Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

Same problem really since you're outputting an old game on a big screen, just looks like a bit of a mess. I didn't mind it on my 32 inch but it's not much fun on a 50 inch.

Guess it's down to the individual though.

Its really built for a nice 20-25 inch CRT if you have access to one

Yes I do in fact. That's what I play all my consoles on except for my Wii U, PS4, and Xbox 360. I refuse to play my retro consoles on anything but a CRT.

Awesome. I need to pick one up sometime soon!

I suggest checking out a thrift store for some CRTs you can get them for less then 20 bucks.

Get it on vita, ive finished 7, have all the gfs and about to take on the final boss in 8, am up to the al bhed airship in 10hd, there is no better way to play than on vita. It is my final fantasy machine - in fact its an rpg beast.

I agree, the Vita is a nice way to revisit the older FF's. It's nice because on the 3D ones you can map the right stick to L1 and R1 for some "modern" style camera control on the world map, and I have the bottom right corner of the touch screen mapped to confirm so I can scroll text by tapping, again feels somehow nicer Plus you can map the Dpad to the stick on FF7.

Still, if you've got a comfortable set up with a decent CRT and don't mind using the dpad that's probably still the best way to go..

Good god man you're a genius - can't believe I never thought to remap L1 and R1 to the right stick!! Doing this right now for FFVIII.

Also, going back to an earlier point you raised, I actually don't think FFVII and VIII have aged all that badly to be honest. I suppose playing on a TV might show up some of the cracks in the paint a bit more clearly, but on a smaller screen I think both games are just as good now as they ever were! Last year I did a 100% run of FFVII on my Xperia Z and no matter how many times I play it I still can't fault it!

That being said, I can see that going in blind as someone used to modern games could be a bit jarring, as a friend of mine actually stopped playing it very early on as she couldn't get to grips with the graphics (although I actually quite like the style). But if you can get past those then I don't see how anyone can fail to be hooked. While I'm not as convinced now as I used to be of it being best in series, the first few hours up to the end of Midgar are better than any opener across the rest of the series, and still stand today as one of the best opening segments to a game full stop I reckon!

Haha glad you like that. Somehow it makes the game feel a decade newer?! Makes a difference on a few other games too, Spyro in particular becomes much more playable when the right stick controls camera movement over L1&R1..

To me, FF7/8 and 9 still look fine and have not aged badly at all until you're playing on something larger than a 30-35 inch screen. I replayed FF9 and 7 on my Vita last year and the graphics were fine. How much of that is rose tinted glasses I'm not sure. But I wouldn't recommend someone who loves the series to play the older ones on a huge TV, let alone someone who was new to them.

The likes of FF6 transcend that problem a little but struggle in other areas such as menu load times etc. which I find to be rather sluggish. How much of that is down to the disc based versions as apposed to running from the original cartridges I'm not sure as I never had the pleasure of experiencing them on the Nes and Snes.

Honestly I can't stand playing the older FF games on a CD based system the load times annoy me that much. The worst offender of that was Chrono Trigger on the PS. Every time you got into a battle the game would pause for a split second to load, no message or anything. I first played the PS port from a rental store and I thought I got a defected copy. Returned it got another game only to find out weeks later when my friend bought it that's how it was. I have heard from some people who never played it on the SNES that the load time isn't that bad but for someone like me whos most played games on the SNES was the FF games and Chrono it's an annoyence.

My suggestion is for the SNES games play them on SNES if you can. There is also GBA ports of a few oof the FF games, Final Fatasy Dawn of Souls which is the NES games, Final Fantasy IV Advanced and Final Fantasy VI Advanced. If you have a Wii you can get the first FF game as well as the two SNES games on the VC. Also if you have a tablet or smart phone you can get the FF games from the Google play store or its iOS equivalent. Lastly you can always go the emulation route. Point being there are a ton of ways to play them without having to deal with the load times of the PS versions.

FF Type 0 First impressions:

Very good, combat is taking some getting used to but I'm already feeling it gel, you can tell it's going to be alot of fun once you're used to it and have plenty of customisation.

Graphics are fine so far, has plenty of muddy textures and simple geometry as you'd expect from a PSP game but nothing I won't be able to get past.

