Thread 3826277

Why is this game so underrated? Also what's the point of rolling Ranger and Berserker? Never picked these classes at all on any playthrough.

Why didn't you choose Ranger? Or Berserker?

>>3826277 (OP)
Ranger as X-Fight so you can hit up to 4 times in combat. dual wielding makes you hit 4 in each hand too. Berserker gives you axe mastery.

I really like FF5 but my god the AP is insane for a lot of classes, you get paltry amounts until the last third of the game. That aside, there are very very few things I would change from the story and gameplay, it's a nicely packaged adventure from start to finish.

>>3826307
>Ranger as X-Fight so you can hit up to 4 times in combat. dual wielding makes you hit 4 in each hand too. Berserker gives you axe mastery.
Really? Damn, that's fucking cool

>>3826307
I think the AP to master some classes was intentional because if you could master classes easily everybody would pretty much always be using freelancer. Though I think this problem could've been avoided by not making freelancer perks as insane as they are.

>>3826317
Yeah, The class isn't anything to write home about, it's not bad but it's not great either. The skill (Rapid Fire as it's called in the newer versions of the game) is worth the 600 ABP you need to grind out the class by itself. As a bonus it also works with magic sword skills too, so you can just imagine hitting a fire vulnerable enemy with 8 attacks of Firaga sword a round. It gets nuts.

>>3826277 (OP)
It wasn't released in English until the PS1 collection which was sadly ass. Essentially, it has little nostalgia factor in the west.

>>3826342
>which was sadly ass.
bro, your Y-burns?

>>3826277 (OP)
the best ff because the protag has a harem

>>3826277 (OP)
>he doesn't know about Dual-Wield Rapidfire Spellblade

>>3826342
Tons of us picked up the series when ff7 came out and then went back to emulate the SNES games, there was a translated ROM of 5 floating around, with the main char as “Butz”. 5 was always one of my favorites because I like the job system.

>>3826277 (OP)
It had interesting mechanics for sure, but let's face facts....
>static sprites
>shitty sprite work
especially the overworld
>world itself wasn't that interesting
>plot wasn't as moving as the other ffs
>pretty hard grind

>>3826356
Krile is top 5 vidya waifu.

>>3826307
I have the same issue with the exp system.
Like the dragon in world 2 that is on that castle in which you have to control it to use its attacks on himself, gives you 2500 exp. Which is the highest exp gain you get.
At least thats how it works on Snes.

>>3826342
The nostalgia lies on being the first ever fan translation project to succeed no?

>>3826488
gotta admit the interdimensional rift was like the best final snes ff area ever imo. atmosphere was just perfect.

>>3826487
>>3826543
I think you're both overestimating general interest in emulation 20 years ago.

>>3826747
I dunno.
In 1999 or so I was already playing FFV so its a childhood nostalgia for me.

>>3826277 (OP)
>Why is this game so underrated?
It isn't. It's literally one of the most replayed Final Fantasy games in the series because people still find enjoyment in the core gameplay mechanics and don't have to feel guilty about skipping through the story scenes.

>>3826747
>I think you're both overestimating general interest in emulation 20 years ago.
What I was describing was closer to 30 than 20 years ago fuck but depends on your definition of "general" I suppose. My circle of computer nerd friends were interested. But games, and computers in general, were more niche and nerdy in the 90s than they are today.

>>3826334
>Though I think this problem could've been avoided by not making freelancer perks as insane as they are.
That was something they added very late in development just because they thought it was cool. While it does unbalance things a bit, honestly I like it—swapping to freelancer/mime before the final dungeon so everyone can go in with all their abilities and snazzy capes just feels fucking awesome. You can absolutely steamroll most of the bosses and enemies, with a few exceptions, and of course shinryu and omega are always a challenge.

I still don't think it's an especially hard game, but I think FF5 has a really fun difficulty curve, especially on a blind/1st playthrough where you don't know the best things to exploit.

>>3826342
>PS1 collection
>Essentially, it has little nostalgia factor in the west.
My favorite bit of trivia about the GBA translation for 5 is that, while 4 and 6 had "fan favorite" lines that were grandathered in (i.e., "spoony bard" and "son of a submariner") 5 had no such legacy in the west, so the localization team specifically took some of Faris' infamously bad, thoroughly detested "pirate speak" lines from the PS1 translation and worked them in.

The amusing thing is that it works—the lightearted tone of the GBA translation makes lines like, "By the briny beard o' Neptune" feel perfectly natural, when properly applied. It's nice that they managed to work in some nostalgia for anyone who might have played the PS1 port, while simultaneously vindicating some of its awful translation, lol.

>>3826307
I find people have an unhealthy fixation on grinding. So many of the complaints I've heard even from fans of FF5 revolve around "OH MY GOD THE GRIND", but did we play the same game? You never have to grind at all, for XP or AP. You shouldn't just be sitting in the same cave, fighting the same enemies for hours just so you can fill up your little job-o-meters. If you WANT to do that, that's on you. And if you're smart, you'll notice a handful of places that do in fact facilitate such grinding.

>>3826487
Even by that point, the game had kind of missed its chance to bank nostalgia the same way that 4 and 6 had. Most people capable of emulating would have likely been teenagers, and as you said, already played FF7/8, and I think those are two things that really undercut the FF5 experience, and it's why it has this reputation of being the "bad story, bad characters, good jobs" game among westerners.

In Japan, people don't say that about FF5. It's legitimately just a fan favorite with no asterisks attached, because most Japanese fans played it in the right place, at the right time, in the right mindset. There's even arguably a cultural component, as Japan was suffering a recession at the time thanks to a refusal to invest in future generations, and generational support and legacy is obviously one of the game's biggest themes—it's a very popular theme in anime/JRPGs in general, but particularly in the 90s, for this very reason.

I think the whole game would have much better reception in the west if people had played it in the early 90s while they were still in grade school. The game's got a lot of heart that I don't think people were much inclined to enjoy after the edge of 7 and 8. Heck, the west was shitting on 9 before it even came out, thanks to the reputation 7 and 8 gave the series.

>>3826935
I like to level my party to Lv99 so low exp did make me sad.
I just feel like the game ends too early if Im barely Lv50 by endgame.
Feel like games like PS1 FF do well and you are like Lv 70, nearly 80 by the end which feels more natural.

>>3826966
>I just feel like the game ends too early if Im barely Lv50 by endgame.
Your obsession with arbitrary numbers is a bit weird, but I kind of agree, if only because of the kickass unicorn summon tha ranger can do, but only at level 60 or above. Even a solo-ranger run has no reason to get up to level 60. But I guess that just makes it a cool little easter egg for obsessive grinders.

>>3826488
yeah but the gameplay is the best in the franchise. 5 and 7 have the best gameplay.

>>3826751
same. This game and SD3 are my childhood.


There is an incredible romhack for this game called 'Final Fantasy V: Void Divergence' that adds 8 new jobs, field elements, brave/default, turns equipment into relics, does a ton of shit. I have never played a game with so many ways to beat an encounter. Its bizarre that no one has played this glorious hack. You get Paladins and Machinist from the first crystal and can play as a Judge later on.

>>3826992
>5 and 7 have the best gameplay.
Probably have to agree with this. 5 is just Square perfecting everything they'd laid down in 1-4, and 7's materia system was pretty revolutionary and is still lots of fun to play with.

>>3826992
>'Final Fantasy V: Void Divergence'
>brave/default
easy pass. Brave/default is such a shitty mechanic. It just feels like min-maxing the very concept of turns themselves—it makes strong abities into godlike abilities, and everything else into a waste of time.

"Do nothing now so you can do 4 things later" is the kind of "innovation" that you get from confused people who think waiting and menus are the appeal of turn-based combat. BD's era was a dark time for JRPGs, for sure.

>>3827003
>it makes strong abities into godlike abilities, and everything else into a waste of time
I think my issue with the bravly default mechanic is that while FFV had some broken abilities that were worth spamming over anything else if you wanted to end battles quickly (mostly dual-wield+x-fight) there were also battles in the late-game that punished you for relying on that, through various immunities and/or counters.

Bravely Default never punishes you for abusing brave/default in any specific way, it's just that sometimes your braves line up with an enemy's defaults or other defensive abilities, and you just end up feeling like you've wasted four turns (you have). There's no sense of push or pull or meaningful strategy. Just waiting and seeing if your instant win button works this time or if you have to try again in four turns.

>>3826277 (OP)
Ranger can actually be pretty decent since it has solid STR and AGI and Bows as a whole tend to have pretty good effects. Later on if you need pure raw damage you can always rely on Knives.

>get past the fire crystal
>drop the game again

it's just not good I don't care what anyone says. it's glib, the class system is without merit and it's an on-rails grind through which no depth is found

>>3827019
Ranger is a fantastic class, really. Especially since bows can crit, and do full damage from the back row. And the random effects from !Animals are pretty fucking GOAT. Nightingale can basically sub for a proper healer up until the late game.

Everyone always says it, but playing a 4 job fiesta will change how you feel about almost every job you roll, in most scenarios. For example, I never thought much of Geomancer, but I rolled it in a fiesta along with Time Mage and White Mage, neither of which have any damaging spells until the very late game. Having them spam !Gaia with their decent magic stats is actually a fairly devastating and MP-free way to plow through random battles. I'm in the merged world and I'm waiting for it to become useless and it's still not.

>>3827029
>And the random effects from !Animals are pretty fucking GOAT. Nightingale can basically sub for a proper healer up until the late game.
Yeah I recently learned to appreciate !Animals way more. Free healing and other nice effects is pretty sweet. Tried it paired with a Geomancer using !Gaia for more MP free abilities, worked out pretty well.

>>3826966
>I just feel like the game ends too early if Im barely Lv50 by endgame.
I was only like high 30s last time I finished the game. Had to use Bard and Chemist to raise my levels artificially to beat Neo Exdeath (Dragon Power, Dragon Fang + Potion combo, kicks ass).

>>3827028
Well that's unfortunate. I like to hear when people enjoy FF5 because it's one of my favorite games and I think it has a lot to appreciate, but I suppose everything can't be for everyone. Maybe try again someday? I know a lot of people who feel the game doesn't "pick up" until you have all the crystals, which is only another few hours from where you are.

>>3827037
Random free abilities are so good to just spam. Way more fun than just spamming attack, that's for sure. Maybe someday I'll level a ranger all the way up to 60 so I can see the Wild Boar and Unicorn.

>>3827039
My only beef with Ranger is I hate bows. Even outside of gameplay reasons, they just don't feel satisfying to attack with compared to other weapon types.

>>3827038
>I was only like high 30s last time I finished the game.
I find this is pretty normal for me on a casual playthrough. My first run ended in the low-to-mid 40s, but I did a lot more exploring/expirimenting/random battling which led to more XP, naturally.

>>3827041
I like them when they crit, but I do agree. I think they need a stronger impact sound. Like when you hit something with an arrow in Link to the Past—a solid THUNK.

>>3827003
>>3827013
Brave and default are there at their core to make not all battles play the same way and it does a reasonable job of doing so. Void Divergence is a better implementation of the mechanic beacuse there are several other overarching mechanics competing for your action economy. Notably bosses being able to magic burst ( ala ff11) off of field elements ( like chrono cross but better implimented )

Some people argue chrono cross was the first version of brave/default though I find its more like action points in early fallout or whatever.

>>3827028
If you are into linear minmaxing you could view it this way. Try playing a fiesta party. The rails are only there because you place them there. There is no spoon(y bard)

>>3827042
Yeah the bow crit is nice at least. Stronger impact sound is exactly what it's lacking, the normal attack feels so weak. Maybe that was intentional, but still.

>>3827047
*weak impact sound plus relatively long animation, if I'm remembering it right

>>3827047
personally Im conditioned to think bows suck in final fantasy because of Rosa. Bowguns always slap in the ivalice games

>>3827044
>Brave and default are there at their core to make not all battles play the same way
Wild, because in BD itself, they made EVERY battle feel exactly the same, to me.
>chrono cross was the first version of brave/default
I can see that. There is sort of that same "dick around now so you can do something more powerful later" vibe, but I guess that's exactly what I don't like. It doesn't seem like meaningful strategy, it just seems like turn decompression. It feels like someone's injecting a fucking anime filler arc into my random battles, lol.

Maybe I'll try that romhack, though. I tried Career Day and wasn't totally impressed, but I still have a sick need for MORE FF5.

>>3827048
>weak impact sound plus relatively long animation, if I'm remembering it right
Yeah, that's the issue for sure. It lasts too long and doesn't hit hard enough for something that's supposed to give the vibe of a targeted projectile attack.

Now whips are a case of the opposite. Outside of the paralysis effect that some of them have they're not particularly amazing or useful, but the animation and sound effects are fast and fun.

>>3827051
>Im conditioned to think bows suck in final fantasy because of Rosa
Really? I loved Rosa AND her bows in FF4. A lot of the time, it's a matter of using the right arrow, though. I remember specifically going out of my way to steal a bunch of arrows from some enemy in the late game, and I don't know how I would have gotten through the final dungeon without them.

I just like that the healer had something to do in random battles that wasn't as pathetic as swinging a staff from the back row. And I love my "healslut with a projectile and bikini armor" archetype.

>>3827056
Rosa is surprisingly tanky too. All time great healer imo. And yeah the right arrows can make her regular attack pretty solid too. Silence Arrows vs. mages is great.

>>3827062
>All time great healer imo
This, to the point that I don't understand how people have trouble with Zeromus. Just stuff that bitch with all the gold/silver apples you have and spam curaja every turn. Works in every version I've played.

