Squeenix Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - New Remasters of Final Fantasy I-VI

[Zed Duke of Banville]

"Birth of a Paladin" by Orioto

 

[Thac0]

Cecil's Paladin transformation is one of my favourite moments in video gaming. It blew my mind as a kid, given that JRPG combat is usually very secluded from the rest of the game. Needing to lay down your arms to win is something very arthurian, and not something I expected in my gameboy rpg.

Also the music is really cool there.



The Paladin is a really nice play on Cecils Leitmotif the Redwings, showing that after his transformation he is still himself, but better.

Also the gameplay change is really good aswell. He loses the self destructive power of a dark knight, and gains the restorative and protective power of the Paladin. Also he becomes much stronger overall, as ever since the transformation he can wear is worthy of the super op holy swords.

Story wise it makes sense aswell. He discards the single handed lawfull neutral devotion of a knight/samurai to serve his master no matter if he is evil or good, and goes to become a champion of lawfull good.

Story, gameplay, music, everything is on point for this moment. Yes FF4 is a small and short game, and a bit primitive at times as the first FF on the SNES, but it still packs a punch decades later.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I really hated the transformation from a gameplay POV. Paladin Cecil has garbage spells. In the 3DS version Cecil has Shell and Protect at least, but all other versions, PR included, Cecil doesn't have them and all he can do is cast Cura or Esuna. Only his ability to tank attacks is useful, but I'd much rather have access to Darkside. It made clearling groups of mooks less of a chore.

 

[Thac0]

I really hated the transformation from a gameplay POV. Paladin Cecil has garbage spells. In the 3DS version Cecil has Shell and Protect at least, but all other versions, PR included, Cecil doesn't have them and all he can do is cast Cura or Esuna. Only his ability to tank attacks is useful, but I'd much rather have access to Darkside. It made clearling groups of mooks less of a chore.

I liked that at the start I was not sure if the transformation was even good. The White command was worse than Darkside, his damage doesn't grow by that much, tankyness is generally inferior to offense, and your level including base stats gets reset to a level 1 Paladin. But as you slowly take your first hard steps on the path to goodness you see that it totally rocks. His new stat growth is overall better, and by the time you get your first good holy swords his damage output far outpaces what he has done as a dark knight. By the late game Cecil becomes stupidly powerfull, being the most tanky member of your group, while also consistently outdamaging them all against bosses and other fat single target enemies, like on the moon.

 

[Kalarion]

I really hated the transformation from a gameplay POV. Paladin Cecil has garbage spells. In the 3DS version Cecil has Shell and Protect at least, but all other versions, PR included, Cecil doesn't have them and all he can do is cast Cura or Esuna. Only his ability to tank attacks is useful, but I'd much rather have access to Darkside. It made clearling groups of mooks less of a chore.

I believe he always had Shell and Protect. What he gets in the 3DS version is their -ras, iirc. And I agree that should have been the case from the beginning.

As Thac0 said, Cecil's Paladin stat growth is absolutely insane compared to DK growth. By the time you leave the Mountain he's probably slightly stronger at level 14 or so then he was at 25+ as a DK. Combined with the ability to use Holy Swords, pound for pound the strongest weapons in the game, he starts out just barely stronger then all other physical attackers and pulls away completely by the end game. No other char comes close. You can use the weapon duping trick to give Edge dual Masamunes and he still can't hold a candle to Cecil with Ragnarok or even Excalibur. It's ridiculous.

Not sure what you mean about clearing mooks... you have access to easy clearing material from the very start of your transformation. First Palom and Porom, later Cid with Gaia Hammer and Yang kicking is ez mode, after that you get Edge and Rydia together, near the end you get FuSoYa. By the time he's gone Rydia can absolutely stomp all subterrane mook fights with any combination of Flare, Leviathan and Bahamut.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I really hated the transformation from a gameplay POV. Paladin Cecil has garbage spells. In the 3DS version Cecil has Shell and Protect at least, but all other versions, PR included, Cecil doesn't have them and all he can do is cast Cura or Esuna. Only his ability to tank attacks is useful, but I'd much rather have access to Darkside. It made clearling groups of mooks less of a chore.

I believe he always had Shell and Protect. What he gets in the 3DS version is their -ras, iirc. And I agree that should have been the case from the beginning.

As Thac0 said, Cecil's Paladin stat growth is absolutely insane compared to DK growth. By the time you leave the Mountain he's probably slightly stronger at level 14 or so then he was at 25+ as a DK. Combined with the ability to use Holy Swords, pound for pound the strongest weapons in the game, he starts out just barely stronger then all other physical attackers and pulls away completely by the end game. No other char comes close. You can use the weapon duping trick to give Edge dual Masamunes and he still can't hold a candle to Cecil with Ragnarok or even Excalibur. It's ridiculous.

But what if you could have Paladin Cecil's stats with Darkside?

Not sure what you mean about clearing mooks... you have access to easy clearing material from the very start of your transformation. First Palom and Porom, later Cid with Gaia Hammer and Yang kicking is ez mode, after that you get Edge and Rydia together, near the end you get FuSoYa. By the time he's gone Rydia can absolutely stomp all subterrane mook fights with any combination of Flare, Leviathan and Bahamut.

