The fuck though?
This game really really fucking bothered me. I feel like BD2 has the worst JRPG grinding I've ever experienced.
The Great Final Fantasy Retrospective - Let's Mosey
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
I’m playing the PS3 digital copy of FF5 here and there, but after that I’d be down for FF1-3 via PR’s. Then after that I’d be caught up through the single digits, and also currently have FFX+X2 remasters on price watch for PS+. The next time (third time) I start FFX I intend to finish it for fucking serious FFS.
Pros: Bravely Default's battle system and job system are still brilliant.
Cons: Bravely Default II has the worst plot in the series so far and the prior two games aren't exactly Shakespeare.
Less, actually. Fixing the intelligence bug really left RDM high and dry. But really, that's more a testament to how ludicrously OP RDM was in the NES version.
Unlike the other classes, you have to change how you play RDM through the game. Early on, their magic is on par with WHM/BLM and they're a strong sweeper. Mid-game, they're a utility caster, elemental weakness exploiter, and the ideal person to spam Gauntlets or Heal Staff. Late-game, RDM is actually the best character to equip Masamune, and he's the best tank in the game -- way better than WAR in my opinion.
Yeah, WAR barely gets scratched by physical attacks even in Shrine of Chaos, and he's the only one that'll eat Chaos' attacks if he hastes. Keyword: by physical attacks. WAR still gets its clock cleaned by magical attacks which are what pose the actual threat in the Shrine, and the only thing keeping WAR competitive in that regard is Dragon Armor's resist-all. Meanwhile, Squeenix didn't just fix the intelligence bug, they fixed the weight bug too which means WAR ain't dodging shit; RDM on the other hand is very evasive, because RDM's best equipment is Diamond Bracer and Protect Cape.
And, frankly, RDM makes the best tank because if RDM does die, they're the least likely to cause a wipe from it. It's the ideal party member to eat hasted Chaos melee attacks; RDM dying isn't going to send the party into a death spiral against Chaos.
The trick is remembering you can forget spells in PR. Once you get the airship, forget all RDM's level 1-5 damage spells and load him up with buffs. You still want Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga, but that's it. In the endgame, the main role any character with black magic serves (including BLM) is to spam Haste and Temper on your party's bruiser, and RDM has both those spells.
Both games have the same appeal to me (same as FF5 and FFT): grinding to do really stupid shit just because I can. Like giving Barehanded to black mages in FFV to cast Fistaga on enemies when I can't exploit an elemental weakness.
Or my thot squad in FFT, consisting of max-Bravery, min-Faith, dancers with maxed Arithmetic, Shirahadori, and Teleport. Do I need to bleed out the final boss while teleporting around the battlefield dodging spells and ignoring physical attacks? no, but I'll be damned if it isn't hilarious.
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The bravely side franchise as a ton of potential since they're de facto true sequel to FF and the job system is great. But I don't know why they insist on saddling them with terrible plot/writing/character... It's like they wanted to keep everything simple, but then overwrote everything, either go FF5 and keep everything ultra simple or go FF4 and balls to the wall crazy and over dramatic.
Job system is great though (although it could use less grinding).
FINAL FANTASY 3
I've only played final Fantasy 3 once in my life prior to this little event and that was with the 3D Remake ported onto steam, and for the most part I don't remember much about the game outside of the final dungeon being very difficult and it having a very bad save system.
So for this playthrough I've gone and done the Pixel Remastered version which bring things more in-line with the original NES release that the USA never got officially. This game is unique for a few reasons. Firstly it's the first game in the series to expand it's job systems to allow the player to pick from like 20 different jobs, unlocked throughout the course of the game. Secondly I feel like this is the first Final Fantasy game where the series itself really starts to take shape. A lot of FF stuff appears here such as the first appearance of many jobs in the game like Dragoon, Dark Knight, Bard, etc. But also it's where story starts to also take a main focus on top of the RPG adventure.
You start the game as four bastard kids who fuck around where they shouldn't and fall into a cave. In trying to escape you encounter a crystal who bestows the power of the light upon you and grants you access to your first handful of jobs. It also imposes a mission to go restore the other elemental crystals around the world and push back the Cloud of Darkness. This being an NES game, plot points pop up and are solved pretty much instantly, along with the continuing theme of guest characters who join you for a dungeon then die for whatever reason. Some death's are really pointless, like Aria who just gets fucking dunked on five minutes after she joins you.
Aside from that there are some other interesting staples I notice here. First of all Ancients. Ancient people who have special powers. In FF3 you meet a guy with no memory after you are captured and taken to the nest of Bahaumut. There you escape with your new friend and bring him to a tower to clear a whirlpool in the ocean. Here he starts to remember that he is an anicent and that he knows how to work the tower. Then in order to prevent the tower's furnace from exploding he jumps INTO the fucking fire and kills himself to stablize the tower. Sorry Final Fantasy 7, FF3 kills the ancient first. Ancient people become a reoccuring theme in several FF games going forward.
