The Great Final Fantasy Retrospective - Let's Mosey

[CriticalGaming]

I really don't think you should worry about spoiling an almost 30 year old game.

I mean yeah, but at the same time details do bleed together especially in these early games when playing them one after the other. Even as I wrote the FF4 post I'm several hours into FFV and I couldn't remember if the spoony bard was in 4 or if i just saw it in 5 (it's 4 btw) so instead of overlapping game's story details I'm just going over the premises because really I'm trying to focus more on the gameplay and what makes each FF game separate itself from the others and why those gameplay differences make a game good or bad.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I said this before but 4 and 6 are the two old FF games that could be most improved by getting remakes. There's a lot of room to flesh out their stories and mechanics. Despite how beloved FF6 is, it's not perfect, there's a lot of wonky stuff in it gameplay and story wise.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I said this before but 4 and 6 are the two old FF games that could be most improved by getting remakes. There's a lot of room to flesh out their stories and mechanics. Despite how beloved FF6 is, it's not perfect, there's a lot of wonky stuff in it gameplay and story wise.

Maybe 6 but 4 doesn't have the fanbase to warrent a remake. Also technically 4 has been remade like 5 times, between aniversary editions, 3d remakes, and After Years. So I doubt it's even on the radar.

FF6 is strange because for as LOVED as that game is, it almost never gets any attention from Square at all. Until the Pixel Remaster it's not gotten any attention beyond that cell phone port a while back that sucked.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Maybe 6 but 4 doesn't have the fanbase to warrent a remake. Also technically 4 has been remade like 5 times, between aniversary editions, 3d remakes, and After Years. So I doubt it's even on the radar.

FF6 is strange because for as LOVED as that game is, it almost never gets any attention from Square at all. Until the Pixel Remaster it's not gotten any attention beyond that cell phone port a while back that sucked.

By remake I mean something akin to the FF7 remake. The previous remakes of FF4 have stayed pretty close to the original but with better presentation. I'm talking about a remake that's akin to "What if FF4 was made in the 2020's?" As it is now, FF4 is the game I consider to be the baseline of what people expect from an RPG while FF6 is the "Let's make a really well done baseline". Kind of like how Ocarina of Time is the baseline of 3D Zelda games and Twilight Princess is a really well done baseline. I'd like to see what could be done if those baselines were developed into having more of their own identity.

And yeah, it's weird that FF6 has gotten so little attention over the years.

 

[Dalisclock]

By remake I mean something akin to the FF7 remake. The previous remakes of FF4 have stayed pretty close to the original but with better presentation. I'm talking about a remake that's akin to "What if FF4 was made in the 2020's?" As it is now, FF4 is the game I consider to be the baseline of what people expect from an RPG while FF6 is the "Let's make a really well done baseline". Kind of like how Ocarina of Time is the baseline of 3D Zelda games and Twilight Princess is a really well done baseline. I'd like to see what could be done if those baselines were developed into having more of their own identity.

And yeah, it's weird that FF6 has gotten so little attention over the years.

Emo Bishonen > Crazy Crown with god powers.

Or something. I don't know. I guess FF7 had a shit ton more money and got a lot more exposure then 6 did so Square just kinda forgot about it. KInda like they forgot about the Crono Series except when it's time to send out the C+D letters to fan game makers....actually, nevermind those both are playable on modern hardware now so I guess I withdraw my objection.. Or Xenogears except.....welll, they just forgot about Xenogears entirely, even though I'd love to have a port for the switch or PC.

But Live a Live is getting a Remake, which I NEVER thought would ever happen, so maybe Xenogears will get another chance? "What if Evangelion was a SE JRPG?". THere's your selling point RIGHT THERE!

 

[CriticalGaming]

But Live a Live is getting a Remake, which I NEVER thought would ever happen, so maybe Xenogears will get another chance?

Fuck a Remake I would just like a modern hardware port of Xenogears.

 

[Dalisclock]

Fuck a Remake I would just like a modern hardware port of Xenogears.

