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For me, it's 6. Characters are fun, world is cool, big bad is actually competent. Many villains want to destroy the world. Kefka succeeds. Also the Kefka tower is one of the coolest designs in any video game ever. That matched with Dancing Mad makes it legendary.
For me, it's 6. Characters are fun, world is cool, big bad is actually competent. Many villains want to destroy the world. Kefka succeeds. Also the Kefka tower is one of the coolest designs in any video game ever. That matched with Dancing Mad makes it legendary.
For me, it's 6. Characters are fun, world is cool, big bad is actually competent. Many villains want to destroy the world. Kefka succeeds. Also the Kefka tower is one of the coolest designs in any video game ever. That matched with Dancing Mad makes it legendary.
Bingo. Maybe. 7 is no slouch. 8 has a lot of merit despite its major problems. 9 is noteworthy despite the painfully slow combat pace.
I adore 6 a great deal, but that first 8 or whatever hours is just a stain on a bonafide masterpiece. It could have been so much better than it is, if only it wasn't chicken. 8 freaking hours before it stops being overly railroaded, barebones, unengaging autocrossbow/fire/blitz/dispatch spam (outside of some minor elements of note here and there) and suddenly becomes an innovative engaging RPG. It is detrimental to the game's overall magnificent accomplishment and numerous others in the series do not suffer from this problem nearly as much. But I've whined about this one too many times now perhaps. Though it is deserved, as the leader of the poll.
6's start has also turned many people away. I know more than one person IRL that gave up before Magitek Research facility. Can't blame them at all, it's borderline kiddie shit* mental engagement until then, outside of the draw of the charm/music/story etc.
*Nope, "kiddie shit" is not even adequate. The first third of Pokemon on the black & white 1989 gameboy is 5x more demanding and complex than the first third of FF6. Sad! For this (and its betrayal of what was already established with FF5) it doesn't deserve to be number one, even if it does completely turn it around after the fact...but storyfags are gonna storyfag.
Story and atmosphere can make up for lackluster gameplay. How many people play Planescape Torment for the combat?
What are your thoughts on games like Disco Elysium by the way?
Also I need to replay 9. 12 year-old me didn't give it a fair chance. I wanted edgy dudes with big swords and effeminate crybabies with superpowers.
And I guess you can call me a graphicsfag too because had to force myself through 7 with its 3D polymodels.
Absolutely cannot. Especially not in an RPG that's 20-40 hours of gameplay. Do you not realize how absurd it is to slog through mindless worthless gameplay for 40 hours for a "good story"? You could read a book or watch a movie and get a better result in less time. Or you could just play a game that offers the full package.
What are your thoughts on games like Disco Elysium by the way?
I wont play it, but I respect it for doing away with any false pretenses. Same as P&C adventure games. There's not much gameplay at all BUT what is there actually has meaning, makes you think and is usually well implemented. I haven't played any in decades to completion and I prefer far deeper than that, but they're generally respectable. They don't waste your goddamn time + all elements present are working in tandem.
Then what counts as good gameplay? We're talking about FF. Where is the fun in that gameplay? Up to 6, it's the same turn-based combat every time, and the biggest change the addition of a timer.
Do you not realize how absurd it is to slog through mindless worthless gameplay for 40 hours for a "good story"? You could read a book or watch a movie and get a better result in less time. Or you could just play a game that offers the full package.
I can still take things away that I like. Do you realize how absurd it is to throw something out for one flaw? And yeah, I can read a book or watch a movie, but by your logic, I ought to drop whatever media I'm engaging with once it shows a blemish. Nothing is flawless, and I'll take a good story with middling gameplay any day over riveting gameplay with a shitty story and bland world. When you focus primarily on the core gameplay mechanics and not world and narrative you get Fallout 4. Is that what you want? A whole bunch of Fallout 4's? Because we're gonna get another one called "The Elder Scrolls 6" eventually, and I'm sure it'll have a nice, shiny combat system. But that's all it'll have.
