There's a lot to do in WoR if you know how to play JRPGs (i.e., on your own). The only people who think the world of ruin is "empty" are people who looked up gamefaqs and followed a step-by-step guide on how to re-recruit everyone and find everything as soon as the game didn't tell them exactly where to go. Then they wonder why they feel like they didn't accomplish anything.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Then they wonder why they feel like they didn't accomplish anything.
This actually ties very strongly into what others in this thread have said about how people don't know how to play JRPGs anymore. They start to view gameplay as just a means to an end to get to plot points, and they don't assimilate anything as part of the story unless the game rams it down their throats in a cutscene. But the entire World of Ruin if FFVI was basically atmospheric plot; it was intended to make the player feel helpless and alone. Unfortunately, the modern player has the option of whipping out a smartphone so they don't have to feel alone, and it completely destroys the narrative and turns what should be hype cycle for the finale into a tedious to-do list.
There's a sort of sad, social commentary in that, I think.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>They start to view gameplay as just a means to an end to get to plot points,
I played 4 Heroes of Llight on the DS last year, and I have to say that fricking game has some of the best "gameplay as storytelling" that I've ever experienced. The game starts with all of the heroes meeting up and tacking the first dungeon, and it feels great despite the fact that they don't really get along, but then the plot strikes and sort of breaks everyone up, and the game proceeds in chapters where the 4 heroes follow their own paths, teaming up with guest party members and occasionally the other heroes as they all criss-cross the map. It gives each character a chance to develop in semi-isolation, and makes it clear what their strengths and weaknesses are, both in battle and in terms of their personalities, as well as in combination with the various jobs made available to you. Everyone kind of grows and learns something and takes on various roles by necessity, and then when the plot finally lets you get the whole band back together, it feels so great to have freedom again.
Sadly, most people just complained that they were mad the game teased them with a full party and then took it away from them, completely oblivious to how that gameplay choice served the narrative, likely because they were too busy referencing a walkthrough to ever feel what the developers intended.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Best gameplay as storytelling award goes to Breath of Fire V. Entire game is about escaping to the surface. Every area shows your depth and there is a constant meter counting toward failure that increases from moving or using god mode dragon powers.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Breath of Fire V
Don't shill your NTR game here, gay.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>But the entire World of Ruin if FFVI was basically atmospheric plot
Great point. Might I add: OG FF7 Migdar too. People who say OG Midgar was "small" miss the point, are probably playing with guides as well. It was small by today's standards, but it speaks volumes that such a small setting could stimulate your imagination and make you feel inside a huge dystopian metropolis. It was not about the number of fetch quests or polygons, but mastery of atmosphere (and story and design, etc., lost arts).
Likewise in WoR you are supposed to feel despondent. You are not supposed to know whether the game ended or not, and this is just a cynical sandbox after the credits have rolled. You are not supposed to know that your friends are alive or not (except maybe Locke) and where to find them. You are not supposed to know what to do. The world is completely changed and you have to explore it all over again. This is (was) gameplay too. This is you playing the game: immersing yourself in it. Trying to feel what the characters are going through.
I've been championing playing without guides for a while now, JRPG or not. So much of the gaming experience was the exploration. You are supposed to spend time exploring, revisiting, talking to NPCs.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>People who say OG Midgar was "small" miss the point,
I personally never heard anyone say that back in the day. If anything, most of my friends were impressed by how huge it was, given it was effectively a prologue to the actual game. As you said, definitely seems like a "modern" complaint; especially from people who have maybe already watched a few too many video essays about the game and have some perverted, post-millenium view of it, instead of just experiencing it for themselves. >So much of the gaming experience was the exploration. You are supposed to spend time exploring, revisiting, talking to NPCs.
It's really weird how natural this came to me when I was younger, and how I had to force myself to go back to it. It's just that there came a point after the turn of the century where, suddenly, backtracking and exploring wasn't worth it. If there was CONTENT for you to find, the developers would lead you by the nose to it, or worse, they'd discourage your from backtracking at all. The entire JRPG genre effectively broke itself.
I recently replayed Skies of Arcadia and FF9, two of my all time favorite JRPGs, and I played them "old fashioned" like, and hot damn it only made me love them even more. My playtime on each was well over 100 hours, but I ended up finding pretty much everything on my own and it was damn satisfying. I also just found so much flavor dialogue that helped all the characters and locations feel real, even without voice acted cutscenes.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>It's really weird how natural this came to me when I was younger, and how I had to force myself to go back to it.
Bro, in Bof3 I literally spent days in McNeil village/Cedar Woods with Rei and Teepo, just because I enjoyed it so much.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Back in the 90s you could buy strategy guides.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Most kids didn't. Furthest me and my friends ever went was to look something up during a trip to the store when we were REALLY stuck. It's still completely incomparable to >i'm stuck >i open phone >i'm no longer stuck
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Most kids didn't
absolutely true. I liked to buy strategy guides because they were often the best resource for official artwork, back before art books were a thing, and also because Versus Books ruled. I only knew one or two other people who even owned a SINGLE strategy guide, let alone multiple. Heck, I didn't even know a lot of people with video game magazine subscriptions. Out of dozens of friends, I knew one other kid besides me who got Nintendo Power, and that wasn't even until '99.
Best gameplay as storytelling award goes to Breath of Fire V. Entire game is about escaping to the surface. Every area shows your depth and there is a constant meter counting toward failure that increases from moving or using god mode dragon powers.
I've been hearing about that game a lot lately, and I feel like I wanna try it, but I also feel like it would stress me the frick out, holy shit.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
aaaaand the moronic zoomer enters the thread to post moronic ass shit, like clockwork
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
You're talking about yourself and the zero-content post you just shat onto the thread?
1 month ago
Anonymous
Why are you talking about exploration in old jRPG like it was great when it was terrible overbloated with grinding and random encounters?
1 month ago
Anonymous
It was great because we didn't have atrophied imagination nor an eroded attention span. Sorry that social media ruined that for you.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Random encounters are so fricking cool.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
yes, this perfectly encapsulates why i tell zoomers that they could never experience ff6 in the same way that we did in the pre-internet era, and they could read you post up and down inside and out and still never understand it or why it's true, the very base concepts contained within your post are completely alien to them and might as well be martian language
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
>i tell zoomers that they could never experience ff6 in the same way that we did in the pre-internet era,
I mean, they could if they tried. But nobody really has an interest in experiencing or appreciating media on its own terms anymore. People expect to get things out of games without putting anything in. They play a game just to say they played it, or so that they can understand some 3 hour long video essay about it.
And to be fair, I'd wager a good amount of gamers even in the 90s had a case of "just wanna see what happens" and tore through JRPGs with little regard for exploration. But they likely understood that they were missing things in the name of doing so, and simply didn't care.
>What is so rushed about It
NTA and I wouldn't say FFVI was "rushed" but I do think they had ambitions beyond what they were able to implement in time for release. The base mechanics and stats are somewhat awkward and unbalanced compared to the 4, 5 and 7. There are some major bugs including rare but game-breaking, even save-corrupting issues that players did encounter like the Relm Sketch bug. The evasion bug is notable also. Dunno what that other anon is saying about WoR it's definitely not 'empty,' but there are definitely parts that feel lower quality, like Strago's entire subplot.