Am I supposed to use someone's corpse as bait to defeat Atomos?

>>3827070
That's the way the game probably expects most people to manage it. But he's vulnerable to sleep if you want to cheese him

>>3827056
I too love her aesthetic and persona. FF4 was my first game so maybe I did not utilize her arrows properly.

>>3827053
Personally I want something more than mash attack to win, though its nice to have some random battles that are that simple. Doing the same filler loop over and over is not satisfying though, this I can agree. Strategy comes when you have different ways to invest your time and pay off your investment.

>>3826277 (OP)
Ranger is one of the best classes for being able to hit four times. It's one of the strongest options for a physical attacker. Berserker is not much good for anything.

>>3826307
The game would be better if you got like 33% more AP and 33% less EXP

>>3826277 (OP)
>Why is this game so underrated?
It is generally in the top five of a series that has ten thousand installments and spinoffs.

>>3826277 (OP)
FFV is easily exploited with the right class combinations or even just individual classes (Samurai, Chemist, Beastmaster). There's a popular challenge run called Four Job Fiesta that limits you to one randomly chosen class per crystal that you have to stick to the entire game, using only those jobs and the abilities you can get from them, and all the weaker classes get to shine when you're locked to them.

Other anons have mentioned X-Fight being a pretty good ability, but Berserker isn't that bad either (assuming you ONLY have one Berserker and aren't trying to beat the game with four of them). There's a rare axe drop in one area of the first world, the Death Sickle, which makes the Berserker a great class in World 2. It's got very high attack for the section and a chance to proc instant death, which a surprising number of bosses are not immune to. The class gets an undeservedly bad reputation because of a select couple bosses in World 1 that the class is legitimately better off dead than alive in an FJF, but it's got its niche later on especially in the SNES/PSX versions of the game where you can underflow your magic stat to 255 with certain equipment

My current FJF run has been a real mixed bag with a pretty nasty World 1, Thief/Berserker might be the worst job combination in the game, but Ranger is good and Samurai can 1-2 shot entire bosses by itself so it's all uphill from here. About to fight World 2 Exdeath. In the endgame I'm probably going to use Equip Axes to put the Rune Axe on Thief, underflow my Berserker's magic to deal 9999 damage with the Gaia Hammer, and then put the Chicken Knife on my Ranger because its negative trait doesn't activate when you use it with X-Fight.

>>3826992
>Void Divergence
That's what it was called. The elements system for skills was a "guide always open" addition that made me drop it. I don't have the time or energy to memorize hundreds of attacks hidden elements.

Also brave/default sucks as a mechanic.

I would play a hack of void divergence that removed those & rebalanced around that.

>You get Paladins and Machinist from the first crystal and can play as a Judge later on.
First crystal jobs should be:
* squire - skillset to buff party members by a fixed, non-stacking amount. Otherwise a heavy armor & light armor warrior with good weapon access.
* thief - add improved/more crits passives.
* monk - build up should be innate, kick learnable, chakra powered by stamina.
* blue mage - learn it just by seeing, innate all, and replace the element spells with more weird stuff. Also shields.
* red mage - give time magic, maybe 1 more level of magic, make a dual red skill innate on them that's just red magic. Make dual cast work only with mastered mage jobs.
* Item Mage - make rod breaking & item magic tied to a specific job & skill.

Then put White & Black Mage, and Knight on 2nd crystal.

>>3827039
A random jobs per crystal mod would be nice, along with allowing all jobs to use most passives (not counter or cover) and replacing job stats with minor permanent boosts to stats for each skill you learn & maybe job you master.

Passives that are innate all wouldn't need to be equippable either.

To prevent everyone from mastering all jobs for a full party of minmaxxers, limit everyone to 2 jobs per crystal, not exclusive.

Then if you create a "2 to 3 items per tier" equipment system, and improve earlier access to equipment, it will be almost perfect.

Only thing after that is bugfixes.

>reach a cave with druids and those silver rhino monsters
>they hand out lots of AP

FUCK I CAN'T STOP GRINDING AND MAXING JOBS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>>3826277 (OP)
I love 4, 5 and 6 and how they departed from the earlier era of simplistic storytelling. But I feel Exdeath was left playing second fiddle in his own story compared to Golbez and Kefka.

Cecil, Kain and Golbez had the whole who or what is actually evil switcharoo. Particularly Golbez was fought several times during the plot and Rubicante was both chivalrous and used the power of friendship. Zeromus was introduced and then everyone on the planet joined hands to beat him.

When you first fought Kefka he was basically a mook using a flail. You could see his motivation, evil and growth during the story, culminating in one of the most cinematic boss fights of all time. He supplanted the Emperor as a villain and the World of Ruin part started where earlier Final Fantasy III would have ended.

Exdeath was a tree. He wasn't originally evil but he was turned into darkness. Exdeath had a really memorable scene with Galuf. That's about it. Meanwhile Gilgamesh became a recurring character.

>>3826277 (OP)
The only "advantage" for Berserker, assuming you aren't farming drops or steals, is that it doesn't take too long to master and the stat bonuses it gives are similar to Monk. So, it's an okay job to put your casters through for the stats.

>>3826277 (OP)
Is it? From what I see it's generally well appreciated. You don't get an annual challenge festival if you're under appreciated.

>>3826277 (OP)
Gameplay is good. Story sucks.

>>3826277 (OP)
>Why is this game so underrated?
It's one of the most jerked off FF games, retard

>>3826488
>especially the overworld
>world itself wasn't that interesting
I think this isn't really talked about nearly enough. The world in 5 is weirdly bland and boring and I'm not really sure why it's that way. It shouldn't be considering there's effectively 3 of them but something about it is so uninteresting.

>>3826992
>yeah but the gameplay is the best in the franchise
HMmmmm......IDK man,
>most recent ff7 remake and rebirth were pretty alright combat wise
>the tower system in World of FF was alright
>FF13's everyone is everything but we shift when needed was fun too.

It was the culmination of systems from the four previous games and an excellent model, but I don't think it was the best.

>>3828030
the towns were dull as all heck.
>>3827920
this

>>3826715
I mean it was interesting.

>watching Krile take over Galuf's role and get all the melee tank shit
damn

>>3827039
>know a lot of people who feel the game doesn't "pick up" until you have all the crystals, which is only another few hours from where you are.


It was more than a few hours. I pushed on because of you.

Playing at 2x ABP gain and installing a hardmode mod that doubles the HP of all enemies, increases major enemy stats by 20% or 10% where appropriate, and generally raising the difficulty of the game somewhat on a numerical level did seriously help.
I now feel like I'm actually encountering puzzles and having to engage with the job/ability/equipment system to progress. Using Missile to shave the 6k hp Ghidra and the like.

The story is still ass and even assuming the likely truth that PR is a visual downgrade, it's still woefully ugly against the other two SNES's, FFIV and FFVI. I feel I'm really seeing why this one didn't make it out of Japan.

>>3827482
the always play with a guide open was even more of a thing in his Sins of Mana hack

Machinist is the Item Mage in this hack, so your chemist opening is present.

>>3827494
try the custom classes mod for FF5gba, remixes when you get some jobs and makes others useful ( theives get a very high AP cost dual weild option at the end of their tree for example)

>>3826277 (OP)
zerks are rather powerful in world 1. They cut the more dangerous bosses cannon and archeoaevis into ribbons, so when you're on a fiesta with zerks at least those two are freekill

>>3828344
Sorry anon but I really gotta question why you think FFV looks worse than FFIV. Final Fantasy IV, in its original version, looks like an NES game ported to SNES partway into development (because it is). Are you thinking about later ports which remade a lot of the graphics, especially the backgrounds?

>>3828409
>the always play with a guide open was even more of a thing in his Sins of Mana hack
By the same guy?

>Machinist is the Item Mage in this hack, so your chemist opening is present.
I hate the element shit in Void Divergence

>try the custom classes mod for FF5gba, remixes when you get some jobs and makes others useful ( theives get a very high AP cost dual weild option at the end of their tree for example)
Thieves should get a critical hit rate boost passive imo, and an evade boost passive.

>>3828524
yeah by the same guy

When will Lena come back?

>>3829320
4th party member returns after the dungeon

>>3828344
FFV is clearly better looking than IV and doesn't have the problem where a quarter of its enemy sprites are ugly.

>>3827824
I dunno. I think Golbez, Kefka, and Exdeath are all prettty dry and perfunctory as JRPG villains go, but it's unfair of you to artifically extrappolate depth from the two former and not the latter.

If you pay attention, there are certainly little tidbits in FFV that hint at Exdeath being a sympathetic villain, and it makes his story a sort of negative parallel to the heroes themselves, with Gilgamesh serving as a nexus between the two. It's certainly a lot more meaningful integration than Kefka gets.

>>3827920
>Gameplay is good. Story sucks.
Why is it only baka gaijin who feel this way?

>>3829436
FFV story is glib. The number of story beats that are coincidental "suddenly"s and resolved by "this winddrake moves at the speed of plot"s doesn't help.

>>3829442
>plays JRPGs
>complains about deus ex machina
Even more hilarious given that, thematically speaking, the wind drake being a deus ex machina is kind of the whole point. If you think FF5's story is "glib", you're saying more about yourself than the game, really.

>mfw anons are seriously arguing about the plot of a game for children that I played and enjoyed more than a quarter-century ago
What's next, Chex Quest's lack of immersion and reactivity?

>>3829445
Both of its SNES counterparts aren't glib. Just FFV is.

>>3829450
"Glib" implies there is no depth or sincerity behind what happens in the plot, which would make FF5, objectively, the least "glib" of those games. Of course, the fact that you can't understand the importance of the Wind Drake and just think it's dumb that it shows up to save everyone all the time is basically you self-reporting that you're incapable of thematic analysis, so you shouldn't really be tossing a word like "glib" around just because your English teacher wrote it on the last essay you half-assed.

>>3829457
>thematic analysis
lmao

>>3829459
It's just hilariously poetic that you specifically bitched about the wind drake showing up to save you all the time, when it does so for a very clear and intentional reason. It's the same reason its theme is reprised for the staff credits. And the same reason it's front and center in the game's official logo. If you were capable of thematic analysis, you'd know that reason. I know literacy in the west is falling, but yikes.

>>3829472
>yikes
Stopped reading here

>>3829472
that's just cope after a terrible script of characters stumbling into each other and random stuff pulling the player out of the stakes constantly. I'm constantly rolling my eyes, from turtle sage quipping about eating pizza to whirlpool-ate-my-ship let's use the dartboard to figure out how we teleport to the next scene again.

>>3829479
>from turtle sage quipping about eating pizza
Localization issue One I liked, though maybe the GBA translation being miles better than the PSX one biased me

>>3829479
None of that has to do with whether or not the story is glib, I'm sorry. Learn words before you repeat them. It makes it hard to take you seriously.

>>3829492
the goofy showdown between teleporting exdeath and the turtle you just met not bothering you tells all. getting cutaways to exdeath mustache twirling from his lair saturday morning cartoon style later doesn't help

it's completely ass. it's glib, it's stupid, it all comes off as poorly stuck together excuses to drag the player around the world map until game time concludes.

FF5 has a good spell list maybe the best one in the series, some good RPG mechanics, some interesting battles, a party of jobs and abilities to manage, etc. but it's story is pooooo

>>3829495
>something goofy happens
>that means the story is bad
You have to be 18 to post here. Don't forget to work on your summer reading.

>>3829501
>something goofy happens
that's the whole story

>>3829518
I'm sorry that happened to you.

>>3829472
Lena/Rina partners with the wind drake in digimon world redigitize

>>3829472
I actually rememeber a note in the FF Ultimania books from sakaguchi about how the wind drake was "emblematic" or something like that. Never figured it out because it had been years since I played the game.

>>3827916
>You don't get an annual challenge festival if you're under appreciated.
FF5 earned its annual challenge specifically on the merit of its gameplay alone. In the context of its own franchise and JRPGs as a whole, it's still a very under-appreciated game, especially given how good it is.

the fact that retards in the west still parrot this >>3827920 is proof that the game is under appreciated.

>>3828344
>that fucking filter
holy shit anon, nobody should trust you in matters of taste

>>3826945
I love FF7 but it negatively impacted western gamers opinions on rpg stories for decades afterwards. I coined it "FF7 syndrome", and it was REALLY noticeable in the late 90's and early 2000's. Metal gear solid had the same effect, essentially creating this group of gamers aged 8-25 that ONLY liked that particular game in the series/genre. I directly blame FF7 for things like FF9 and Grandia 3 being absolutely shat on at the time of release (and even continuing on to this day) because they decided to go for less edgy stories about revenge against a shonen antagonist and try their hand at romance, character growth and adventure.

It's one thing to prefer darker and edgier stories, it's another to actively shit on anything that isn't FF7 or MGS1. An interesting cultural moment that can still be felt to this day.

>>3829571
Fake scanline filters are gay but also pic rel. If it's able to do a good enough job emulating real scanlines then it's worth using.

>>3829572
>I directly blame FF7 for things like FF9 and Grandia 3
Is Grandia 3 actually good? It's on my radar because I played and loved 1 and 2, but 3 is the one I've openly heard the most bad shit about. But, like you said, sometimes a very small pool of opinions from a specific point in time can shape the discourse for an entire game for years to come. Heck, it's one of the biggest reasons I slept on FF5 for so long, because dolts kept parroting the "jobs good; story bad" idiocy from folks who emulated or played the PS1 version after having played FF7 in the late 90s. Then I tried it and it had one of the most charming, heartfelt, and effectively-communicated stories I've ever played. But it's the kind of thing that an American teenager in 1999 would have been literally incapable of grasping.

