Squeenix Best Final Fantasy

[Grampy_Bone]

Does anyone actually try to get Gau's Rages, let alone use them? It may be the single least productive activity in the game.

Also, FF9's popularity is basically a reddit meme. Never heard anyone praise that game until 10 years after release.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Does anyone actually try to get Gau's Rages, let alone use them? It may be the single least productive activity in the game.

I think it gets used in some speedruns or low level challenges, actually. The vast majority are utter crap, but a few are amazing for various reasons. They can let him absorb poison, therefore getting a growing hp regen, stray cat is easy to get and does a crapton of damage, and there's some other weird stuff too that grant nice buffs, immunities, or lets him spam strong spells like white wind. By and large though, no, I never bothered myself after the first dozen I tried were some flavour of 'cast a level 2 elemental spell'. When I first played I thought it was way cooler to give Sabin a pair of claws like Wolverine and charge up Cyan's Quadra Slice (which is actually pretty awful when you do the math, funnily enough.) I still give it credit for being a really cool mechanic though. RPGs need more creative stuff like that, instead of just copy pasting FF5's skills over and over again. I'd give FF9's Quina credit for a novel take on blue magic if it wasn't so poorly utilized. I think FFX was the first game since FF7 that really had some cool original stuff in combat; things like the stackable buffs, delay (god I wish I could port it's turn system over to ever other entry in the series, it's so much better than everything else) and the customization of how to build gauge for limit breaks.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I loathed the artstyle

Well, I can sympathize with that being a massive roadblock to enjoyment; love how IX looks and like most of the cast well enough, can't stand VIII and the art style/characters are probably the biggest culprits.

I feel like this is the thing people don't get when I complain about the latter games: their treasures don't matter. When you get a Genji glove in FF6, you basically DOUBLE your damage output.

As mentioned above I don't really give a shit about that stuff in jRPGs, they all seem kinda shitty to me in that regard, better or worse I probably wouldn't notice.

I also hated the plot. To be fair, plots in FF games are pretty much always some kind of nested plotholes ending with a fight against some incarnation of evil

Yeah it's a mish-mash of FF tropes all rolled into one with a pretty much haha fuck you final conclusion, fitting if you ask me

Also, FF9's popularity is basically a reddit meme. Never heard anyone praise that game until 10 years after release.

Cool story, you should go back there

 

[Grampy_Bone]

"You guys, the last FF game with turn-based combat was DECLINE. Anyway, let me tell you why the best game is the one with the ambiguously gendered obese clown chef who eats frogs..."

Cyan's Quadra Slice (which is actually pretty awful when you do the math, funnily enough.)

They improved Cyan slightly in the pixel remaster by allowing his sword arts to charge without holding up the rest of the team. Still not great though when Blitz and Tool are instant.

When I played as a kid I would try to obsessively get all spells on my main team, this time I ignored spells for most characters and min/maxed stats. They fixed all the old bugs like evasion and Relm's Control locking the game, and removed the x-zone/vanish trick for boss cheese. I used Strago more and gained a better appreciation for him. My final team was Edgar with Dragoon boots/horn, Terra with celestriad(economizer)+dual cast for Quick-Ultima abuse, Locke with the Master Scroll (Offering) and Valiant knife with his health kept intentionally low, and just regular old Sabin. Very easy time, it was fun power leveling in the Dragon forest and getting a full set of 12 people powered up for the final dungeon thanks to auto-battle and growth eggs, something I didn't have the patience for as a kid.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

"You guys, the last FF game with turn-based combat was DECLINE.

No overworld corridor gameplay. Gay characters. Ok story, gay execution. Trash.

 

[Ash]

I hated all the characters except Freya. Mostly because of the retarded bobblehead art direction, but the actual characters themselves did nothing for me either- Steiner was a moron, Xidane (was that the name?) was a non-character with no motivations or connections to anyone

Zidane was the only true chad main character in FF, and no motivations or connections to anyone is fake news.

As mentioned, I loathed the artstyle. It felt like a parody of the SNES games I liked.

Bro you've shit taste!

Pure artistry. Video games still don't look this good. Now if you're referring to the character designs, that's a little more understandable but they don't take up much screen space. It's easy to ignore if undesired.

