Final Fantasy general

My favorites are IX, VI, and X, in that order. My first was the GBA version of IV, which was good but was quickly overshadowed by the others.

V is an honorable mention, just for being so fun. Also the GBA script is hilarious.

My favorite is still VI, even though I think its second half is unfocused. It helps that I find ensemble casts far more compelling than "single Hero plus sidekicks" to many anime have. I see this game as the start of the series' trends to value customization over character individuality, moving away from medieval kingdoms, and including a large minigame (the coliseum) and a couple smaller ones.

VII is very nearly as good, but it's held back by a first half whose story is just running across the world. Also, it has a terrible ending and a muddy translation. Still, one of the best, mind you.

X has a soft spot in my heart as the first I've played, but I dislike its voice acting and hate how preachy it got. I also find it odd how Cid found it so unreasonable to kill a single person to save the world.

I actually don't like IV. It has no character customization (which the previous two games had), there are quite a bit of annoyances (like white magic having less effectiveness out of battle), and the plot is seriously strained to make sure you have exactly five characters at all times.

All of that, but with V instead of VI. I liked how it usually didn't take itself that seriously, and it had that stellar job system.

V is my favourite, VII in second (dat translation), and IX in third. IX is in third because of customisation (or the lack thereof), but even though I haven't beaten it yet the setting is one of the best I've seen. If V had VII's story and IX's setting, it would probably beat out Ocarina of Time as my favourite game ever. They need more shit like Cleyra in these games.

I don't know if I'll ever finish that IV LP. I'll try to, but I was just plain not having fun, and that came across in the commentary and made for a boring video.

edited 23rd Apr '14 10:51:46 AM by GameSpazzer

The coliseum kinda is terrible, though. Unless you're sending in Umaro or Imp Dragoon Gogo.

If I could suggest minigames, perhaps some gambling minigames aboard the Blackjack would be fun.

Beat A Time To Act in FFTA 2 on the second go. That's...not easy. For the unaware, it's the Luck-Based Mission to end all, in a game full of them. Kill five incredibly dangerous enemies while protecting 5 useless allies, using just one character. At least two of the enemies can OHKO any of your allies if they get close, and one of your allies randomly buffs either your team or the enemy one. Suffice to say, if the battle starts with the entire enemy team being hasted, you're screwed right off the bat.

Did it using a Red Mage/Summoner with Move 2 as the Clan Privilege. This is an awkward labyrinth of a level, and maneoverability is more important than power - stopping the Sniper and Parivir getting in range of the moogles is absolutely vital, while hoping the Ninja sticks to ranged debuffing.

Got lucky enough that the Tinker Hasted my party, after which the moogles bombed straight for the Illusionist. All their attacks sucked but eventually killed her before she did anything. My character started by going after the Sniper, stopping in the crossroads between the Ninja, Parivir and Sniper. Two Maduins to the face stopped the Sniper before she could do anything. By blocking off the Parivir I was able to slay him too, getting a bit lucky because he didn't use one of the Flair abilities on a moogle on a platform. Or possibly couldn't reach high enough. The Ninja was mostly debuffing, including Confusing the Fusilier but that didn't lead to anything fatal, even when the Tinker poisoned the whole party twice. The Ninja was cut off and taking fire from the moogles, and my Red Mage did him in. That left the Arcanist, at the back of the map. Level 3 Dark wasn't a big deal by this point, and with no allies, we hemmed him in and destroyed him, helped by the fact that he was mostly fine with frontal physical attacks on the Moogle Knight for some reason.

Luck is vital in the mission, and I got enough of it to get through. On only my second go when dozens are far from unheard of, that's not bad.

I always though the customization options were hit and miss. On the one hand, big up to being able to use your favorites without restriction - the allegedly bad Cyan could eventually tear the game apart himself just like everyone else. On the other hand, it makes everyone interchangeable, and I think you lose a little something there. I'll agree that VI is definitely a happy medium with regards to the virtual blank slates of III, V, VII, X, XII, and XIII versus the predefined folks in IV and IX.