I'd be totally fine with that. I honestly don't expect a remake. A port that runs on modern hardware would be great. Same with FFT.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I'd be totally fine with that. I honestly didn't expect a remake. A port that runs on modern hardware would be great.

Best hope now is that it becomes a ps1 classic on sony's gamepass thing.

 

[Bedinsis]

And yeah, it's weird that FF6 has gotten so little attention over the years.

My understanding is that Kefka got most of his personality from the American localization, and he was considered the stand-out character from the game. Since Square Enix is Japanese they are more likely to listen to what their local audience is saying, an audience that did not take part in the American localization.

 

[thebobmaster]

Fuck a Remake I would just like a modern hardware port of Xenogears.

With the budget for an actual ending.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

My understanding is that Kefka got most of his personality from the American localization, and he was considered the stand-out character from the game. Since Square Enix is Japanese they are more likely to listen to what their local audience is saying, an audience that did not take part in the American localization.

It's interesting how that works sometimes. Like if you compare the JP Rhythm Heaven to the English localization, the JP lines are way more generic but by having to confine their word choices to fit to the rythm of the songs, the English versions have a lot more individual character to them. Like how, "Woah, you go big guy!" would have just been, "Woah, amazing!" if translated more directly.

 

[meiam]

I dunno if square will ever touch xenogears since xenosaga existence might make things weird? A port to modern hardware would be nice (maybe with a speed mode since there's pretty long stretch that I wouldn't speeding trough). It would ultimately be nice to have a bigger project with restoring all the lost content, but I doubt that'll ever happen. I do think a full blown remake would lose a lot of the charm the game had, I can't help but think they would simplify a lot of the game story and weirder element.

I always find it weird that square doesn't port more of their stuff to modern hardware, how hard is it to just make straight port of PS1 game? Couldn't they have a small division that would just go trough their catalogue and update stuff on a semi regular basis? Maybe with capcom just remaking every RE game and doing apparently pretty well from it square might get a bit more serious at that. They have been doing some stuff, but their choice are so incredibly weird, they focus a lot on the saga franchise for some reason (there were just leak that saga frontier 2 is getting ported) and the mana franchise (trial/legend in recent year). They also do so very slowly, maybe by 2040 I'll get a port of thread of fates.

Dunno why FF6 never got much attention from SE, maybe 7 right after sucked out all the attention? Maybe it didn't do really well on release and only gotten more attention over the year. A lot of what make 6 interesting were unusual choices the game made (split party, multiple main character, bad guy winning, non linear second part) which maybe square think it wouldn't feel as fresh on second take. Square does seem a bit more minded to revisit older FF, with the pixel remaster and FF9 getting an anime with some rumor of a sequel (blerk).

 

[Dalisclock]

With the budget for an actual ending.

It does have an ending. Like a whole disc worth. It just has very little actual gameplay once you reach disc 2. I kinda had an idea disc 2 was a bit different then I played it. I didn't realize that meant that it was mostly narration and cutscenes with a small amount of dungeons and a series of boss fights separated by save prompts.

As much shit as MGS4 gets(and much of that is deserved) for this kind of thing, Xenogears did it way earlier

 

[CriticalGaming]

@meiam @Dalisclock I think what bothers me much about the lack of anything Xenogears related in the port department, is the fact that the combat system in that game was fucking brilliant and nobody EVER, ANYWHERE, has ever made a combat system like that ever again. That and the fact that Xenoblade Chronicles is beloved despite having the worst combat ever designed in an RPG.

Xenogears was fantastic, Xenosaga was awesome, and yet the third section of this "style" Xenoblade.....fucking sucks. Honestly, we are 4 games into the Xenoblade thing, why haven't people realized how stupid the comabt is? What is wrong with people.

 

[meiam]

It does have an ending. Like a whole disc worth. It just has very little actual gameplay once you reach disc 2. I kinda had an idea disc 2 was a bit different then I played it. I didn't realize that meant that it was mostly narration and cutscenes with a small amount of dungeons and a series of boss fights separated by save prompts.