And personally, I think there should have been at least one more "main story" dungeon and plot sequence before Kefka's tower. I like the open-ended style but narrative momentum just stops the moment you get The Falcon. Maybe a level with lore about the goddesses or something like that.
Overall, FF6 has a very large amount of content for a SNES RPG and the mechanics are good enough to be fun. But the idea that it was more rushed than others isn't crazy to me.
Nuts, man. I wasn't into JRPGs when this game originally came out, but I finally sat down and did a complete playthrough of the SNES original about 6 years ago and I fell in love with it.
I've found the best way to play any JRPG is to waste time. Don't use any sort of guide or FAQ. Explore everything and talk to everyone. With modern RPGs becoming so hand-holdy, giving the player objective lists and waypoints for literally everything in order to maximize efficiency while wading through hours of filler content, I think it's easy to forget what the appeal of JRPGs used to be, which is simply that YOU GET TO FIND THINGS. Maybe it's something good, maybe it isn't. Maybe it's a challenge. Maybe it's something you can't do until way later. Maybe you don't find anything at all. But the important thing is that you took the time to look, figured it out for yourself, and didn't rely on the game to lead you by the nose to it.
This is why, if you remember old gaming magazines, they'd often estimate the completion times of games like this at over 100 hours. Modern estimates tend to range about 30-40, because they expect you to just beeline from plot point to ploint point, and use the internet to tell you where all the best items are and the earliest you can get them. And really, if you're gonna play a JRPG like that, why even bother?
>With modern RPGs becoming so hand-holdy, giving the player objective lists and waypoints for literally everything in order to maximize efficiency while wading through hours of filler content
This is pretty funny.
But true, isn't it? Developers are afraid to let the player wonder where to go next for even a second, because then it leads to reviewers getting stuck like morons, and waves and waves of social media posts from mouthbreathers who can't progress because there's not a dot on the map.
Sadly, wondering where to go next (or even knowing where to go next but choosing to go somewhere else) was a very integral part of old RPG design. Removing that aspect is what makes it so all these RPGs that players used to sink 100+ hours into can be finished in 30. A 30 hour playtime is a bad tagline for a review, so that's why we have shit like ubisoft towers to give the player an itemized list of busy work to waste time on until they're ready to quit and move on with the plot.
It's funny, I actually started playing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest a few nights ago, and it uses almost the same basic gameplay framework with the intention of teaching dumb westerners how to play a JRPG; everywhere you can go is clearly marked, and overworld encounters are condensed into optional map icons that you can grind at until you get bored and then move on. The only tangible difference is that Mystic Quest doesn't make you sit through 45 minutes of movies in between each objective.
Thing is, in most RPGs nowadays exploration, combat, Dungeon crawling, treasure Hunter etc. Arent the point.
The point is the pretentious story they came up with
Every else is just a means to make players wait for It, so that the medium can still be called a game.
And the players are into It as well, combat is coping time in modern Rpgs, people want to frick their waifus and listen to the story. Rpgs suck because players nowadays want It to suck, a really bizarre world.
Sad, but true. And it feels like a bad thing to say because RPGs are supposed to be story-driven, but there's definitely a difference between a story that drives an adventure and an adventure that exists only to prop up a story. Case in point, I actually enjoyed the first part of FF7 remake while I was playing it, but once you're done and you go back to replay chapters and get stuff you missed, it forces you to realize that there's nothing to the game beyond watching cutscenes, walking through hallways, and long-pressing buttons to (dramatically) open double doors. It is definitely more a movie than a game.
But enough bashing bad games. FF6 was great and I love it. I used to get anxiety about games with too many characters, because I'd worry I wasn't using them enough, but for some reason FF6 had me constantly swapping my party around, expirimenting with abilities, and customizing everyone's spells. The game kind of primes you for this in the world of light by forcing characters in and out of your party, but once you get the airship you're basically free to mix and match whenever and it's fun to keep doing it. The payoff is when you get to Kefka's tower and have to split everyone up, and nobody ends up feeling like a weak link. You've just got this whole motley crew of 14 dipshits out to save the world.
I've got tons of other stuff to play, but I feel like I just talked myself into playing this again, lol.
Ill say that RPGs dont NEED to have a in-depth story, but It really is a Nice treat for the genre, as It explores the best a visual medium, such as games, have to offer.
That said, Ff6 is a great example on How to mix these two things well, without sacrificing the game part of It all, that is what is really supposed to be interesting and fun.
I like ALL of your other replies and agree with most of them as well.
Modern RPGs have a lot to learn from Ff6, gorgeous visuals, simple and to the point dialgoue (saying a lot with few words is as good as It gets), a Fun world to explore etc. Things flow naturally in this game, no pointer in needed, you get to find ALL you need eventually If you put in the effort.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Agreed 100%. When I was playing FF6, I actually lost my save shortly before reaching the world of ruin thanks to a faulty battery. I figured I'd be discouraged and bored to death starting over from scratch immediately, but it absolutely was not the case. It was actually super fun to replay; the way the plot flows and the game keeps mixing and matching your party for you at the start keeps everything feeling dynamic and somewhat episodic, in a very good way. Also ended up finding some really great rages for Gau that I missed the first time 'round.
>you get to find ALL you need eventually If you put in the effort.
The amusing thing is that it's not even that much effort. So many "cryptic" secrets in 30-year-old JRPGs are actually consistently alluded to as long as you take your time and pay attention to the world and the dialogue. Unfortunately, modern gamers have become adverse to any sort of "immersion" that isn't forced down their throat via cutscenes, because otherwise there's just SO MUCH dialogue that it's impossible for you to know what's a hot tip and what's just filler. In the '90s, if an npc mentions a something, it's pretty much always because you're expected to investigate it on your own, or remember it for later.
>I totally let Shadow die alone here on my first playthrough and I'm ashamed of myself
>It is definitely more a movie than a game.
which is why most "games" end up being youtube playthroughs. even more so you want to replay it or relive your memories and realize that you hated the actual "game" part because of bullshit puzzles, nonsensical difficulties, mandatory grinding, technical issues or lack of hardware.
>The point is the pretentious story they came up with
Exactly, and not only that, but the story is usually told in fully voiced, 3D-animated cutscenes.
But true, isn't it? Developers are afraid to let the player wonder where to go next for even a second, because then it leads to reviewers getting stuck like morons, and waves and waves of social media posts from mouthbreathers who can't progress because there's not a dot on the map.
Sadly, wondering where to go next (or even knowing where to go next but choosing to go somewhere else) was a very integral part of old RPG design. Removing that aspect is what makes it so all these RPGs that players used to sink 100+ hours into can be finished in 30. A 30 hour playtime is a bad tagline for a review, so that's why we have shit like ubisoft towers to give the player an itemized list of busy work to waste time on until they're ready to quit and move on with the plot.