Then what counts as good gameplay? We're talking about FF. Where is the fun in that gameplay? Up to 6, it's the same turn-based combat every time, and the biggest change the addition of a timer.
5 had multiple major gameplay innovations/introductions to the series. People are weird, stupid even, and just...don't comprehend what's right in front of them. Clearly.
Also even 1 offered hugely significant navigation challenge, not just turn-based combat.
Do you realize how absurd it is to throw something out for one flaw?
That's not one mere minor flaw. It's like being fed delicious 14oz tenderloin steak but you have to consume it 1 bite per hour over the course of 40 while it goes cold and hardens. Bad gameplay ruins good story when you have standards. For me, it is like watching paint dry for hours (mindless gameplay) while occassionally something intersting happens (good story). Games can do both. But people don't care, often don't even percieve mindless gameplay, just dazzled by animations, spectacle, story, graphics. That much is evident and it's how we're at the sorry state of gaming we are today. If the audience had standards it'd never have happened. But I don't blame the audience as half are children. I blame the developers as most know better but are greedy, cowardly and without integrity.
Middling gameplay isn't so bad, but there's a lot of outright mindless, bland, worthless, uninspired, barebones gameplay out there that is accepted in the name of story.
OR you get Mario Bros 3. Doom 1993. Final Fantasy 5.
Anyway, I didn't say anything about minimum focus on story, and certainly not on world. The goalposts have been shifted. Prestigious games do it ALL, those are my favorites, but yes gameplay is always the main concern as that is where most of the time is spent with the experience, and is also what makes games unique from other media, and lastly is what makes games transcend other media in value. Most gamers are just irrational and unintelligent in their standards and expectations - oftentimes the story (and world) they prioritize despite all the terrible hours of brainless low effort gameplay isn't even remarkable anyway (e.g Mass Effect games).
In summary, I picture most of my fellow gamers as follows:
Not easy to define exactly where the line is, it would be a big post and there is some subjectivity involved. BUT it is very easy to define what mindless garbage gameplay is: highly repetitive, braindead easy, overly simple combined in one package. A complete waste of time, hours upon hours of it. There are numerous examples of this in JRPG, one beginning with C and ending in igger*, but no genre is safe from the decline.
*I am using super complicated encryption so that it's fans dont get it and wont throw a tantrum.
Then what counts as good gameplay? We're talking about FF. Where is the fun in that gameplay? Up to 6, it's the same turn-based combat every time, and the biggest change the addition of a timer.
5 had multiple major gameplay innovations/introductions to the series. People are weird, stupid even, and just...don't comprehend what's right in front of them. Clearly.
And what were they? A handful of new jobs? FF is the very face of derivative, carbon copied gameplay. The only other series that changes less with each iteration is Dark Souls. Or maybe I'm wrong, and it's the industry standard for JRPG's.
Bad gameplay ruins good story when you lack intestinal fortitude. I'll power through a game with ass gameplay when the world interests me. Pathologic's gameplay is miserable, and yet it's one of my favorite worlds. Was I wasting time by playing it? I certainly don't think so - not when I got something out of it.
How can you lump story in with graphics, animations, and spectacle? They're entirely different categories, and more often than not, games with super flashy visuals have banal narratives. When you can hook players in with bright lights and a few metric tons of particle effects, why bother with an interesting story? The story is usually the first thing to go.
Because I wasn't talking about mindless or worthless gameplay but lackluster gameplay. I could have thrown in a few more adjectives: poorly-designed, tedious, boring - but mindless and worthless? No, I was referring to things like Morrowind: click, click, click-hold-release until level up, dump points into an attribute to increase hit rate, repeat - or Pathologic: print off a copy of the map, and pray to the hitbox gods when in combat. I don't like it, but I find the world too captivating to pass up. And reading wiki articles/watching LP's feels like a copout, so I suffer through gameplay I don't like.
