Squeenix Best Final Fantasy

[RoSoDude]

I got halfway through Final Fantasy 9 before I lost my patience with its sluggish, broken ATB system. So I decided to dive into debugger to fix it myself. Yeah, I learned MIPS assembly code just for this shit, you better goddamn appreciate it.



Final Fantasy 9's combat is probably its most criticized aspect, with a general consensus that its battles are too slow, and the ATB system is very unresponsive due to a stuffed command queue. Since animations don't pause ATB, the speed stat barely matters, buffs and debuffs wear off too quickly to be useful, and poison and regen are overpowered.

While some of these issues can be rectified on PC with the Memoria Engine's options, the original PSX version of the game was left behind. I sought to fix this by making a ROMhack to comprehensively address all of these flaws. I previously made a very similar ROMhack for FF6 on the SNES to fix its similarly broken ATB system, so I got some help from the FFHacktics community to teach myself MIPS assembly and code the logic myself.

Hack features:

• 3D scene framerate is 33% faster (faster battle animations, faster camera swirl at battle start)
• ATB fills much faster
• ATB pauses during animations
• Monster speed formula adjusted to better match player speed ranges
• Optional "CTB Wait" addon patch to make battles fully turn-based when Wait mode is enabled

Download here

 

[Poseidon00]

V because it has the build-monkey autism of Final Fantasy Tactics, it doesn't drag at any one point, and it's a tad more challenging than the average FF.

 

[Ash]

Day 5 of bugging RoSoDude for his FF9 Review. Because gently nudging him over the years to create this hack before he had even played it and him actually delivering with a bunch of unexpected and monocled features on top is just not good enough. I'm spoiled and entitled now.

In all seriousness, thanks for the fine work, and in helping preserve the legacy of these classic video games that still shine brighter than the majority.

Today, this is your theme tune brother: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT-GgK9xPvM For it's honorable work, this.

Recommended pairing with FF9 Unleashed Romhack. No returning player should be playing without either. I will be trying this combo soon.

 

[Tehdagah]

I got halfway through Final Fantasy 9 before I lost my patience with its sluggish, broken ATB system. So I decided to dive into debugger to fix it myself. Yeah, I learned MIPS assembly code just for this shit, you better goddamn appreciate it.



Final Fantasy 9's combat is probably its most criticized aspect, with a general consensus that its battles are too slow, and the ATB system is very unresponsive due to a stuffed command queue. Since animations don't pause ATB, the speed stat barely matters, buffs and debuffs wear off too quickly to be useful, and poison and regen are overpowered.

While some of these issues can be rectified on PC with the Memoria Engine's options, the original PSX version of the game was left behind. I sought to fix this by making a ROMhack to comprehensively address all of these flaws. I previously made a very similar ROMhack for FF6 on the SNES to fix its similarly broken ATB system, so I got some help from the FFHacktics community to teach myself MIPS assembly and code the logic myself.

Hack features:

• 3D scene framerate is 33% faster (faster battle animations, faster camera swirl at battle start)
• ATB fills much faster
• ATB pauses during animations
• Monster speed formula adjusted to better match player speed ranges
• Optional "CTB Wait" addon patch to make battles fully turn-based when Wait mode is enabled

Download here

I recall trying to play FF9 20 years ago but there were huge loading times before and after every random battle.

 

[Thalstarion]

Final Fantasy XII.

It's a flawed game on many fronts and plagued by terrible decisions forced on the development team such as making Vaan, rather than Basch, the 'face' of the game.

There's just something so incredible about Ivalice as a setting, though. It can be a bit dry at times but I don't mind that, political intrigue and the Empire not being wholly incompetent or evil across the board was a refreshing narrative decision. I enjoyed the exploration quite a bit. The music is solid too.