Rydia's summons aren't as fast as Darkside. It has nicer pacing when it comes to clear speed.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Spent 10,000 for a gangbang in a seedy basement. Since it's the matriarchy kingdom it's perfectly fine for a paladin to spend massive piles of gold for debauchery! Finding a black chocobo to get to the island was cool too, figuring out the island and cave I needed to go to was easy, but I was a dumb ass on figuring out the chocobo woods in the tippy top since in the previous game chocobo woods were more distinct and easier to spot. Magnet dungeon was cool, jiggling my gear around was a neat wrinkle, though the story beat against the elf boss felt like it was kinda shoehorned in. Edward randomly going "BEFORE YOU GUYS GO, TAKE THIS MAGICALLY TWINNED HARP WITH YOU, I HAVE THE OTHER ONE" before we left town, then him magically knowing when the elf was fucking us over, then him playing some "Anti-elf song" he heard from some random jackass at just the right moment, then he goes back to being useless. Felt like after they'd largely finished the game they realized Edward was doing fuck-all and shoehorned in the bit with the elf just to give him something to do, since it didn't feel like it meshed very well.

Regardless, elf whacked, orgy purchased, samba de chocobo danced to, game saved in some sci-fi tech base to go find Golbez and rescue Rosa from untold amounts of tasteful rape. Speaking of tasteful rape I was wondering where the fuck Rydia was but since she's a summoner and the last time I saw her was when leviathan fucked everything up I assume she'll come swooping in at some point with a sea beast to save the day. Also while I'm rambling, found some random village full of pigs/frogs/pixies and enjoyed the extended dance sequence with the pixie, pig, and frog troupe.

 

[LESS T_T]

FF6 is coming February 23:



Cute polygons.

Also screw color palette.

 

[†††]

Also screw color palette.

Comparison with original:

 

[Jinn]

What did they do to my boy? Looks like shit. No surprise there though, considering the garbage past installments. They couldn't just simply recreate something that was already good. They had to brighten it up, add some mobile game aesthetic, and dumb an already easy game down further.

Everyone who worked on these should be ashamed. And everyone who buys them should be even more so.

 

[Abu Antar]

I bought the FF1-3 package. Didn't bother with 4-5-6.

 

[Thac0]

What did they do to my boy? Looks like shit. No surprise there though, considering the garbage past installments. They couldn't just simply recreate something that was already good. They had to brighten it up, add some mobile game aesthetic, and dumb an already easy game down further.

Everyone who worked on these should be ashamed. And everyone who buys them should be even more so.

I buy them as convenient mod platforms, also afaik it is the World of Final Fantasy business division porting these, so I am buying them to support this team that can produce such marvellous cringe-kino like WoFF again.

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

Who's even supposed to be the target audience for these? It's still too antique looking to attract zoomers and the no additional content + aesthetic rape will sure as hell make most of the old fans stay away. It was among my first PS1 games which I've completed about 5-6 times due to how much I love it and I'd never touch this bullshit.

 

[Jinn]

I buy them as convenient mod platforms,

There are tons of romhacks already for all the originals. This isn't a justification.

also afaik it is the World of Final Fantasy business division porting these, so I am buying them to support this team that can produce such marvellous cringe-kino like WoFF again.

You are a bad man.

 

[Thac0]

You are a bad man.

Feels good to be bad.
All Pixel Remasters 20% off currently.

 

[Jinn]

Feels good to be bad.

Funnily enough, that's the one that I can see being a reasonable purchase since the only other official English release is the terrible 3D version. Still would play the Famicom version over that in a heartbeat though.

 

[Hellraiser]

Square is clearly pants-on-head retarded, with some exceptions like yesterday's front mission 2 and live a life remake announcements.

 

[Jinn]

Yeah, very excited for the Front Mission 1 and 2 remakes. Now that's the good shit!

 

[Thac0]

Feels good to be bad.

Funnily enough, that's the one that I can see being a reasonable purchase since the only other official English release is the terrible 3D version. Still would play the Famicom version over that in a heartbeat though.

I am challenging you to a duel on behalf of the honour of FF3D version.

 

[†††]

Who's even supposed to be the target audience for these?

You underrate the amount of people who think these are the definitive versions simply because they're new and shiny.

 

[Morenatsu.]

but how can it be what i imagined if i were imagining a cool old manga and not a shitty mobile game

make u think

 

[OracleX]

man, these remasters look like shit. kudos to the modders cleaning up after SE, per usual...

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

All Pixel Remasters 20% off currently.

Still, I can't be too upset since I've been enjoying them so much. Haven't been posting FF4 updates since I've been playing it slowly on top of all the other shit I'm juggling (The scene with Edgelord's mom and dad was surprising) but 4's been quite good. Thinking 3's still my favorite so I am looking forward to 5 to see how it stacks up, but I've liked the pacing in 4 quite a lot.

I will however add I HATE THE ANTICHRIST I HATE THE ANTICHRIST
FUCKING CONFUSE FUCK OFF REEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[Bahamut]

 

[Duraframe300]

Multi-headed Cow updates are my favourite posts in this thread.