Some final thoughts: While typing this, I realized that what I like and don't like can be highly dependent on the type of story or the type of gameplay rather than just the quality thereof. Diablo 2 has a boring story and a boring world, but I like the gameplay. Mass Effect has a brilliant story, or so I've been told, but the gameplay bores me to tears. Mount & Blade is one of my favorite games, and it has no story to speak of. All that being said, I can't in good conscience spout absolute statements without some disclaimer that I'm talking about average experiences, and that there is not to my knowledge, a hard set of rules I abide by.
Not easy to define exactly where the line is, it would be a big post and there is some subjectivity involved. BUT it is very easy to define what mindless garbage gameplay is: highly repetitive, braindead easy, overly simple combined in one package. A complete waste of time, hours upon hours of it. There are numerous examples of this in JRPG, one beginning with C and ending in igger*, but no genre is safe from the decline.
*I am using super complicated encryption so that it's fans dont get it and wont throw a tantrum.
And what were they? A handful of new jobs? FF is the very face of derivative, carbon copied gameplay. The only other series that changes less with each iteration is Dark Souls. Or maybe I'm wrong, and it's the industry standard for JRPG's.
This is the most retarded thing I have heard all week! It's the complete opposite. FF (and Squaresoft) is the very definition of innovation in JRPG, in all facets of design from gameplay to graphics to music to....jesus the codex delivers again. Stick to circlejerking over Oblivion lore on the TES lore fanforum eh? You are utterly dim. There are considerable changes EVERY iteration, particularly between 5-12.
I know you can't, because sub-par perception, understanding of game design and analytical ability. But I can. There are games that are so obviously low effort in the gameplay department & can barely qualify as games at all, that no amount of subjectivity applies; it's clearly a bad game.
You have played the games, you should know already. I've already detailed it briefly before, I'll just link that again I suppose.
Here, abridged version:
5 set the new standard of gameplay in the series: now they actually have high quality level design, plenty optional content and side quests, puzzle elements, engaging exploration and navigation challenge, fun moderately complex RPG systems, combat strategy that extends beyond absolute basic concepts.
Also 5 for the first time has story events and gameplay intertwined, like where you have 10 minutes to escape Karnak Castle (and grab as much loot as you can) before it burns to the ground. Another thing that becomes standard. This is great as it tests your navigation skills, risk vs reward (you can't get all the loot unless you really plan, play it smart, and flee a lot), your general smarts (e.g minimize menu time during this event), if you explored Karnak castle prior you have an advantage as you know the layout. Maybe you could even draw a map, eh? Tests your understanding of combat (finishing battles quickly, smoke bomb item, flee command, or otherwise running away), and keeping stocked on HP while doing all this.
This is the most retarded thing I have heard all week! It's the complete opposite. FF (and Squaresoft) is the very definition of innovation in JRPG, in all facets of design from gameplay to graphics to music to....jesus the codex delivers again. Stick to circlejerking over Oblivion lore on the TES lore fanforum eh? You are utterly dim. There are tons of changes EVERY iteration, particularly between 5-12.
A bit hyperbolic, but I'll let you get that out of your system.
With a few exceptions, I prefer Atlus to Square. I've always considered them to be the most creative and innovative on the whole - then Falcom
I know you can't, because sub-par perception, understanding of game design and analytical ability. But I can. There are games that are so obviously low effort in the gameplay department & can barely qualify as games at all, that no amount of subjectivity applies; it's clearly a bad game.
Read, nigger! Read the post. I was talking about making sweeping statements based on a few narrowly-defined criteria. There are exceptions; I've listed several and given examples. With the exception of your gripes about the first third of FF6, all you've presented are vague abstracts. And when I ask for something less insubstantial, I get deflections - like this:
Though you do have a point here. I've played the games, but I don't have your brilliant, analytical mind, hence my experiences have been much different. Alas, if I only had your critical genius!
