Final Fantasy Omnibus

[Kyuubi]

They also announced the FFVII remake is going to be an episodic release too as they don't want to leave anything out and couldn't do it justice as 'one game'. Pretty bold move but great for someone like me who doesn't have the time to just solidly play through anymore

Only Square Enix can make me hype for the game that I wanted for a decade and suddenly make me lose interest in a day.

[Chaos]

People were quick to go to this as a reaction to the news. I will still play the "wait and see" game.

 

Also, this meme feels like a sad but true reality in 2015.

 

[Chaos]

It looks like Final Fantasy XV has leaked its release date and will release on 9/30, which I think was reported a few months ago as well.

Squenix is also going to release a playable demo tonight, which I think unlocks an exclusive summon for completing.

Since I didn't play the other demo, I'm excited to see what this looks like.

[Eivion]

Its a little late, but that is my birthday month so its nice to know what I'll be spending that money on already. Also happy to hear there will be another demo as I didn't check out the first one either.

[Eivion]

So for FFXV they are doing an anime (first episode is on Crunchyroll), a moblie game, & a film that takes place during the game (with Sean Bean). They are going all in on this one.

[JLSigman]

20 hours ago, Eivion said:

So for FFXV they are doing an anime (first episode is on Crunchyroll), a moblie game, & a film that takes place during the game (with Sean Bean). They are going all in on this one.

They have to, at this point. Between it being so many years in the making, as well as the gaff last year saying they didn't need any women in the game because cooties or something, they're desperate to get folks to think of it well.

[Matt D]

I'm still boggled no one else is playing Record Keeper.

[Eivion]

3 hours ago, JLSigman said:

They have to, at this point. Between it being so many years in the making, as well as the gaff last year saying they didn't need any women in the game because cooties or something, they're desperate to get folks to think of it well.

I don't disagree. I'm still interested, but the lack of playable women and general story changes along with the ridiculous time frame its taken to get here has definitely hurt a lot my interest. Its particular annoying when you can remember that there was also a female lead who was more than likely going to be playable before all the big changes.

3 hours ago, Matt D said:

I'm still boggled no one else is playing Record Keeper.

What is Record Keeper, again?

[EVA]

FINAL FANTASY XII REMASTERED FUCK YEAH

We're in for Final Fantasy overload starting this fall.  XV this fall.  XII remaster next year.  And the 1st episode of the VII remake somewhere along the way.

[Chaos]

38 minutes ago, EVA said:

FINAL FANTASY XII REMASTERED FUCK YEAH

We're in for Final Fantasy overload starting this fall.  XV this fall.  XII remaster next year.  And the 1st episode of the VII remake somewhere along the way.

This is motivation for me to actually finish the original.

[Eivion]

5 hours ago, Chaos said:

This is motivation for me to actually finish the original.

I think I will just wait for the remaster.

[Chaos]

13 hours ago, Eivion said:

I think I will just wait for the remaster.

I think some of the mechanic changes between Japan and US in this one would make it worthwhile to play the PS2 one. I wish I had a decent PC, so I could play my copy through an emulator. There have been some wonderful graphic upgrades for this through that medium.

[Eivion]

The mechanic changes are what have most of my interest. The leveling/job system was one of the biggest things I disliked.

[Matt D]

I crashed hard against Proudclod in the VII U+ dungeon last night. Two Beam Cannons hit me out of nowhere and only Ramza was left with way too many hit points to go, but then I pulled Lightning's BSSB Overture before bed and that should be a total game changer.

[JLSigman]

20 hours ago, Eivion said:

The mechanic changes are what have most of my interest. The leveling/job system was one of the biggest things I disliked.

Agreed. Hopefully it'll help with some of the ridiculous grinding for ability points that you had to do to survive late game.

[Jingus]

I never got to the "late game" part of 12.  It's easily my least favorite entry of the post-Nintendo franchise.  

-The grinding even in the early parts was ridiculous, you always had to go kill wolves for three hours straight before you were strong enough to beat whatever the next boss was.  And having both traditional experience levels and the goofy checkerboard ability/equipment system seemed needlessly overcomplicated.  