>>3829576
Look, I'm a stickler for original hardware and play pretty much everything on an old CRT just for that comfy nostalgia aesthetic, but the issue with the image on the left isn't that it's emulated or has no filter—it's that it's been blown up 1000 times bigger than it's supposed to ever be displayed.

>>3829582
Grandia 3 is extremely good. Imo it's better than 2, and I played both back to back as an adult with no nostalgia.
>heard the most shit about 3
I also nearly didn't start 3 because i read all the fans of 1 and 2 shitting on it online. Grandia 3 is hated because it's about finding love, and growing your own wings, which the ff7 crowd find too "kiddy" and treat it "like a filler arc bro". I knew people were cracked when they all told me that when you get the plane the game gets bad, and it turns out it's the exact opposite. Amazing story, best gameplay in the series, easily a 9/10 game. All 3 are amazing JRPG's though. My rating is 3>2>1

>>3829597
That's cool, anon. I'll definitely give it a try, then.

>Grandia 3 is hated because it's about finding love, and growing your own wings, which the ff7 crowd find too "kiddy"
I feel like all of the Grandia games have a strong theme of growth at their core, but people suck at actually reading the themes of a story and instead judge them superficially. Grandia 2, in particular, has a very "edgy" veneer, which people liked, but the story underneath is about some traumatized kid getting in touch with his emotions and learning to feel compassion again. Everyone always praises Ryudo being a dick, but nobody ever really mentions that the whole plot of the game is him learning not to be a dick, lol.

I think this accounts for a lot of "media illiteracy" when it comes to the west interpreting stories from Japan. Japan loves themes of friendship and support and people growing together, which are the kinds of things western consumers immediately write off as useless fluff. Westerners resonate more strongly with tales of "rugged individualism", so if a story doesn't have constant complex drama relating directly to a protagonist's physical journey (which is the case with FFV) then their brains clock out.

>>3829615
but ff7 literally has a plot about a guy going on an emotional journey with help from his friends. if westerners don't resonate with that, why was it popular?

>>3829625
Because from a super basic surface level (i.e, the perspective of your average stoned teenager in 1997) the story of FF7 is about a really cool looking guy going on a revenge journey with his hot female friends and bad ass arm gun man bestie to kill another cool looking guy. If there was a bunch of text about cloud's emotional journey on screen you'd use that time to roll a joint or have a cigarette or read playboy LOL So you can see how easy it is to ignore the finer points. Just like in Grandia 2, if you're (and i hate this term but it's so descriptive) media illiterate it's really easy to ignore the actual story and think it's about an edgy guy who tells the pope to stuff it going on a quest to kill a bad ass evil god thing with a hot demon chick, and then your only complaint about it would be "bro why didn't get get to bang elena AND millenia huh????" And that's IF you actually beat the game. You'd be shocked how many FF7 super fans haven't even finished the game.

>>3829571
PR has two modes: pixelated garbage and pixelated garbage pseudo-AAed into obscured pixelated garbage. I chose the second option. There's no saving it. I bought FFV PR as a bundle- it was a mistake, I wouldn't recommend. I was tricked in with Nobuo Uematsu's rearrangements in the FF2 PR.

I do the real deal for GOAT FF games like FF6 and FF8.

Progress: I got the fourth tablet and couldn't figure out where to go for the third tablet until just now, lol

>>3829632
this is one of the most insightful posts on why FF7 is simultaneously so worshipped and misunderstood

>>3829632
I was basically typing up this exact same post, lol.

>You'd be shocked how many FF7 super fans haven't even finished the game.
I knew a lot of people who dropped the game when Cloud lost his marbles and was in a wheelchair because they thought it was emasculating to the hero. I specifically remember one kid in my class who started bashing the game when he got to the scene in Cloud's subconscious because it turned out Cloud was a delusional liar and a fraud and "not a hero". But again, that's IF people even payed attention to the damn dialogue at that point.

Honestly, I didn't play VII until about 2015, and the false memory plot twist was completely unspoiled for me, because despite being one of the biggest revelations in the game and the most important thing about Cloud's character, it's something nobody in the west really talked about because they either didn't like it, or literally didn't even understand it. The phenomenon of FF7 fans who fundamentally misunderstand everything about FF7 and its characters is surreal.

>>3829435
Golbez is exponentially, exponentially, more sympathetic than ExDeath. You’re a retard.

>>3829649
Eh. They're about the same. It all depends which one you obsess over most so you can inject the most meaning into them.

Except Kefka, because the game doesn't even tell you whether he had his brain boiled by magitek willingly or not. Kefka literally just exists as a counterpoint to the concept of "hope".

>>3829656
>im evil because of what was done to me
>im evil because my mind has been taken over by the ancient enemy of my race
No. Not even close.

>>3829639
Appreciate it. Having had to weather a lot of FF7 fan flak against games I've enjoyed (like ff9 and grandia 3), it's made me spend a decent bit of time thinking about FF7 syndrome and what would have caused it. More people seem aware of this phenomenon now a days, but because FF7 is old enough to have finally outlived it's hype the discussion doesn't really have a place online anymore so we never got our vindication LOL. Funnily enough more people visit and love the games FF7 fans derided while FF7 ages worse every year.

And for the record I love FF7, it really was a great game.

>>3829642
>kids in class start bashing the game when they get to clouds actual character arc
I remember people would actually tell you that YOU didn't understand the game if you interpreted Cloud's false memories correctly. It makes sense why so many people would claim "such and such jrpg was good until the ending" because 9 times out of 10 the ending forces the player to acknowledge the actual story underneath the aesthetics of the game, and then they'd pretend the "story did a complete 180" at the end when all it did was reach it's linear conclusion (STARING AT FINAL FANTASY 7 AND GRANDIA 2) all because they were not paying attention.

>wheelchair cloud mindbreak
I remember the insane mental gymnastics "cool guy gamers" would do to explain cloud cross dressing (or outright ignoring it) and the other sillier aspects of the game. The same types would usually have a complete meltdown if they played an rpg with a romance plot (FF8 made a lot of upset teenagers in the late 90's)

>>3826930
why doesn't japan make these anymore.

>>3829755
they made 3 bravely games specifically for you

>>3829669
I originally agreed with you, but when you actually put it like that, the former sounds way more sympathetic, lol.

>>3829755
No idea. A friend who knows I'm obsessed with the game bought me a japanese player's guide and it started me down the rabbit hole of hunting for them because a lot of them have unique art that was commissioned that I've never seen anywhere else.

>>3829649
>Golbez is exponentially, exponentially, more sympathetic than ExDeath

"lol, I was mind controlled the entire game by someone else who wasn't even hinted" is a lame cop-out.

It was sloppy in 4 and very sloppy in 8.

and yet not the worst attempt at gardening sympathy for a badguy, FF15 had that "honor" with all the retcons in Episode Ardyn that are refincored in the, officially published by Square, true ending novel Dawn to the Future

>>3830138
>>3829755
This latest one I got even has a section in the back that shows you how to recreate songs from the OST in Mario Paint. Japan's video game merch is so charming.

exdeath was a big hideously angry evil tree that wanted to erase everything for reasons.

ff5fags want you to believe that you can't more sympathetic than that.

>>3830145
I like Exdeath's design and him going full dbz against a turtle

>>3830145
>wanted to erase everything for reasons.
Exdeath didn't actually want to erase everything until the power of the void consumed him. The way people misunderstand even basic and obvious plot points from the game makes it hard to take their criticisms seriously.

The biggest thing that makes Exdeath sympathetic over Golbez is that Golbez got a chance to explain and redeem himself. Exdeath had the entire course of his life decided for him, and once the void consumed the last of his physical form, he simply yearned for death.

>>3830148
>Exdeath didn't actually want to erase everything until the power of the void consumed him.
>Exdeath had the entire course of his life decided for him

where the fuck are you getting this shit

>>3830153
his retarded headcanon, anon.

>>3830153
I played the game and paid attention. Try it sometime ;^)

>>3829682
>then they'd pretend the "story did a complete 180" at the end when all it did was reach it's linear conclusion
lmao, I remember the reviews of FF7 from GameFan magazine saying basically the same, or complaining about how bad the latter half of the plot "dropped the ball". It was especially bad since that magazine's entire staff was emotionally brain-dead Gen-X teenagers, lol.

>>3829669
>im evil because my mind has been taken over by the ancient enemy of my race
Wow, can we go one day without anti-Semitism on this board please? This is a debunked conspiracy theory.

>>3830153
his ass

>>3829682
>other sillier aspects of the game.
A good litmus test for whether or not someone "gets" FF7 is just to ask their opinion on Cait Sith, lol. Some people were so brainbroken that such a silly-looking character was even in the game.

I remember a fan project from 20 years ago that was going to attempt to completely patch Cait Sith out of the game and replace him with a new human character named "Iscar" based on Judas Iscariot, in order to emphasize his betrayal arc or whatever. I feel like these people didn't even acknowledge or register that Cait Sith was always just Reeve, and he already goes on a redemption arc, and has a lot of great moments, especially in the late game.

He didn't need to be "fixed" at all—they just saw a silly cat on a fat moogle and got fucking ANGERY that he wasn't "cool".

>>3830162
kek

>>3830166
>FF7 is just to ask their opinion on Cait Sith

benchwarmer

>>3830170
>he's too much of a pussy to use the slots
sasuga

>>3830172
if the slots didn't have a chance of a game over, I would use them more.

same reason why I avoided Setzer in 6

>>3830173
Yeah, that's what I said—you're a pussy.

>>3826277 (OP)
Another fantastic aspect of FFV is the music. Beyond the obvious Battle at the Big Bridge it has bangers like these
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrKpVJ1_PP8
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE_F72I5xDI
But let's be honest, the plot and characters are nothing to write home about

>>3830209
>But let's be honest, the plot and characters are nothing to write home about
The plot is fairly straightforward, but I'd argue that's true of both 4 and 6 as well. The difference with FF5 is that all of the drama revolves around you having compassion for the characters, and having compassion for the characters requires not being an illiterate sociopath, which basically every western teenager has been for the past 30 years.

>>3830143
That is insanely ludo what the fuck??

>>3830143
japanese kids are so lucky man

>>3830153
exdeath is based as fuck in dissidia

i know there were snippets of FFV artwork on twitter from months or years ago from magazines they shared. i remember it dealt with the endgame bosses at interdimensional.

>>3830395
>japanese kids are so lucky man
I was jealous when I found out that they used to get comprehensive art books and even complete OSTs on CD available at the same time as the game's release. I would have KILLED for that kind of shit as a kid. I almost always collected player's guides just for the art, and I used to put my computer mic right up to my TV to try and record game music so I could listen to it later.

Some games even got arranged albums by the original composers within a year of release. Fuckin OC Remixes in the early 90s, lol. The FFV one is good, but there's an acid jazz Chrono Trigger album and a "Secret of Mana +" album that are absolutely fucking goat. I only own FFV stuff, physically, though.

>>3830560
>snippets of FFV artwork on twitter from months or years ago from magazines they shared
Was this on the official FF twitter? I'll have to go look.
>i remember it dealt with the endgame bosses at interdimensional
Was this one of the pics? It's the only one in my collection that focuses on the interimensional rift.

In terms of FFV at least, the JP guides seem to have a code of honor about not showing the final boss or any of the ending. I've got several books, and there isn't a single picture of NeoExdeath. Even TreeoExdeath is only hinted at in the background in picrel.

>>3830775
Might as well post more of my shit if anyone is interested. The "official" player's guide is broken up into three volumes, which seems to be somewhat common. One is a walkthrough, one is an in-depth strategy guide that breaks down all the game mechanics, and one is just lore about the settings and characters.

I translated a lot of the text with google eye. Some of it is kind of interesting. This page explains rotor flywheel system that allows the airship to hover without moving, and that the cannons are non-functional, ornamental antiques (hence why your party couldn't use them to destroy the Sol Cannon on the flying city)

>>3830779
A look at Faris' pirate ship. One of the blurbs here points out that the front is battered and scarred from Syldra's fins and tail hitting it.

Honestly if I had this kind of material as a kid, I would have suffered an autism overdose. I've always loved these kinds of pointless details.

>>3830781
From a different, stand-alone "Adventure Guide", which had a bunc of commissioned art in a style I really love. Cid in particular looks fucking rad here.

>>3830783
Not sure what the top two panels are, but it looks like Exdeath absorbing the void, or vise-versa? This is one of the few pieces of art I've seen for Exdeath at all.

Bartz is shown with the Sylphs here to match his wind element. Love the little details.

>>3830787
I love how immediately recognizable every one of these moments is to me. I gather I obsess over this game more than most, but for having a "bad" story, I think it has tons of memorable moments that endear the characters to the player. As long as you're not completely dead inside, I guess.

I really think this game needs a remake just so all these scenes can get ravamped in full 3D so normies can finally see them how I see them.

>>3830138
I don't know why I cut off Bartz in this pic. His maniacal Geomancer look is GOAT. I love that having fun drawing FF5 characters in their adorable job costumes has been a tradition since the very beginning.

These guides are all extremely comprehensive to a level that even the highest-rated GameFAQs walkthrough would be jealous of, but even the game's pack-in manual was a trove of info.