Gameplay wise, again, I hated most of the cast. The Summon/White mage thing they had going on was fine, but everyone else was pretty dull. Vivi didn't get any cool spells from what I recall, everyone's Trance skills were utter garbage except Zidane. Battles spent way too much time doing stupid camera zooms and shit, the ATB system has pretty much always been a shitshow in FF games, aside from perhaps FF4 where agility actually made a big difference and varied in a reasonable way between characters. Learning skills and stuff from equipment would have been neat... except they were mostly boring crap and you didn't have enough equipment to be forced into making hard choices, even if you weren't grinding. The card game, as mentioned, was pointless. The chocobo stuff was tedious and also pointless. I mean really, pretty much all the loot in the game was pointless.

There's definitely some validity to some of these claims. I'll focus on what isn't valid: loot is absolutely not pointless. More on that in a minute. The RPG systems are a little declined from the previous games that I agree, but there are just enough abilities and equipment to strategize and personalize with. Ability stones is where the most strategy and freedom lies, as well as your chosen path in learning the abilities (which ones first for which character). Choco game has two states - the digging in forests, an the digging on world map. The world map portion is mostly a fantastic exploration/navigation sub-game. The forest digging is not totally shit but does get repetitive fast, they should have done more to it. Using emulator fast forward is a must. Still, all aspects of the gameplay have merit, and you once more overlooked level design (e.g Desert Palace, Mt Gulug, Cleyra Trunk, Fossil Roo, Ipsen's Castle), numerous optional gameplay aspects that are always available throughout the game (e.g learn blue magic, auction house, side areas and quests), and story-centric gameplay events (e.g festival of the hunt, Ramuh's Riddle, numerous adventure-game like elements, reflex challenges and stuff like that), all of which are valuable and shit on the non-game JRPGs, or well all the storyfag RPGs across the board.

I feel like this is the thing people don't get when I complain about the latter games: their treasures don't matter. When you get a Genji glove in FF6, you basically DOUBLE your damage output. For one item. And there are a ton of items just as powerful or more, from weapons to armour to accessories. Finding a new esper is exciting because you not only get use of the esper itself, which can be insanely powerful, but potentially unlock spells for literally anyone you want. FF4 and 5 did this even better because base stats and defense actually did things there, while going from 20 to 60 defense in FF6 is basically cosmetic. But FF6 armours did cool shit like grant images so it balanced out.

But they do? See below. As always though, use romhacks to make the gameplay come full circle and truly don a monocle.

That last section is learnable abilities. Holy shit I would be disappointed to find this. Wind elemental attack? Who even has that? Trivial stat bonuses. The learnable skills are things I would never even equip.

Dagger and Eiko. Their wind rackets + blackbelt and other STR boosting equipment are useful to turn them into back row fighters. Which I always do, because otherwise they have no offense until late game. You even pay attention at all?

As for the abilities, HP+20% is gud? Demi is same as other FF - mostly shit good for specific encounters (can't remember if it works on grand dragons). Beast killer is good if you are using meta knowledge (know which bosses are weak to it), but I agree it's not a great ability.

Conde Petie Mountain Path​

Items	Remedy, Blue Stone [Key Item], Tent, Red Stone [Key Item], Magic Tag, Tent, Ether, Kupo Nut [Key Item], Tent, Yellow Stone [Key Item], Green Stone [Key Item], Ether

Literally everything there is a consumable or a puzzle component. Snorefest.

The boss has an uncommon steal, maybe that will be cool?

Mythril Fork	42	None	High Tide	Steal from Ralvurahva(U), Hilgigars(U) Buy from Conde Petie

So it does nothing special and you can buy it nearby anyways. There's also a RARE steal, which can apparently take hours to get.

Fairy Flute	24	Esuna Haste Regen	Steal from Hilgigars(R) Buy from Oeilvert(Mogshop), Desert Palace(Mogshop)	2	2	2,250

I mean, at least Haste is a good spell, and maybe Regen (it's varied between good and total crap over time, no idea how it fares here) but again, this is shit you can simply buy.

Condie Petie is unremarkable for sure, probably the worst example of FF9 level design, but it is also like 10 minutes. A tiny portion of the game.
Something to note is the moonstone not listed for some reason, which is a semi-important equip.
As for your rare steal that you can "just buy"...no. Oeilvert and Desert Palace are hours later.

If you missed every single item across that entire section, you would not care. And from what I recall, the entire game is like this.

