don't assign themselves. It's an RPG, not an action game.

[Anonymous No.8267090]

>>8267064
Oh, I'm not complaining about gambits (and I've also played DAO). Just saying they are crude because they are mostly stateless, so there are a lot of seemingly simple things you can't do with them (like stealing until you succeed from each foe).
I'm a programmer by trade, so maybe that's why I thought they are crude

[Anonymous No.8267247]

>>8267064
Giving the p[layer limited access to the same tools the devs used to program enemies is pretty awesome.

[Anonymous No.8268654]

>>8263125
But Basch Von Ronsenberg of Dalmasca IS the main character. He even says "I'm captain Basch!". Don't listen to Ondore's lies!

[Anonymous No.8268664]

I thought it was okay but after so much shilling of it online, I went from "it's pretty okay" to "this kinda sucks"

[Anonymous No.8268670]

>>8266886
>assign gambits based on what issues you expect will come up in a fight
>jump in and manually control characters when shit hits the fan in hard or unexpected situations
>otherwise let the game "play itself"
vs
>micromanaging every single action yourself
>pressing X a dozen times to attack over and over in a mindless fashion
Out of curiousity, do you also prefer to manually calculate every cell in an excel spreadsheet because filling in the same thing over and over is somehow satisfying?

[Anonymous No.8268679]

>>8262106
Legitimately one of the worst games I've ever played. Gameplay is atrocious, characters are completely unlikable or flat out meaningless, the story is bad and horribly paced, the level design is awful, the layout of the world is laughably stupid. I honestly can't think of a single good thing to say about the game except that it's an incredibly good looking game for the PS2s hardware, but even then it has massive frame drops all the time. Shame because ivalice as a concept is one of the best fictional worlds there is.

[Anonymous No.8268930]

>>8268679
>Legitimately one of the worst games I've ever played. Gameplay is atrocious, [...tldr]
oh boy its one of these posts. it's not that bad. cheer up incel

[Anonymous No.8268963]

>>8266930
> Gambit
>skill

And worse. In Kingdom Hearts you always have a chance to win because of your own skills, but gambit is completely deterministic. It's unfair and skilless

[Anonymous No.8268973]

interestingly, looking on a forum someone figured out an improved steal gambit setup this year, never seen this before:

>I found a good way to use "Steal" with the "Gambits" system, in my tests it seemed better than the other attempts on the subject I have seen on the Internet (when I was looking for a way).

For example, a character with these gambits:
1- Foe: Status = Silence - ATTACK
2- Foe: Status = Blind - SILENCE
3- Foe: Targeted by Ally - BLIND
4- Self: MP < 10% - CHARGE

And the other two characters with these two Gambits:
1- Foe: Status = Silence - ATTACK
2- Foe: Targeted by Ally - STEAL

In this way the three characters combined the actions on one target at a time until it was defeated after being stealed 2-4 times.
And this is with weak and resistant enemies.
When the first character mentioned places the two negative effects on the target, the other two stole the target 2-4 times in my tests, before the target finally have the "Silence" effect and be attacked by the three characters.
And understanding the scheme, the number of attempts at theft can be increased or decreased, decreasing or increasing the conditions to start attacking with the additions and reductions of the steps with the negative effects caused by first character mentioned.

[Anonymous No.8269384]

>>8266882
>it already progresses faster than most RPGs.
That's a meaningless statement if I've ever seen one. Most RPGs are too slow and awful to even play.

[Anonymous No.8269426]

>>8266124
>you can get ridiculously overpowered if you're thorough with secret hunting early on
This is why I like the game so much. Power levelling is God's gift to mankind. It's so fun to break games. The IZJS/Zodiac versions push this to the absolute limit with going over the 9999 damage cap and using the trials to get end games items at the very beginning. If they just removed the x2/x4 speed up buttons, it would be the perfect game, but as is, it's ADHD nigger shit, so the original PS2 version is superior by definition.
>>8266820
>If people are using fast forward a lot it's a sign of bloated game design.
It's a sign that the player is retarded nigger moron with inferior genetics that should be culled from the genepool.