It's funny, I actually started playing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest a few nights ago, and it uses almost the same basic gameplay framework with the intention of teaching dumb westerners how to play a JRPG; everywhere you can go is clearly marked, and overworld encounters are condensed into optional map icons that you can grind at until you get bored and then move on. The only tangible difference is that Mystic Quest doesn't make you sit through 45 minutes of movies in between each objective.
>It's funny, I actually started playing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest a few nights ago
Somewhat underrated game tbqh. Yeah it's a simplified RPG, but it's made by devs who know how to make (2D console-style) RPGs. Once you get past ragging on the game for being what it was supposed be, it's mostly very well-designed.
I just started playing Breath of Fire (1993) and it's interesting to compare at least the beginning, side-by-side with FFMQ.
In BoF I just beat the second boss, the one in Nanai. I still have yet to recruit any party members and still have no special abilities. All I can do is attack and use items (basically just healing herbs, with occasional antidote for poison). Even target selection rarely matters, most encounters are just 1-3 of the same enemy and I have no multi-target attacks. Although I like this style of game in terms of storytelling and focus on combat, the combat itself is very monotonous. (The marble3's that keep enemies away are a good idea, though).
Compare with FFMQ. By the end of the bone dungeon, you've had two different companions join the party, have had healing magic since almost the beginning in addition to consumable items, have three different primary weapons (a sword, an axe, and an AoE bomb consumable with plentiful refills) and also have an AoE quake spell. You've seen enemies with weak points and immunities and even trivial encounters often have some meaningful decisions to make.
This isn't a full review of course, I expect by the end, BoF will have more depth than FFMQ. I just think it's interesting to see how careless BoF appears next to FFMQ from the outset, despite MQ's negative reputation.
i wpuldn't say mystic quest is underrated, it's widely loved by those who are able to appreciate it, and massively panned by pseuds who don't can't or won't get it, i'd say it is polarizing rather than underrated
Mystic Quest was also released at 1/3 or less the price of FFVI. It was absolutely great for what it was. Enemies all have weaknesses to exploit and they change graphically based on their hp; which I can't think of another game even doing. It also has tool based exploration which is always enjoyable and rarely done.
you'd be surprised at how many people disagree with you.
lots of people out there treating gaming as a checklist to hurry through asap, making threads asking "when does this game get good" 15 minutes into a 100 hour long game.
People don't like wasting their precious time on glorified turds. FOMO is real and gamers nowadays have huge backlogs. They gotta play 'the latest slop' by 'favorite developer' and get all 'achievements' for that dopamine high from seeing alist of 'completed 100%' games that they'll never touch again.
>FOMO is real
definitely a big part of it. A lot of gamers feel pressured to play stuff while it's at peak relevance just so they can be a part of all the social media hashtags and memes. Social media as a whole is a part of the problem; it's more important for people to be able to advertise that they played whatever game than it is for them to have actually enjoyed it.
anyway, I'm just gonna keep bumping this thread with random pics and thoughts from my last playthrough, which I can't believe was 4 years ago already.
I know Cyan gets a bad rap because his battle mechanic is basically "waste time: THE ABILITY" but I think it kind of fit his character. Maybe not the most flashy or powerful party ally, but stoically reliable. On the flipside is like, Sabin, where his effectiveness is all-or-nothing based on your ability to input his commands. And then there's Umaro where you just completely surrender control. I really love how the gimmicks end up giving the characters such personality.
Further on the subject of Cyan, I love how he sort of became a father figure to Gau. Sabin was such a great addition to this trio; they make such a perfect heirarchy of foils to each other.
I particularly love all the cute little vignettes of everyone teaching Gau how to be civilized before he goes back to meet his real dad. Not that I'm lobbying for a remake, but these scenes are the kind of shit that would go viral among normies once they're rendered in 4k ultra HD with obnoxious voice acting.
It definitely IS interesting how they grouped up certain characters so frequently throughout the plot. Cyan, Sabin, and Shadow were kind of like Gau's emotional support team, and I think it makes sense. They've all lost family that they either cannot, or do not want to reconnect with, but Gau sort of represents that childish innocence of WANTING to reconnect, and he still has the opportunity, so they all help him, even if it doesn't turn out for the best.
Really, so many great character moments in this game if you're willing to just absorb it all.
Gorgeous game, too. I don't think Square was quite at the top of their game as they were with Chrono Trigger, graphically speaking, but there are plenty of genuinely gorgeous areas.
I think the last time I played, I came to the conclusion that literally every character is underrated.
And they're all absolute children, except for the literal child, lol. I really never get tired of the youthful wisdom trope in media. Shame her ability was bugged; it kept me from using her as much as I would have liked.
>Shame her ability was bugged
you have to be deliberately TRYING in order to get the sketch glitch to go off, and by far it's the most fascinating unintentional aspect of the game in and of itself
Obviously the music is amazing, too. I really think that a good bit of this game's development focused around two things:
1.) The fact that the SNES sound chip samples pipe organs beautifully
2.) Uematsu wanted to prove he could compose an opera
Seriously, between the final battle, the ending, and the literal entire opera scene, that's like over an hour of just original composition for the sake of it. Uematsu was really working on some sort of opus in an era where video game songs were rarely over 2 minutes long.
I was really only talking about the main party. Kefka's definitely overrated as a villain, but I think he fills his role well enough. The game certainly makes it fun to hate him, which is a big part of what makes a good villain, imo. Very little depth, but I definitely wanted to see him dead every time he showed up.
if i have the lore correctly, uematsu was in a row over game composing and was on the verge of quitting it in the lead up to ff6's development, but he was also quite emo over makai toushi saga's soundtrack because he considered it unfinished but yet that soundtrack was plenty much an opera in and of itself, so i don't know why he is so melodramatic, if i had composed the title theme to cruise chaser blassty alone then i wouldn't give a frick about any of that shit, that song kicks ass
I do really love how they made it possible to save Cid, but to the point that you're obviously not supposed to know it's possible the first time, or be able to do it. Him dying is such a huge part of Celes' character and the beginning of the World of Ruin arc, but the fact that you CAN save him if you're dedicated enough on future playthroughs is a nice little treat.
>he fact that you CAN save him if you're dedicated enough on future playthroughs is a nice little treat.
Would have been nice if you didn't have to leave him alone in on that island for the rest of the game, though. When you get The Falcon, he should have joined you and had little funny things to say about the rest of the plot while he just hangs around below decks.
>The point is the pretentious story they came up with
Exactly, and not only that, but the story is usually told in fully voiced, 3D-animated cutscenes.
[...] >It's funny, I actually started playing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest a few nights ago
Somewhat underrated game tbqh. Yeah it's a simplified RPG, but it's made by devs who know how to make (2D console-style) RPGs. Once you get past ragging on the game for being what it was supposed be, it's mostly very well-designed.
I just started playing Breath of Fire (1993) and it's interesting to compare at least the beginning, side-by-side with FFMQ.
In BoF I just beat the second boss, the one in Nanai. I still have yet to recruit any party members and still have no special abilities. All I can do is attack and use items (basically just healing herbs, with occasional antidote for poison). Even target selection rarely matters, most encounters are just 1-3 of the same enemy and I have no multi-target attacks. Although I like this style of game in terms of storytelling and focus on combat, the combat itself is very monotonous. (The marble3's that keep enemies away are a good idea, though).
