Final Fantasy Omnithread - All FF, all the time.

[rigwarl]

Heh, I love most of the minigames. In FFX I really liked the Chocobo race where you try to get 0 seconds. Blitzball was fun for a couple times but then got extremely tedious if you wanted Wakka's Attack Reels. Dodging 100 lightning bolts was also kind of dumb. I especially enjoyed Rikku's and Paine's Thunder Plains tower ones in FFX-2.

[Dark567]

As much as I liked FFX, for the leveling, combat, story, graphics, and music (oh the music... Ohhhhhh the music), I hated blitzball. I'd put the 'minigames' in FFX, from lightening dodging to chocobo racing (although really its an FF series standby) as 'super fucking annoying', a category only trumped by the card game in FF8.

I don't think I've ever seen a minigame in an FF series that I found fun. Coupled with the fact that most of them are somehow, stupidly, the way you get the most powerful item of some sort or another, and I think they're basically the worst thing ever.

I don't know how you hate all the minigames.... Well, okay I can see blitzball. But Triple Triad? That had to be one of the best. Not that it was anything really impressive, but it was a great way to interact with all of the minor characters in an alternative way. That's to say its not anything great, but at the same time there is not really anything offensive about it either.

[Jorpho]

That's to say its not anything great, but at the same time there is not really anything offensive about it either.

Attempting to spread a new rule to a different region was an agonizing, random, yet often necessary process (as far as card collecting is concerned) that could easily require multiple resets of the game.

And attempting to complete your deck before the last disc is such an unthinkably hopeless process that I cannot imagine someone accomplishing it without a guide. (One of the rare cards is held by an anonymous unrendered blob!) That is offensive.

[Izawwlgood]

I'm not a fan of having rare items being found in singular temporal points of the game by slight random encounters. If you can't go back and find an item at your leisure, that item better be impossible to ignore (and I don't mean 'megaelixers' or the like). Minigames to unlock items, or items that have no basis for discovery are a time honored, yet extrodinarily lazy and stupid ploy that many, MANY, good RPGs are guilty of, and I really wish they'd stop stop.

For example, in Star Ocean 2, the secret end game dungeon is only accessible if you pilfer an item from a totally random NPC before a town is destroyed about 2 hrs into the game. At this point in the game, you have almost certainly not yet acquired the object that lets you steal, nor the skill to do it effectively, yet doing so will allow you to play the end game content that you'll be approaching in 30-40 hrs.

That is complete horse shit, and is utterly lazy on the parts of game designers. Minigames to unlock secret items is a vapid excuse to force players to play these half assed aspects of the game.

[New User]

On minigames and items, I agree with Izawwlgood. I think a good way they should do the minigames is to have a fun reward for playing the game, but a reward that is not essential or irreplaceable. Maybe if I dodged a lot of lightning bolts on the thunder plains, I'd get an item that turns Lulu into a bear or something. A fun item that makes little impact on the gameplay, but is a suitable reward since dodging lightning bolts also has little to do with Final Fantasy's normal gameplay. Maybe if I play blitzball tournaments, I'd get good spheres for the grid or nice consumable items like Elixirs. These items might be rare drops or steals from enemies, but the same amount of time would be spent trying to get such an item from an enemy battle as spent playing the blitzball tournament. They might even make minigames that increase character growth. For example, if a player wants to grind to increase their characters' stats, they would have the choice of grinding away at random encounters or grinding away playing Tetra Master. Either option is tedious and time-consuming, but each one might appeal to different player styles so more players could be satisfied with how their time is spent to get an identical reward.

[rigwarl]

I strongly disagree with the minigame assessment. I think killing the same trivial monster over and over in the FFX arena for some item that you need 100 of is just as a "vapid excuse to force players" to do something obviously monotonous as minigames (I would argue worse), even though that's part of the "real game". One thing to note is all the items that require significant effort in minigames are all extra content in itself- you don't need them to beat the game.

Unless you're also saying any grindy aspect is bad design too. In that case I can agree. Incidentally, FF8 wins out on here- it took by far, far, far the least amount of time to get the equipment necessarily to beat the hardest extra boss (out of any RPG I've played, even).