I'd put Final Fantasy IX as my close second since despite the cutesy art style it's a surprisingly mature game at times. Multiple cities being attacked or outright destroyed during the course of the story was cool and is the sort of permanent consequence missing in a lot of modern JRPG's.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

bnuuy

 

[Damned Registrations]

Multiple cities being attacked or outright destroyed during the course of the story was cool

Dude that's like, jrpg trope #3. It happens in like every mainline FF game past the first one and a dozen other games I could name besides. It would be weirder for a jrpg to NOT involve a city or three being destroyed at some point. It's up there with 'you're special' and 'friendship/love beats evil magic.'

 

[Thalstarion]

Dude that's like, jrpg trope #3. It happens in like every mainline FF game past the first one and a dozen other games I could name besides. It would be weirder for a jrpg to NOT involve a city or three being destroyed at some point. It's up there with 'you're special' and 'friendship/love beats evil magic.'

Yeah, I know it's not an uncommon trope but FFIX handled it in a way that proved more satisfying to me. There was no screeching from the protagonists about how Queen Brahne and General Beatrix were irredeemably evil for their roles in such things happening. They were criticised at various points and not necessarily forgiven completely but the game didn't have the sort of petulant humiliation rituals that more recent titles bestowed upon characters like Hugo or Benedikta in FFXVI.

 

[Machocruz]

I only want more gameplay-centric games as time goes on, so FFV is the only real choice for me here. Other games have too many compromises, 5 is the all around most satisfying.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I wouldn't mind a good story driven game, but I'll be damned if I've seen a story worth telling in many games over the last decade or more. At best there are parts of a good story- a game might have good characters, or a good plot, or a good setting... all three? nope.

 

[Dark Souls II]

I like Final Fantasy IX the most, I love the comfy beach vibes!

I haven't played none of the games though.

 

[Machocruz]

Ideally a game would hit on all cylinders. But as bad as gameplay can be in many games these days, story is often worse and also a total waste of time. In-human mannequins lore-dumping and exposition-dumping is what passes for character writing these days.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Nothing beats FF3 (6).

 

[Ash]

I like Final Fantasy IX the most, I love the comfy beach vibes!

Am Confused. Comfy beach vibes that are present for one 3 minute scene in the entire game (the scene at the bar in lindblum plays VERY comfy beach music)? It's 7 that has the comfy beach vibes at Costa Del Sol, Mideel and others. In fact beaches in 9 are largely redundant, aside from some chocograph digging, and that's a shame! I couldn't even tell you what enemies are located on the game's beaches. Zombie Whale perhaps...

I haven't played none of the games though.

I strongly recommend you rectify that with 5, 6, 7 and even 8.

Ideally a game would hit on all cylinders. But as bad as gameplay can be in many games these days, story is often worse and also a total waste of time. In-human mannequins lore-dumping and exposition-dumping is what passes for character writing these days.

No way. Nothing has declined harder than gameplay.

 

[Odoryuk]

Am Confused. Comfy beach vibes that are present for one 3 minute scene in the entire game (the scene at the bar in lindblum plays VERY comfy beach music)? It's 7 that has the comfy beach vibes at Costa Del Sol, Mideel and others. In fact beaches in 9 are largely redundant, aside from some chocograph digging, and that's a shame! I couldn't even tell you what enemies are located on the game's beaches. Zombie Whale perhaps...

Probably meant X or CC

 

[Sergio]

FF7 was peak, not only my favourite FF, but also my favourite JRPG game ever. Though to be fair FF6 and Tactics aren't too far behind.

 

[Falksi]

I recall trying to play FF9 20 years ago but there were huge loading times before and after every random battle.

Playing FF8 & 9 on PS1 was fucking excruciating because of the slow load and transition times.

Coming to them from the fast, almost instant combat found in the 16-bit era you could really feel it, and it dragged the whole experience down significantly.

I'll never get how some people can prefer Lunar on PS1 too to the SEGA CD version either. SEGA CD version is not only way snappier and better paced with the combat, but they butchered part of the story for PS1 too. Events like Lunar not leaving your party just kill some of the emotional moments.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

FF7 was peak, not only my favourite FF, but also my favourite JRPG game ever. Though to be fair FF6 and Tactics aren't too far behind.

My issue with ff7 was that it was unfinished and felt like that.