Compare with FFMQ. By the end of the bone dungeon, you've had two different companions join the party, have had healing magic since almost the beginning in addition to consumable items, have three different primary weapons (a sword, an axe, and an AoE bomb consumable with plentiful refills) and also have an AoE quake spell. You've seen enemies with weak points and immunities and even trivial encounters often have some meaningful decisions to make.
This isn't a full review of course, I expect by the end, BoF will have more depth than FFMQ. I just think it's interesting to see how careless BoF appears next to FFMQ from the outset, despite MQ's negative reputation.
Oh yeah, I'm not ragging on Mystic Quest. I do find it a bit grindy, and it's amusing to me that the approach to teaching westerners how to play JRPGs was basically "Teach those frickers how to grind!", but you're absolutely right. There's still some actual depth there that requires you to think about how you approach the encounters. It doesn't teach you by trivializing things; it teaches you by forcing you to learn. Also, the abilitiy to swap weapons on the fly and use them to solve puzzles in the overworld was genuinely clever and more innovative than most "real" JRPGs were at the time, even if it was ultimately under-utilized.
Funnily enough, despite its reputation as babby's first JRPG, I literaly died on the first encounter; I tried to run just to see if something funny happened, and then the monster scored a crit, then outsped me next turn and crit again. But the ability to just start encounters over makes for a great learning environment where players can expiriment without having to worry about wasting resources or losing progress.
>It doesn't teach you by trivializing things; it teaches you by forcing you to learn.
Basically, they aimed to teach you by stripping down the details to the bare essentials. >Funnily enough, despite its reputation as babby's first JRPG
Depending on your definition, you might say FFMQ is more "difficult" than FFVI.
FFVI is more complex and has a lot more detail. There are many more decisions to make and (in theory) many more ways to make mistakes, but in reality the game gives you so many ways to win easy it's almost always trivial to find one. Final Boss Kefka uses elemental magic even though the game hands out elemental immunity items like Easter candy. FFMQ is a little more harsh in that some battles you'll really need to play it right or you'll lose.
>FFMQ is a little more harsh in that some battles you'll really need to play it right or you'll lose.
Definitely agree with this. I was rarely in danger of dying or running out of resources in FF6, but Mystic Quest has kept me on my toes more than a few times.
>When you get The Falcon, he should have joined you and had little funny things to say about the rest of the plot while he just hangs around below decks.
probably the rationale is he is still just too sick to be lugging around on the ship to potentially die with everyone to a stray doom dragon wiping the party and wrecking the ship, or the off chance of the ship catching a stray kefka tower laser, and for the same reason you can't leave him in some down that could either be reduces to ashes by a kefka tower laserbeam or assaulted by some mighty world of ruin beast like punbaba assaulting it, he's safest left on the island to fend for himself and left to his own devices, also if left in a town he could be recognized by people for his role in the empire and they more likely than not would have grudges to bear because of his role in the magitek project
30 years later and we witness the defacement of the franchise >the Nomura/Kitase revolution, that rose to power after the overthrow of Sakaguchi-sama, remains in full force >cash-grabbing sequels, remasters and (fake) remakes >MMOs >lack of soul and creativity >loss of identity >derivative >the last mainline game is an action slop >an entire generation raised on TikTok videos with an eroded attention span doesn't know any better
>atmosphere
I dunno if I'm alone in this, but atmosphere is literally one of the most important things in a JRPG for me. Atmosphere is like the ultimate endgame of the writing, the characters, the graphics, the music, and even the gameplay to a certain extent. Not all of those individual aspects need to be flawless, but what IS there needs to intertwine in whatever way necessary to create an atmosphere that is meaningful, interesting, unique, and overall memorable.
FF6 definitely nails it more than most. The entire intro is legendary.
Does platinum mean 100% completion? Not familiar with dumb achievement terminology.
Do you care about spoilers?
The best shield in the game is very hard (though not impossible) to discover without a guide and takes a long time to unlock either way. A number of other items must be obtained by wagering in the coliseum which can also be very time consuming without a guide.
There are a lot of characters so grinding everyone to max will also take some time. Finally, there's a sword and esper that are mutually exclusive to a playthrough, meaning if you want to see both you will have to play the whole game twice.
Platinum means you get all the achievements, these are the hardest achievements from the game, doesn't mean much to me since I played the game 15 years ago. Learning blue magic is usually pretty tedious, what does "got joker's death with the slot command" even mean?
This is an entire facet of modern games that has completely missed me. The PS4 is the only system I have that even keeps track of trophies, and I probably turned the notifications off the first time I booted a game up and never looked back.
So fricking moronic.
How hard is this game to platinum? From VII onwards the games became totally bonkers but how is VI?
>From VII onwards the games became totally bonkers
Given that "platinum" is an arbitrary set of guidelines that have nothing to do with the original game design, I disagree. Even then 7-9 aren't all that hard to near-100%, even without a guide. The problem is that people have largely forgotten how to play JRPGs.
>No one will ever 100% FF9 without a guide, not in a million years.
Well, getting 100% in a single playthrough of FF9 is already an iffy proposition because of Excalibur 2, which is why I said "near 100%", but I came pretty close on my very first playthrough last year. My final playtime was around 120 hours. The only things I really missed were a couple of blue magic spells, and probably a handful of Mognet letters, but those don't even matter because you only get unique rewards the first time on each disc. Also I didn't get all the Tetramaster cards, but who fricking cares about Tetramaster?
There's really very little actual content in the game that is permanently missable, and few puzzles that can't be solved by simply talking to everyone, repeatedly. Always keep multiple saves, don't be afraid to reset, and ALWAYS TAKE NOTES.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
no fricking way you got all the stelazio coins or beat ozma without a guide you liar
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
The Stelazzio coins are piss easy to get. The last one is the hardest, but I literally found it by accident just by backtracking.
Ozma isn't hard to find at all, and it just took a lot of retries to work out a strategy. His HP isn't even stupidly high, so it's basically just a battle against the RNG to hope that he doesn't frick you over with status or kill you before you can kill him.
Oh, I suppose the other thing I didn't get were the rewards for all the minigames in Alexandria, but I don't really consider that important. And really there's nothing hard about finding them, and no tricks required to win them. You just have to be willing to sit there and grind out minigames for hours until you're good enough. No need for a guide at all.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Ozma isn't hard to find at all
Not that guy but I still don't know how to find Ozma. I haven't tried because the last time I played FF9 I didn't even know the boss existed.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
>I still don't know how to find Ozma.
He's in the last Chocobo hot and cold location, the "Air Garden", which you find by simply always playing chocobo hot and cold and upgrading your chocobo. Once it can fly, you can use a dead pepper to soar up to the Air Garden when you see its shadow moving around on the overworld. You get tons of dead peppers just by playing hot and cold, as well as the special chocograph pieces that contain hints about where to find the shadow.
None of this is super cryptic; it just requires you to be curious.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
>He's in the last Chocobo hot and cold location, the "Air Garden", which you find by simply always playing chocobo hot and cold and upgrading your chocobo.