Also it's been at least 20 years since I've played FF5, but you've given me enough reason to replay it.
5 set the new standard of gameplay in the series: now they actually have high quality level design, plenty optional content and side quests, puzzle elements, engaging exploration and navigation challenge, fun moderately complex RPG systems, combat strategy that extends beyond absolute basic concepts.
Also 5 for the first time has story events and gameplay intertwined, like where you have 10 minutes to escape Karnak Castle (and grab as much loot as you can) before it burns to the ground. Another thing that becomes standard. This is great as it tests your navigation skills, risk vs reward (you can't get all the loot unless you really plan, play it smart, and flee a lot), your general smarts (e.g minimize menu time during this event), if you explored Karnak castle prior you have an advantage as you know the layout. Maybe you could even draw a map, eh? Tests your understanding of combat (finishing battles quickly, smoke bomb item, flee command, or otherwise running away), and keeping stocked on HP while doing all this.
I must have taken all of these things for granted at the time as opposed to thinking about them as elements along an evolutionary path of game development.
A bit hyperbolic, but I'll let you get that out of your system.
With a few exceptions, I prefer Atlus to Square. I've always considered them to be the most creative and innovative on the whole - then Falcom
All things considered, perhaps. As Atlus haven't lost their way quite them same. If Squaresoft were still around, not whatever corporate slop slinger they became post-merger with Enix, then it would be no contest.
Also, too much effeminate anime from Atlus.
And when I ask for something less insubstantial, I get deflections - like this:\
Good! It's a classic. Fun gameplay. Charming light-hearted story. Nice music. No nonsense in sight.
I must have taken all of these things for granted at the time as opposed to thinking about them as elements along an evolutionary path of game development.
After my recent playthrough of Final Fantasy 6 and my less recent playthrough of Final Fantasy 7, I decided to jump right into Final Fantasy 5. What I found is a game that has some of the best character progression systems, battles, and level designs in the series I’ve yet played. While the story is probably the weakest of the three, its gameplay fundamentals are the strongest, with a higher degree of difficulty that promotes full engagement with exploration, encounters, and party customization.
The heart of FF5’s gameplay is its job system. Each player character starts as a freelancer, all with nearly identical stat distributions and the ability to equip any gear. Early into the game, the player is granted access to 6 job classes — the defensive knight, the bare-handed monk, the agile thief, the healing white mage, the offensive black mage, and the novel blue mage — and not long after acquires another 14 jobs in batches to choose from, including series staples like the jumping dragoon and the hybrid red mage as well as new additions like the weapon-enchanting mystic knight and the potion-mixing chemist. Equipping a job gives a bonus or penalty to the character’s main stats: strength increases physical attack damage, magic determines maximum MP and increases magical attack damage, agility modifies how quickly a character gets their turn in battle and increases attack damage for some weapon types, and stamina determines maximum HP. Each job has a signature command ability, such as white magic for casting healing and supportive spells, black magic for casting offensive spells, the thief’s steal ability, or the ninja’s ability to throw unwanted weapons or shurikens and magical scrolls from the inventory. Many jobs also have innate passive abilities, such as the knight’s ability to cover allies with low HP to absorb physical attacks, the monk’s ability to counter physical attacks, and the blue mage’s ability to learn enemy spells. In addition, as the party acquires ability points (AP) from battles, each job will level up, earning new abilities at every job level, which may be new active commands to use in battle or passive abilities like the ability to equip a job’s signature weapon type.