I don't know if this was common in JRPG or FF games, but the entire manual is printed on a single, fold-out sheet so you can reference everything at a glance. Details about every job and ability are right there. I miss manuals so much, bros.

The "rarest" thing in my FFV swag stash is this complete trading card collection from Bandai I think? They did promotional crossovers with all kinds of popular games/movies/anime/manga, and trading cards were only available in packs of 4 from official vending machines, typically for the span of a year or so around the target media's release date. They'd even set up official events where you could meet and trade.

Not sure who did this artwork for all the items and equipment, as it doesn't match any of the other offical artist styles. I have them all in one of my other guides, but these are the biggest versions of them I've seen.

>>3830795
The cool part is that the cards themselves function as an ersatz player's guide—on the back, the item cards tell you where to find/buy/steal them, the town cards give you shop info, the job cards give you stat and ability info, and there are even combo cards that give you advice for combining jobs.

The back of the fat chocobo summon card humorously suggests that he returned in FFV as a summon to take out his frustration after losing his job as inventory managment in the last game, lol. Most of the other summons have descriptions that read like Pokedex entries. Very cool.

>>3828080
>the towns were dull as all heck.
I think the towns were only "dull as heck" in the same way that most JRPG towns were circa 1992, since re-using NPCs and tile-sets was the norm. But if you actually talk to people regularly, you'll realize that everyone's dialogue updates to reflect plot events rather frequently, as well as giving you info of varying usefulness.

One of my favorite little bits was the dude in the bar in Carwen who sees the king's wind drake flying to north mountain near the beginning of the game, and his wife thinks he's crazy/hallucinating. Then toward the end of the game, the tables are turned when his wife sees Bahamut fly up to that same mountain. These are the sorts of little details that make a game memorable. To me, anyway.

But I agree. I think the towns themselves could stand with a bit more flavor. It's one of the reasons I'd love to see a remake. Give each town its own variation on music and some distinct arcitecture and it would really help them stand out.

>>3830803
>you'll realize that everyone's dialogue updates to reflect plot events rather frequently, as well as giving you info of varying usefulness.
I personally love how you get the flashback cutscenes for Lenna and Faris by returning to Tycoon at points when it makes sense. The first is after you find the King's wind drake (one of the retainers in Walse will also hint you should return there, but only this time), the next is after Lenna and Faris find out they're sisters, and the last is after the king dies.

I gather a lot of people missed one or more of these cutscenes, especially the last since the window to get it before you leave the first world is so small, but I just treated the characters in the game like actual people and I thought, "Hey, I should revisit these guys to tell them what happened", and even though that's obviously not something I should have logically expected to do, I was rewarded for it each time.

And really, Lix is probably one of the greatest towns in any JRPG, period. Aside from the GOAT music, the way it does passive character-building for Bartz, yet is completely missable, is kind of awesome. There's a strong argument that being missable is, itself, part of Bartz's development, since his whole thing is that he's afraid to get attached to people and places.

His hometown is right there, but he never expresses a need or want to visit, even after you have the means to do so. But once you show up, you learn all about his past, everyone remembers him fondly and is happy to see him, the shops are half-price and the inn is free. It's probably one of the most effective representations of "home" I've ever seen in a video game, and the fact that it's tucked away, never mentioned, and you're never directed there just makes it charmingly relevant to the game's theme in a huge way.

>>3830787
who are those fairies

>>3830775
i think it was from someone i was following.

I want a TAY style sequel either starring Pretz or Bartz's descendants before him

holy shit i think i found it

>>3830779
>that the cannons are non-functional, ornamental antiques (hence why your party couldn't use them to destroy the Sol Cannon on the flying city)
For what purpose.
But thanks anon, this is pretty cool. 3 and 4 had similar guides (though 3's didn't have unique artwork).

i would love to kickstart an old ff guides artbook that showcases various works from other magazines.

>>3830997
It says right there, "ornamental"

>>3831033
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRAhdFMMQVg

>>3830987
This is from the FF5 "Adventure Guide", the big book on the left in picrel. There are little one or two panel gag comics like that for just about every boss fight in the game. It's super adorable.

>>3831004
Totally. Amano's art is gorgeous and all, but there's so much other stuff out there that is slowly getting lost to time.

>>3830985
Any idea where this is from? Seems to be the same artist that was commissioned for the "Adventure Guide", but that art is definitely not in this book. Unless my copy is missing a page or something.

>>3830985
Just found it in a twitter post here, along with another piece of art I don't recognize.

https://x.com/tomaayu/status/1825750995869274370

The tweeter says the artist is Yuko Ishizuka. Googling the name only turns up a couple of listings for a Romancing Saga 3 guide they also did art for. Looks like I've got more hunting to do.

>>3830987
>>3831236
>There are little one or two panel gag comics like that for just about every boss fight in the game. It's super adorable.

Here's a slideshow of all the art and comics from the book, if you're interested.
https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm2615240

And another slideshow of Yuko Ishizuka's FF5 art from an unknown source. The hunt continues.
https://www.nicozon.net/player.html?video_id=sm4034946

>>3830975
This picture is really depressing, in context.

>>3830977
I enjoyed the Legend of the Crystals anime and think it has a wonderful aesthetic, and a plot based on aliens trying to steal Cid's brain is good, zany fun, but I personally don't consider it canon because I just don't like the idea of Mid getting murdered while standing over Cid's grave. It's just too grim for the tone of the game. FFV has a lot of characters dealing with loss, but it never just kills people off for shock value like that. Plus I feel like Krile really bonds with Cid and Mid and she's had enough loss in her life.

Personally, I'd prefer a prequel about how the Warriors of Dawn met. From what we see of these guys in the game, I get the feeling they're a really cheeky bunch and they'd make fun main characters.

>>3831278
>Mid getting murdered while standing over Cid's grave.
Also, Mid's had a hard enough life too. According to the official lore guide, his mother left his father because he spent too much time in his lab, then his father died in a lab explosion, which is how Mid ended up with Cid in the first place. I could maybe abide Cid's death just because he's old, but the little dude doesn't deserve to get greased by aliens before he even touches a booby.

>>3831237
>>3831240
>>3831255
It's a shame none of this art is official. I like Yoshitaka Amano's stuff, but this aesthetic suits the tone of the game and characters so much better. A remake using this art style would be so perfect.

>>3830793
Just wanted to state that the booklet for FF Anthology had nearly this exact set of stuff posted in it too (in english ofc), I don't have it on me atm but I'm sure a copy of it is posted on the web somewhere

how come V is the only fantasy to get an animation adaptation?

>>3831316
everyone loved ff5 in japan, you can go to any retro retailer there and get well maintained snes ff5 cartridges for 110 yen. I think its a really charming game that can be well represented by that, whereas something like ff7 is a lot more gritty in comparison.

>>3831316
I wouldn't call Legend of the Crystals an "adaptation". If you got rid of Mid—who's only there as an exposition conduit—and all the name drops, it's effectively a stand-alone project that has nothing to do with FFV at all.

But to answer your question, FFV was just a big deal in japan. It was the first time the FF series really had a bonafide hit to rival the likes of Dragon Quest. As I recall, the publishing company that handled all of the official printed media for FF (manga, guides, etc.) wanted to do an OVA with Madhouse studios, and Square simply suggested basing it on 5 because they all thought it was their best work at the time.

Also, FFVII literally got a feature-length movie that was a direct sequel to the game, as well as the Last Order OVA, both of which I'd consider more straightforward "adaptations" than what Legend of the Crystals is to 5.

>>3831332
All of that said, I do like the ways the anime homages the game. It works some of the OST into the score here and there, and I like that the first episode follows the opening of the game, in spirit—the hero saves a traveling girl from monsters, then they steal a pirate ship to get to the wind shrine, lol.

I'm also a big fan of the end credits sequence. The artwork is gorgeous (I'd love to get an HD print of picrel) and starting at about 1:00, the ending theme REALLY sounds like a song that could have been in the game. They got that Uematsu bassline down pat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLygM360Nuc

>>3831322
>you can go to any retro retailer there and get well maintained snes ff5 cartridges for 110 yen
I bought a complete in-box copy in great shape on ebay for all of 25 bucks, lol. But in my experience, this is just the case for most old Japanese games. They took care of their shit.

>>3831336
Also this logo is fucking GOAT.

>>3829518
Is not that the whole point of Kefka, tho?
He's was this mustache-twirling, evil for the sake of evil, laughing at maximum volume jerk. The only "depth" of him is that ultimately he won and realized how small and futile is the existence... which is literally no different from Ex-Death - he also "won" by reaching the void and after merging with it (although unwillingly) started rambling about how everything, including his own existence, must disappear.

Kefka and Ex-Death are more similar to each other than not. Both started as evil villains with the depth of a puddle that got exactly what they wanted and just realized that it fucking sucks. Kefka's fun of tormenting people ended being pointless and boring when he was a God to everyone else being insects, meanwhile Ex-Death ended being torn apart and (probably very painfully) messed up by the powers he craved.

>>3831343
>Kefka and Ex-Death are more similar to each other than not.
I've been saying this forever. The only reason Kefka got memed into being some intricate, compelling villain in the west is because people played his game when they were 12 and thought it was so cool and edgy that he literally killed people on screen then laughed. It was a case of "babby's first actual bad guy", lol.

Along with all the good points you made, Kefka and Exdeath exist simply to oppose the values of the heroes—Kefka is there to shit on the concept of hope, and Exdeath represents a big problem that can't just be kicked down the road for the next generation to deal with. Both are ultimately plot devices to give the heroes a reason to embody the themes of their games (hope and family, respectively).

I'm gonna get called a schizo for talking about this stuff again, but it's so fucking transparent. It's fairy tale-tier morality.

>>3831348
>Kefka is there to shit on the concept of hope
I know this isn't an FF6 thread, but I love the scene before the final battle where Kefka is all, "Have you found any joy in this nearly-dead world of yours!?" and each party member you have stands up and tells Kefka, "Yes, I have." For all his alleged depth, Kefka really only exists to be told to fuck off. It's perfect.

>>3831343
I don't disagree on the analysis of Kefka and Exdeath similarities but the whole plot of FFVI is much better and more seriously managed.

>>3831359
>the whole plot of FFVI is much better and more seriously managed.
People always compare the plot of V with it's contempararies by saying vague things like this, but never really give any specifics. The actual main plot of VI is pretty sparse, and honestly poorly-paced compared to V. Both plots are roughly the same in terms of depth and complexity, though. Where the games differ is how they explore their characters.

In both games, very little character drama is actually interwoven in the main plot in any meaningful way. It's just that VI is more cinematic and flamboyant in exploring its emotions, but that's to be expected for a game two years newer, I think. Honestly, the jump between IV and V is much bigger.

>>3827068
Zeromus is easy when you realize that he counters offensive magic and that's the reason why Rydia can be geared physically (and be competent at it)

>>3831369
>Honestly, the jump between IV and V is much bigger.
this. FF5 was the first game with comprehensive emotes for the character sprites. There were only about 24 different overworld sprites for each character, but using them cleverly at the right moment can convey a lot of emotion. next time you play the game, actually pay attention to what the sprites are doing with each line of dialogue.

>dat moment when Cid is so ashamed of being responsible for the crystal tech that he literally cowers out of Lenna's line of sight
FF5 Cid is peak, I don't care what any of you say.

One of my favorite things about the anime sequel was that when it showed a flashback to "The Light Warriors", Cid and Mid were part of the team, too.

>>3831369
events in FF6 are actually driven by the choices and motivations of the characters, not "it was a teleporter" and "it was a whirlpool" and "kefka/exdeath teleports in to harass you again" and "we were sisters/grandpas/sons all along"

From the very outset, Locke sees his past in Terra's condition and Edgar is looking for a way to counter the aggressions of the empire- and also finds himself fumbling at his usual ways because Terra is a big knot of trauma and mixed identity. Everything is spinning on people's personal motivations that pit them against the Empire- before it gets even more serious. It's leagues ahead of FFV's plot in that way.

The reason why people are "vague" about describing the comparisons is because the differences are so obvious they really shouldn't need spelling out.

>FF5
>Underrated
When will you fags stop regurgitating that nonsense. It is literally a fan favorite by anyone who is beyond the level of casual.

>>3831442
6 has mediocre gameplay due to mandatory low level run until you get your entire party in WoR & an esper that boosts speed, unbalanced esper spell availability, infinite super relics, level playing too large a role in damage, magic stat being op even for warriors like Sabin, unbalanced skills, Gau being guide required, enemies being piss easy - all sorts of dumb shit.

It really takes me out of the game.

FFV is much more balanced. If you just waltz through the game without much grinding you'll be challenged. This lets you enjoy the plot, which is simple but not bad. Complexity isn't always good. Drama & infighting isn't always good. Sometimes you just want a vanilla ice cream cone.

Currently doing a playthrough of FFV right now and I forgot how barebones the story is.
>Exdeath is just evil because he is evil.
>goofy shit like Exdeath turns himself into a splinter and Krile never takes it out and that's how he comes back
>the party is rescued due to miracle after miracle after miracle
>let's go into the tree that has seals to stop Exdeath and destroy the seals
>Bartz is overshadowed vastly by everyone else as a character and serves mostly as comic relief for a majority of the story
I don't know what anyone is saying about the stories between V and VI but VI blows it out the water by miles.