Ah, that explains it. I hated that terrible minigame and never played it.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
Well, you only have yourself to blame, I suppose. I agree the game can get a bit tedious, but even just the first handful of chocographs give you some amazing items and your first chocobo upgrade, which is a pretty big indication that it's something you should keep up with, and the moogles will tell you when you've found all the important stuff so you know when to move on.
Calling FF6 a moviegame is pretty absurd. I recently played it, lost my save, and had to replay from the start, and it's actually impressive how dynamic the gameplay feels for a JRPG, especially early on.
Well, you're right. The game has turned 30 years now. What's its legacy? Have other games keep up with it?
No.
Despite ff6 being great, still a rushed game.
What is so rushed about It? Game has Teo overworld to explore, plenty of dungeons and sidequests.
Game was supposed to end after kefka ascended.
World of ruin is empty, last dungeon looks like crap, one of the eight dragons is not implemented aso.
Not sure If I was a easily impressed kid, but I remember spending doing a lot of things in the world of Ruin...
Time to replay It I guess.
There's a lot to do in WoR if you know how to play JRPGs (i.e., on your own). The only people who think the world of ruin is "empty" are people who looked up gamefaqs and followed a step-by-step guide on how to re-recruit everyone and find everything as soon as the game didn't tell them exactly where to go. Then they wonder why they feel like they didn't accomplish anything.
>Then they wonder why they feel like they didn't accomplish anything.
This actually ties very strongly into what others in this thread have said about how people don't know how to play JRPGs anymore. They start to view gameplay as just a means to an end to get to plot points, and they don't assimilate anything as part of the story unless the game rams it down their throats in a cutscene. But the entire World of Ruin if FFVI was basically atmospheric plot; it was intended to make the player feel helpless and alone. Unfortunately, the modern player has the option of whipping out a smartphone so they don't have to feel alone, and it completely destroys the narrative and turns what should be hype cycle for the finale into a tedious to-do list.
There's a sort of sad, social commentary in that, I think.
>They start to view gameplay as just a means to an end to get to plot points,
I played 4 Heroes of Llight on the DS last year, and I have to say that fricking game has some of the best "gameplay as storytelling" that I've ever experienced. The game starts with all of the heroes meeting up and tacking the first dungeon, and it feels great despite the fact that they don't really get along, but then the plot strikes and sort of breaks everyone up, and the game proceeds in chapters where the 4 heroes follow their own paths, teaming up with guest party members and occasionally the other heroes as they all criss-cross the map. It gives each character a chance to develop in semi-isolation, and makes it clear what their strengths and weaknesses are, both in battle and in terms of their personalities, as well as in combination with the various jobs made available to you. Everyone kind of grows and learns something and takes on various roles by necessity, and then when the plot finally lets you get the whole band back together, it feels so great to have freedom again.
Sadly, most people just complained that they were mad the game teased them with a full party and then took it away from them, completely oblivious to how that gameplay choice served the narrative, likely because they were too busy referencing a walkthrough to ever feel what the developers intended.
Best gameplay as storytelling award goes to Breath of Fire V. Entire game is about escaping to the surface. Every area shows your depth and there is a constant meter counting toward failure that increases from moving or using god mode dragon powers.
>Breath of Fire V
Don't shill your NTR game here, gay.
>But the entire World of Ruin if FFVI was basically atmospheric plot
Great point. Might I add: OG FF7 Migdar too. People who say OG Midgar was "small" miss the point, are probably playing with guides as well. It was small by today's standards, but it speaks volumes that such a small setting could stimulate your imagination and make you feel inside a huge dystopian metropolis. It was not about the number of fetch quests or polygons, but mastery of atmosphere (and story and design, etc., lost arts).
Likewise in WoR you are supposed to feel despondent. You are not supposed to know whether the game ended or not, and this is just a cynical sandbox after the credits have rolled. You are not supposed to know that your friends are alive or not (except maybe Locke) and where to find them. You are not supposed to know what to do. The world is completely changed and you have to explore it all over again. This is (was) gameplay too. This is you playing the game: immersing yourself in it. Trying to feel what the characters are going through.
I've been championing playing without guides for a while now, JRPG or not. So much of the gaming experience was the exploration. You are supposed to spend time exploring, revisiting, talking to NPCs.
>People who say OG Midgar was "small" miss the point,
I personally never heard anyone say that back in the day. If anything, most of my friends were impressed by how huge it was, given it was effectively a prologue to the actual game. As you said, definitely seems like a "modern" complaint; especially from people who have maybe already watched a few too many video essays about the game and have some perverted, post-millenium view of it, instead of just experiencing it for themselves.
>So much of the gaming experience was the exploration. You are supposed to spend time exploring, revisiting, talking to NPCs.
It's really weird how natural this came to me when I was younger, and how I had to force myself to go back to it. It's just that there came a point after the turn of the century where, suddenly, backtracking and exploring wasn't worth it. If there was CONTENT for you to find, the developers would lead you by the nose to it, or worse, they'd discourage your from backtracking at all. The entire JRPG genre effectively broke itself.
I recently replayed Skies of Arcadia and FF9, two of my all time favorite JRPGs, and I played them "old fashioned" like, and hot damn it only made me love them even more. My playtime on each was well over 100 hours, but I ended up finding pretty much everything on my own and it was damn satisfying. I also just found so much flavor dialogue that helped all the characters and locations feel real, even without voice acted cutscenes.
>It's really weird how natural this came to me when I was younger, and how I had to force myself to go back to it.
Bro, in Bof3 I literally spent days in McNeil village/Cedar Woods with Rei and Teepo, just because I enjoyed it so much.
Back in the 90s you could buy strategy guides.
Most kids didn't. Furthest me and my friends ever went was to look something up during a trip to the store when we were REALLY stuck. It's still completely incomparable to
>i'm stuck
>i open phone
>i'm no longer stuck
>Most kids didn't
absolutely true. I liked to buy strategy guides because they were often the best resource for official artwork, back before art books were a thing, and also because Versus Books ruled. I only knew one or two other people who even owned a SINGLE strategy guide, let alone multiple. Heck, I didn't even know a lot of people with video game magazine subscriptions. Out of dozens of friends, I knew one other kid besides me who got Nintendo Power, and that wasn't even until '99.
I've been hearing about that game a lot lately, and I feel like I wanna try it, but I also feel like it would stress me the frick out, holy shit.
aaaaand the moronic zoomer enters the thread to post moronic ass shit, like clockwork
You're talking about yourself and the zero-content post you just shat onto the thread?
Why are you talking about exploration in old jRPG like it was great when it was terrible overbloated with grinding and random encounters?
It was great because we didn't have atrophied imagination nor an eroded attention span. Sorry that social media ruined that for you.
Random encounters are so fricking cool.
yes, this perfectly encapsulates why i tell zoomers that they could never experience ff6 in the same way that we did in the pre-internet era, and they could read you post up and down inside and out and still never understand it or why it's true, the very base concepts contained within your post are completely alien to them and might as well be martian language
>i tell zoomers that they could never experience ff6 in the same way that we did in the pre-internet era,
I mean, they could if they tried. But nobody really has an interest in experiencing or appreciating media on its own terms anymore. People expect to get things out of games without putting anything in. They play a game just to say they played it, or so that they can understand some 3 hour long video essay about it.