[Izawwlgood]

On the topic of Arena's, I agree that they're a stupid excuse; they're effectively minigames. Personally, I feel minigames should serve no purpose other than giving you a distraction from the game at hand, and maybe a few bonus consumables or gimmicky collectables; my ability to max out a character gear or special skill wise should not be predicated on my ability to dodge 100 lightening bolts, race a chocobo to S-rank, etc. That said, I kind of liked Chocobo breeding, despite the racing minigame being stupid.

But like I said, it's a time honored tradition, and I don't expect it to go anywhere. It's just a shame so much gaming effort is wasted on what amounts to gambling sans a story line.

[rigwarl]

Well, it's not just the arena that is minigame-esque, having to run around in a dungeon for a random encounter to fight a specific monster which has a 20% chance of appearing and a 20% chance to get XYZ item, which you need 10 of, is just as bad.

I guess my point is that the extra endgame gear is never going to be handed to you on a silver platter. As the vast majority of it is obtained in the manner above, I find that having bits and pieces of it obtained through minigames decreases monotony.

[Izawwlgood]

I dunno, I'm basing this example of 'how to do it right' on games like Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana (although some of the final upgrade orbs for SoM had incredibly low drop rates); the road to acquiring the ultimate weapons is off the beaten trail, but doesn't hinge on talking to some random bush twice after circling it before speaking to the baker and buying one Bread, then chasing the cat, sitting on the bench, and playing the strong man competition three times never getting better than a 9.6 or worse than a 7.5.

And for games that have crafting elements, like, gather 10 Mithrils and combine it with 15 Fire Crystals, I don't mind if the recipes are known, and the items are always found in known locations. If finding 10 mithrils is only possible at specific points in the game, and aren't required until the very end, and oh shit, I missed one because I didn't explore ALL the things and now I can't get that MithrilFireSwordof+99999, then fuck you game designers.

[Dark567]

That's to say its not anything great, but at the same time there is not really anything offensive about it either.

Attempting to spread a new rule to a different region was an agonizing, random, yet often necessary process (as far as card collecting is concerned) that could easily require multiple resets of the game.

And attempting to complete your deck before the last disc is such an unthinkably hopeless process that I cannot imagine someone accomplishing it without a guide. (One of the rare cards is held by an anonymous unrendered blob!) That is offensive.

I avoided spreading rules, as it was unnecessary. Yeah, I wouldn't expect to complete your deck without a guide... It has like 1000 different cards. So, I just didn't complete the deck. No big deal.

I'm not a fan of having rare items being found in singular temporal points of the game by slight random encounters. If you can't go back and find an item at your leisure, that item better be impossible to ignore (and I don't mean 'megaelixers' or the like). Minigames to unlock items, or items that have no basis for discovery are a time honored, yet extrodinarily lazy and stupid ploy that many, MANY, good RPGs are guilty of, and I really wish they'd stop stop.

That's why they're secret items, because your not necessarily expected to get them. I don't really have a problem making it necessary to play minigames to make your character the very best. If you don't want the very best, you don't have to play and its almost always possible to beat a JRPG with only a half built up character. Sure, if your going to be a completionist, your going to have to go through it and do it. But that's what completionism is.

And for games that have crafting elements, like, gather 10 Mithrils and combine it with 15 Fire Crystals, I don't mind if the recipes are known, and the items are always found in known locations. If finding 10 mithrils is only possible at specific points in the game, and aren't required until the very end, and oh shit, I missed one because I didn't explore ALL the things and now I can't get that MithrilFireSwordof+99999, then fuck you game designers.

Is it really a big deal if you don't get MithrilFireSwordof+99999? I guess I usually don't even play these games with a guide, so if I miss uberweapon, I don't usually realize it. And if after I beat the game I found I did then its kinda like "Huh, missed that. Oh well. Still was fun."

[Izawwlgood]

For collectables, it's fine. For ultimate weapons, I'd say it's not. For Godmode weapons, like in FFX, I think it's fine. For CONTENT, like the final dungeon in SO2, it's absolutely 100% not fine. I put something like 90 hrs of game play into my first run through of SO before I read about that final dungeon, which evidently offers 20-40 hrs of game play and challenges. It's all extra superfluous stuff for maxing out characters and getting even more power items, and a ridiculously difficult challenging end boss, but I don't think that sort of deep content should only be available to people who used a guide to perform some task that one would never reasonably do otherwise.

[mister k]

I'm not saying anyone who likes 8 is objectively wrong, just that I highly disagree with their opinion of the game.