>>3831353
>For all his alleged depth, Kefka really only exists to be told to fuck off.
Ironically adding to his depth. It's the same way how he never shuts up and even his final boss song is singing his name while he laughs. The second he's defeated he's dead silent. Really just shits on his ideology and emphasizes how people giving a damn is the true point. Exdeath is evil because he was a tree that was evil. While I agree the generational push theme >>3831348 mentioned adds to him, its kind of diminished when you watch the Dawn Warriors having no other choice but to seal him due to time constraints. Compared to Kefka who's entire role in the story constantly emphasizes how fickle everything is through every action he takes, there's a major difference between the two and Kefka earns his claim to fame.

>>3831571
that's what I've been saying here. these FFVfags have been hitting me with some outrageous arguments to the contrary

You know lord of the rings 2 was also going to be about an evil tree. HOHOHOHOHOHO

>>3831556
FF6 has the brave new world patch which I think brings the gameplay to be up to the same level as the presentation. I agree that based FF6 has really pisspoor gameplay which tends to offend people who owned the FF3 cartridge topkek

>>3831571
>Exdeath is just evil because he is evil.
No, he's evil because lots of evil spirit were sealed inside him, that's how he became sentient. I don't think FFV has a particularly good story but you're wrong on that.

>>3832076
Brave New World suffers from the "make every fight a puzzle" disease. Return of the Dark Sorcerer is better despite some mediocre art. Modding it is a waste of time.

>>3832122
To me that still feels the same. He's evil because he was made evil. It's still just shallow.

>>3832076
this poster is 100% correct
>>3832129
>"make every fight a puzzle"
that's a good thing when they're good puzzles, which they are.

>>3832423
The version I played had counter-counter-counters. I wait for enemy to attack, I counter, they counter, they die, they death-counter

>>3832595
And?
Fight attacks (even through counter) naturally trigger enemy counter attacks. Don't hit them with Fight attacks- or whatever that triggers their counter. Or do, and be prepared to weather the damage.
There's a couple different ways to deal with death-counters, especially with mute/imp etc.

FFVI had very robust battle scripting abilities but went heavily underused. That robust battle scripting abilities came from improving on FFV, which has a strong dozen or more puzzle fights with its battle scripting. Brave New World essentially just cooks the undercooked parts of FFVI because it was rushed for time. Other than a bit of bonus content, Brave New World is something I could imagine Square having upgraded FFVI into themselves back then if they had 3 more months of development.

>>3832609
They hit me, I counter, this kills them, they counter, they death counter.

They get 3 hits for 1 that I do.

Am I just supposed to use bio blast the entire game & have everyone else defend, you autistic freak?

Do you think I want to worry about some worthless mob like I do about bosses?

BNW is a tedium maximization mod with elements of difficulty maximization.

>>3832869
You could try using your brain.

>>3829501
Imagine getting so triggered with a single criticism that you can't counter so you throw a completely unrelated insult.
Sounds like you are the one who needs to grow up, kek

>>3826277 (OP)
Clearly not underrated, it's just the story has no further potential compared to the others like 4,6,7,10

>>3832881
You should try labeling your difficulty mod correctly. And behave in a less lolcowish manner in your discord server before you get a thread.

>>3832869
>>3832895
your complaint doesn't even make sense, you're just not using your head at all while playing.
I combined BNW with 2x enemy ATB speed because BNW on its own is so absolutely not a hardmode mod.

>>3831442
>now we have an FF6 schizo
neat

>>3832122
>No, he's evil because lots of evil spirit were sealed inside him, that's how he became sentient.
Wrong, actually. He was sentient before the spirits. It's hard to take people's opinions on FF5 seriously when most can't even accurately recall the details of the game.

I think the whole notion of FF5 having a "weak" story is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People go into the game not expecting much so they shut their brains off and don't pick up on any of the complexity.

>>3832996
>when most can't even accurately recall the details of the game
Wow, he’s literally me
>t. fond memories of emulating it 25+ years ago

>>3831556
The drama of FFV is centered around the fact that every member of your party either is or realistically faces the threat of becoming alone, which is why the epilogue is framed by Krile wondering if she still has a family. I know the "power of friendship" trope is fairly bog standard in the genre so people tend to overlook it, but FF5 really handles it masterfully.

I think it all clicked for me when I noticed how the heroes always helped eachother up off the ground whenever they got knocked down. The game is full of small but intentional details that resonate with each other.

everyone likes the gameplay and hates the story but I actually like the story more than the gameplay. gameplay is fun and all but what makes me really enjoy FFV is the story, characters and adventure.

>>3827068
>This, to the point that I don't understand how people have trouble with Zeromus.
1. Zeromus has a much higher level/HP check than many other bosses. He attacks in a relentless cycle of heavy AoE and dispel.
2. The way "relative speed" works in FFIV is somewhat janky. It's possible to trip a threshold with Cecil's AGI (iirc it's around level 51 or 52 in standard gear) where Zeromus becomes much faster relative to the rest of your party, and therefore much more difficult. You just don't get enough turns to keep up with the Big Bang onslaught.

At the earliest reasonable levels (45-53ish), the real challenge with Zeromus (apart from understanding the counter pattern) is that you can easily get bad roll on Big Bang and lose 2-3 characters in one shot through no fault of your own. And you have to make smart decisions to get back on your feet and win.

>>3833021
I usually get to the end of the game in the low 50s and I've never had trouble with Zeromus. Just spam curaja. If someone dies, have someone else use a phoenix down and keep spamming curaja.

My point is there's really only the one strategy to deal with Zeromus. As long as Rosa is spamming curaja, the window to victory is wide open.

>>3827056
>Really? I loved Rosa AND her bows in FF4. A lot of the time, it's a matter of using the right arrow, though.
Right.
While FFIV doesn't have anywhere near the build variety as FFV, people really under-estimate how much customization is really available in IV when you account for weaknesses and stat bonuses.

By the end game, FFIV has gear with huge stat swings on it. You can raise Rosa and Rydia's strength a lot while penalizing their casting stats, then get 2x and 4x bonuses exploiting weaknesses on certain enemies.

>>3833030
>I usually get to the end of the game in the low 50s and I've never had trouble with Zeromus
I'm speaking as someone who has played the Zeromus battle hundreds of times with many different party configurations (including romhacks with parties that couldn't even exist in the original game).
>As long as Rosa is spamming curaja, the window to victory is wide open.
1. This isn't even ideal. You don't spam Cure4. You wait when her turn is up and cast it as soon as Big Bang fires. If her turn comes up early in the bang/hole cycle, you have to decide whether to just wait, or make a move and hope her turn comes up again in time to recover from a bang.
2. What if Rosa dies to Big Bang? It's possible to face (and beat) Zeroums at levels where Big Bang can KO Rosa from full health (and health is rarely full anyway because you'll be under Sap for most of the Z fight).
>>3833012
It is a fun story. Which is all a good RPG really needs.

>>3830209
I love the compositions but I find FFV to be my least favorite SNES FF in terms of the "sound font." Some of the instruments just sound uncanny to me for some reason.

>>3833039
>It is a fun story. Which is all a good RPG really needs.
Disagree, but to each their own.

>>3833039
not gonna lie this shit made me way more emotional then IV and VI.

unrelated but made me fucking laugh in VI when sakaguchi's self insert gets like 3 separate arcs but some of the other characters get nothing.

>>3833047
>when sakaguchi's self insert
Who?

>>3833050
Cyan

>>3833046
Yeah, no worries. The entire industry moved toward catering to storyfags. They're just terrible at it, so it's a lose/lose for everyone.

>>3833039
>What if Rosa dies to Big Bang?
Have the next two characters who get their move use a phoenix down and an elixir on her. Like... duh.

You're trying to make it sound more nuanced than it is, but the strategy is incredibly linear—you have a single target and a fixed party with the same abilities no matter what. If you're capable of reaching Zeromus, you're capable of beating Zeromus, even if you just unga-bunga him and don't know jack shit about his battle script or "relative speed" or whatever.

>>3833052
Storyfag+gameplayfag here, at least for Square enix level of standards

>>3833052
>The entire industry moved toward catering to storyfags. They're just terrible at it, so it's a lose/lose for everyone.
I think what devs have forgotten is that you need to let the player have some agency in the story. And I don't mean you need to let them be able to affect or change the flow of the story in any way, but rather just that it needs to be up to the player to engage with everything to get the whole picture. That's the difference between a game and a movie.

Every time I play FF6 it kinda blows me away it's as popular with normies as it is because it really demands that players give a shit. Most character's arcs aren't directly tied to the plot in any meaningful way, and a lot of their development is completely missable. Like, if you don't take both Edgar and Sabin to spend a night at Figaro, you miss their entire backstory, basically. The game at least drops a hint if you show up with one brother but not the other, but nowadays a game would just force you to take the brothers and the cutscene would be scripted to automatically happen as soon as you enter the castle where the big flashing waypoint told you to go.

It's really not too drastic of a change, but when you reward the player with a cutscene for paying attention to things, it's much more satisfying than being led by the nose to it.

>>3833061
>kinda blows me away it's as popular with normies as it is
Majority have not played it, they are Youtube bandwagoners, even as far back as the early 2000s because of the natural contrarian backlash to the success of VII.
>I liked FF before it was cool, I'm oldskool

And no, VI (III) was nowhere near the hit that VII was, it was comparatively nothing in the US. Claiming it was some monumental success at the time is just more revisionism.

>>3833054
You do not understand why anyone could possibly have trouble with Zeroums.
I am trying to explain this because you don't understand it.
I'm explaining why some people have trouble with Zeromus by identifying specific dynamics and patterns that can spiral into failure, which you have clearly not thought about or thought through.
You aren't explaining anything I do not already know.
>If you're capable of reaching Zeromus, you're capable of beating Zeromus,
This is objectively wrong. There are many ways to cheese other bosses in the game and reach Zeromus well before you have any hope of defeating him(mid-40s). Speedruns of FF4 specifically include a grind battle to account for this.

>>3833064
>nowhere near the hit that VII was
All marketing smoke and mirrors. Without Square's push to force JRPGs as a prestige genre (in reality, to force "Final Fantasy" as the prestige JRPG series) VII would have gone completely ignored. It was the movie game bullshit of the 1990s and it paved the way for the series' downfall while devaluing other JRPGs in its wake.
It literally took until Final Fantasy started showing that it could not keep up with its boasts for the genre to start recovering.

>>3833066
Oh, wow, you're taking the phrase "I don't understand..." literally. Yikes. Let me clear this up, then: I do understand how people can get stuck at Zeromus. It's because they're retarded and can't properly engage with a game designed for literal children. My apologies for not making that clear.

>>3833061
>I think what devs have forgotten is that you need to let the player have some agency in the story. And I don't mean you need to let them be able to affect or change the flow of the story in any way, but rather just that it needs to be up to the player to engage with everything to get the whole picture.
Yes, the SNES-era Final Fantasies were all designed with a game-first approach.

>>3833067
>"VII wasn't hit! It was only successful because Square marketed it and then people bought it and enjoyed it! If they hadn't done that, it wouldn't have been a hit!"
Holy shit.

>>3833071
>Oh, wow, you're taking the phrase "I don't understand..." literally
I know what you meant. Taking the comment literally gave you a chance to save face and gave me a chance to contribute knowledge to the thread. You decided to go all-in on confessing that you're merely a thick-witted internet blowhard.

>>3832869
>Do you think I want to worry about some worthless mob like I do about bosses?
I haven't played BNW yet, so no idea if it applies or not, but this is a common problem with difficulty mods in general. Yeah they're harder, but they ruin the flow of the game because they make random battles way more annoying to fight.

>>3833087
>gave me a chance to contribute knowledge to the thread
Ah yes, the sacred knowledge of how to beat a 34-year-old game for children. This insistance to make mountains out of molehills is exactly what I was lambasting in the first place. Thanks for keeping up the act, I guess.

>>3833119
>yeah they're harder, but they ruin the flow of the game because they make random battles way more annoying to fight.
Something that actual game devs—or at least the team at Square—understand that romhackers don't is that you can't make your random battles a slog. Sure, you can pepper around tricky enemies and devastating counters to spice things up, but you can't turn every encounter into a "solve-or-die" puzzle.

>>3833067
>And no, VI (III) was nowhere near the hit that VII was, it was comparatively nothing in the US. Claiming it was some monumental success at the time is just more revisionism.
Compared to VII, yeah it wasn't on that level, but it was already a popular and respected game. I think the revisionism is the idea some people get that Final Fantasy had no presence whatsoever in America before VII (not accusing you of that). It was the 8th best selling SNES game of 1994 in the US compared to the top selling game of 1994 in Japan. I was one of those kids that couldn't wait for FFVII specifically because I was already obsessed with FFIII. It's anecdotal I know, but I remember how people talked about it back then as something special.

So yeah, not a monumental success like VII, but it did decent enough in America and left a big impact on people who played it. That said, Sakaguchi looks back on it as a failure in the US, possibly because it sold so much better in Japan comparatively.
>"In terms of numbers, [Final Fantasy VI] didn't sell in the States. It actually did very well in Japan. I'm mystified, because I see [Americans] are playing the [mobile] version. I think size of the characters really matters to an American audience, so from Final Fantasy VII onward, we used bigger characters. [I think] that's why Final Fantasy VII took off. But I am kind of mystified [by VI's current popularity in the West], because [Americans] didn't buy Final Fantasy VI back then."

>>3833131
>I think size of the characters really matters to an American audience, so from Final Fantasy VII onward, we used bigger characters. [I think] that's why Final Fantasy VII took off.
Listening to Japanese game developers talk about their own jobs is fucking hilarious. They say the stupidest fucking shit as a matter of fact, and I think it flies because it's considered rude to question/contradict people in Japanese culture.