Simply having swappable character classes with linear power growth is not terribly interesting on its own. FF5’s job system injects significant depth and player expression by allowing the player to choose one ability they’ve acquired from any leveled job to go along with their equipped job, which allows for a wide degree of customization as the player upgrades jobs and unlocks new abilities to combine. Many abilities, particularly magic commands and the equip weapon type passives confer a stat bonus from the source job (proportional to job level for magic commands), such that equipping white magic on a knight allows them to cast healing spells more effectively, or equipping the monk’s bare-handed skill on a black mage allows them to attack effectively with fists. Moreover, the freelancer job inherits the stat bonuses and innate passive abilities of every job a character has fully mastered and can equip two abilities acquired from leveled jobs, and there is a final hidden job class that can forgo the standard fight and item commands to equip up to three abilities from leveled jobs (though it lacks the full gear selection of the freelancer). The result is a very flexible system that rewards investment but also promotes strategic adaption. If the player is struggling with a particular area or boss, rethinking their party setup by changing jobs, abilities, and equipment is more effective than grinding levels. At the same time, it is important to chart out a plan for leveling jobs to avoid spreading AP across jobs that won’t be useful for a character build. I ended the game with Bartz jumping on enemies for massive damage with dual-wielded spears enchanted with the defense-piercing flare spell, Lenna dualcasting powerful multi-target summons and potent white magic, Krile rapid attacking with katanas and throwing weapons, and Faris supporting the party with buffs from time magic, blue magic, and potion mixing. These represent some dominant strategies that emerged during my playthrough, however the number of viable strategies that are possible by combining various job abilities is practically uncountable.
Given the wealth of options available to the player, it is to the game’s credit that the enemies and bosses present a respectable level of challenge from start to end. Beyond just high HP and damage, the majority of bosses and even a great deal of the enemy encounters are designed with unique gimmicks that evolve over the course of the game. These range from simple ideas like shifting elemental weaknesses, casting status ailments on the party or counter-attacking when hit by physical damage, to more complex ideas like a multi-enemy boss that revives its allies if they are not all killed in the same turn to favor area of effect damage, or a boss that shifts between identical illusory copies every time it takes damage, counterattacking with powerful magic if it is struck by area of effect damage. Many foes are capable of using the same status buffs as the player, such as haste, shell, and reflect, which require strategy to work around, but more surprising is that a number of bosses can be affected by status ailments, rewarding experimentation and full use of character skillsets. Practically every boss has something that sets it apart from the others, and most of them will take a novice player several attempts to defeat, forcing them to re-evaluate their approach. A player who insists on sticking with the same party setup for the whole game will struggle, as FF5’s battles are more about adaptive strategy than building an all-purpose team that can handle everything. While other Final Fantasy games can be equally inventive in their enemy and boss designs, FF5 deserves special praise for its consistent difficulty curve that allows its expressive gameplay systems to shine. I sometimes see it stated as a truism that RPGs like Final Fantasy should be intentionally designed to be easy so that any character build can overcome the game lest the player be punished for experimentation, however FF5 is a confident counterargument to that proposition, as its faith in the player to learn and understand the game systems to achieve victory is what makes it such a great RPG.
Final Fantasy 5 is no slouch in level design, with a diverse set of dungeons full of mazes, traps, treasures, and puzzles. From a steam-powered ship with conveyer belts and one-way air ducts to an ancient library with shifting bookcases and enchanted tomes to a pyramid with shifting sands and spike traps, nearly every dungeon has a unique gameplay gimmick tied into its theme. The encounter rate is generally rather high, though it didn’t bother me as much as it sometimes did in FF6 or FF7, possibly due to the encounter designs in each area offering an engaging challenge and continuous character progression. There is no way to purchase MP-restoring ethers in the game’s first act so resource attrition in early dungeons is a real concern, and even basic enemy encounters can wipe the party if they don’t pay attention to status effects and enemy weaknesses. In addition to typical dungeons, FF5 also integrates light puzzle solving and exploration into towns and the overworld, hiding summons, gear, and even a final job in locations that a player will only find if they pay close attention to the world map and NPC dialogues. One of the best sequences of the game finds the player escaping from a castle on a timer — escaping in time is rather trivial, but in the disarray many treasure chests that were previously blocked off are now available, and so having a thief in the party with the ability to sprint and escape from encounters is virtually required to get all of the treasure. The thief and geomancer jobs are some of the more interesting ones in the context of level design, as they possess abilities that are useful in dungeon exploration rather than combat, recalling the game’s tabletop RPG roots.