It's nitpicking, but seriously: the only way I can imagine someone finding that "the GF/Junction system was completely intense, it used reaction time/finger skill unlike any game before it" is through severe lack of experience. A pocket calculator and a VHS tape of Dragonball Z provides all the same intensity as GF summoning.

What really niggled me, and I think I've mentioned it before, is how the story only seems to be half-there, as if the developers had just enough resources to put the skeleton in place and then had to leave all their ambitions behind. All these tantalizing hints about "Hyne" and the creation of magic get dropped in here and there, only for them to go absolutely nowhere.

Yeah, but 8 isn't really about big ol' magic and time collapsing, just as 10 isn't about sin. Its about people, innit? I actually disliked Squall on first play, but really dig him now. He's such a teenager, and theres a lot of joy to be had with that. When he finally gets his act together with Rinoa, it makes me happy on many levels. Yes, the

Spoiler:

we all know each other from before!

was silly and unecessary, but meh.

In plot terms, I actually really like all the FFs excepting 12, (with the proviso that I have not played 1-6, and not completed 13), which I felt dropped the ball in story telling- it basically showed, not told, with this plot I really couldn't care about. Ashe and Basche were cool, but the games insistence on focusing on some kid who didn't really seem to have a character arc felt... odd.

But yeah, 7 is a really cool story about your past, and how it affects you, whether who you were then determines who you have to be now. The choice between Aeris and Tifa reflects this. Sephiroth then is someone who embraces his background, Cloud is someone who rejects it and tries to be someone new.

8 is a story about adolescense and identity, and the responsibility that comes with that.

9 is basically a star crossed lovers story? Its kinda just a fantasy romp (random thing- OPM marked 9 down because its plot was similar to 7s. I really didn't get that) really. I'm not sure theres some thematic depth- maybe with Vivi's arc? I guess theres a little about duty and loyalty with Steiner too.

10 has a lot of fun themes. A love story that really works, again duty and responsibility, and sacrifice, but also some fun stuff about parenthood

Spoiler:

Sin=father is such a fun metaphor

[ProZac]

I'm with Izzy for the most part on items/minigames, and I consider that to be one of the most atrocious things 12 did. Acquiring the best gear shouldn't be impossibly random chance, nor should I need to start the game with a guide open next to me in order to make sure I don't miss anything.

FF8's card game was the only minigame I found bearable in all of the FF's. Blitzball takes the cake for worst though. I cleared out everything in Blitzball, but I did it by scoring, then regaining control of the ball and hiding behind my goalie. The AI wasn't smart enough to find you there, so it was just a matter of waiting for time to run out and winning 1-0.

And yes, I also enjoyed 8, but it's pretty much all for the characters. 8 is the only FF without a playable character that I hated. The story was pretty meh, the draw system sucked, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. 9 I don't remember much about, but I remember enjoying it for the most part.

[rigwarl]

The only unusual similarity between 7 and 9 that I can think of is

Spoiler:

how closely connected your main character is with the main villain "by blood", but the protagonist chooses to reject their purpose and take the path of righteousness while the antagonist chooses the path of fulfilling their destiny.

FF9 had my favorite main character. It was nice playing as someone who demonstrated positive traits (overall), not an emo/asshole mix like Cloud and Squall were for most of their games.

[Izawwlgood]

FFX is an example of how 'positive traits' can be just as obnoxious. But Tidus, as mentioned, grew up, whereas Cloud and Squall just sort of plowed ahead in between bouts of reapplying eyeliner and moping.

[Dark567]

9 is basically a star crossed lovers story? Its kinda just a fantasy romp (random thing- OPM marked 9 down because its plot was similar to 7s. I really didn't get that) really. I'm not sure theres some thematic depth

I think IX is purposely meant to be a lighthearted romp, as a relief from the thematic heaviness of VI,VII, and VIII. Which, is absolutely fine, I loved it.

FFX is an example of how 'positive traits' can be just as obnoxious. But Tidus, as mentioned, grew up, whereas Cloud and Squall just sort of plowed ahead in between bouts of reapplying eyeliner and moping.

See, without voice I could give them a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. I never saw Cloud as mopey, and saw Squall as more a loner and cold and unfeeling. Completely unemotional. Stoic maybe.

[ProZac]

I agree with Cloud being mopey. Squall I always thought was just kinda burdened with a lot of responsibility he didn't want. Loner fits as well.