I hear the Moogle team gets stronger the more you repeat the training mission just prior.

There's still the Tinker, though.

X has a lot of customizability and you can ultimately have chars swap roles if you like, but their Overdrives and Legendary Weapons are still unique, and in the latter case, generally lean more toward the character's regular combat style (Yuna's One MP Cost makes healing a non-issue, Lulu's One MP Cost + Magic Booster speaks for itself, Auron's and Tidus's are still focused more on physical offense....)

Even than, it's so easy to mix O MP items with Rikku that an ultimate weapon with it's more convenient than anything else. X's weapon system also meant you could swap out weapons freely to do whatever you needed to do that turn, so you could cast magic one turn than have evade and counter and pierce and such another.

It does, which is easily missed, but the mission is annoying so I thought I'd try and get it out of the way sooner rather than later. I only really use my core party so I'm way overlevelled. I've got about 60 missions to go, the second and third Brightmoon Tors, and the Final Battle which I've never won before. Might have to hit level 99 to win that, though I'm sure my party is good enough to do so.

The problem with VI is that eventually magic kills everything faster than anything, making the characters' unique abilities pointless. Also, I don't consider IX to have predetermined characters, since there are plenty of passive abilities you can give them. That's what I consider a happy medium.

Eh, even Brightmoon Tor 2 has level 99 enemies, which can be beaten easily enough with a well-set party in its 40-50s. Word of advice though, the "boss" of the second ascent has Evade Magick and is immune to all elements minus light and dark. Which was a nasty surprise, since I had only magic users and a (Lifethread Blade-less) Parivir, having cheesed my way through the tower with the overpowered bloody Summoner.

Oh, and for that mission, I think that's where the Trickster/Gladiator with Halve MP (and MP Channeling) would be your best bet, since it's insanely fast (if you don't waste levels as a Bishop, anyway) and can OHK any enemy in that map.

FFVI isn't really difficult enough to need everyone as a magic-based nuke. I prefer to give everyone healing, teach the best offensive magic to Terra, Celes, Relm, and Strago, and mess about with equipment and special abilities with everyone else. For example, I have a lot of fun outfitting Setzer with the Final Trump, Fixed Dice, and Black Belt.

I've just come up with a really out there suggestion for an Unexpected Character in Curtain Call, even more out there than Benjamin. Dr Aki Ross, anyone?

That movie could have done a lot better if they hadn't marketed it as Final Fantasy.

And if everyone looked less terrifying.

x many

Oh. I thought I was getting the warning, and was staying off the forums just in case.

I actually rather liked the movie. It wasn't phenomenal or anything, but it was still pretty good. Though I still think they were a bit delusional to think it could live up to the kind of budget they threw into it.

Speaking of FFVI, I played up to the World of Ruin on this decent hack of VI called Brave New World. It fixes the blank slate problem by restricting espers to specific characters, enhances the Stamina stat to make non-magic viable, buffs enemies in a huge way, and makes elemental absorption/resistance so common it's not possible to plow through even random encounters until you get Flare and such.

Sprits Within was way better than Advent Children, anyway. I don't think AC got a theatrical release, but how did it do financially if anyone knows?

edited 23rd Apr '14 8:16:06 PM by Hashil

Spirits Within was more coherent and it actually bothered to introduce the characters. Yeah, there were issues, but it's not that bad a movie. But basically all the CG Anime films are flawed, probably because half of them are directed by the same guy.

I'm guessing Advent Children sold well, it ended up being one of the showcases of the Blu-Ray format, but I don't think Sony or Square Enix released sales numbers. It did get a one-time theatrical showing though.

edited 23rd Apr '14 8:26:07 PM by Zendervai

Spirits Within was definitely better than AC in terms of story, acting, script (seriously, who fucking translates the VII stuff? Because they need to be fired). AC looked a bit nicer, though, and ACC looked downright gorgeous and got better child actors and nicer animation and fixed some of the plotholes and took out the shitty J-Pop at the end.

AC, unlike SW, I think was a financial success, and won some sort of thing at Sundance, though I don't think it was ever in theatres.