It's absolutely not. Bring up the loot list for desert palace for instance and it is the opposite of this, like 20 valuable equip items.

I also hated the plot. To be fair, plots in FF games are pretty much always some kind of nested plotholes ending with a fight against some incarnation of evil, but I literally can't remember anything about FF9's plot except the black mages being artifical lifeforms and like half a dozen examples of people being evil for no reason. Like, they're not even trying to amass power or anything. And I think it pulled the 'No wait the REAL villain was my boss all along!' card like 4 times. FF6 is a masterpiece by comparison, and it's about a crazy person rising to power and being crazy.

Bitch please. 9 has the best plot of all of FF.

A replay is in order. Use FF9 Unleashed: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2927/

 

[Ash]

Also you criticised 9's trance/limit break. Zidane, Amarant, Eiko, Steiner, vivi have the best, approximately on-par with each other. Freya, Quina, Dagger's are shit or highly context-specific. So you're not entirely wrong. However, I don't mind that too much, what I hate is the decline from 7, all the nuance gone - you've almost no control over when they happen and can't bank them for later (+ they would override attack in 7, creating consequence for banking them), and often they'll happen just as an enemy is about to die or when it doesn't apply at all (quina can't cook bosses, dagger can't summon for half the game), you no longer level them up in multiple ways (usage, kill count, items), and they have annoying long activation animations to boot. Still better than no trance mechanic, but it's decline from 7 and probably an overcompensation for the retarded OP-ness of 8's limitbreak spam.

 

[Damned Registrations]

HP+20% is gud?

We have very different definitions of what is good. I mean, it's probably better than like, poison resistance or whatever the hell you have by then, but it's the sort of thing I absolutely don't care about. If enemies are doing so little damage that 20% more hp is letting me reliably survive an extra hit, they are not a threat to begin with. Many boss enemies in the 3D era and onward end up having attacks that scale off your current or max hp anyways to instill a false sense of danger, like you just barely survived when in reality you can live through them at like level 5.

Things I would care about would be-

Added Effect Materia letting you inflict stop on enemies frequently, counter materia that eventually scales to 100% counter attack rate and can stack with itself, equipment that provides permanent buffs like haste or shell, items that cause double or more damage to a particular enemy type (and only if they can be swapped during battle) or armours that reduce damage from common attacks by more than a third. 100% chances of preemptive strikes, immunity to all status effects, conversion to an undead state where healing spells no longer work but you have massive defenses or increased damage. Consumables that grant inviniciblty for a few turns, or deal more than double the damage of your current best attacks, or restore the entire party by more than 50% of their max health.

Now if you're referring to the character designs, that's a little more understandable but they don't take up much screen space. It's easy to ignore if undesired.

It's funny, I make this exact argument to people about FF7. But there's a difference. In FF7, the horrible block monsters are only in the overworld, and you usually see them basically from space the battle models are actually perfectly respectable designs. In FF9, you get this constantly:

They look like mobile game characters. I think I mostly used Vivi and Freya because Vivi's design actually works with the weird proportions and Freya actually looks vaguely humanoid. Everyone else has gross proportions. And if I was going to put up with that, I've got about a dozen games on the list before I replay this mess, like Bravely Default 2 or a bunch of SaGa games. And that's if I ever get through my backlog of shit I just want to play and have zero reservations about, which might happen 5 years from now if games suddenly stop coming out and I win the lottery.

 

[Zlaja]

eh, I can't throw more at it than that. It's still not a terrible game. I like 10 too but it is decline. Story is...whatever. It's certainly unique and with merit. But no matter how good it may or may not be I can't get over the decline in gameplay, visuals, and more subjectively the overall style

FFX has the best combat in FF series. In that game they perfected the series turn-based combat and it was no longer as tedious as before. No overly slow or super long animation crap that got infuriating to watch. Quick switches between party members too. Unfortunately, everything else about the game was pretty crap. No real overworld map and horrible lead I couldn't care less about were my biggest gripes.

 

[Butter]

eh, I can't throw more at it than that. It's still not a terrible game. I like 10 too but it is decline. Story is...whatever. It's certainly unique and with merit. But no matter how good it may or may not be I can't get over the decline in gameplay, visuals, and more subjectively the overall style

FFX has the best combat in FF series. In that game they perfected the series turn-based combat and it was no longer as tedious as before. No overly slow or super long animation crap that got infuriating to watch. Quick switches between party members too. Unfortunately, everything else about the game was pretty crap. No real overworld map and horrible lead I couldn't care less about were my biggest gripes.