And to be fair, I'd wager a good amount of gamers even in the 90s had a case of "just wanna see what happens" and tore through JRPGs with little regard for exploration. But they likely understood that they were missing things in the name of doing so, and simply didn't care.
>What is so rushed about It
NTA and I wouldn't say FFVI was "rushed" but I do think they had ambitions beyond what they were able to implement in time for release. The base mechanics and stats are somewhat awkward and unbalanced compared to the 4, 5 and 7. There are some major bugs including rare but game-breaking, even save-corrupting issues that players did encounter like the Relm Sketch bug. The evasion bug is notable also. Dunno what that other anon is saying about WoR it's definitely not 'empty,' but there are definitely parts that feel lower quality, like Strago's entire subplot.
And personally, I think there should have been at least one more "main story" dungeon and plot sequence before Kefka's tower. I like the open-ended style but narrative momentum just stops the moment you get The Falcon. Maybe a level with lore about the goddesses or something like that.
Overall, FF6 has a very large amount of content for a SNES RPG and the mechanics are good enough to be fun. But the idea that it was more rushed than others isn't crazy to me.
Nuts, man. I wasn't into JRPGs when this game originally came out, but I finally sat down and did a complete playthrough of the SNES original about 6 years ago and I fell in love with it.
I've found the best way to play any JRPG is to waste time. Don't use any sort of guide or FAQ. Explore everything and talk to everyone. With modern RPGs becoming so hand-holdy, giving the player objective lists and waypoints for literally everything in order to maximize efficiency while wading through hours of filler content, I think it's easy to forget what the appeal of JRPGs used to be, which is simply that YOU GET TO FIND THINGS. Maybe it's something good, maybe it isn't. Maybe it's a challenge. Maybe it's something you can't do until way later. Maybe you don't find anything at all. But the important thing is that you took the time to look, figured it out for yourself, and didn't rely on the game to lead you by the nose to it.
This is why, if you remember old gaming magazines, they'd often estimate the completion times of games like this at over 100 hours. Modern estimates tend to range about 30-40, because they expect you to just beeline from plot point to ploint point, and use the internet to tell you where all the best items are and the earliest you can get them. And really, if you're gonna play a JRPG like that, why even bother?
>With modern RPGs becoming so hand-holdy, giving the player objective lists and waypoints for literally everything in order to maximize efficiency while wading through hours of filler content
This is pretty funny.
But true, isn't it? Developers are afraid to let the player wonder where to go next for even a second, because then it leads to reviewers getting stuck like morons, and waves and waves of social media posts from mouthbreathers who can't progress because there's not a dot on the map.
Sadly, wondering where to go next (or even knowing where to go next but choosing to go somewhere else) was a very integral part of old RPG design. Removing that aspect is what makes it so all these RPGs that players used to sink 100+ hours into can be finished in 30. A 30 hour playtime is a bad tagline for a review, so that's why we have shit like ubisoft towers to give the player an itemized list of busy work to waste time on until they're ready to quit and move on with the plot.
It's funny, I actually started playing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest a few nights ago, and it uses almost the same basic gameplay framework with the intention of teaching dumb westerners how to play a JRPG; everywhere you can go is clearly marked, and overworld encounters are condensed into optional map icons that you can grind at until you get bored and then move on. The only tangible difference is that Mystic Quest doesn't make you sit through 45 minutes of movies in between each objective.
Thing is, in most RPGs nowadays exploration, combat, Dungeon crawling, treasure Hunter etc. Arent the point.
The point is the pretentious story they came up with
Every else is just a means to make players wait for It, so that the medium can still be called a game.
And the players are into It as well, combat is coping time in modern Rpgs, people want to frick their waifus and listen to the story. Rpgs suck because players nowadays want It to suck, a really bizarre world.
Sad, but true. And it feels like a bad thing to say because RPGs are supposed to be story-driven, but there's definitely a difference between a story that drives an adventure and an adventure that exists only to prop up a story. Case in point, I actually enjoyed the first part of FF7 remake while I was playing it, but once you're done and you go back to replay chapters and get stuff you missed, it forces you to realize that there's nothing to the game beyond watching cutscenes, walking through hallways, and long-pressing buttons to (dramatically) open double doors. It is definitely more a movie than a game.
But enough bashing bad games. FF6 was great and I love it. I used to get anxiety about games with too many characters, because I'd worry I wasn't using them enough, but for some reason FF6 had me constantly swapping my party around, expirimenting with abilities, and customizing everyone's spells. The game kind of primes you for this in the world of light by forcing characters in and out of your party, but once you get the airship you're basically free to mix and match whenever and it's fun to keep doing it. The payoff is when you get to Kefka's tower and have to split everyone up, and nobody ends up feeling like a weak link. You've just got this whole motley crew of 14 dipshits out to save the world.
I've got tons of other stuff to play, but I feel like I just talked myself into playing this again, lol.
Ill say that RPGs dont NEED to have a in-depth story, but It really is a Nice treat for the genre, as It explores the best a visual medium, such as games, have to offer.
That said, Ff6 is a great example on How to mix these two things well, without sacrificing the game part of It all, that is what is really supposed to be interesting and fun.
I like ALL of your other replies and agree with most of them as well.
Modern RPGs have a lot to learn from Ff6, gorgeous visuals, simple and to the point dialgoue (saying a lot with few words is as good as It gets), a Fun world to explore etc. Things flow naturally in this game, no pointer in needed, you get to find ALL you need eventually If you put in the effort.
Agreed 100%. When I was playing FF6, I actually lost my save shortly before reaching the world of ruin thanks to a faulty battery. I figured I'd be discouraged and bored to death starting over from scratch immediately, but it absolutely was not the case. It was actually super fun to replay; the way the plot flows and the game keeps mixing and matching your party for you at the start keeps everything feeling dynamic and somewhat episodic, in a very good way. Also ended up finding some really great rages for Gau that I missed the first time 'round.
>you get to find ALL you need eventually If you put in the effort.
The amusing thing is that it's not even that much effort. So many "cryptic" secrets in 30-year-old JRPGs are actually consistently alluded to as long as you take your time and pay attention to the world and the dialogue. Unfortunately, modern gamers have become adverse to any sort of "immersion" that isn't forced down their throat via cutscenes, because otherwise there's just SO MUCH dialogue that it's impossible for you to know what's a hot tip and what's just filler. In the '90s, if an npc mentions a something, it's pretty much always because you're expected to investigate it on your own, or remember it for later.
>I totally let Shadow die alone here on my first playthrough and I'm ashamed of myself
>It is definitely more a movie than a game.
which is why most "games" end up being youtube playthroughs. even more so you want to replay it or relive your memories and realize that you hated the actual "game" part because of bullshit puzzles, nonsensical difficulties, mandatory grinding, technical issues or lack of hardware.
>The point is the pretentious story they came up with
Exactly, and not only that, but the story is usually told in fully voiced, 3D-animated cutscenes.