The issues with SW, though, were (as far as I can tell):

• Nobody had ever done the all-motion capture thing before, so it looked a bit... off. They didn't get it right until ACC, and it wasn't an accepted thing until Avatar.
• The marketing. The film was called Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, so they alienated both markets — those unfamiliar with FF would assume they wouldn't understand the source material going in, assumed it was a fan-only thing, and opted out. And those familiar with FF realised it had almost fuck-all to do with FF, and opted out.
• I think maybe a lot of the money got eaten up by getting the likes of Alec Baldwin and Steve Buscemi and stuff. And also reanimating the lip flaps, though this is something I think they should have done for AC (and it was only sorta-fixed in ACC).
• They also perhaps used a little too many of VII's leftovers that did and didn't go into the game proper (post-apocalyptic New York,Lifestream, et-cetera), which probably rubbed some people the wrong way.

It's a shame, though. I do think it was a pretty good movie, and if they had handled it a little better it could have been the start of something really neat. And clearly enough people liked it, at least — you see its visual influence all over Mass Effect. Ever wondered why it looked familiar? The designer guy was a fan of Spirits Within.

It's like the Aeon Flux movie. I watched it years ago and couldn't understand why everyone hated it so much. Then I watched the cartoon itself, and yeah it was a good movie by itself, but sweet fuck it had nothing to do with Aeon Flux at all. They should've changed the names and made a killing at the box office.

edited 23rd Apr '14 8:41:46 PM by GameSpazzer

You think that's bad? Be glad you didn't play the game that attempted to link the two.

Dear god, there was a game? Was it Japan-exclusive or something?

Oh wait, you meant Aeon Flux. Ew. Yeah, I heard about that one...

edited 23rd Apr '14 8:42:19 PM by GameSpazzer

Just obliterated Brightmoon Tor 2 in FFTA 2. Got to say - the fact that all three of my Viera and my Moogle have Evade Magick as a reaction ability really helps with this place, because it means that Otherworldly Wind - a brutal party-hitting spell the enemy loves to spam - can't do a thing to them.

There is very little that can survive four consecutive Blood Price Maduins, even from the front. Shimmering Blade, Hoarfrost Blade, Lifethread Blade and Skyfury Blade with Sequencer demolish most other things, and that's even without accounting for things like Double-Shot (7th Heaven so does Holy Damage), Maim Blade (the monsters are still vulnerable to Disable) and Stop-Shot.

Yes, my moogle is the weak link in the party - but the Orb of Minwu doesn't protect against Stop, as the Orthros at the top of the tower found out to his peril after the aforementioned four BP Maduins to the face killed the four Evil Eyes. It's pretty sweet to be able to apply Stop like that.

Lost two guys in the whole tower, that being my Master Monk to the initial spell-spam at the top of the tower (currently only party member without an Angel Ring), and one of my Summoners who fell even after the Angel Ring to physical attacks from the eyes. Both were brought back with Phoenix, but nothing lived long enough for the Monk to fight and the Summoner had already hit first.

Third tower next, then the remaining 29 quests. I've beaten the third tower before in previous files, but not the 301st Final Battle. I think I did once beat the Tonberry party that you fight third, only for my system to freeze. After that I didn't have the heart to go through it again Maybe this time I can do it though.

Do you know where do you have to go to get the Azure Tear? I've done BMT 2 twice and still haven't come across it. I simply haven't found any crystals across chasms.

Yeah its a bitch. On level 3 after killing everything a crystal appears that you need faerie shoes to get to. Thing is, the character going through that crystal needs to be the last one. Send everyone else through the normal crystal first. On the next level the tear appears right in front of you. It's the snowy tear in BMT 2 by the way, think azure is the first one? gamefaqs has a good guise that helps with the right paths.

Edit - forgot to add, in level 1 you need to send everyone through the crystal that appears after killing everything as well. Otherwise the tear is lost to you, might be why you've missed it.

edited 24th Apr '14 4:04:45 PM by CaissasDeathAngel