Reminds me of that interview with Nomura where he says they can't have turn-based battles anymore because graphics are too realistic. It's just the most retarded fucking logic ever.

>>3833131
Also here's the EGM review for fun

>>3833061
The demand isn't really heavy when the characters are just inherently interesting. Not only does FF6 have appealing character designs but each character gets a proper intro, unique mechanic or gets a gimmick or gag. Each character is wildly different than the last one you get. You make something interesting in any way, people are more susceptible to just wanting more of it.

With Terra as a living weapon now given awareness and not sure what she wants out of life, the game connects Locke and Edgar to her through the motives in their life. Then with the Empire ruining lives, you get everyone else's motives for joining which then makes you curious in the World of Ruin what they're all doing in such a hopeless situation after the Empire crumbles but Kefka rules. To me FF6 requires zero effort to explore and learn about everyone simply through that.

>>3833136
Yeah sometimes it's funny listening to Japanese people talking about American culture and which things they think Americans care about. I remember seeing posts online from Japanese people thinking Americans find Bridget from Guilty Gear controversial because Americans are religious and he's dressed like a nun.

I'm sure they laugh at what we say about Japanese culture too, of course.

>>3833144
Most gamers simply aren't that attentive. I think the saving grace of the game was that if you played it when you were 12, you could miss shit and you didn't care because everything else was so engaging. But in practice, FF6 really lacks a strong driving narrative for most of the game other than "empire bad". All the best details are things that the player has to hunt down and engage with. Especialy in the world of ruin, which has the conclusion to pretty much every character's arc.

None of this is criticism, mind you. I think it just shows how the game was a product of a different era, where both players and developers were willing to accept they might just miss things on a first playthrough. It was the kind of game where you talk about it on the bus with your friend and they saw some scene or got some item that you had no idea existed. There was a time where that was viewed as an appealing aspect of a video game, but now it just triggers people's FOMO or whatever.

>>3833152
>All the best details are things that the player has to hunt down and engage with
Like, Gau is one of the few characters who kind of gets the shaft in terms of content, but I do love how effectively his story is implemented—you basically get his entire origin and details about his father from chatting up random NPCs. And none of it really pays off until you visit his dad in the world of ruin to get his little cutscene. But it's just so satisfyingly handled in a completely passive way. No need to flash "GAU'S QUEST" across the screen and then put a big glowing point on the map like jingling shiny keys in front of the player. It just happens organically as long as you're a bit curious. It's great.

>>3833152
I suppose I could agree with that since I feel I play games differently than a lot of people. Fun games with interesting characters and designs will be ones I come back to or explore as much as I can. FOMO is definitely not an issue for me and I prefer to play things mostly blind - minus the knowing the basic gist of the game.

>>3833156
Agreed but I get what that anon means. Today a game would be expected to dump all the story in your lap and players just don't care to explore enough or have any curiosity. But I also think FF6 has enough to keep people interested even if they miss those side quests or a couple of scenes. I don't know. The whole conversation reminds me of how weird a lot of people are about how they play these games and just blast through them. Like, yeah, I'm not a kid anymore where I thought every corner and backdrop meant there was hidden maps and content everywhere but I still explore the games I play and I suppose that's just not the norm.

>>3833152
I didn't know there was a secret cutscene with Cid and Setzer until a few years ago. Small window to find it, between the banquet and boarding the ship to Thamasa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPLd8AAASq4

>>3833158
>but I still explore the games I play and I suppose that's just not the norm.
Sadly, it isn't. Sometimes I'll talk about how slowly and methodically I play these games because I love trying to find every secret and piece of dialogue by myself, and it just makes some people viscerally angry.

>>3833159
lol, I found this on my first playthrough and I felt so proud of myself. At first it seems like such a random thing to backtrack all the way to the ship at that point, but if you pay attention to the dialogue, Cid says he's going to help fix your ship and then leaves, so you're rewarded if you think it through and decide to go check on him. It's similar to Faris' wind drake flashback in 5 where it's such a small window, but logically, the king just died, so the nice thing to do would be to go back to the castle and let everyone know, which is what triggers the scene.

Most gamers don't engage in that sort of thinking, though. But to me, that's the fun of a "role-playing" game—treating the characters and the world as though they're real, even when they're just derpy sprites.

>>3833165
>Sometimes I'll talk about how slowly and methodically I play these games because I love trying to find every secret and piece of dialogue by myself, and it just makes some people viscerally angry.
Trying to do every Fort Condor battle in ff7 is pretty insane, I’m not sure it’s realistically possible without following a guide

>>3833172
The Fort Condor battles are one of those things that I don't think it was ever intended for a player to figure out when to go check, because new battles are triggered so frequently, and by such random events. I think they just designed it for any obsessive players who wanted to go back regularly, so they'd have new battles more often than not.

Like I've been saying, developers used to intend for people to miss shit. But even so, the game gives you a lot of opportunities to backtrack. My typical operating procedure is usually to completely scour the world map every time I get a new mode of transportation, and pop in to old locations for checkups while I'm at it. I'm pretty sure that's how you're intended to get Aerith's limit break.

>>3826488
>>3828030
The issue is that a lot of towns in FFV are footnotes you don't have to engage with that much, and a lot of them look/feel the same.

>>3829669
>>3829649
Golbez is sympathetic, but that twist hardly fucking matters in the grand scheme.

>>3833158
This trend went all the way up to FFVIII. As spoken to earlier, FFVII had plenty that was missable (and shocking amount of fans who hadn't actually finished the game). The only difference for FFVII vs. FFVI and FFVIII was that FFVII fans were okay with being oblivious to what they had missed; they just stuck with Cloud = Cool and big sword = cool.
FFVIII is outright confusing if you aren't paying any attention to all the details that can be missed. There's even an FMV that's a signature moment in the development of the Rinoa and Squall that is entirely skippable. The devs who worked on FFVIII were very demoralized when the game wasn't received better, but it was honestly their peak game of the franchise.

>>3833159
The FFVI translation always feels so rough every time I see it, fuck

>>3832964
Yeah & someone else beat it at level 1, so all criticism is invalid amirite?

>>3833253
yes unironically

>>3833244
That was really just fairly normal for JRPGs back then. I think a lot of people forget FFV came out in 1992.

Maybe I obsess over the game more than most, but I found plenty of the towns memorable, especially for the NPC chatter. It updates multiple times in each town, and always after an event that gives you an excuse to visit. I do wish they had different tilesets and music, especially in the other world, but like I said, that was fairly typical of an early 90s JRPG that was developed in a year.

>>3833573
>That was really just fairly normal for JRPGs back then.
I'd say the earlier FFs did a better job at making towns distinct. FF3 put a heavy focus on gathering allies from each part of the world alongside memorable setpieces (like getting shot down in the castle-town), FF2 had the heavy narrative focus and the two main towns really sold it (the main hub which you see get destroyed, Castle Fynn which you takeover near the end, and the swathes of destroyed towns all over the game), and FF4 most obviously had its intense narrative focus where something major happened every other area.

Not saying FFV is bad, just that this is what past ones had done.
Honestly, I think every FF from 2 onwards not having a form of Party Chat is a laughable misstep, but then again, DQ didn't insert that into its series until 2000. I think that's what a lot of early FF was missing in regards to memorability, which is the ability to read your party's reactions to everything. Would've made some of the more interesting towns of FFV a bit more interesting at least.

>>3833573
>That was really just fairly normal for JRPGs back then. I think a lot of people forget FFV came out in 1992.
2/3rds of this thread probably never played the original game, and only played sundry remakes/ports

>>3833577
I suppose I get what you're saying. Very few of FFV's big moments happen in conjunction with the towns themselves. It's not really that the towns are specifically more or less "developed" than they were in other games. I could still probably name at least a handful of things I like and remember about every town, but I'm an autist.
>Party Chat
Yeah, I love party chat, and FFV is the kind of game that seems like it would greatly benefit from it. Something else I like that few JRPGs do is have different members of your party join the conversation when you talk to NPCs, and FFV would be suited for that as well, especially since your party members are fixed for the whole game. Being able to take Krile back to all the first world towns for new dialogue would be a good way to build her relationship with the party up as well.

>>3833579
I only mention it because people forget how quickly game development was progressing in the early 90s. They hear "SNES JRPG" and don't realize how different a game made in '91 was from a game made in '95. Every year was leaps and bounds. Nowadays, people are used to new games looking and feeling the same for over a decade.

>>3833577
>DQ didn't insert that into its series until 2000
I played DQV on the DS for the party chat and it was so worth it. I'm so mad the feature wasn't localized in the DS release of DQIV.

>>3832869
>Encounter a random
>Realize that they exhibit certain behaviours after a couple of tries
>Adjust your strategy accordingly when that monster is present
You make it sound like rocket science. The only boss in BNW that I thought was annoying was Kaiser because he requires a team composition that can hit every element.

>>3833619
>You make it sound like rocket science.
So many times when I hear people complain about something in a JRPG, it becomes immediately apparent that a lot of people don't actually like JRPG gameplay. They treat the idea of having to engage with battle mechanics or adjust party composition as though it's a chore.

I think a lot of people were weaned on the "movie-game" era of JRPGs, so when they play a game that actively impedes their progress, they think it's bad design or something.

>>3833657
>so when they play a game that actively impedes their progress, they think it's bad design or something.
I have a friend like this. For some reason he's allergic to using MP and just spams "attack" every single random battle. If he ever starts running up against enemy formations that can't be cleared in a turn or two with this strategy, he gets frustrated and disinterested.

>>3832869
as opposed to mashing fight all game which you are bitching about not being able to do?

>>3833010
the power of friendship is literally fascism

>>3833066
AHHHH I REMEMBER GETTING STUCK HERE IN 1998 WHEN I FIRST EMULATED MY FIRST FINAL FANTASY GAME

>>3834929
Explain further please

>>3835108
fuck you ponyboy, lurk moar

>>3835148
so you can't explain. Got it.

>FF5
>balanced gameplay
That shit drops half way in the game. It's interesting to see how enemies cope with your ever growing job list and abilities but eventually you notice the game's solution is to just have enemies go really fast, hit multiple times and inflict lethal strikes. Cave in the waterfall? Filled with Steel Fists who just one shot you with a focus attack, sometimes doing it repeatedly. Then they give you fights with three of them. At some point enemies are just turning you all berserk or into frogs or just pulling off three attacks at once. This is with a party in their 50s and with best equipment possible. Optimal builds can help with this but optimal builds also mean not focusing on leveling your jobs. Legendary weapons aren't much of a boost either. It's like the devs saw Skull Eater, a gimmick enemy, and based the second half of the game on it.

Storyfaggotry didn't take over until PS3. Nobody gave a shit about any of this. All that mattered in games was the gameplay.

>>3835186
People didn't know they could have not garbage story.

>>3835178
I like the gimmick enemies in ff5. I was suprised that the books in the ff14 version of ancient library had less complexity than the books in the ff5 ancient library

>>3835172
piss poor bait. This community does not exist to spoon feed you.

>>3835186
nonsense, ff2 and ff4 laid the groundwork, ff6 doubled down and the PS1 era was very story focused. FF10 was the first storygame, it just had very good gameplay too

>>3835199
you made the claim here >>3834929
, the burden of proof is on you

>>3834778
Using mp outside of healing spells was suboptimal when jrpg were difficult and based on journeys rather than destinations.

>>3835204
kys tranny, you can't burden me with shit

>>3834927
Argument I made is it's a difficulty mod, not just a rework. Nothing wrong with that, just not my thing.

If you can't accurately label your mod & piss yourself outside your discord hugbox, that's on you dawg.

>>3833577
party chat in ff9 was kino, it would have been good in 6/7/8 but seeing it in ff4 or especially in ff5 is a big yuck from me

>>3835237
N

Favorite job in V? I'd probably go with Mystic Knight, because Spellblade is never not fun.

>>3835238
You could go crazy with it in 6 if you had the party chat change based on party composition. It would be cool, but also drive people who need to see everything insane.

>>3826747
Among the kind of people that end up on 4chan? Nerds knew about it and who cares about losers that couldn't figure out zsnes

>>3835245
Depends on where you are in the game, but I probably love Monk the best overall. Powerful early on, and punching things is awesome. Time Mage was one of my favorites last playthrough, didn't appreciate it enough before. Ninjas and Samurais are always cool too.

>>3835245
After my last fiesta, it's Bard—a just plain phenomanal support class. Also, with many gnarly enemies in the late game being undead or dragon type, Requiem and the Apollo Harp are both downright godly. And did I mention no MP? It's actually crazy the amount of reliable utility the Bard has at zero cost. Plus, playing all the pianos is exactly the sort of silly, mindless sidequest I love in JRPGs.

My biggest complaint would be that the songs need better names. Once you actually know what they do, it's easy enough to remember, but I feel like they could definitely be reworked to be more informative at a glance. At least the GBA/PR names are an improvement over the old fan translation, though.

>>3835250
>Time Mage was one of my favorites last playthrough, didn't appreciate it enough before
Haste and Slow are just super broken in FFV. So many bosses are vulnerable to slow, even up through the endgame. Once you get it to stick, victory is just a matter of time.

>>3835279
>victory is just a matter of time
I see wat u did there

>>3835245
Not my favorite, but I recently got Geomancer in a fiesta and I gotta say it's pretty underrated. Gaia is strong and reliable in like 85% of scenarios. Sometimes it's so strong it seems broken, especially if you spam it every turn. There are some instances where the AOE and elemental effects are undesireable, but for the most part it's a great backup ability for a mage who is trying to conserve MP, and will absolutely steamroll random encounters.