>It's funny, I actually started playing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest a few nights ago
Somewhat underrated game tbqh. Yeah it's a simplified RPG, but it's made by devs who know how to make (2D console-style) RPGs. Once you get past ragging on the game for being what it was supposed be, it's mostly very well-designed.
I just started playing Breath of Fire (1993) and it's interesting to compare at least the beginning, side-by-side with FFMQ.
In BoF I just beat the second boss, the one in Nanai. I still have yet to recruit any party members and still have no special abilities. All I can do is attack and use items (basically just healing herbs, with occasional antidote for poison). Even target selection rarely matters, most encounters are just 1-3 of the same enemy and I have no multi-target attacks. Although I like this style of game in terms of storytelling and focus on combat, the combat itself is very monotonous. (The marble3's that keep enemies away are a good idea, though).
Compare with FFMQ. By the end of the bone dungeon, you've had two different companions join the party, have had healing magic since almost the beginning in addition to consumable items, have three different primary weapons (a sword, an axe, and an AoE bomb consumable with plentiful refills) and also have an AoE quake spell. You've seen enemies with weak points and immunities and even trivial encounters often have some meaningful decisions to make.
This isn't a full review of course, I expect by the end, BoF will have more depth than FFMQ. I just think it's interesting to see how careless BoF appears next to FFMQ from the outset, despite MQ's negative reputation.
i wpuldn't say mystic quest is underrated, it's widely loved by those who are able to appreciate it, and massively panned by pseuds who don't can't or won't get it, i'd say it is polarizing rather than underrated
100%
Mystic Quest was also released at 1/3 or less the price of FFVI. It was absolutely great for what it was. Enemies all have weaknesses to exploit and they change graphically based on their hp; which I can't think of another game even doing. It also has tool based exploration which is always enjoyable and rarely done.
Good post.
Playing any kind of game without a guide is the best way, you absolute moron.
you'd be surprised at how many people disagree with you.
lots of people out there treating gaming as a checklist to hurry through asap, making threads asking "when does this game get good" 15 minutes into a 100 hour long game.
>appeal to the lowest common denominator masses
zoomer moment
People don't like wasting their precious time on glorified turds. FOMO is real and gamers nowadays have huge backlogs. They gotta play 'the latest slop' by 'favorite developer' and get all 'achievements' for that dopamine high from seeing alist of 'completed 100%' games that they'll never touch again.
>FOMO is real
definitely a big part of it. A lot of gamers feel pressured to play stuff while it's at peak relevance just so they can be a part of all the social media hashtags and memes. Social media as a whole is a part of the problem; it's more important for people to be able to advertise that they played whatever game than it is for them to have actually enjoyed it.
When did I say otherwise? You absolute moron.
except those old Nintendo power guides where they add lore and story that is absent in the game.
anyway, I'm just gonna keep bumping this thread with random pics and thoughts from my last playthrough, which I can't believe was 4 years ago already.
I know Cyan gets a bad rap because his battle mechanic is basically "waste time: THE ABILITY" but I think it kind of fit his character. Maybe not the most flashy or powerful party ally, but stoically reliable. On the flipside is like, Sabin, where his effectiveness is all-or-nothing based on your ability to input his commands. And then there's Umaro where you just completely surrender control. I really love how the gimmicks end up giving the characters such personality.
Further on the subject of Cyan, I love how he sort of became a father figure to Gau. Sabin was such a great addition to this trio; they make such a perfect heirarchy of foils to each other.
I particularly love all the cute little vignettes of everyone teaching Gau how to be civilized before he goes back to meet his real dad. Not that I'm lobbying for a remake, but these scenes are the kind of shit that would go viral among normies once they're rendered in 4k ultra HD with obnoxious voice acting.
It definitely IS interesting how they grouped up certain characters so frequently throughout the plot. Cyan, Sabin, and Shadow were kind of like Gau's emotional support team, and I think it makes sense. They've all lost family that they either cannot, or do not want to reconnect with, but Gau sort of represents that childish innocence of WANTING to reconnect, and he still has the opportunity, so they all help him, even if it doesn't turn out for the best.
Really, so many great character moments in this game if you're willing to just absorb it all.
Gorgeous game, too. I don't think Square was quite at the top of their game as they were with Chrono Trigger, graphically speaking, but there are plenty of genuinely gorgeous areas.
I think the last time I played, I came to the conclusion that literally every character is underrated.
And they're all absolute children, except for the literal child, lol. I really never get tired of the youthful wisdom trope in media. Shame her ability was bugged; it kept me from using her as much as I would have liked.
>Shame her ability was bugged
you have to be deliberately TRYING in order to get the sketch glitch to go off, and by far it's the most fascinating unintentional aspect of the game in and of itself
>Kefka
>underrated
lamo VInfants actually believe this
Obviously the music is amazing, too. I really think that a good bit of this game's development focused around two things:
1.) The fact that the SNES sound chip samples pipe organs beautifully
2.) Uematsu wanted to prove he could compose an opera
Seriously, between the final battle, the ending, and the literal entire opera scene, that's like over an hour of just original composition for the sake of it. Uematsu was really working on some sort of opus in an era where video game songs were rarely over 2 minutes long.
I was really only talking about the main party. Kefka's definitely overrated as a villain, but I think he fills his role well enough. The game certainly makes it fun to hate him, which is a big part of what makes a good villain, imo. Very little depth, but I definitely wanted to see him dead every time he showed up.
if i have the lore correctly, uematsu was in a row over game composing and was on the verge of quitting it in the lead up to ff6's development, but he was also quite emo over makai toushi saga's soundtrack because he considered it unfinished but yet that soundtrack was plenty much an opera in and of itself, so i don't know why he is so melodramatic, if i had composed the title theme to cruise chaser blassty alone then i wouldn't give a frick about any of that shit, that song kicks ass
you sound like a homosexual whenever you say "makai toushi".
I do really love how they made it possible to save Cid, but to the point that you're obviously not supposed to know it's possible the first time, or be able to do it. Him dying is such a huge part of Celes' character and the beginning of the World of Ruin arc, but the fact that you CAN save him if you're dedicated enough on future playthroughs is a nice little treat.
Anyway, thanks for reading my blog.
>he fact that you CAN save him if you're dedicated enough on future playthroughs is a nice little treat.
Would have been nice if you didn't have to leave him alone in on that island for the rest of the game, though. When you get The Falcon, he should have joined you and had little funny things to say about the rest of the plot while he just hangs around below decks.
Oh yeah, I'm not ragging on Mystic Quest. I do find it a bit grindy, and it's amusing to me that the approach to teaching westerners how to play JRPGs was basically "Teach those frickers how to grind!", but you're absolutely right. There's still some actual depth there that requires you to think about how you approach the encounters. It doesn't teach you by trivializing things; it teaches you by forcing you to learn. Also, the abilitiy to swap weapons on the fly and use them to solve puzzles in the overworld was genuinely clever and more innovative than most "real" JRPGs were at the time, even if it was ultimately under-utilized.
Funnily enough, despite its reputation as babby's first JRPG, I literaly died on the first encounter; I tried to run just to see if something funny happened, and then the monster scored a crit, then outsped me next turn and crit again. But the ability to just start encounters over makes for a great learning environment where players can expiriment without having to worry about wasting resources or losing progress.