Cid returns very early in the game, he gives you an airship, you explode the airship and a few hours later you bring him a Wheel of Time (trademark) to build another airship. Dunno how this works but Cid is a wizard like that. He turns your normal boat into an airplane boat and off you go. Then you get a submarine. Then you get a giant airship that can fly slightly higher to go over mountains which is something normal planes can't do for some reason I guess.
The biggest thing that FF3 brings to the table is the job system I mentioned before. Your characters have two leveling systems basically. Your characters level up and they are granted stats improvements based on level and current job equipped. But then the job actually also levels up which makes them better at the job, for example physical characters will get more attacks a turn or mages will get more spell slots. And every job can get to level 99. Then there is the elephant that holds FF3 back. Well two of them to be honest.
The first big problem is that some jobs are fucking useless. Utterly and completely useless. Why is there a Monk AND a Black Belt? I dunno. Warrior, Knight, AND Dark Knight? Fucking redundant.
The second big problem is that you need to level a job before your character will be decent enough at it to be effective in battle. So if you spent hours leveling a Warrior and you want to turn into a Knight, you need to grind up Knight levels to get the job up to the same power that the Warrior was. And things level fucking slow in this game so be prepared to grind.
This becomes a problem because there are certain bosses and areas in the game in which specific jobs are absolutely required. You MUST have a Dragoon, and you MUST have a Scholar leveled somewhere on your team. In the case of Dragoons you probably want everyone to be decent at it. This also means you need to keep equipment for multiple people to have the same job optimally equipped.
None of this is hard really, but it's a lot of grind for the sake of padding out the game, which is not very long just like all the other NES titles. However FF3 is still the longest of the NES group.
The final dungeon is where all the frustration and horror of this game really sits. The Crystal Tower is basically a grind of floor after floor of the hardest normal enemies in the game, with several bosses, before reaching the final floor and final boss Cloud of Darkness who has instant kill attacks. Worst yet, you cannot save between the entrance and the final fight. Which means you need to be prepared, leveled, geared, and ready for two hours of dungeoning non-stop through the hardest portion of the game to beat it. If you die, you start all over at the begining from yoru last save and it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
That being said, I do feel like FF3 is the obvious best game of the NES era, with 2 being the worst. Thankfully these three games serve as the jumping off point because form here we get into the SNES game and things start to get really really good.
EDIT: Playtime 17 hours. Character levels 99 with four jobs in the 90's per character
I've only played final Fantasy 3 once in my life prior to this little event and that was with the 3D Remake ported onto steam, and for the most part I don't remember much about the game outside of the final dungeon being very difficult and it having a very bad save system.
So for this playthrough I've gone and done the Pixel Remastered version which bring things more in-line with the original NES release that the USA never got officially. This game is unique for a few reasons. Firstly it's the first game in the series to expand it's job systems to allow the player to pick from like 20 different jobs, unlocked throughout the course of the game. Secondly I feel like this is the first Final Fantasy game where the series itself really starts to take shape. A lot of FF stuff appears here such as the first appearance of many jobs in the game like Dragoon, Dark Knight, Bard, etc. But also it's where story starts to also take a main focus on top of the RPG adventure.
You start the game as four bastard kids who fuck around where they shouldn't and fall into a cave. In trying to escape you encounter a crystal who bestows the power of the light upon you and grants you access to your first handful of jobs. It also imposes a mission to go restore the other elemental crystals around the world and push back the Cloud of Darkness. This being an NES game, plot points pop up and are solved pretty much instantly, along with the continuing theme of guest characters who join you for a dungeon then die for whatever reason. Some death's are really pointless, like Aria who just gets fucking dunked on five minutes after she joins you.
Aside from that there are some other interesting staples I notice here. First of all Ancients. Ancient people who have special powers. In FF3 you meet a guy with no memory after you are captured and taken to the nest of Bahaumut. There you escape with your new friend and bring him to a tower to clear a whirlpool in the ocean. Here he starts to remember that he is an anicent and that he knows how to work the tower. Then in order to prevent the tower's furnace from exploding he jumps INTO the fucking fire and kills himself to stablize the tower. Sorry Final Fantasy 7, FF3 kills the ancient first. Ancient people become a reoccuring theme in several FF games going forward.
Cid returns very early in the game, he gives you an airship, you explode the airship and a few hours later you bring him a Wheel of Time (trademark) to build another airship. Dunno how this works but Cid is a wizard like that. He turns your normal boat into an airplane boat and off you go. Then you get a submarine. Then you get a giant airship that can fly slightly higher to go over mountains which is something normal planes can't do for some reason I guess.