The music of FFX is fantastic. It had excellent visuals for its time also. Tidus + corridor gameplay kill any interest I might have in replaying it though. They should've made Wakka or Auron the main character. Subvert expectations by making Tidus the last recruitable companion and then make him constantly the butt of jokes and have everyone call him a moron to his face for trying to be an isekai savior.

 

[Ash]

Added Effect Materia letting you inflict stop on enemies frequently, counter materia that eventually scales to 100% counter attack rate and can stack with itself, equipment that provides permanent buffs like haste or shell, items that cause double or more damage to a particular enemy type (and only if they can be swapped during battle) or armours that reduce damage from common attacks by more than a third. 100% chances of preemptive strikes, immunity to all status effects, conversion to an undead state where healing spells no longer work but you have massive defenses or increased damage. Consumables that grant inviniciblty for a few turns, or deal more than double the damage of your current best attacks, or restore the entire party by more than 50% of their max health.

Almost all of this has an equivalent in 9.

Add Status is Added Effect Materia, though somewhat more limited in choice of status applied, granted.
Counter + Eye 4 Eye to increase counter rate further.
Numerous equipment do provide permanent buffs.
Ribbon exists and has always existed.
White Wind restores the entire party, from potentially 1hp to 9999hp. It's interesting as it has always been since FF5. It consumes MP, which ties to the consumable Ether.

Definitely agree being able to swap some things in battle like 6 would be nice though.
Can't say I agree with your desire for immunity consumables, though the game could have had more interesting consumables for sure. It doesn't have much that pertains to battle tactics.
HP 20% is perfectly adequate for the time you get it (early game).

It's funny, I make this exact argument to people about FF7. But there's a difference. In FF7, the horrible block monsters are only in the overworld, and you usually see them basically from space the battle models are actually perfectly respectable designs. In FF9, you get this constantly:

They look like mobile game characters. I think I mostly used Vivi and Freya because Vivi's design actually works with the weird proportions and Freya actually looks vaguely humanoid. Everyone else has gross proportions. And if I was going to put up with that, I've got about a dozen games on the list before I replay this mess, like Bravely Default 2 or a bunch of SaGa games. And that's if I ever get through my backlog of shit I just want to play and have zero reservations about, which might happen 5 years from now if games suddenly stop coming out and I win the lottery.

It's something that must be looked past. Not hard to do as they only look THIS gay in battle. The models outside of battle are more detailed + camera isn't zoomed up in on their crotch like this. Also, use Amarant. His proportions look fine thanks to his hair, and he is one of the better and more interesting characters in battle.

Play the game with the romhack. You'll have a blast for the most part. Then come back and we can all appreciate this stone cold classic together.

 

[Ash]

eh, I can't throw more at it than that. It's still not a terrible game. I like 10 too but it is decline. Story is...whatever. It's certainly unique and with merit. But no matter how good it may or may not be I can't get over the decline in gameplay, visuals, and more subjectively the overall style

FFX has the best combat in FF series. In that game they perfected the series turn-based combat and it was no longer as tedious as before. No overly slow or super long animation crap that got infuriating to watch. Quick switches between party members too. Unfortunately, everything else about the game was pretty crap. No real overworld map and horrible lead I couldn't care less about were my biggest gripes.

IDK...for combat I prefer 5. X's combat is decent but the game is too easy (5 is better in that regard) and to optimize party growth you should always be switching through all characters every single battle, casting one spell or whatever each, which SLOWS things down. The overkill system is kind of lame too, encouraging grinding to always hit overkills to further benefit from it, and otherwise there isn't strategy to a lot of battles. This is what the typical battle is like and it isn't great.

 

[Lucumo]

I like FF VI, VII and IX the most for different reasons. I-III are too basic, IV's fakeness annoyed me too much and V gets into good territory. VIII is mechanically too broken to enjoy (level scaling and the drain magic mechanic) and X has several issues, including causing you to roll your eyes at it for too often. X-2 is fangirl nonsense and I dropped it rather quickly. Didn't even play XII afterwards even though I initially intended on doing so.

Also, FF9's popularity is basically a reddit meme. Never heard anyone praise that game until 10 years after release.