-I was never fond of the MMO-style combat engine, which let you practically ignore the game entirely in the jobber fights and do everything on autopilot, while suddenly requiring an FF Tactics level of pinpoint strategy whenever you ran into something tough.  It simply didn't feel like Final Fantasy, and I was both unsurprised and relieved when they just went back to the standard turn-based combat for 13.  

-Why were so many of the locations just a grid of straight lines?  Running around any level in modern Final Fantasy shouldn't feel like I'm being stuffed into the bland canned environments of Metal Gear Solid 2.  But it's been a continual problem in the franchise's more recent installments.  This started in 10, which innovated the unfortunate trend of not having a world-map screen and skimping on the whole "exploring an unknown world" aspect which made the SNES and PS1 games so much fun.  Admittedly, 12 was nowhere near as bad in this area as 13 would be (like 80% of that game is running down an endless progression of straight hallways), but it's still irritating.  

-And finally, 12 had probably the weakest story and least memorable characters since the NES days.  They might as well have given Vaan the name "Aladdin Skywalker", and the entire story was never even about him.  He was just the guy who happened to tag along with the real main characters; and besides Fran and maybe Basch, I didn't give much of a damn about any of them.  And jesus, guys, can't we do anything other than "a rag-tag group of rebels fights against yet another evil empire" storyline for our main plot?  At least 10 had all the weird socio-religious philosophical bullshit plus Godzilla stomping around, and 13 had all the tearjerker melodrama with people being arbitrarily turned into statues; 12 just has... uh... more optional sidequests than actual main quest?  Even after submitting to pure brand loyalty and spending dozens of hours on the damn game, I still don't entirely see the point.  

[Chaos]

28 minutes ago, Jingus said:

I never got to the "late game" part of 12.  It's easily my least favorite entry of the post-Nintendo franchise.  

-The grinding even in the early parts was ridiculous, you always had to go kill wolves for three hours straight before you were strong enough to beat whatever the next boss was.  And having both traditional experience levels and the goofy checkerboard ability/equipment system seemed needlessly overcomplicated.  

-I was never fond of the MMO-style combat engine, which let you practically ignore the game entirely in the jobber fights and do everything on autopilot, while suddenly requiring an FF Tactics level of pinpoint strategy whenever you ran into something tough.  It simply didn't feel like Final Fantasy, and I was both unsurprised and relieved when they just went back to the standard turn-based combat for 13.  

-Why were so many of the locations just a grid of straight lines?  Running around any level in modern Final Fantasy shouldn't feel like I'm being stuffed into the bland canned environments of Metal Gear Solid 2.  But it's been a continual problem in the franchise's more recent installments.  This started in 10, which innovated the unfortunate trend of not having a world-map screen and skimping on the whole "exploring an unknown world" aspect which made the SNES and PS1 games so much fun.  Admittedly, 12 was nowhere near as bad in this area as 13 would be (like 80% of that game is running down an endless progression of straight hallways), but it's still irritating.  

-And finally, 12 had probably the weakest story and least memorable characters since the NES days.  They might as well have given Vaan the name "Aladdin Skywalker", and the entire story was never even about him.  He was just the guy who happened to tag along with the real main characters; and besides Fran and maybe Basch, I didn't give much of a damn about any of them.  And jesus, guys, can't we do anything other than "a rag-tag group of rebels fights against yet another evil empire" storyline for our main plot?  At least 10 had all the weird socio-religious philosophical bullshit plus Godzilla stomping around, and 13 had all the tearjerker melodrama with people being arbitrarily turned into statues; 12 just has... uh... more optional sidequests than actual main quest?  Even after submitting to pure brand loyalty and spending dozens of hours on the damn game, I still don't entirely see the point.  

I remember my frustration with 12 also being that it wanted you to determine what builds your characters have, and I don't mean from an A or B perspective. You could honestly turn any character into a tank, healer, black mage, etc.

[Jingus]

Yeah, that was annoying too.  "I'm just gonna have EVERYONE be an archer and rain death upon the enemy from afar" is an odd thing for the game to let you do.  And once you gain enough points, pretty much everyone ends up having identical powers no matter what.  

