Force me to play a game to completion and write about it! [FF9 - Day 199X]

[Himu]

Game is easy as fuck.

[Great Rumbler]

~Day 3~

-Second dungeon completed! And it's about time, I was getting pretty tired of fighting flans every two seconds. Blah encounter rate, I don't got time for that.

-Easy boss is easy; don't waste my time, chump.

-And now, a brief interlude at an idyllic farming community!

-But the innkeepers is up to no good, apparently.

-No time for that, however, let's play cards instead! First match = first victory

-And...save. Total time: 2 hours and 45 minutes.

[recursivelyenumerable]

I liked the Ice Cave music

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Himu]

Dali

[Great Rumbler]

~Day 4~

-Stop getting kidnapped, people! Come on!

-And now, a dramatic CG cutscene with slow-mo and sad piano music!

-Black Waltz = chump; don't mess with me, son

-And now, an epic airship chase with EXPLOSIONS! Michael Bay would be so proud.

-Finally arrived at Lindblum, which gives me an excuse to wander aimlessly, steal everything that's not nailed down, and win some cards.

-Regent Cid is a philanderer who got turned into an oglop because he cheated on his wife. I like how he made up a story about a mysterious attacker instead of admitting the truth.

-And...save. Total time: 3 hours and 58 minutes.

[OptimoPeach]

Are you playing this on an emulator? How does it look?

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, I'm playing it on emulator. It looks fine, but I'm not really using any kind of graphical trickery or filters. Cutscenes are really choppy in fullscreen, so I've just been playing it in a window.

[Himu]

It is going to take Rumbler two years to do this at this pace.

[Great Rumbler]

Final Fantasy IX takes 730 hours to beat?

[Rufus]

Nah, but you're 'only' playing about an hour a day. At this pace, you're going to be busy til June.

[Momo]

Need them for a normal game? No. The way I play I rely on abilities/skills/status effects to win because I make sure my levels are on the low side. It's the only way you get a good game of chess out of these games and thats what im looking for.

keep your levels low or keep shit equpment on - whats the difference? the game is still piss easy regardless so who gives a fuck

Game is easy as fuck.

Congrats on practicing some magical form of bush reading that allows you to click quote and answer text you clearly have chosen to un-comprehend.

[Himu]

Don't blame us you end up grinding because of assburger OCD because you can't deal with the fact that you have to equip shit equipment to learn new skills in a game where I died only once on - the secret boss btw - when I was 15 years old.

[Momo]

Don't blame us you end up grinding because of assburger OCD because you can't deal with the fact that you have to equip shit equipment to learn new skills in a game where I died only once on - the secret boss btw - when I was 15 years old.

You're an imbecile if you haven't comprehended that my complaint stems from the fact I can't make this game difficult for myself.

[Himu]

You're playing a Final Fantasy. Why are you surprised? FF4 was the last challenging Final Fantasy.

[Momo]

I got a challenge out of FF7 playing that way, thanks to the flexible equip/ability system. The first time I beat FF7, no grinding and just running through it took me 30 hours I think. In that time I never used escape, barrier, mbarrier, haste, reflect (except like once to exploit an enemy using cure), poison etc.

I played through it again this time I used escape generously to prevent my party leveling up much. In this play through I had to use haste, barrier, mbarrier, reflect, think about equips and roles for chars etc in order to survive higher difficulty battles. It took me 40+ hours and it was fun and glorious.

I cant do this with FF9 because grinding for abilities kills a low level game and trying to play through with just the latest equips ends up as easy or tedious if you try to do this low level. The only challenge I got out of FF9 was doing the time challenge but it was a fucking snore.

[Momo]

There are more factors than just the challenge obviously.

- there arent many battle systems I like, Final Fantasy has managed to produce two near perfect ones for my taste

- sadism

[Positive Touch]

"i get the most out of the battle system by spending a lot of time running from battles"

I got a challenge out of FF7 playing that way, thanks to the flexible equip/ability system.

:idontbelieve the last time i played thru that game YEARS ago i only used equipment that gave you double or triple AP which meant that i only upgraded my stuff like 3 times during the whole game. it was still piss easy

[Momo]

Is bush reading a disease on here? Jesus.