The passive abilities are useful on a first playthrough, but less so once you know where all the traps are. And the Gaia bell is a pretty well-balanced ultimate weapon.

>>3835287
yeah, I forgot to the cool pic I went hunting for. d'oh

>>3835295
>The passive abilities are useful on a first playthrough, but less so once you know where all the traps are.
If traps were randomly placed & some treasures invisible then the thief & geomancer passives would be better. Especially if some dungeons were randomly generated.

>>3835245
My favorite job is the thief, I like their fluff & I master it for everyone to get the agility boost as freelancer & mime. I wish they had better combat skills though. A few more points of strength & stamina, or fix the agility bug & adjust weapon power to account for the improved damage. Equipping bows would be nice too, as would a passive to boost crit rate.

>>3835245
my buttz self insert has been a blue mage since after my first playthrough. I think even my first run in the 90s I started as a blue mage to have both sword and spell, though I couldnt find shit beyond goblin punch in that run. My first class change is usually mystic knight. Love turban sprites like MK and the bahumet lagoon protag, didn't know about minwu or lawrence of arabia for decades.

One of my favorite final fantasy experiences was playing FF11 on the janky private server eden, where I was the only blue mage tank main on the whole server. Blue was buggy on that server and most people played it on live so it was a very rare class - the whole enemy 'con' system was double dipping, so while I did normal damage against a normal enemy if I was against something that had a yellow con ( 1 to 2 levels higher) instead of doing say 10% less damage I did 20% less ... this was also true for green con enemies. Instead of doing 20% more i did 40% more. This meant i got to AoE grind from levels 10 to 20 in the Ghelsba Outpost by pulling 1/3rd of or half of the entire zone. I got mass pulling banned on that server, apparantly their tech couldn't handle it lmao. The few other blue mages in that game were exploiting a bug where if they would subjob thief and cancel their auto attacks they would not expend sneak attack and could get a damage bonus on all their physical spells instead of just the next physical spell, which made them viable piercing DPS despite the weird con system bug. I tanked by exploiting a bug where I could change my spells in combat with a 10 second delay. Programmed a set of macros to give me custom spellbook stances. Literal invoker shit. On the other side of the boat in the jungle I had alot of fun buffering white wind to wake my group up from aoe mandragora sleep spells too.

>>3835494
cont.

Ultimately the taru taru blackmage hyperconformists kicked me off the server for needing to land a spell after my chakram to hold thread in the black mage nuking spot before it got nerfed. ( people were exploiting the level sync feature to grind one camp from 1 to 75). Fucking chobin hood kikes should have stayed as demihumans like in Fa'diel.

First blu on the server to get full AF - could never get the turtle NM to drop my buckler though. An FF11 romhack to open up the meta has SOOOO much potential, though I think they would need to address people multiboxing healers. Eden was trivialized by people keeping high level white mages around out of party to babysit full parties.

Played a Blue Mage in 5e, played a blue mage in FFd20 with a gunblade, he was a Qu and kind of a juggalo lol. Played alot of spellblades too. Duskblade/magus nuker scrappers in 3.X are lame. Swordmage tanks in 4e and 13e are godly. Spellblade in Abbadon's (Lancer/K6BD) was a controller with huge aoe nukes and teleporting that would make Kassadin blush- I plucked thunder from heaven like two weeks before Monkey D Luffy and personally got odinforce buffed and levinblade nerfed.

What a long strange trip its been. I knew the first time I played FF5 in the 4th grade that there would be an MMO one day. I'm glad thats come to fruition.

>>3829597
I still wish Grandia III's undub actually worked and there were subtitles for the cutscenes.

Only somewhat related but what do the V fans here think of FFIII?

I've been playing through the FF games I haven't before and am still early in III, haven't played V yet but I've heard III is basically thought of as a proto-V.

Any recommendations for jobs in III that are especially fun or interesting?

>>3827029
Me I just remember I picked geomancer specifically to get past some lava floor sections and pitfalls. But yeah, the free magic attack is pretty good.
>>3836404
FF3 just feels like 5 but with less ability to customize stuff.

>>3828030
Should have diverged the two worlds a bit more. Make Galuf's world more fantastical. Every town except Galuf's castle is populated by non-humans.

>>3836404
3 is more railroaded than 5 in terms of party composition. Theres quite a few instances where you’re required to be in X job for this dungeon, and Y job for this boss, and so on. I enjoy the job system but 3 wasn’t a great game overall, imo. Did have some great NES music however

>>3827068
Personally, I always got tilted by the long ass cutscene before the boss fight.
Also maybe this was because my party was underleveled but his group attack always one-hit KO'd Rydia.

How good or bad of an idea is it to do Four Job Fiesta on a first playthrough?

I generally prefer games with fixed classes so I should enjoy the game more this way, but I also feel like not utilizing job switching means I'm missing out on a lot of what makes V the game it is.

>>3836533
It’s a bad idea. Play through the game normally and organically at least once. Fiesta is a meme for people who played it a dozen times and are bored and want arbitrary challenge.

>>3836404
3 was one of the only nes games I would emulate as a kid and what the other anons have said about it is pretty true. Getting two jobs at a time pretty much means you are always going to be running the same two/two split of whatever latest jobs you got. Jobs in general are pretty underdesigned in this game. I find it difficult to go back to, i would always rather play FF5 or FF1 or something else with a great job system like Seiken Densetsu 3 or Tactics Ogre One Vision. The DS port is also very mid and very overrated. I heard the pixel remaster is slightly better but not enough to matter.

>>3836533
If that is what you want to do go right ahead and do it. People are such purists about romhacks , challenges, roleplay, trying to see all the content in a first playthrough. Yuck. I'll caution you to use a guide if you RNG into chemist or blue mage. IZJS is the best version of ff12 beacuse of it's fixed character classes - FF3 could use a good hack for fixed classes too

FFII's classless "skill up as you use it" system was superior to both job systems and way ahead of its time

>>3826966
In Pixel Remaster the included auto battle finally let me get all the characters to level 99, and I'll tell you the entire game just crumples. It was never designed with that high of a level in mind. You're swinging swords for 4000 ~ 5000 damage easily, and can just tank through any boss that doesn't do proportional damage.

>>3836692
why would you do this. you really have to push the grind to not finish the game organically by level 43. it's just not that hard.

>>3836693
Felt like it for the novelty. Same save file I decided to get every rare drop weapon including the Tinkerbell. There's actually a random encounter you can get into that is literally designed to be a free EXP farm and you just get your party set up right and then you can afk the grind away. But without PR's autobattle and 4x exp boost features, I wouldn't even consider doing it at all.

>>3836700
I played FFs 1-9 back to back some years ago and did every optional superboss etc, the only one I felt even slightly compelled to grind to 99 was ff9 due to how lame the boss is.
then I gave up and dropped 10 halfway through, I love 10 but the postgame is such bullshit I had no heart for

>>3836703
Really? I got to max level in the PSX titles pretty easily. Favorite party members only, didn't really commit to the ones who weren't there. FF7 in particular is pretty easy to do since the Crater has areas that just hand you buckets of exp and your passive characters level up slowly when on the bench. Heck, it's the only game in the series where they actually put in a "beef up the final boss if player is level 99" flag into the game.

I'm playing through the FF Games now as someone who never had any interest in them when they were big and I have to say it's amazing how much the SNES titles absolutely mog the PS1 titles in terms of gameplay. So far V is by far my favorite. The gameplay, the combat, the dungeons, the world. It's so fun. Playing through VI now. It's not nearly as fun but the story is very good and the pixel art is beautiful.

I think of a lot of the nostolgia for VII and VIII is nostolgia. People were blown away by having a fully 3D RPG on a console, because once you strip that away they're kinda shit games.

>>3836973
Not that I couldn’t grind to 99, it’s that I didn’t want to and felt no need to (except for fighting Ozma, I forget why it’s been about 10 years)
>Heck, it's the only game in the series where they actually put in a "beef up the final boss if player is level 99" flag into the game.
Interesting, never knew that

>>3836973
Doesn't it also increase Sephiroth's HP if the player has KotR equipped?

It's still piss easy no matter what. VIII was harder as long as you didn't cheese a low-level run.

>>3833083
Reading comprehension fagtard. He's saying VII was a hit, but it was a hit largely because of marketing and shiny pre-rendered graphics and screenshots. In becoming a smash hit it held the genre back in a multitude of ways. If you play these games honestly VII is one of the most clunky, railroady, janky RPGs ever made. It's barely even a game at all. The gameplay is absolute dogshit and it's success became a virtual prison for the western concept of what an RPG was supposed to be. It led to the success of moviegames and prevented more innovative gameplay designs from taking off.

>>3837135
>If you play these games honestly
As opposed to?

>>3837135
But VII was just VI in 3D in literally every way

>>3837131
>Doesn't it also increase Sephiroth's HP if the player has KotR equipped?

using KotR on the last Jenova gives him 80,000 HP

>>3837127
7 and 8 both have timeless gameplay like FF5. 4 6 and 9 are a tier below, though 6 has very good gameplay if you play the BNW version

>>3837138
That was it. Should have given him new attack patterns or something as well, HP bloat is the dumbest way to modify difficulty, it just adds time to the fight.

>>3837137
7 had better music, tighter character roster and writing, better pacing and story arc, more engaging RPG mechanics, and better secrets. And you can't downplay the 3D aspect, as the transition from chibi sprite character bopping after a victory to unique victory poses per character with a moving camera, as an example, is simply more engaging.

I love FFVI, but it's stupid to think FFVII didn't improve on it in every way.

>>3837330
>and better secrets
Eh, finding a secret character in a secret dungeon after having your entire party eaten by a random worm monster on an island is unbeaten.

>>3837360
That said, both games have tons of great secrets and I can see the argument for VII.

>>3836404
>Only somewhat related but what do the V fans here think of FFIII?
I just started III last night, so I'll let you know.

>>3836404
I probably enjoyed III significantly more than most anons here but that's because shit legit felt like a DnD adventure. I was straight RPing with the characters.
>MC2 insanely depressed after hitting it with Aria and she dies. Gets a bitter rivalry with MC1.
>MC3 and 4 are younger then the other two onion knights and they have a coming of age arc tearing up killing Doga and Unei
>MC1 is the only happy one that gets to go back home and marry the princess.

>>3836404
>I've heard III is basically thought of as a proto-V.
Pretty much is. There's a clear line of progression from I, III and V expanding on the same ideas, while II and IV doing more of their own thing inbetween with more narrative driven approach

I enjoyed 3 more than 5.
As with the other anon, the lack of characterization made it easier to get into the adventure and fantasy of the world itself, while in 5 the characters just made it feel like a mediocre anime.

>>3837732
dont' @ me even passively with a gay ass remark like that I don't even want to be associated with your stupid dumbass

>>3835245
maybe Dancer

I rank it pretty low, it has the lowest hp of all jobs, and is an unreliable melee glass cannon, but the sprites look great and the sword dances are so satisfying.
Once you get to world 3 they get pretty good gear easily too.
Dance has 25% chance for sword dance, but with either Lamia Tiara, Rainbow Suit or Red Shoes it becomes 50%, you can steal the Lamia Tiara in world 1, but then you can't wear the ribbon.
Rainbow Suit is a common steal in the phoenix tower, so easy to get decked out with Ribbon+Rainbow+Haste Shoes, even for 4 dancers.

At the end of the fiesta I did an upgrade run that ended with quad dancer
I was level 28 when I was done with shinryu and had the final boss left, I didn't even have 700 hp on everyone so no chance to survive 1 almagest hit.
Ended up grinding to level 39-40, but still didn't have enough to hp to tank 1 Almagest(it hit me for like 1600 damage)
I could sword dance it down before it could cast it.
Equip Whips on Butz and Lenna. Dragon whip's deal double damage on the top left part, Beastkiller whip deals double damage on the bottom right(Almagest).

You really get spoiled after getting mystic knight so many times where you can just break blade the almagest part.

>>3837330
plus all the minigames

>>3837714
you can do this with any final fantasy though, when I was growing up in the 90s and emulating JRPGS the name character function had me name everyone after my friends and RPing like this. Headgamez

>>3837804
Dancer carried me through many ancient cave runs

>>3836404
>Only somewhat related but what do the V fans here think of FFIII?
FF is just not the same without ATB.
>>3837135
>He's saying VII was a hit, but it was a hit largely because of marketing and shiny pre-rendered graphics and screenshots.
Regardless, it's a very stupid and wrong thing to claim or defend.
>The gameplay [in VII] is absolute dogshit
It's not. The battle system is fun. People at the time loved it. There's no world where FFVII got ignored even without the marketing. But also, it's a doubly stupid thing to claim because there's no world where FFVII even gets made the way it was made and doesn't get a lot of marketing. Square knew Sony was going to help with marketing that's why they were able to spend so much on development.

Moviegames were coming regardless of what Final Fantasy VII did. If anything, it's dumbfucks like you who believe that the FFVII gameplay is bad is what led to later games emphasizing flashy cinematics over the gameplay.

>>3837833
>when I was growing up in the 90s and emulating JRPGS the name character function
For me, its AAAAAAAA

>>3837804
>>3837833
The biggest boon Dancer gets is PR deciding to make Sword Dance back row ok. At least, I presume that was an intentional decision and not a "oh shit we messed up the flags" one like how the Apollo Harp now does 8x damage to Dragons, Undead, AND Desert type enemies.