The third act of Final Fantasy 5 allows the player to tackle a number of side objectives in any manner they like, or they can even rush to the final dungeon if they want to try it with a lower level party. I managed to find and overcome most of the game’s optional content, filling out all of my magic command lists and unlocking all 12 sealed weapons; attention paid to earlier dialogues, world layout, and story events really pays off here, along with thorough exploration. As in other Final Fantasy games, the last dungeon is a worthy gauntlet of tough enemies and 7 bosses before the ultimate confrontation, which offer a good test for the player’s party setup and opportunity to finish leveling some jobs. I was able to conquer one of the game’s 2 optional superbosses, Omega, with an exploitable strategy revolving around a hasted bard with the agility of a thief. The story of FF5 is mostly forgettable, matching a saturday morning cartoon in tone and thematic resonance, but its gameplay is some of the most solid that the series has to offer, and would be my first recommendation to anyone looking for an entry point into Japanese RPGs. Since the game was never released in English for the SNES, I recommend the Clean Edition patch, which bundles together the classic RPGe fan translation (with some revisions) with some bugfixes and interface improvements (like L+R working in menus, which was a godsend), as well as an optional version including the excellent Weapon Formula Tweaks hack.
FF5’s job system could be more broadly compared with FF7’s materia system. In fact, I would argue that there is very little that is accomplished by FF5’s job system that could not be executed with materia, and materia has some additional upsides. A major drawback to FF5’s job system is that active commands and passive abilities must compete for the one open ability slot available with most jobs, and active commands are often preferable to take for their utility and mechanical variety. If the player could choose one active ability and one passive ability, this would make for more interesting combinations (a counter-argument to this is that it would allow any job to boost their strength and magic stats simultaneously by equipping an active magical command alongside an equip weapon type passive). FF7’s materia system elegantly solves this by having both active and passive abilities occupy the same kinds of slots, while also having a wider array of abilities that have natural synergies and direct combinations through linked materia slots. Like jobs, materia unlock new or improved abilities as the player earns AP, and also come with stat bonuses or penalties such that equipping them naturally pushes characters towards certain gameplay roles for a freeform class system. The main difference that makes FF5’s RPG system hold up favorably to FF7’s despite its comparative simplicity is that it strikes a much better balance with the challenges on offer, where fully exploring one’s options for character development is a necessity rather than something with the potential to undercut the game’s threats altogether.
One of FF5’s most interesting innovations is the introduction of the blue mage, who can learn special abilities from enemies to use in battle. This concept endured in some form in every subsequent entry prior to FF12, however in my experience with FF6 and FF7 it was executed best in its initial outing. This comes down to two factors: the feasibility of acquiring blue magic, and its potency in battle. In FF5, a party member must equip the “Learning” attribute and be targeted and affected by a valid blue magic spell in order to learn it for the whole party (and the battle must be successfully completed, so getting hit and running away won’t work). Many people advocate the use of one of several easy/auto-learning patches which either make learning innate on all player characters or merely require that the blue magic spell be seen in battle to be learned (this is how Strago learns equivalent “lores” in FF6), however I am of the opinion that the system is pretty much perfect as it is, as I was able to obtain all 30 blue magic spells during my first playthrough with minimal reference to any guides. In FF6, the learning process is simplified, but it also requires that Strago be present in the party for any new lores which is not always desirable when trying to make use of different party compositions in dungeons. In FF7, the learning process is the same as in FF5 where a party member with the enemy skill materia must be hit with the ability to learn it, but most enemy skills are used by only 1 or 2 obscure enemy types, in some cases only if the enemy is manipulated first. In FF5, nearly every blue magic spell is used by 4 or 5 enemy types, such that they are easily discoverable if the player experiments with the blue mage’s learning ability and the beastmaster’s ability to take control of enemies to view and target their commands. Moreover, blue magic in FF5 is comparable in potency to other schools of magic (in FF7 I would submit that many individual enemy skills easily outrank magic in usefulness, all for one materia slot with no stat penalties). There are some straightforwardly useful blue magics such as offensive wind elemental spells, healing the party based on the caster’s current HP, or casting protect, shell, and float on the party, but blue magic is also full of interesting oddities, like a spell that casts instant death on enemies with level divisible by 5, a spell that halves the target’s level (these can be used in tandem), or a spell that deals damage proportional to the caster’s missing HP. These quirks make blue magic synergize well with many other job abilities, so seeking out new blue magic spells is very worthwhile.