Nah, VI is "overrated" because Kefka is apparently the best FF villain ever which is nonsense.

Example of why IX >> X

 

[mediocrepoet]

I would just like to add that FFIX blows donkey ass and every time I see it being praised as some awesome return to form or some shit I feel like I'm being trolled.

 

[Damned Registrations]

eh, I can't throw more at it than that. It's still not a terrible game. I like 10 too but it is decline. Story is...whatever. It's certainly unique and with merit. But no matter how good it may or may not be I can't get over the decline in gameplay, visuals, and more subjectively the overall style

FFX has the best combat in FF series. In that game they perfected the series turn-based combat and it was no longer as tedious as before. No overly slow or super long animation crap that got infuriating to watch. Quick switches between party members too. Unfortunately, everything else about the game was pretty crap. No real overworld map and horrible lead I couldn't care less about were my biggest gripes.

IDK...for combat I prefer 5. X's combat is decent but the game is too easy (5 is better in that regard) and to optimize party growth you should always be switching through all characters every single battle, casting one spell or whatever each, which SLOWS things down. The overkill system is kind of lame too, encouraging grinding to always hit overkills to further benefit from it, and otherwise there isn't strategy to a lot of battles. This is what the typical battle is like and it isn't great.

If you take balance into account, 5 wins hands down. But for straight up systems, I'd put it at X > 4/5 >>>7/8 > 6. Largely due to the way underlying battle mechanic formulae work, but also because X has actual turn based gameplay that doesn't cause animations to interfere with turn order. 5 is unfortunately a buggy mess in a lot of places. 6 is just badly designed, as mentioned. 7 shares a lot of 6's flaws in regards to irrelevant stats, but it's less buggy and materia are way more interesting than espers or even equipment in general. 8 has entirely different flaws, such as unlimited drawing from battles, level scaling, GF summoning being incentivized rather than costly, all builds converging on 'do everything' and lack of character balance with Zell and Quistis blowing everyone else out of the water unless you cheese for The End.

I can't comment on 9's mechanic base aside from knowing it still has awful ATB gimmicks and trance being terribly implemented. Given the way weapons and spells are unique to characters there's not a lot of relevant customization though, much like FF4, which is placed so high purely on the merits of things like spell delay, agility influencing turn order properly, the way strength, agility, weapon damage and defense values and evasion interact, and having an excellent spell and equipment list that is often shared between characters and interesting character quirks for characters like Tellah, Cecil, Edge and Yang. Honestly it'd be higher than 5 if it weren't for some ugly bugs of it's own like the backrow glitch.

 

[Ash]

We shouldn't even be talking about the vanilla games anymore, as the combat is just too damn easy so as to be particularly relevant, outside of certain encounters. For a vet anyway.

EvilType - FF6
Hardtype - FF7
Requiem - FF8
FF9 Unleashed - FF9

Should be the new standard from the day of each's release. But instead of implementing these in remasters as optional hard modes, Squarenix implement trash decline instead, and most gamers are too dumb to improve the games themselves by installing the definitive hacks.

FFV there isn't one, it doesn't particularly need one, but you can create your own one in like 15 minutes using easy to use tools. I did this in combination with the custom classes mod which has the beautiful ambition of expanding the depth of build choices with the class system, but instead of being sensible about it it goes overboard and allows some rediciously OP setups, I could sense this from reading the changelog but thought maybe, just maybe it could work. So I made a mod that buffs the crap out of all the enemies among other things, and it worked beautifully for a time, but sadly the latter half, well I expected the dev to implement the greater freedom with gameplay balance in mind, because it's fucking common sense, but apparently it's also not.
In other words, stay away from the custom classes mod as tempting as it may be. If more difficulty is desired just create a lite-difficulty hack in 15 mins for yourself (or hell, upload and share!) for replays.

Edit: hmm, maybe this is good for FFV? https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7168/

I like FF VI, VII and IX the most for different reasons. I-III are too basic, IV's fakeness annoyed me too much and V gets into good territory. VIII is mechanically too broken to enjoy (level scaling and the drain magic mechanic) and X has several issues, including causing you to roll your eyes at it for too often. X-2 is fangirl nonsense and I dropped it rather quickly. Didn't even play XII afterwards even though I initially intended on doing so.