Camera isn't exactly the friendliest but shouldn't prove to be too much of a problem. Motion blur is pretty extreme but it's not neccessarily a terrible thing...I've never been made sick from a game but I can see myself having to rest my eyes more often when playing this. Doesnt seem to be a deal breaker so far.

OK since this has turned more into a Final Fantasy discussion I went ahead and changed the name of the thread and also moved it to the general section.

I never even noticed that, but on looking at the internet 9 is the ff game with the most Easter eggs (not including mmo's) Here's a good one In ff12 Gilgamesh's attacks are weapons of lead characters in previous games. And there's another Gilgamesh Easter egg in 10, but I am going to hold off till I get him on my current play through as I want to see it first.

Gilgamesh isn't in 10. Like, at all. Unless you count that Gilgamesh in FFXIII-2 was holding a sword that is found in Zanarkand in X, but I'm 99% confident that is the only link to Gilgamesh in that game? Unless I seriously missed something??

I think you are right, its a dead lead. Is the sword in zanakand at the end of the game or have I missed it already? I have just got in the airship with cid. Here's something I have noticed and I could be wrong but in the ps2 version of ffx Im sure that once a summon has finished in battle and your 3 person party return their health is back to max. Am I making that up or is it a different game?

To be honest I can't really remember, but it's not an obvious Gilgamesh reference or anything - at the time FFX released it was just another weapon, and tbh to even get the reference in FFXIII-2 you would've needed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the franchise! I only found out as it was on the Gilgamesh entry on the ff wiki.

As far as easter eggs / fan service go, I must say I think FFXIV is doing an absolutely stellar job so far, in particular with things like the Gold Saucer, Crystal Tower, Ultros, Gilgamesh ("Greg"), Magitek Armor etc. It's an absolute joy to go through it trying to catch as many references as you can!

Smashing away on Type 0 at the moment.. just on Chapter 3, played 15 hours or so, a couple of characters around level 30. This game really dishes out trophies so I've been spending some time picking up some of the easy ones, too.

I'm really enjoying it.. More so than what I've played of the FF15 demo, although I need to give that a fair run, too.

What's everyone's most used power? I always go for team hastega and health healing powers were possible

Yeah I'm loving what I've played of it so far. I'm about 8-9 hours in and just hitting the end of Chapter 2. Made some daft mistakes and got shredded by the boss due to having very few characters left, but should go down fine on the next attempt! I've taken the same approach with some of the trophies (eg the ones for getting certain mission bonuses), as I figure the mission replays are all good for building up your characters anyway!

The only thing frustrating me so far is free time, and working out what to do with it. Obviously the lectures from Moglin are priority due to stat increases, but I never know which of the optional scenes (the exclamation marks) to go for - so many seem totally inconsequential, so I'm always a bit concerned I'll be picking something rubbish and missing something more important without realising!

I cleared it on Saturday, took me 52 hours all in I finished with Cinque as my highest level character at 52, then Queen at 47 and Ace 45. I liked playing as Queen (especially with her warp move to get in close to the enemy) but I just found a ranged character more reliable for taking down high level enemies with killsights etc. The rest were 28-40. I had about 70% trophies and the airship but I definitely didn't spend too much time exploring in chapter 7 as once I'd got the airship I just did some levelling and went for the end game. I had plenty of time left on the clock too. Seriously wouldn't worry about time, in the later missions I found I had more than enough.

I've started a new game + on Agito difficulty and already found some new cut scenes etc. that weren't there first time round. I'm going to play through again and explore more thoroughly as I didn't go to the volcano/tower and many other places, and I didn't bother with the large scale battles. From what I read it takes 3 runs through to get everything, if you're so inclined.

Some of the shorter expert missions are good for levelling up otherwise I thought maybe the world map was a bit quicker.. I wish it showed XP acquired at the end of rounds though!

I love the soundtrack but some of the music loops are just too short and they start over again after each battle, I'll be grinding with spotify this time round!

Overall it's the first FF game I've enjoyed in over a decade, and while it isn't really FF per-say I probably rank it around my 3rd/4th favourite in the series.

There is meant to be new cut-scenes, events and even a new editing as the game is meant to be played twice. It is one of the reasons I am not worrying about the expert trials, ect as I can do them second time round as they are meant to be.