Oh, and I should probably clarify: when I say my least favorite entry of the post-Nintendo franchise", I mean the mainstream entries in the series, not spinoffs or sequels (12 still beats crap like Dirge Of Cerberus and X-2) and not the MMO entries, which I've never played.  

...jeez, after all that bitching, I feel like I should say something positive about the game.  It's not awful, I've played much worse, but it's so bland and nothing-happening that hardly any positives stand out.  Uh... it had really pretty lighting effects, I guess?  Those shimmering lens-flaring crystal lamps were cool to look at.  But when that's the best thing I've got to say about a FINAL FANTASY main series entry, yeesh, that ain't so good.  

[J.H.]

I don't think I've likedand FF game since 9 from a story standpoint (or gameplay standpoint at that). Hell I don't think I've been excited for an FF entry since 10 (which really was a disappointing game for me). Maybe I'll give XV a shot.

(Wait.. I did like FF XIV a bit but I like some MMOs and the fact with one of the races you could basically make Raoh from Hokuto no Ken, well how could I hate it?)

James

[dogwelder]

For those like myself who are looking forward to FF 15, rumor is that it's been delayed until November 29.  Which I sort of believe, given that there's still no sign of the tie-in mobile game they were pushing.

[Eivion]

That disappoints me a good deal if true. That said, DQ VII for the 3DS should mitigate some of that disappointment. Still I was really hoping to be playing a big new rpg next month. I suppose I could always go back and finally finish XIII though I would probably have to restart it after being away for so long.

[Chaos]

I skimmed through some of the Gameplay videos for FFXV. It looks like they're going the FF12 method of having you build the characters how you want to, which I never like. I kind of like having character builds having certain definitions associated beforehand. 

[JLSigman]

On 9/6/2016 at 9:37 AM, Chaos said:

I skimmed through some of the Gameplay videos for FFXV. It looks like they're going the FF12 method of having you build the characters how you want to, which I never like. I kind of like having character builds having certain definitions associated beforehand. 

Which is odd, considering that everyone complained about that part of FF XII, and the international version did away with it.

[J.T.]

14 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

Which is odd, considering that everyone complained about that part of FF XII, and the international version did away with it.

Some people are old school and like the idea of characters having specific jobs.  It takes the headache out of building when you know what a character is supposed to be good at when you already have a hard specification.

I like being able to build the way I want to, but I am a completionist with OCD, so sometimes open building allows for too much freedom.

It took me close to two hours to design my Commander Shepard's facial features.  Can you imagine how many attempted playthroughs it will take me to experiment with spells and tactics and limit breaks over five or six player characters?  

This is why it takes me so long to beat a game.

And I will probably rage quit when my designated black mage or designated tank gets killed permanently three hours into the storyline.

[Chaos]

22 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

Which is odd, considering that everyone complained about that part of FF XII, and the international version did away with it.

I understand trying to modify the battle systems and what not to fall more in line with how people play RPGs today, and I'm okay with adapting to that if it feels organic and smooth gameplay-wise as opposed to just being clunky, which I felt like XIII's battle system failed at in many ways. I have always liked somewhat defined character roles being made for me in my squad-based single player RPGs.

8 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Some people are old school and like the idea of characters having specific jobs.  It takes the headache out of building when you know what a character is supposed to be good at when you already have a hard specification.

I like being able to build the way I want to, but I am a completionist with OCD, so sometimes open building allows for too much freedom.

It took me close to two hours to design my Commander Shepard's facial features.  Can you imagine how many attempted playthroughs it will take me to experiment with spells and tactics and limit breaks over five or six player characters?  

This is why it takes me so long to beat a game.

And I will probably rage quit when my designated black mage or designated tank gets killed permanently three hours into the storyline.

I get that, but as I said above, I just don't feel that's what Final Fantasy should be. I think some of the better final fantasy games have done a good job at defining characters as a Black Mage, White Mage, Warrior, Thief, etc. and incorporating that into a character's story arch. I think Vivi is a fantastic example of that in Final Fantasy IX.