Solid summary. Though X-2 does have some merit if you can stomach the cringe. 8's systems are fucking great, some of the most complex, interesting and innovative to ever grace an RPG, but require you to install the requiem mod to fix the retarded balance issues. The game can become greatness, believe it or not. Not bothering with 12 was the right call. Not a bad game at all, but not a great one either. Same as X and X-2.

 

[Ash]

Nah, VI is "overrated" because Kefka is apparently the best FF villain ever which is nonsense.

Example of why IX >> X

Who is this prestigious gentleman? Absolutely excellent analysis of 10, standing ovation for him.

Eh, his 7 analysis is lesser though, claiming less gameplay focus than 6 when, as I already explained in detail, 7 absolutely destroys 6 in the first third in this regard.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Nah, VI is "overrated" because Kefka is apparently the best FF villain ever which is nonsense.

Example of why IX >> X

Who is this prestigious gentleman? Absolutely excellent analysis of 10, standing ovation for him.

Why? Did he say it sucks except for Blitzball?

 

[Ash]

He summarized many of the pros and cons. Called it decline (though not in those exact words), but not without merit. Basically explained the objective reality.
It wasn't fully comprehensive, but a nice run down of the primary talking points, and also a few of the secondary.

Yes, he liked Blitzball.

Also his 12 analysis was also good.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

every time I see it being praised

I played FF9 at release and was first baffled and confused, and eventually underwhelmed and disappointed. The only good things I heard about it for years were nice music and good cutscenes. No one put it in the same league as 7 or 8, let alone 6.

Then like 10 years ago I started seeing weirdos come out of reddit saying it was good because it helped them through their depression or come out to their parents or realize they were a two-spirit otherkin or whatever. Yeesh. Though to be fair that did start with FF7.

*edit* early penny arcade joke that the game was so forgettable it didn't exist.

 

[Ash]

The concept of loving one 90s FF and loathing the other is just incomprehensible to me. The exception being 4 of course because it's so far removed from the rest in its retardedly barebones gameplay, you need the autism achievement unlocked to enjoy it. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are all extraordinary games, ridiculously complex (when looking at the bigger picture, not autism brain stuff typical to most gamers), fantastical, ground-breaking, engaging, technical and design marvels.
They are all so similar, yet so different. Similar in all the ways that matter (core design principles, ambition & depth) and different in all the ways that matter (set dressing/themes/nuances).

Damned Registrations got a lot of things incorrect (some things valid too) in his 9 analysis, betrayed by the imperceptiveness of perhaps his younger self and he needs a replay...what have you got? Why do you shit on this stone cold classic? Why do you betray game design history and prestigious JRPG legacy (of what little of it there is) in favor of FFX cuckoldry?

Gameplay? check. Multi-layered: globe-trotting exploration, navigation challenge, combat (the weakest part but still OK), character and party building, huge variety of puzzles, mini-games, sub-games. Short and long-term strategy. Tons of optional content.
Story? Absolutely. What the fuck is the point in life? Why must we suffer? How to find meaning? The answer we all deep down have to know, but will never know, and probably couldn't comprehend or cope with it if we did know.
Music? Uematsu the maestro knocks it out of the park once again.
Graphics? Simply ahead of the competition as usual, a visual adventure like no other, tasteful european-inspired locales mixed with fantasy/creativity, though you may need to engage some willpower in the case of a few character designs. Don't be a bitch.

 

[Damned Registrations]

What makes you think 4 is so different from 6? They're probably the two most similar games out of the entire franchise, inferior battle mechanics of 6 aside. But on a surface level, they're both revolving around fixed party members with special skills running through an extremely linear plot that gives you some open world freedom in the latter part of the game. I'll grant 6 has a more open endgame and sidequests, but a lot of the sidequests were fucking AIDS, like the coral eating chest, the strategy guide bait that was the cursed shield (maybe this was hinted in the japanese to be not retarded?) and the frankly insulting reward for fighting all 8 dragons, which were incredibly lame as optional bosses go. And while I'll give the edge to 6 for sidequests as a whole (arena was cool, so was doom gaze as a concept at least, and magi tower) and an epic final dungeon, FF4 had the better party members. Actually having a dedicated healer or black mage in the party, instead of everyone being omni knight-mage-clerics made for a better experience, and actually having a difference in hp totals between your mages and fighters sure felt a lot better.