The biggest thing that FF3 brings to the table is the job system I mentioned before. Your characters have two leveling systems basically. Your characters level up and they are granted stats improvements based on level and current job equipped. But then the job actually also levels up which makes them better at the job, for example physical characters will get more attacks a turn or mages will get more spell slots. And every job can get to level 99. Then there is the elephant that holds FF3 back. Well two of them to be honest.
The first big problem is that some jobs are fucking useless. Utterly and completely useless. Why is there a Monk AND a Black Belt? I dunno. Warrior, Knight, AND Dark Knight? Fucking redundant.
The second big problem is that you need to level a job before your character will be decent enough at it to be effective in battle. So if you spent hours leveling a Warrior and you want to turn into a Knight, you need to grind up Knight levels to get the job up to the same power that the Warrior was. And things level fucking slow in this game so be prepared to grind.
This becomes a problem because there are certain bosses and areas in the game in which specific jobs are absolutely required. You MUST have a Dragoon, and you MUST have a Scholar leveled somewhere on your team. In the case of Dragoons you probably want everyone to be decent at it. This also means you need to keep equipment for multiple people to have the same job optimally equipped.
None of this is hard really, but it's a lot of grind for the sake of padding out the game, which is not very long just like all the other NES titles. However FF3 is still the longest of the NES group.
The final dungeon is where all the frustration and horror of this game really sits. The Crystal Tower is basically a grind of floor after floor of the hardest normal enemies in the game, with several bosses, before reaching the final floor and final boss Cloud of Darkness who has instant kill attacks. Worst yet, you cannot save between the entrance and the final fight. Which means you need to be prepared, leveled, geared, and ready for two hours of dungeoning non-stop through the hardest portion of the game to beat it. If you die, you start all over at the begining from yoru last save and it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
That being said, I do feel like FF3 is the obvious best game of the NES era, with 2 being the worst. Thankfully these three games serve as the jumping off point because form here we get into the SNES game and things start to get really really good.
EDIT: Playtime 17 hours. Character levels 99 with four jobs in the 90's per character
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I have fond memories of the game but yeah, the Crystal Tower might as well be called the "Fuck you Tower". It's hard to think of another game where the final dungeon is that fucking cruel and even FROM doesn't pull that kind of shit. I mean, yeah, you can handle it in chunks and get all the optional stuff(including the really good stuff in the tower basement), go back out, heal up, do a final shopping run and then rush to the top but still it's rough going.
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Fortunately i do think FF3 is the only game with a bullshit final dungeon. I don't recall that being a problem in any other game in the series. Except maybe 9, but i don't think it was that bad in that game.
Yeah I can comfortably say playing FF5 for a bit I then went to GameFAQs, figured out my builds and such. Basically made a spreadsheet of my optimal party.
And uh, I think I got somewhere slightly into the second act (when you go to Galuf's home, to put it less spoilery). when I was like, yeah this is too obnoxious to bother grinding when just playing straight classed works equally well.
Which has largely tagged into every FF with the more complex job system (Even the pseudo-variation that the FFX sphere grid was).
(Bonus points to Blue MAgic for basically being the "strategy guide required" class)
And uh, I think I got somewhere slightly into the second act (when you go to Galuf's home, to put it less spoilery). when I was like, yeah this is too obnoxious to bother grinding when just playing straight classed works equally well.
Which has largely tagged into every FF with the more complex job system (Even the pseudo-variation that the FFX sphere grid was).
(Bonus points to Blue MAgic for basically being the "strategy guide required" class)
I do think there are some differences between the two that makes them distinct. The whole final dungeon setup is unique to FF3(even if it is super obnoxious), the cave of darkness is a very particular gimmick that IIRC doesn't exist anywhere else in the series. The kinda cool idea that you start on the floating continent and only later find out that there's a real world below that you never knew about is kind of cool. The interesting plot tidbit that the Dark Warriors were your mirror opposites except they have the same goal, to keep the world from being consumed by light or darkness, so they end up helping you(and not just being "evil dopplegangers"). Also the fact you have to use the mini and frog spells for traversal at specific points, instead of just being a status effect. Sure, it's a gimmick but it's an interesting gimmick that's never really used that way ever again.
I do agree FF5 is better in a lot of ways but FF3 isn't completely pointless and is fun in it's own right.
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FF1 was the first game in the series to do it, it's been a recurring theme throughout the entire series. The Lufenians were the "ancients" of FF1, except the sci-fi content was toned down from the NES release because quite a few players didn't quite pick up on it. For instance, the "Flying Castle" was in reality an orbital station, and of course you had Warmech, et cetera.