[Anonymous No.8269429]

Just giving Vaan a shirt as in the DS games helps immensively with the chara design and to make him look less of a fuckboi

[Anonymous No.8269524]

It’s better than 13 and 15 at the very least

[Anonymous No.8269654]

>>8269426
>Power levelling is God's gift to mankind
>If they just removed the x2/x4 speed up buttons, it would be the perfect game
you have crippling OCD and you don't understand what fun is
here's an animation of numbers going up. this should give you the same enjoyment as base ff12

[Anonymous No.8270249]

To the game's credit, I've put in 120+ hours each time I've run through the game(3 times now). That's a pretty good deal. It has legs almost as long as TES games.

[Anonymous No.8270321]

>>8262841
people don't shit on this game's 100% dead serious unironic usage of "IT WAS MY EVIL TWIN" as a plot point frequently enough. what the fuck was up with that shit? ya'll really okay with this?

[Anonymous No.8270916]

>>8264497
They even had a Death Star type vehicle near the end. This is my biggest gripe about this game. There is even one CGI scene that I swear was taken straight from Empire Strikes back when they are all in the Mellinium Falcon's cockpit together.

[Anonymous No.8270980]

>>8263214
Vanilla ps2 is much more difficult and a fun challlengez Zodiac Age version is severely unbalanced and a joke in comparison as I believe most damage is uncapped

[Anonymous No.8270991]

>>8262106
>not retro.
>came as FF series soured, just like this brown plop of shit
>main characters were faggots

Lmfao if your not playing FF on SNES or PS1 just lmfao honestly fucking retards

[Anonymous No.8271246]

>>8270991
>lmfao lmfao
ask me how i know all your opinions are worthless

[Anonymous No.8271287]

babby's first PLC
I really liked the game world and the solo MMO gameplay but the end of the game kind of sucked

[Anonymous No.8272746]

>>8264518
I love the moogle designs and the malboro's with their moustaches

[Anonymous No.8272754]

didnt this game just come out?

[Anonymous No.8272760]

>>8270991
the last good ff was v

[Anonymous No.8272913]

XII was utter dog shit. There hasn't been a real final fantasy game since IX

[Anonymous No.8272916]

>>8272913
all this tells me is you hit puberty when 7 came out and you developed cynicism when 10 came out

[Anonymous No.8272923]

>>8272913
X is one of the best FFs, cope and seethe all you want.

[Anonymous No.8272942]

>>8272916
>>8272923
I played them a year apart. X is an objectively shitty grindfest with zero soul and a shitty story. It has no redeeming features and is a bad game aside from just being the worst final fantasy to that point. Cope, zoomies

[Anonymous No.8272958]

>>8272942
you probably like 8 you faggot nigger.

[Anonymous No.8272974]

>>8272916
It's S rank on my chart, so yes. 8 is vastly superior to X. Literally soul v soulless

[Anonymous No.8273003]

>>8272974
kys

[Anonymous No.8273029]

>>8272942
>X is an objectively shitty grindfest
X does not require grinding at all to complete and is one of the few games in the series where basic tactics are expected of the player in even the random battles. there are FF games that are designed assuming you will grind for hours and then win every battle by mashing the basic attack. 10 is not like that
>with zero soul and a shitty story.
the symbolism of letting go of the past is developed better than any other game in the series, the love story works better than any other in the series, the tropical island setting is a lot more interesting than lol medieval europe with robots
>It has no redeeming features and is a bad game aside from just being the worst final fantasy to that point
i simply don't believe you played FF1, 2 and 8 and thought they were all better than 10

[Anonymous No.8273060]

>>8273029
FF1 is better than X

[Anonymous No.8273097]

>>8268679
And yet its still 10x better than X

[Anonymous No.8273159]

>>8272958
>VIII is... LE BAD
Nah, you just got filtered son.

[Anonymous No.8273171]

>>8273159
bad doesnt even begin to cut it.

[Anonymous No.8273174]

>>8273029
1, 2, and 8 are all far better than 10

[Anonymous No.8273178]

>>8272974
Meant for
>>8272958

[Anonymous No.8273180]

>>8273174
every single game in the world is actually far better than your favorite game.

[Anonymous No.8273182]

>>8273171
More like your shit taste doesn't even begin to cut it.
>>8273174
This but unironically.

[Anonymous No.8273195]

>>8272958
I'm not too big on VIII, but I will say that Squall is much more likable than Tidus.