>It doesn't teach you by trivializing things; it teaches you by forcing you to learn.
Basically, they aimed to teach you by stripping down the details to the bare essentials.
>Funnily enough, despite its reputation as babby's first JRPG
Depending on your definition, you might say FFMQ is more "difficult" than FFVI.
FFVI is more complex and has a lot more detail. There are many more decisions to make and (in theory) many more ways to make mistakes, but in reality the game gives you so many ways to win easy it's almost always trivial to find one. Final Boss Kefka uses elemental magic even though the game hands out elemental immunity items like Easter candy. FFMQ is a little more harsh in that some battles you'll really need to play it right or you'll lose.
>FFMQ is a little more harsh in that some battles you'll really need to play it right or you'll lose.
Definitely agree with this. I was rarely in danger of dying or running out of resources in FF6, but Mystic Quest has kept me on my toes more than a few times.
>When you get The Falcon, he should have joined you and had little funny things to say about the rest of the plot while he just hangs around below decks.
probably the rationale is he is still just too sick to be lugging around on the ship to potentially die with everyone to a stray doom dragon wiping the party and wrecking the ship, or the off chance of the ship catching a stray kefka tower laser, and for the same reason you can't leave him in some down that could either be reduces to ashes by a kefka tower laserbeam or assaulted by some mighty world of ruin beast like punbaba assaulting it, he's safest left on the island to fend for himself and left to his own devices, also if left in a town he could be recognized by people for his role in the empire and they more likely than not would have grudges to bear because of his role in the magitek project
30 years later and we witness the defacement of the franchise
>the Nomura/Kitase revolution, that rose to power after the overthrow of Sakaguchi-sama, remains in full force
>cash-grabbing sequels, remasters and (fake) remakes
>MMOs
>lack of soul and creativity
>loss of identity
>derivative
>the last mainline game is an action slop
>an entire generation raised on TikTok videos with an eroded attention span doesn't know any better
>FF-gays display their low IQs again
many such cases
Indeed
You aren't very good at this
That wasn't me
I remember when that screenshotted thread was originally made. I'm saying you aren't good at posting in this one.
FF6 has more atmosphere in the first 20 minutes than most pieces of media in general. It truly stands alone.
>atmosphere
I dunno if I'm alone in this, but atmosphere is literally one of the most important things in a JRPG for me. Atmosphere is like the ultimate endgame of the writing, the characters, the graphics, the music, and even the gameplay to a certain extent. Not all of those individual aspects need to be flawless, but what IS there needs to intertwine in whatever way necessary to create an atmosphere that is meaningful, interesting, unique, and overall memorable.
FF6 definitely nails it more than most. The entire intro is legendary.
one of the greatest games.
Possibly my favorite game
Bad game tbh, glad I emulated rather than wasting money on it.
How hard is this game to platinum? From VII onwards the games became totally bonkers but how is VI?
Does platinum mean 100% completion? Not familiar with dumb achievement terminology.
Do you care about spoilers?
The best shield in the game is very hard (though not impossible) to discover without a guide and takes a long time to unlock either way. A number of other items must be obtained by wagering in the coliseum which can also be very time consuming without a guide.
There are a lot of characters so grinding everyone to max will also take some time. Finally, there's a sword and esper that are mutually exclusive to a playthrough, meaning if you want to see both you will have to play the whole game twice.
Platinum means you get all the achievements, these are the hardest achievements from the game, doesn't mean much to me since I played the game 15 years ago. Learning blue magic is usually pretty tedious, what does "got joker's death with the slot command" even mean?
>what does "got joker's death with the slot command" even mean?
This is an entire facet of modern games that has completely missed me. The PS4 is the only system I have that even keeps track of trophies, and I probably turned the notifications off the first time I booted a game up and never looked back.
So fricking moronic.
>From VII onwards the games became totally bonkers
Given that "platinum" is an arbitrary set of guidelines that have nothing to do with the original game design, I disagree. Even then 7-9 aren't all that hard to near-100%, even without a guide. The problem is that people have largely forgotten how to play JRPGs.
>The problem is that people have largely forgotten how to play JRPGs.
and how is that, exactly?
I'm not telling ;^)
I'll give you a hint though: you're not always supposed to be progressing
What are Side quests, Akex
No one will ever 100% FF9 without a guide, not in a million years.
>No one will ever 100% FF9 without a guide, not in a million years.
Well, getting 100% in a single playthrough of FF9 is already an iffy proposition because of Excalibur 2, which is why I said "near 100%", but I came pretty close on my very first playthrough last year. My final playtime was around 120 hours. The only things I really missed were a couple of blue magic spells, and probably a handful of Mognet letters, but those don't even matter because you only get unique rewards the first time on each disc. Also I didn't get all the Tetramaster cards, but who fricking cares about Tetramaster?
There's really very little actual content in the game that is permanently missable, and few puzzles that can't be solved by simply talking to everyone, repeatedly. Always keep multiple saves, don't be afraid to reset, and ALWAYS TAKE NOTES.
no fricking way you got all the stelazio coins or beat ozma without a guide you liar
The Stelazzio coins are piss easy to get. The last one is the hardest, but I literally found it by accident just by backtracking.
Ozma isn't hard to find at all, and it just took a lot of retries to work out a strategy. His HP isn't even stupidly high, so it's basically just a battle against the RNG to hope that he doesn't frick you over with status or kill you before you can kill him.
Oh, I suppose the other thing I didn't get were the rewards for all the minigames in Alexandria, but I don't really consider that important. And really there's nothing hard about finding them, and no tricks required to win them. You just have to be willing to sit there and grind out minigames for hours until you're good enough. No need for a guide at all.
>Ozma isn't hard to find at all
Not that guy but I still don't know how to find Ozma. I haven't tried because the last time I played FF9 I didn't even know the boss existed.
>I still don't know how to find Ozma.
He's in the last Chocobo hot and cold location, the "Air Garden", which you find by simply always playing chocobo hot and cold and upgrading your chocobo. Once it can fly, you can use a dead pepper to soar up to the Air Garden when you see its shadow moving around on the overworld. You get tons of dead peppers just by playing hot and cold, as well as the special chocograph pieces that contain hints about where to find the shadow.
None of this is super cryptic; it just requires you to be curious.
>He's in the last Chocobo hot and cold location, the "Air Garden", which you find by simply always playing chocobo hot and cold and upgrading your chocobo.
Ah, that explains it. I hated that terrible minigame and never played it.
Well, you only have yourself to blame, I suppose. I agree the game can get a bit tedious, but even just the first handful of chocographs give you some amazing items and your first chocobo upgrade, which is a pretty big indication that it's something you should keep up with, and the moogles will tell you when you've found all the important stuff so you know when to move on.
>ff6 fanboys calling other games movies
Now I've seen it all kek
Apparently you haven't played FF6 and actually compared it to a real moviegame.
Calling FF6 a moviegame is pretty absurd. I recently played it, lost my save, and had to replay from the start, and it's actually impressive how dynamic the gameplay feels for a JRPG, especially early on.