[Positive Touch]

anime fan

[Momo]

anime fan

This is a low blow and you know it 

[Positive Touch]

who doesnt like low blows :nah

[Himu]

You're right in that FF9 is the easiest psx FF. But 7 can be just as easy playing a "normal" way. Running away to create challenge seems a bit...haphazard.

I tend to do low level challenges n FF8, but that's by actually fighting battles and carding enemies, which is actually challenging.

A more fun challenge in 7, is giving materia to specific people that ONLY befits the storyline. For me, Cloud is my red mage. He's capable of using basic cure and attack magic ONLY. Red XIII is my beastmaster, he can ONLY equip materia pertaining to animals (enemy skill materia, frog, mini, poison, summons) or beastly damage (2x/4x cut). Yuffie can ONLY equip materia that can allows her to manipulate. Being a thief, she is a master manipulator, so she can only equip stuff like steal/mug, mime, throw, confuse, sleep.

Aeris is my only white mage and she DIES. WHOOPS. I don't even use her, who gives a shit.

If I play Tifa, Barret, Cait Sith, Cid I change their shit accordingly. None of them can do what the GOAT party (Cloud, Yuffie, Red) can do. Follow the storyline, craft abilities that fit their personalities and battle experience, use creativity, and FF7 is a fun experience.

FF9 is not that type of game, but it is a post FF4-Final Fantasy, so you should expect this. The only 3d FF's with an inkling of challenge are 12 and 13.

[Momo]

I do that in FF7 as well, it's what i meant with character roles. The games I had the most satisfaction with playing the way above were all post FF4 - FFV, FFX and on a lower rung FFVII.

[Himu]

In FFX, I barely put anyone on anyone else's sphere grid because I didn't like how it made the characters all literally clones. Fucking Jecht took me all afternoon on Easter Sunday 2002 to beat. That fucking CUNT. Once you finish a characters grid section, their stats for that are now finite, kaput. So that makes the end game relatively challenging because the game is crafted for you to jump on other people's grids to continue leveling up.

FF8 is the funnest about this due to the junction system. In that game, Selphie is my black mage. I think it fits her personality, because she's insane, likes offense without thinking, and likes to blow stuff up. So she gets my offense spells at the expense of no practically no magic pooled into her defense, hp, or attack stats. I just ignore them or give her shitty magic so it barely makes a difference. This means depending on how you play, enemies will kill her in just a few (if not one) hit. This is where Squall comes in; he's my knight for obvious reasons He has high hp, good strength, good defense. I limit the stats by not giving the best magic to his stats so he's still crippled but not compared to Selphie. I'll put cover on him, and he'll protect anyone that is weak. Rinoa is my white mage, I like to think makes a nice juxposition between that and her sorceress abilities later on. Rinoa receives similar stat treatment like Selphie, pumping junctions into her magic stat and magic def at the expense of hp, attack, and defense.

The great part about this is that usually I will have the magic I'm using (like Curaga to heal) equipped to their stats, with the full knowledge that I'm losing stats while I use it. Shit is straight baller. Then I replenish my stock after a bit.

It's great because if you play normal, just fighting and leveling up, enemies will continuously get stronger while you're still weak due to crippled stats. If you do a low level game via carding, that's challenging too because enemies are going to get stronger anyways. When I fought Edea for instance, many of her attacks will cut my hp in half, so I have to use stuff like triple-> protect, triple -> shell, and triple -> curaga on the regular.

Fun.

Highly suggested.

Just 1 out of 100000 ways to play FF8. You're welcome.

[Momo]

Fucking Jecht? No sir, FUCKING NEMISIS. God damn that motherfucker for making me level up lol (At this point I was secret hunting so the level up wasnt that painful, but still goddamn that motherfucker )

[Himu]

Jecht has an ability that turns the entire party to stone and then he immediately does this sword swipe move where he attacks the entire party horizontally. So he'll wipe out like two members in one hit.

That fucking cunt.

I don't bother with FFX battle arena. Maybe if the game had new game +.

[Momo]

NEMESIS has like 1 billion hit points or something, the bastard could also kill anyone at will, fuck him

[Himu]

God I really dislike how to be strong in FFX your characters all have to literally be clones. Hadn't been that bad since FFVI.