[Box Boy]

I always thought Cloud grew up by the end of VII, managing to start coming to terms with who he was at the very least, and actually realising his past didn't matter as much as his present at the best.

Then I watched Advent Children,

Spoiler:

and Square decided that since Cloud's 'moody jerk' persona was popular with the doujin artists and Japanese crowd they should give him a fatal disease and make him regress to the point where he had frequent delusions of his dead friends fuelled by the planet and pushed away his living ones because he also contracted the stupid and was afraid of opening up to them and such after two tears of getting along. (Seriously square, you really had to undo the character development and hastily rebuild some of it at the end to appeal to the vocal minority?)

[Izawwlgood]

I think the thing that bugged me most about Advent Children (aside from the storyline, of course) was seeing someone's cellphone slowly drift to the bottom of the pool Aeris was released to. That was like someone refilming Sandlot, but instead of having them all toss the ball around at the end, a drive by screams past and shoots them all dead.

That's right, I went there.

[Box Boy]

The hell is a sandlot and what does that mean?

[Dark567]

Kid's these days.

[Jorpho]

I avoided spreading rules, as it was unnecessary.

What!? Fine, maybe spreading rules is unnecessary, but one is in for a world of pain trying to accomplish something when the Random rule is in play.

[Dark567]

I avoided spreading rules, as it was unnecessary.

What!? Fine, maybe spreading rules is unnecessary, but one is in for a world of pain trying to accomplish something when the Random rule is in play.

Meh, I never had a problem. Although I always made sure to attempt to have multiple good cards, and only one of each bad, to stack the odds in my favor.

[rigwarl]

On the contrary, I found playing WITHOUT random to be more boring as you could just pick 5 good cards and randomly throw them on the board and win.

[mister k]

On the contrary, I found playing WITHOUT random to be more boring as you could just pick 5 good cards and randomly throw them on the board and win.

Really? Even against the good players, who tended to have better cards than you did?

[rigwarl]

IIRC the good players had 1 rare card each (their best card), so if you beat even 5 of them you would have 5 rares vs 1 rare + 4 non-rares.

[Lostdreams]

Some of the rares were pretty bad though, having one 9 or A side with 7 or worse on any of the other sides.

Depending on the ruleset you use sometimes playing all garbage cards was as good or better than using rares. Of course, if you spent the hours to collect all the cards, you'd be crazy not to eliminate all the aggrivating rulesets and play with normal rules and winner takes all cards, because the easiest route to winning is the box-in method. Playing cards with AAs or A9s in one corner(for blocking out incoming flips) with a third number as high as you can get( for flipping the safe card you set next to, if possible) and one with AA's or A9s in the left and right or top and bottom position (for filling the last spot in the horizontal/vertical row). As long as you set the 2 weak sides of your card next to the wall or a card already in play you can't lose and when you play your final or last 2 cards something usually ends up being weaker on their end.

Edit: After a quick review, Doomtrain and Edea are the only AAs with Doomtrain being in the lower left position and Edea being in the upper right position. Eden and Irvine are both A9 in lower left as well. Seifer A9 lower right or Squall 9A upper left would be the best choices for the opportunity play as they have 6s on one other side. Rinoa has AA on left and right hand positions and would fill left wall, right wall or endmatch middle nicely.

[DaBigCheez]

As far as "lost forever" items...FFXII Zodiac Spear. Seriously, who thought the mechanics behind getting that were a good idea

[Box Boy]

Anyone who would make money off the guide.

[Izawwlgood]

As far as "lost forever" items...FFXII Zodiac Spear. Seriously, who thought the mechanics behind getting that were a good idea

What was the mechanic?

[Box Boy]

There's four chests throughout the early game that have no indication that they're special, and a few are mixed in with other chests, and if you open even one at any point the Zodiac Spear won't appear. Ever. If you don't pick them, there's an area you can go to containing sixteen chests that all contain knots of rust normally. Take off the diamond armlets (some of the armor your characters will usually be wearing here, which is hard to get) your party is wearing and one will have the zodiac spear, and the rest dark matter.

If you miss that, don't fear! Complete a certain hunting mission, obtain ten espers and then go to a certain non-special area in the world, there's a ten percent or so chance a chest will spawn. There's a ten percent chance an item shall be in it. There's a ten percent chance the spear will be that item. Also, your party leader at the time HAS to be wearing a diamond armlet for this to work, also.