As much shit as MGS4 gets(and much of that is deserved) for this kind of thing, Xenogears did it way earlier

In case anyone doesn't know, they just had to rush the game production and that's why the second disc is this visual novel sequence, it wasn't planned like that. But I don't know if it would necessarily be better to redo those part normally, the game is already pretty long and adding another 3-4 dungeons might just make it overstay its welcome. At least those sequence give a unique feel to this part of the story. Hard to say without actually playing it.

A lot more stuff was cut out from the game, if anybody is really interested, you can find full translation of a book called xenogear perfect work which goes over the backstory of the world and you can see how much was cut out.

 

[Dalisclock]

In case anyone doesn't know, they just had to rush the game production and that's why the second disc is this visual novel sequence, it wasn't planned like that. But I don't know if it would necessarily be better to redo those part normally, the game is already pretty long and adding another 3-4 dungeons might just make it overstay its welcome. At least those sequence give a unique feel to this part of the story. Hard to say without actually playing it.

A lot more stuff was cut out from the game, if anybody is really interested, you can find full translation of a book called xenogear perfect work which goes over the backstory of the world and you can see how much was cut out.

Considering Xenogears never got a sequel, I gotta admit I'm glad it didn't end on a cliffhanger to finish the story, which would have been the alternative to what they did

 

[meiam]

Considering Xenogears never got a sequel, I gotta admit I'm glad it didn't end on a cliffhanger to finish the story, which would have been the alternative to what they did

There were plan for xenosaga to have 6 entry, with #5 being xenogears iirc.

 

[Dalisclock]

There were plan for xenosaga to have 6 entry, with #5 being xenogears iirc.

I never played any of the Xeno games after Xenogears. Apparently the Xenosaga games were supposed to be in the same universe but apparently they also weren't? And then they only made ep 1-3 so the two episodes, 4 and 6, which would have been most closely related to Xenogears ended up not even happeing.

 

[sXeth]

6/7 is a dividing point where most of the creative direction changed (not the sci-fi stuff, which anyone wiiht an actual knowledge of prior games can tell you was always there).


All the now-cliche JRPG JRPGness in the presentation, the convoluted plots, the overdesigned characters (and the brooding, which used to be confined to one token member mostly) thats dominated the series kicked in at that point (also to a greater extent needing a wiki to actually find all the items, the most obscure things in 6 still stood out)


An interesting side timeline would be where Sony didn't throw an obscene amount of money (in marketing if nothing else, FF7 was basically pushed as a launch title for PS1) and the series kept going on its own float. I'm even just old enough to remember that FF7 was actually an early controversy because they pushed the cutscenes as the actual game (which was then, you know, Cloud being a sphere with 3 yellow triangles on top and 2 cubes for arms)

 

[meiam]

I never played any of the Xeno games after Xenogears. Apparently the Xenosaga games were supposed to be in the same universe but apparently they also weren't? And then they only made ep 1-3 so the two episodes, 4 and 6, which would have been most closely related to Xenogears ended up not even happeing.

Xenosaga 1 is a pretty fun game, but 2 was really misshandle. They completely redid the graphic engine for no reason (and really changed the artstyle), which really slowed down development so they had to cut a ton of stuff and rush the game out, so it's smaller and has less content than 1. They also heavily focus on the least interesting aspect of the story/cast. As a results it bombed and they were told that 3 was the last entry they'd get to do so they cram all the material they wanted into one game its just big revelation after big revelation that mostly come out of nowhere. But story wise they all follow xenogear with tons of concept just thrown at you, there's even an in game encyclopedia just to keep track of all the stuff it mention.

Gameplay wise they're a bit meh game, 1 is a textbook example of "hard to learn, easy to master" where the game throw tons of system at you but you can easily just focus on one aspect and breeze trough the game. 2 tried to redo the system and improve it, they half way succeed but it caused all the fights to really drag on for far too long. 3 is atcually pretty good... but I never make trough 2 whenever I replay the franchise so I haven't played it in forever, maybe if they bring it to steam I'll do my own retrospective.

Otherwise the music is pretty good (quite like combat theme of the first game)