One thing I missed from FF6 was the greater degree of customization over my character’s stats afforded by the magicite system. In FF5, stats are primarily decided by a character’s equipped jobs and abilities (some gear can also enhance stats, though usually only to a minor degree). Technically, the highest stat bonuses of any mastered jobs are transferred to the freelancer, however for characters who specialize in either magical or physical jobs, most of these bonuses will overlap and only the highest bonus in a given stat is considered. Moreover, the freelancer is only really worth using in the final area once the player has mastered all of the jobs they desire, as forgoing AP gain is usually not worth it. I definitely see the value in having each job give full stat bonuses when equipped at job level 0 as it allows for each job to be viable immediately with all progression moved to more exciting ability unlocks, but I think some compromise could have been achieved, perhaps with smaller incremental bonuses from each job level which could be permanent on each character.
Combat in FF5 is structurally similar to other games in the series, carrying on the Active Time Battle system from the previous title but with some notable improvements, namely visible ATB gauges that display a player character’s progress to the next turn and the removal of long execution delays for magic spells. FF5’s ATB system is the best in the series that I’ve played so far, with little downtime between turns, snappy animations which pause the battle timer (this was a notable problem with FF6’s ATB and isn’t perfect in FF7 either), and a battle speed config option which effects a short pause on all battle timers when a character’s command menu first pops up, in contrast to other entries where battle speed simply makes player and/or enemy ATB gauges fill up faster. A common complaint about ATB is that it simply rewards swift menuing over and above quick decisionmaking (all of which can be made irrelevant the Active/Wait config option anyway), however in FF5 the brief pause acts as a buffer to allow the player to briefly consider their options before timers resume. Oddly enough, there is a time magic spell which does nothing but set the battle speed to 5 (with 6 being the slowest), and so I made it a rule for most fights to keep the setting at the fastest speed with no buffer so that I’d need to use the spell if I wanted more breathing room. Despite its strengths, I identified two flaws with FF5’s ATB system; the more obvious being that there is no way to skip a player character’s turn in the vanilla SNES game (I used a patch which implements this, however it also skips the next character’s buffer time which perhaps explains why this implementation of the battle speed config option was never used again), and the more subtle being the manner in which commands are queued. It seems that in each ATB tick, queued moves are executed first, after which the next available command menu can pop up, and a command menu cannot open while the battle timer is paused even if multiple characters have full ATB gauges. As a result it is rare to be able to input more than one move at a time, which can make the pace of battles a little less frenetic even on the fastest battle speed. My guess is that Squaresoft decided to make battle timers run during animations in FF6 to remedy this, though in my view it greatly backfired as the queue gets backlogged with commands. FF7’s default ATB mode pauses timers during the main part of spell/summon/limit break animations, but not for the initial animation where the character moves into position, which helps loosen up the queue a bit so that multiple commands can be entered in sequence, but on faster battle speeds it suffers from a similar backlogging as FF6. An unexpected benefit of my hack for FF6 which pauses battle timers during animations is that it does not result in FF5’s one-at-a-time problem since command menus can open independently of the battle timer, allowing for multiple commands to be entered while animations are playing for any character that has a full ATB gauge. I’ve read that Squaresoft completely rewrote most of the code for FF6, which accounts for its very buggy state on release but also came with some nice benefits like this one.