Oh, if it doesn't appear the first time? Walk a few screens away, fight your way back, and open the respawned chest (if it's there). You might get it now.

[DaBigCheez]

There's four chests throughout the early game that have no indication that they're special, and a few are mixed in with other chests, and if you open even one at any point the Zodiac Spear won't appear. Ever.

Oh, only four? I thought it was more like fifteen.

But yeah, there is absolutely zero indication that these chests are special in any way, and they're not exactly out-of-the-way chests - you have to physically *go around* one or two of them to continue on your way. I can only assume that the way to get the Zodiac Spear to spawn was mentioned in the strategy guide or something, because I can't see how in the hell someone would figure out how to spawn the thing through trial and error.

Note: The chests you have to leave are in areas you'll be going through in hours ~1-15 of the game. The Zodiac Spear spawn is in the endgame bonus dungeon. And, as mentioned by Box Boy, there's fifteen other chests in the same area which don't have anything special, and the Spear chest will have the same item if you didn't do it right. And to expand on the Diamond Armlet point, IIRC it causes better loot to spawn in chests (i.e. having one on modifies the drop table). In this case, it instead removes the Spear from the table, replacing it with the same Knot of Rust you get if you opened one of the earlygame chests.

Oh, and those earlygame chests? They don't despawn or become inaccessible/impossible to backtrack to or anything. You have to avoid opening them, anytime you're in the area, for the entire game. And at least one of them is in the main, starting city that you'll be coming back to, frequently, for gear etc.

[Izawwlgood]

If they want the game guide sales that bad, they should just include DLC.

[Jorpho]

TVTroopes calls this Guide Dang It, as you may know.

[mister k]

Ff12 has that really bizzare random loot behaviour, yeah- amusingly a friend of mine told me where to find an ultra rare weapon, but he didn't try to get it multiple times. I did, and ended up with a ridiculously powerful army early on. I actually really loved 12's combat system, found it intuitive, fun and rather addictive, but it had some weird ticks it seemed to have picked up from MMO's- the random drops being one, and the monster that takes 10 hours to kill being another. I got pretty obsessed with monster hunting, but skipped the last two simply because I did not have the time nor the patience for that...

[LaserGuy]

It could be worse; you could be hunting for a pink tail in FFIV (or the thirty-odd items of similar scarcity in After Years).

[capefeather]

I'm not a fan of having rare items being found in singular temporal points of the game by slight random encounters. If you can't go back and find an item at your leisure, that item better be impossible to ignore (and I don't mean 'megaelixers' or the like). Minigames to unlock items, or items that have no basis for discovery are a time honored, yet extrodinarily lazy and stupid ploy that many, MANY, good RPGs are guilty of, and I really wish they'd stop stop.

For example, in Star Ocean 2, the secret end game dungeon is only accessible if you pilfer an item from a totally random NPC before a town is destroyed about 2 hrs into the game. At this point in the game, you have almost certainly not yet acquired the object that lets you steal, nor the skill to do it effectively, yet doing so will allow you to play the end game content that you'll be approaching in 30-40 hrs.

That is complete horse shit, and is utterly lazy on the parts of game designers. Minigames to unlock secret items is a vapid excuse to force players to play these half assed aspects of the game.

A thousand times this.

People like to say, "Oh it's not a big deal, if you loved the game enough to 'complete' it you'd do it." Okay, so basically you're fine with emotional manipulation, with the game forcing you into manual labour to "prove" you "deserve" the game's full experience. No, that is not okay, and it is exactly this quality in games that produces and validates those really obsessive individuals who force their idea of "completion" down people's throats. (See Absolute Steve's FF8 FAQ on GameFAQs -.-) The sheer frequency of these occurrences is what prevents FF9 in particular from going into my top 3 FFs... which is ironic considering their copious use of (!) and (?) bubbles to mark when you're about to bump into something.

[Dark567]

If they want the game guide sales that bad, they should just include DLC.

Generally I didn't even think the guides were made by Square, but by some other company(Brady Games?)... so I really don't think they engage in that behavior just to sell guides.

[Box Boy]

I'm fairly certain Square either sells the license to make it or hires them to produce it, actually.

[SecondTalon]

Brady pays (in this case) Square a sum of money for a pre-release version of the game so they can have a guide ready to go at release. They may even get to look at some of the code, I don't know.

Which is.. of course.. why they're sometimes wrong about things. Because they were playing version .95, not 1.0.