Plus it was a LOT smaller than 6, which I definitely felt. To be honest, the first 2 CDs in 7 felt like world of balance in 6, which was like the first third of the game.

 

[Sergio]

FF7 was peak, not only my favourite FF, but also my favourite JRPG game ever. Though to be fair FF6 and Tactics aren't too far behind.

My issue with ff7 was that it was unfinished and felt like that.

Plus it was a LOT smaller than 6, which I definitely felt. To be honest, the first 2 CDs in 7 felt like world of balance in 6, which was like the first third of the game.

It's just your perception. Last time I played FF6 was last year, the Pixel Remaster version. Doing a 100% run with all trophies took 34 hours in total. I'm quite sure FF7 would take longer than that. To compare, FF8 took me 42 hours.

 

[Damned Registrations]

FF7 was peak, not only my favourite FF, but also my favourite JRPG game ever. Though to be fair FF6 and Tactics aren't too far behind.

My issue with ff7 was that it was unfinished and felt like that.

Plus it was a LOT smaller than 6, which I definitely felt. To be honest, the first 2 CDs in 7 felt like world of balance in 6, which was like the first third of the game.

It's just your perception. Last time I played FF6 was last year, the Pixel Remaster version. Doing a 100% run with all trophies took 34 hours in total. I'm quite sure FF7 would take longer than that. To compare, FF8 took me 42 hours.

Playtime =! size. FF7 and onward had much slower gameplay in general- way more time spent watching various animations, during both combat and dialogue. In FF6 a sprite might hop up and down or show an expression for a second or so. In FF7 you get characters doing full on pantomime for several seconds. Not to mention slow ass minigames.

If you compare things like number of different items, enemies, npcs, treasure chests, etc. you'd likely see FF6 being much larger. Probably the only point it's comparable on is spells.

That said, I don't dislike FF7. A lot of the minigames were cool and it had a bunch of good systems like materia and limit breaks as well as a bunch of sidequests. I think 8 was when the decline really started, with systems being massively streamlined all over the place.

 

[Zombra]

FF8 is where I lost interest in the series too, but not because of mechanics (at least that's not what I noticed). My problem was that the PCs were no longer distinctive or interesting. Instead of a busty boxer chick, an escaped lab experiment panther, a vampire-looking dude, and a cat riding a moogle ... or an escaped brainwashed super-soldier, a wandering king with silly gadgets, and a little kid with a magical paintbrush ... FF8 starts off with ... some guy, some girl he knows, then some other guy who tries to act cool, and maybe another girl ... I don't even remember. I guess the main guy had a half gun half sword and the one girl dressed all in yellow and had pigtails. That's literally all I remember about the PCs in FF8 and I probably played it for 15-20 hours before I got too bored to continue.

 

[Poseidon00]

FF8 was released during that sweet spot as a kid where anything you encounter that you think is remotely cool really sticks with you, so I have always had a large degree of appreciation for FF8's cast. But, objectively speaking, I can see how they are less interesting than 7 and 9's cast.

 

[Damned Registrations]

That's literally all I remember about the PCs in FF8

Don't worry, that's all the PCs remembered about themselves too.

 

[Ash]

FF8 has some elements of decline, and yet is a contender for the top ten most systematically-complex RPGs of all time, and is also the most complex Final Fantasy in that regard. The very opposite of streamlining. IF you were to be talking about difficulty, or some unlikable characters, then you may have a point to argue when it comes to decline, but you were talking about content density and RPG systems specifically.

Once again, stupidity maintains its dominance in the public zeitgeist.

 

[Sergio]

FF8 has some elements of decline, and yet is a contender for the top ten most systematically-complex RPGs of all time, and is also the most complex Final Fantasy in that regard. The very opposite of streamlining. IF you were to be talking about difficulty, or some unlikable characters, then you may have a point to argue when it comes to decline, but you were talking about content density and RPG systems specifically.

Once again, stupidity maintains its dominance in the public zeitgeist.

What exactly is complex about a game whose whole combat system is spamming basic attacks and limit breaks? Where a silly card minigame can make you completely overpowered at the very beginning?