>>3838229
>"oh shit we messed up the flags" one like how the Apollo Harp now does 8x damage to Dragons, Undead, AND Desert type enemies.
oh yeah that was funny, saw someone randomly discover that while going to phoenix tower with a bard in the party

Are there any other wrong tags in PR?
Only other mechanical thing I know of is weapon damage affecting Monk's kick, so equipping a weapon on them boosts their kick.

>>3838111
>FF is just not the same without ATB.
It's weird how different it feels. It's my first foray into NES-era FF, and even though a lot of the nuts and bolts are the same, the lack of an ATB is just jarring. I keep getting into battles and just starting at a static screen because I'm not used to having to push a button to "commence" battling, lol.

>>3837714
>I was straight RPing with the characters.
That's cozy as fuck, anon. I just started III and I'm doing that, too. I had MC2 (named Troia, after the kingdom in IV) in the lead during the stuff with Princess Sara, so all their dialog made it seem like they really bonded. Since I decided Troia is female, they're just lesbo-crushing on each other hard whenever I go back to visit.
>ywnb a dyke Red Mage that makes princess pussy dripping wet

>>3837135
Right, so he said exactly what I made fun of him for saying. Which was retarded. Just because it's not your favorite game doesn't mean that its success was some kind of accident, lmao.

>>3837130
Yeah, the final boss gains extra HP for every party member you have at level 99, I think. And beyond that, it gets flat 80,000 HP boost if you dare to use knights of the round on Jenovah beforehand.

I really wish more JRPGs did that. Spamming all your big attacks on the final boss gauntlet is par for the course, and since most jRPG final bosses are piss easy to begin with, it's nice to have them push back if you make it clear you're not playing around.

>>3838122
AAAAAAAAobserved

>>3838323
There's definitely charm to those NES-era games, but ATB makes a huge difference. There are also superficial things that sometimes get to me, like the fact that every time there's a bloopy sound effect, you lose like 33% of the music.

>>3838712
>There are also superficial things that sometimes get to me, like the fact that every time there's a bloopy sound effect, you lose like 33% of the music.
lmao, this is a bigger issue than I thought it would be. I love grooving out to the tunes while I play (I have a really loud sound system) and sometimes my favorite parts of songs just drop out because I happened to hit a button or land an attack at the same time.

>>3837714
I was fleshing out my FFIII character backstories in my head on the way to work today, lol. I decided they should all have a little something to do with the towns I named them after:

>MC1: "Carwen"
A simple farmboy with a heart of gold. Orphaned at a later age than the others, so he's more emotionally stable. Believes that people are inherently good—basically Clark Kent if he became a fantasy hero. Sometimes so stupidly optimistic that the others can't stand him. Not very smart.

>MC2: "Troia"
Daughter of a batallion of all-female mercenaries. Ambushed and slaughtered by a noble for refusing to be his concubines, she was the only survivor. Stoic, jaded, and a huge chip on her shoulder. She's softened by her relationship with Princess Sara.

>MC3: "Zozo"
Youngest of the group; moderately unhinged member of a troupe of traveling performers who never knew his parents and ran off and survived on his own as a thief. Pretends to be a nihilist to avoid becoming close to people. Carwen sees through his act. He and Troia do NOT get along.

>MC4: "Junon"
Son of a general, his father was killed for disobeying orders and he was imprisoned in a military base and abused for years before escaping. A quiet, contemplative, and terminally pessimistic misanthrope. In spite of this, he is the voice of reason and a mediator among his bickering comrades.

The problem, now, is that I want to give them all jobs that suit their backstories and personalities, which might not work strategically, in the long run. Currently I have them as Fighter, Red Mage, Monk, and Black Mage, respectively, but we'll see what happens when I get to the next crystal.

>>3838323
I dont think ATB matters that much until the games start having multiple animation ques and multiple characters acting at once like on ps2

>>3839157
Very zoomer take. ATB makes a substantial difference in the way combat plays out in the FF series.

First, the NES games use round-based system where all orders are issued to units at the beginning of a round. Then the entire round plays out, all actions resolve in a semi-random order, then another round starts. While this approach can have some interesting dynamics, it's much less fluid than systems where actions enter a queue immediately after the command is issued, and may resolve before the next unit's turn comes up. Compare the NES games with FFX to observe this difference. In FFX, the real-time element of ATB removed. (This is sometimes called "CTB").

The real-time element also matters. In a general sense, it rewards decisive action and punishes hesitation. Enemies well get more turns if you waffle too much. But there are moments when the real-time element can affect decision-making as well. Most of the FF ATB games have bosses that change their state in real time. Rubicant in FF4 is weak against Ice, but can hide behind his cloak and absorb all magic (including ice). Spells take time to cast, so when Rubicant's cloak is open and Rydia's turn comes up, you have to estimate whether there's enough time to land an ice spell before he puts his cloak up again. This dynamic does not exist without ATB.

These differences may seem minor, but the abstract "1D" combat systems with no 2D or 3D battlefield to add depth (aka "niggas in a row"), these details matter.

>>3826356
Shimaidon

>>3826356
>>3839210
>hey old man remember when we gooned over that gender confused pirate together?
>anyway I'm doing your granddaughter now, hope u chillin' out there
>t. butts

I know they didn't want to make the ending sad/bittersweet and also because the game was made when Sakaguchi's mom was dying but I really wish they kept the multiple endings in tact. Even if it's the "search for the missing party members". I dunno the whole "oh wow I just randomly ported myself back, how did that happen?" felt lame.

>>3826747
>>3826753
>>3835249
You guys are all right.
Nerds were into emulation. The RPGe translation is the best. But even then, you were restricted by PC hardware. It wasn't until 1999-2000 that PCs were mostly fast enough to run a SNES emulator at a reasonable speed, and even then many people didn't have new/fast PCs until a few years later.

But also I can't deny that FF4 and FF6 hit peak nostalgia years for me. I was 12 when FF4 came out and 15 when FF6 came out. Had FF5 been released in-between, it would likely be part of that nostalgia. Instead, I emulated it in 1998 as a 19 year-old in college, after playing FF7 and FF Tactics. I loved it, but it just didn't hit the same as FF4.

I did get the PS1 version, but never played it more than an hour or so. The emulated version was just better.

>all the fan art is based on the sprite design
>all the official art is based on amano design
>portrait mods are based on amano design
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THE SPRITE DESIGNS ARE SO MUCH BETTER AHHHHHHH

>>3839157
Playing my first non-ATB FF (III) after having extensively played the SNES and PS1 era games, I have to disagree. The ATB is an entirely different and more engaging experience.

Although, personally, I think the ATB system reaches full potential once you can pass turns, which doesn't happen until 7. If you can into romhacking, I highly recommend adding the feature to 4-6 on your next playthrough.

>>3839337
>I really wish they kept the multiple endings in tact.
Were there plans to have more than the game already had?
>the whole "oh wow I just randomly ported myself back, how did that happen?" felt lame
But that's not what happens. It's quite explicit that Galuf and the other Dawn Warriors assist you in escaping the void from the afterlife, the same way they do before the final battle. It's very much in line with the game's theme—family going above and beyond to protect their children and ensure their future, to the point that the concept of "family" becomes a deus ex machina in and of itself. It's sort of the whole point of the game, really.

>>3826935
I wanted double cast and that took me forever to get.

>>3838230
I want to say they fucked up the regen rate because on SNES/PSX/GBA it's pretty fast and constant while on PR it's just so lethargic it's borderline useless.

>>3839570
AND

The game is not balanced around using wikis and guides to find out optimal builds. When I first played I used a Berserker for a bit after getting it because it does hit really hard. You can find an instant death causing axe shortly after getting the job, which incentivizes picking it further. Imo berserker could use another good passive beyond Equip Axes to make it worth. Ranger on the other hand, I didn't use before learning about Rapid Fire/X-Fight because the job sucks outside of that and you have to suffer through only summoning animals and shit before you get it. That's the beauty of exploring the game.

>>3836404
I am one of the biggest V fans alive and III is the worst game in the series for me. The job system doesn't work the same way, each tier of jobs is a straight upgrade, there's basically zero reason to take a Warrior when you have unlocked a Viking or a Dark Warrior. Some dungeons hard require you to take a specific job. There's no party craft like in FF5, you don't share job abilities. The end game is two Ninjas and two Sages unless you want to torture yourself. Story is almost non-existent, dungeons are sadistic, there's less character to your party than in fucking FF1. I replay NES FF1 annually and sometimes replay FF2, but I'm just fine with having suffered through FF3 once. Still haven't played the DS version though.

>>3839760
>The game is not balanced around using wikis and guides to find out optimal builds. When I first played I used a Berserker for a bit after getting it because it does hit really hard. You can find an instant death causing axe shortly after getting the job, which incentivizes picking it further. Imo berserker could use another good passive beyond Equip Axes to make it worth. Ranger on the other hand, I didn't use before learning about Rapid Fire/X-Fight because the job sucks outside of that and you have to suffer through only summoning animals and shit before you get it.
This is funny since Rangers and Berserkers both get an instant death weapon, but Ranger's Killer Bow is something you buy out of a shop you see in the main plot, while the Berserker's Doom Axe is a rare drop from an enemy you're likely to not even encounter or maybe only once if you're not wiki'ng and looking for it.

>>3839774
You can only buy Killer Bow in World 2, when you have probably already forgotten that Ranger exists. You get Death Sickle from an enemy in World 1 in an area that has enemies that give good experience, and where you first get the airship, so you're likely to stay around and grind some.

>>3839764
Yea, FF3 is from an era where sequels were just bigger time sinks than the original. I like FF3 for what it is, but I agree with what you're saying, it's not a game I could honestly recommend to most people. It's very intentionally unfair and vertical. Every FF game with job systems is horizontal except 3.

>>3839805
>Every FF game with job systems is horizontal except 3.
Just curious if you count FF7 with the job system games.
The materia system is basically just the job system with abilities decoupled from characters and classes.

>>3839864
no

>>3839864
My favorite way to play is to assign each character a thematic class and then only give them appropriate materia.

>>3839864
lol

>>3839864
>abilities decoupled from characters and classes
So not the job system then

>>3839881
>>3839974
>>3839975
Always funny to see how many people fail this IQ test and can't recognize key patterns in RPG class systems.

>>3840006
The entire point of a class is that specific abilities are tied to it, that's what defines it as such

>>3830128
The Bravely Default et al? I threw up in my mouth just a little bit, hang on.

>>3831438
Hot damn Galuf. Also bad touch Butz Klauser.

>>3840011
Yeah and it's a semantic artifact.
Although it's reasonable to say that "job system" wouldn't be a good name for the materia system, if you are unable to recognize that the materia system is much closer to the job system than any other system of character development in the series, it means you're stupid.

In 1, 4, 6, 9, and Chrono Trigger, each character has one, permanently-assigned class.
Characters may only have traits and use abilities from their innate class. These abilities are always available once unlocked. And even where stats may be modified, the baseline stats are strongly aligned with their innate class.

In 3, 5, and Tactics, characters have no assigned class and a generic, mostly-neutral stat baseline. Characters select a job and sub-abilities as if they were equipment. Changing classes and abilities is instant, the character loses access to former abilities and instantly gains access to new ones. Character stats are instantly modified to reflect the selected job. Jobs can be swapped in and out with no character penalty (3 has a small cost).

FF7 - Characters have no assigned class, just a generic, mostly-neutral stat baseline.
FF7 - Characters select materia as if it was equipment, changing abilities is instant and characters lose access to former abilities and instantly gain access to new ones.
FF7 - Materia modifies the character's stat profile to align with its nature, the same way jobs and subjobs modify stats in the job games. (eg magic materia boosts magic stats and lowers physical stats)

The only innate character traits in FF7 are limit breaks and weapon selection. And while limit breaks can appear to assign a "class" to a character, limit breaks are not routine-use abilities and don't substantially define how a character plays in battle. In most cases, weapon selection just mildly encourages or enhances certain build approaches.

It's obvious that 7 is more like 3, 5, and Tactics than 1, 4, 6, 9, and CT.

>>3840006
My favourite FF job system is ff6, I love that it puts the abilities on accessories instead and lets you equip two, giving you a wider variety of choice.

>>3840065
Play Brave New World.
It's awesome. It really is the best.
You have options for every single character but they all have a class.
Like Sabin can function as a off-style healer with blitz, backline artillery with magic blitz, elemental weakness exploiter with brawny elemental Fight punches with his unique weapons, or frontline physical blitz user (which often has special effects or bypasses enemy defense stat).
You get to customize and choose how you build the characters but they all have signature class archetypes. And with multiple multi-party dungeons are in FF6 you have reasons to figure out what to do across all characters and synergize them and not just rely on 4 guys for everything. It's really good

>>3840042
Materia system would be better if the materia themselves could be modified beyond the simple changes wrought by Support materia.

1, 4, 6, 9, & Chrono Trigger would be better if there were optional variations on each characters job, through events changing character data blocks, more special effects on gear, new stat modification schemes, or options for gear within each tier.

3, 5, & Tactics would be better if the stat baseline was equivalent in sum but varying in spread. I somewhat dislike stats changing because you changed your outfit too; it should be the result of training over time.

For 7 I think the solution to the lack of strongly defined roles is extreme variation on base stats, stat growth, gear availability (iirc armor & accessories can be set flagged unusable for specific characters), and gear stats. There is no way to my knowledge to set a command as innate to a character, though limits can be improved a lot.