[Anonymous No.8273198]

>>8273195
yeah man, I'm also a 13 year old chubby emo goth wannabe and Squall really speaks to me. ...whatever

[Anonymous No.8273207]

>>8273180
If your favorite game is FFX then yes, this is correct.
>>8273182
It was meant unironically

[Anonymous No.8273210]

>>8273198
>T. Has 8 separate save files so he can fap to the various Rikku scenes

[Anonymous No.8273220]

>>8273198
>Squall
>emo
I never understood how Squall gets linked to emos when he's the opposite. He literally is just an anti-social child soldier.

Now wonder people hate on VIII, they can't even understand something this basic lmao.

[Anonymous No.8273231]

>>8273174
ranking games is generally nonsensical - you can't objectively say mario 3 is better or worse than tetris - but come on.
all of those games are spreadsheet organizers of varying complexity. you make sure x, y and z numbers in the menu are high enough and then the rest of the game is mashing attack. the plot in 1 is baby's first fantasy story about the power of the magic gems. 2 is baby's second fantasy story about the evil empire. 8 is an insane mess of time travel, possession, amnesia, literal witches, aliens, psychics and whatever else a bored middle schooler would write about. all of them fail in the basic elements of plot structure, characterization and managing suspension of disbelief.
what makes 10 worse? it doesn't have a voice actor yelling HA HA HA?

[Anonymous No.8273240]

>>8273231
>you can't objectively say mario 3 is better or worse than tetris
I can though. Mario 3 is objectively better than Tetris.

[Anonymous No.8273246]

Sometimes I can't tell if this is just reddit-tier fanboyisms or just people having fun baiting replies. If its the latter, I hope at least it's worth your time.

[Anonymous No.8273265]

>>8273246
closer to the former, i think.
most places on the internet just expect you to post X good, Y bad and rake in the upvotes or (You)s or whatever. the idea that you would go on a discussion forum and have a discussion is too alien to comprehend.

[Anonymous No.8273306]

>>8273246
>if you like something and argue in its favour you're LITRULLI plebbit
My god you must be such a bore.

[Anonymous No.8273323]

>>8273265
Yeah, it's weird to think that discussion has always been rough on the internet. Back then, you would get destroyed for not including VII in your top 5 games. Now, you get argued to death for even saying it's okay.
Wild to think that the only place you could even break out from the fold in peace were "guilty pleasure" threads. Who gives a shit if someone doesn't agree with your taste, will at least be interesting to see why you disagree.

[Anonymous No.8273334]

>>8266529
I played the new HD version. The first time I played was the original version.

[Anonymous No.8273467]

>>8273198
He's genuinely more manly than Meg Ryan.

[Anonymous No.8273807]

>>8262113
You better not learn what happened to the Disgaea games lately then. Made me quit gaming.

[Anonymous No.8273853]

>>8273807
Auto battle? But you could play without it.
I didn't even know it was a thing and was really confused by what you meant.

[Anonymous No.8275832]

>>8263259
He made Crimson Shroud and supervised TO LUCT but after SE changed all of his plans for 12 he was clearly done directing AAA games.

[Anonymous No.8275874]

>>8262106
I played it for 86 hours and I hate it. No FF after FF7 can be called a "classic."

[Anonymous No.8276029]

>>8275874
VIII and IX are good. IX especially.

[Anonymous No.8276038]

>>8262106
Pros: the variable battle system that allows you to go full-blown turn-based to modern hack-and-slash with support. I am surprised that Squeenix was so quick to never use it again when considering how versatile it is.

Nice settings.

Cons: medicore soundtrack. Unlikeable characters (especially Ashe with her "I WANNA BE QUEEN BECAUSE IN ANCIENT TIMES MY FAMILY WAS ROYALTY" bullshit. Overall generic story.

[Anonymous No.8276293]

>>8266743
Yes summons are much more useful in Zodiac.

[Anonymous No.8276306]

>>8275874
Don't get the appeal of 7 above the rest. I get that it was the right game at the right time, but other than its place in time, the game just feels okay. Don't love the characters as much as IX, and don't like the battle system more than V. Materia is way too easy to abuse.

[Anonymous No.8276334]

>>8262841
>>8270321
>no not my hecking unwritten mystery story laws
Filtered hard.

[Anonymous No.8276412]

>>8276306
>Don't love the characters as much as IX
The cast of IX is trash. Fuck off

[Anonymous No.8276460]

>>8276412