FF6’s biggest strength was in its ensemble cast with diverse abilities and some fantastic multi-party dungeons that incentivized using them all. FF5 instead achieves gameplay diversity through a fixed party with a ton of customization, and while it does have one dungeon where the party splits up to tackle each half, it’s a much simpler affair. FF7 combines a choice of party members with even greater customization, though it incentivizes sticking with a few favorites (with Cloud required to be in the party of 3 at all times). All of these design paradigms are equally valid, attesting to the virtue of the continual reinvention of Final Fantasy series with each entry.
The custom classes mod sounds like it breaks the game, tbh. While I wish there were more potential for combinations, I don't think it's a good addition to the game (aside from the endgame mimic job) without other significant design changes.
FF7's pausing during battle clearly wasn't to buffer system processing, because it can be disabled with the Active config option. With Active mode, only summon animations pause battle timers, an obvious concession to balance considering how long they take. Otherwise, battle timers continue to tick during all animations. It's only Recommended/Wait mode that pause during animations.
1: You could always stick 3 skills on a character late game so it doesn't really enable anything new, just early/less hassle.
2: There's still a finite number of turns to use active abilities on (remember passive abilities are free on Freelancer after mastering a job).
3: The biggest beneficiaries are weaker jobs and (especially) abilities. There's so many easy ways to crush enemies in FFV as a knowledgeable player with just a single free skill, the extra skill (and re-arranged learning) more encourages using lesser appreciated commands like Call or Gaia.
Fake news. As I said elsewhere, I predicted broken balance of the custom classes mod merely from reading the changelog and used an enemy editor tool do give ALL enemies in the game +50% HP and stats. This was still not enough, and sadly the mod turned FF5 into a casual shitfest. I am ALL FOR more customisation depth and freedom, in fact that is exactly what I want, but it needs to be implemented in an intelligent and balanced manner. The custom classes mod may seem like fun, but what you essentially get is x4 characters that excel at everything. There is no weakness in your party that can't be covered that applies in any situation. It's made worse by the fact that each ability you pick gives you new stat boosts (e.g equip steal ability and get +10 speed). If you're adding all this new shit, you need to nerf/buff some old, as there was already a pretty solid balance established. Instead the modder just dumped all this OP shit on top of the base game (which already had some minor balance issues, but was otherwise quite well done).
It's some damn fine hackery/programming and a neat idea, but the execution is dumb as rocks. Perfect for the average gamer then!
There is a way to add more build depth to FF5 without breaking the game. What that is exactly I haven't given much thought, but I know I could conceptualize it better blindfolded and that this ain't it. Just think about it for a second, for example being able to add even one more command ability on top of existing allows everyone to be a summoner on top, without sacrificing anything (well...!Item is sacrificed. Big deal). Oh and equipping that ability boosts your stats too, dont forget. It should have been limited to swapping out !Item for passive abilities only, and less of a stat boost (+2-5 range). That already is a good start, but needing a closer analysis on a case-by-case basis.
What a fucking joke. I mean technically sure, there is more possibility to create a party that is worthless, if you give them all physical abilities but "forget" to set !fight. Not being a complete retard is all that takes though. It's like saying "hey guys I made it so you can choose to wear from 5 varieties of sock today instead of your usual three, but be careful, this means it is harder to keep track of them!". Technically true but so insignificant it's not even worth mentioning.
"Spells and monsters have been modified slightly and hopefully are balanced with the customization options available to the player."
easily ff7 everything else goes all down hill from here, tho ff10's soundtrack on the otherhand was amazing since koda kumi's on it and also, ff13 visually to this day still holds up really well like advent children.