[magus]

i voted for FF9 and now this thread turned into a final fantasy discussion

what have i done? :sadbron

[Great Rumbler]

i voted for FF9 and now this thread turned into a final fantasy discussion

what have i done? :sadbron

[Powerslave]

This is the Final Fantasy where Squaresoft blew their complete load all over our face and they have been out of juice ever since.

[Trent Dole]

Well since this has turned into a generic FF thread...
http://www.siliconera.com/2013/04/27/square-enixs-super-nintendo-final-fantasy-games-are-getting-remastered-soundtracks/
Commenters seem to think that it'll be on two discs instead of one so the tracks will get a decent amount of looping time unlike the original one disc version. Also Amano cover illustration for the first print run. :krs

[Momo]

i voted for FF9 and now this thread turned into a final fantasy discussion

what have i done? :sadbron

You've lepered us all

[recursivelyenumerable]

The biggest problem with FF6/7/8 balance-wise is that it's easy to give all your party members cure magic, and cure magic is overpowered in that once you have enough healing-per-round power there's not much risk of you ever dying - spells are too cheap and Ethers too abundant for you to really worry about running out of MP - and enemies and bosses don't generally heal themselves or anything meaning if you can go long enough without dying you'll eventually win.

The problem with the materia system in particular is that the set of abilities/spells you can equip is basically the same as in previous FFs like 5, where they're bundled together into jobs (or at least, large all-or-nothing categories like "white magic" that you can only choose a few of) and each job usually has a few really widely useful spells/abilities like Cure, and a lot of utility spells/abilities only useful in specific situation. But now you can pick and choose them one by one, yet they haven't really been rebalanced for this so people end up just giving the "good" ones to everyone. I don't think the materia system is necessarily bad but to make it work they'd have needed to rethink the balance between abilities, nerf healing magic, etc.

[Great Rumbler]

~Day 6~

-Knockout a guard and take his disguise! It's okay, he probably doesn't have a horrible concussion!

-Dagger sings, but it's PS1 game so don't expect the song to actually have any lyrics or anything.

-And now it's time for the annual tradition of setting hundreds of dangerous monster loose in the streets of the city! It's fun!

-I won, of course, because I'm awesome and totally didn't savescum the heck outta that thing.

-But the festivities are short lived, because it's TIME FOR WAR!

-Also, Dagger secretly slipped a sleeping drug into everyone's food.

-And...save. Total time: 4 hours and 57 minutes.

[Himu]

Tip for making the end of disc 1 more challenging. Don't get Quina on disc 1. Wait for disc 2 when you're forced to get him/her/it. You get Quina by going to the swamp lands which is on the way to Gizamaluke's Grotto. Avoid it. There are multiple swamps and chances to get Quina. Avoiding getting her/him/it as long as possible will increase game enjoyment and this isn't because Quina sucks either.

On the other hand, DO Chocobo Hot and Cold. Similarly to the swamp lands, there's a giant dome sized forest (I think) south of the swamp. Get your KWEH on.

Disc 1 of FF9 is one of if not the best paced section of any FF. It is full if personality and it is fun as balls. Enjoy.

[Positive Touch]

yeah but then you miss out on some ate and sweet treazur

[Himu]

God Quina sucks almost as bad as Amarant

[Positive Touch]

i like quina because she likes to eat, just like me

we have something in common

[recursivelyenumerable]

I like quina cuz I do what I want, you have problem?!

[Powerslave]

quina is pretty good in battle.

[Himu]

Thats why Rumbler should avoid getting Quina as soon as possible.

[Steve Contra]

NEMESIS has like 1 billion hit points or something, the bastard could also kill anyone at will, fuck him

Nemesis was easy.

[Momo]

NEMESIS has like 1 billion hit points or something, the bastard could also kill anyone at will, fuck him

Nemesis was easy.

easy, but tedious

[Great Rumbler]

Thats why Rumbler should avoid getting Quina as soon as possible.

I skipped Quina because I do what I want. I wouldn't even use that derpy-looking loser in my combat party anyway.

[Himu]

[Powerslave]

eiko, freya and amarant are the most boring characters of the game. In terms of using them in battle.

[Rufus]

Amarant was a turd, indeed. He's completely flat. I liked Freya at least in concept, what with being a rat person that wields a spear.

[Great Rumbler]

~Day 7~

-I went and picked up Quina because THAT'S WHAT I DO I DON'T CARE.

-Pop quiz time!