 

[Ash]

4 has fuck all of value from what my younger gameplayfag-self determined, who was very perceptive of these things. The combat is semi-challenging (yet very boring basic stuff) and that's it. It doesn't have level design whatsoever (there is walls and art and stuff, but it rarely factors into gameplay, even doing away with the semi-complex maze elements of FF1/2/3). When you used it for comparison to Chrono Trigger it was peak irony lol, as they are indeed the same in that regard. The overworld is pointless set dressing. There is nothing optional, no navigation challenge, no sense of exploration. It doesn't have character building RPG systems outside of a shitty equipment system. There isn't a single mini or sub-game in sight. (I make the distinction: mini = brief silly thing like squats. Sub-game = something more involved, like fort condor real time strategy, FF6 battle arena, choco digging game or snowboarding). No puzzle elements. No optional content whatsoever. It may be that I exaggerate slightly but I remember the decline and sense of disappointment on these matters very well. It was completely worlds apart from all the games that came after. I expected a simpler game but this had zero gameplay content outside of its battles. Battles that were super barebones and boring. Sure a little challenging but not really enough to create engagement in my brain. Far too barebones.

Less to it than even FF1 which was at least a hardcore attrition and navigation test. though the attrition part of FF1 was more game vs player patience than it was game vs player's smart resource management and skillful combat

6 is the same as 4 (if not slightly better really), only in its first third. Then it graduates to monocle. It just all of a sudden gets 3x more complex gameplay after zozo. Every replay I am always anticipating that moment.

I don't remember 4 in great detail, but I do remember the deep gameplayfag disappointment. Even 1-3 are better games. Fuck 4.

 

[Damned Registrations]

FF4 had a fair bit of optional content, like half the summons were optional boss fights, certainly all the best ones. Bahamut on the moon (which also includes 4 or 5 optional bosses, some of which are quite powerful, guarding some of the best items in the game) leviathan and asura in the underground, Odin in the basement of the castle- There were also some crappy ones acquired simply by random enemy encounters. There's the sidequest to get the sylph summon by find Yang in the Sylph caverns (a maze with damage tiles and hidden passages, teleporters and a bizarre layout with nasty monsters and trapped chests) and then returning to his wife to get the pan, wake him up, and then return for the spoon, which is motly a joke item but can be thrown for insane damage. It does lack minigames, but honestly most of them throughout the series are crap, and it's not like 5 had any minigames either. Exploring the overworld when you get new vehicles generally lets you snatch some loot from a town or shop early if you're so inclined. It didn't have puzzles but it had plenty of secret passages and hidden treasures, honestly more than 6. And it has some of the best bosses in the series, with multiple phases, counter attacks, shifting immunities and special weaknesses like instakilling Odin if you perfectly time a Lit 3 spell when he raises his sword. Though the balance of 'easytype' certainly fucks that over a bit.

Rather than a difficulty hack, I suggest you try the Free Enterprise randomizer for FF4. Pick some reasonably difficult settings (Ban Edge and FuSoYa, no free characters, Cecil only behind a key item) limit the top tier items and pick a progressive treasure spread instead of full random) and you'll probably have a blast trying to find the key items you need to progress from places you forgot or never even found in the first place. People generally play with random encounters off and it removes all the cutscenes so a full run only takes a few hours even on moderate difficulty settings. Hell modes can be utterly brutal, don't go too crazy.

 

[Ash]

FF4 had the better party members. Actually having a dedicated healer or black mage in the party, instead of everyone being omni knight-mage-clerics made for a better experience, and actually having a difference in hp totals between your mages and fighters sure felt a lot better.

Difference in HP totals is largely determined by the player. If you want to go down that route, there are HP+20% or whatever espers for that. The beauty of later FF is your teams are mostly what you make them, like a true RPG, and all the strategy and choice that entails. FF9 actually brings the old ways back and it's more boring for it, though still better. That said, I am not a huge fan of the esper system. It is quite basic and does result in a lot of similar characters across the board. But it was a nice effort nonetheless.
Still, I wont take away from the rigid rules and roles of 4 creating a semi-challenging combat experience. But that's literally all the game has going for it. And it hardly helps since the combat is so damn basic and banal anyways, it's hard to fuck up curing and otherwise dealing optimal damage, with the occasional tricky status move or whatever to watch out for. I only really recall being tested by Kain and Atomos boss fights.