-Burmecia is under siege! But first, I'll play with a chocobo for a while and see if I can find some awesome treasures.

-The encounter rate in Gizamaluke Grotto is appalling. I think it shoves you into combat about once every five steps. Which leads to...

-ENOUGH WITH THE LAMIAS. I AM SO TIRED OF FIGHTING THIS STUPID LAMIAS, THEY'RE NOT EVEN THAT HARD BUT THEY'RE SO DUMB THAT I WANT TO PUNCH THEIR SPERGTARD FACES IN.

-I went the wrong way and ended up in a part of the world where a giant dragon attacks you and kills you whole party in about a second.

-But going the right way puts you up against Gizamaluke, some kind of water dragon of some sort. He beat me the first time, but proper preparation [and equipment] meant a swift defeat on the second fight.

-And...save. Total time 6 hours and 32 minutes.

[Himu]

I'm kupo for kupo nuts. Also getting on disc 1.

[tiesto]

I remember showign one of my ex's this game (Lithuanian, eastern euro chick  ) and she hated it at first. then she became a lesbian and got into games like Kingdom hearts, Xenosaga... and liked FF9 again. I'm glad to introduce some of my ex's to the wondes of the  JAPNANESE rpgs. had one girlfriend, she used to play euro RPGs like Divine Divinity and such.. (Jowood games PC games), then I let her borrow Skies of Arcadia, now she is playing UGUUUST games ... and she thought DQ8 was amaizng. My dream would be to meet a waifu I can introduce to games like Project Diva F and the phantasy star (offline) series.....and random PC-ENgine games.

[Himu]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=551612

Sweet mother of god.

Lost FF9 art from pre-production.

[Powerslave]

Lately I have this weird feeling... or thought.. that somehow my deepest wishes are somehow gonna be fulfilled. That hope is sparking up again.. I keep seeing more and more people sharing the same ideas, same wishes and same desires. I was really glad to read in several threads relating to David Hayter's possible disinvolvement in MGS5 how people were agreeing by majority that his performance was only ever good in MGS1.
I keep holding on to the hope of that you people, the general majority of audience will eventually realize that FF9 was the last true FF.
Reading that thread makes you really wonder how Square doesn't remake these 3 ps1 games with the higher resolution renders. You even read stuff about Square not even having the original renders anymore and it really makes me go like what the hell is going on with companies like that? How do you eventually not posses the assets anymore that you produced yourself? Is such a thing even possible?..

[Human Snorenado]

Could you rename characters in this one?  I seem to remember renaming Quina to Jemima.

[Great Rumbler]

How do you eventually not posses the assets anymore that you produced yourself?

Sakaguchi needed the space on the servers to store his stash of tentacle hentai.

Could you rename characters in this one?

Yes.

[recursivelyenumerable]

I'm not sure that some high-resolution art existing necessarily means they have (or ever had) everything required to create an HD remake. The art etc. could be wildly inconsistent with the stuff in common being just what's enough to produce the 320x240 target. Though you'd think it would occur to them during the original production that they might want to update it for newer tech someday but they just didn't seem to really think in this terms back then.

[Powerslave]

This all wouldn't be something people actually discuss if Square continued to make great FF games.

[Positive Touch]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=551612

Sweet mother of god.

Lost FF9 art from pre-production.

funny thing is, i remember a lotta jrpg spergs ripping on the games art style as generic while championing skies of arcadia as the better alternative

[Himu]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=551612

Sweet mother of god.

Lost FF9 art from pre-production.

funny thing is, i remember a lotta jrpg spergs ripping on the games art style as generic while championing skies of arcadia as the better alternative

I don't remember that, but I do remember the "childish" jabs at it. And making fun of Zidane because he has a tail so of course they ripped of DBZ ( ) or there were talking hippos.

I remember being in Square Gamer's chatroom as FFIX was revealed. The art made people freak out and have meltdowns about how Final Fantasy was "dead" because the art was "kiddy". Suffice to say, I swallowed every bit of FFIX hype, and thought the game looked beautiful. Those pieces of art leaked to the gia, I thought were cool, and I was mad they got rid of the job system because I was deep in FFV at the time.

The even funnier thing about IX and its reveal is that X and XI were announced and revealed AT THE SAME TIME and looked nothing LIKE IX. I still remember being amazed by those black hair Tidus shots.