Iffy translation/cut dialogue. Cid in FF3 is basically a dabbler, his airship was a prototype. The "Wheel of Time" is an ancient engine. Cid retrofits the Enterprise with propellers, that's it. The Nautilus and Invincible actually were made by the ancients, themselves; the Invincible gets to do the mountain thing because (other than content gating) the smaller airships don't have the horsepower to fly at altitude (this is an actual real-world thing with helis, gyroplanes, and tiltorotor aircraft). Hence why it's called "high gear"/"overdrive" depending on version.
DRK isn't a tank class. The upgrade path for Warrior is Knight and then Viking. The idea is (remember this is the first iteration of the job system) is the intro classes are there for players to get the hang of the system before dropping more complex abilities in their lap like guard, cover, provoke, kick, boost, bladeblitz, et cetera.
That's the intended thing to do, but not really. It's just dodgy game design to incentivize players trying out different jobs. You don't need a Scholar for Hein, it just makes the fight easier because SCH can target elemental vulnerabilities with magic items and not have to spend MP on Libra. Likewise for DRG and Garuda, a leveled WHM can keep up with the incoming damage spamming Cura every round. That's if you didn't job change your WHM to bard at first opportunity, because Sing in the 3D and PR remakes is broken as F*ck.
And the only reason you would "need" DRK for the Cave of Shadows, is if you don't want literally every random encounter in there to become an EXP bonanza that trivializes the rest of the game, World of Darkness included.
Crystal Tower/World of Darkness is only difficult if you don't have a leveled geomancer in the group...which you should. Geo turns the final dungeon into a slapstick comedy.
The mini dungeons are bullshit, though.
Cloud of Darkness is easily my favorite final boss of the entire series, though. It's a no-bullshit, balls to the wall, DPS race to take her down before you run out of Curaja/Arise charges and elixirs.
Pandaemonium in FF2PR is worse. Unless you've grinded your evasion through the teeth, a single ambush can cause a TPK. PR has a bug where on-hit proc effects have a 100% chance, and that dungeon's full of monsters with 7-9 attacks per round and on-hit death effects. A single group of Coeurls is actually more dangerous than the damn final boss ever could, or ever would, be because of it.
I fucking forgot to rant about these terrible idea of needed to mini and toad your party to get through certain areas. Holy shit that was a stupid idea. The biggest problem coming from the fact that the game's magic still uses spell slots so applying mini or toad consumes spells you can't afford to waste. Not to mention these dungeons are early enough in the game that your characters will not have many spell slots in general so it's a fucked application no matter how you slice it.
Don't skip any of the mainline games as there's something to like about them all. I agree with some comments about 2 and 12 being a bit boring and 13 being a bit of a mess. But I've warmed up to them over the years.
In my opinion:
- The best era of FF is from 4 all the way up until 9 - they are all excellent games. I'd probably put FF7 Remake in there as well although I disagree with where they took the story.
- The worst FFs are probably 12, 13, and (probably) 2 - but they are still unique in their own ways and worth playing once.
- All the others are alright but a bit middle of the road - FF10 and FF15 are the best of them if I were to rank.
Can't comment on 11 and 14 as I don't do MMOs so those are the ones I haven't played. Also never played 10-2 or 13-2 / 13-3. Never played Crisis Core or the other spin-offs like Tactics either. However, I've completed the Mana series if that counts. Secret and Trials of Mana are both top-tier games, but the others are decidedly average.
In my opinion:
- The best era of FF is from 4 all the way up until 9 - they are all excellent games. I'd probably put FF7 Remake in there as well although I disagree with where they took the story.
- The worst FFs are probably 12, 13, and (probably) 2 - but they are still unique in their own ways and worth playing once.
- All the others are alright but a bit middle of the road - FF10 and FF15 are the best of them if I were to rank.
Can't comment on 11 and 14 as I don't do MMOs so those are the ones I haven't played. Also never played 10-2 or 13-2 / 13-3. Never played Crisis Core or the other spin-offs like Tactics either. However, I've completed the Mana series if that counts. Secret and Trials of Mana are both top-tier games, but the others are decidedly average.
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You have such an encyclopedic memory for things, is it possible for one to learn this power?
It's not that, so much as the mini dungeons force the entire party into mage jobs as physical attack/defense are nerfed to nothing. At least, that's the idea; but, if it played true to intent, "the idea" would have forced players to grind gil to buy and equip spells for party members you wouldn't otherwise intend to use magic at all. Or just grind in the overworld for spell items, run from every random encounter in the dungeon, and just chunky salsa bosses with aforementioned spell items. Otherwise known as "the Hein strategy" and what most players actually end up doing.
That is, for the...two? dungeons in the game where mini status isn't just the requirement for entry, and you have to stay mini'd the whole way through.
I am sad, I thought the SNES mini had FF2 (aka 4) and FF3 (aka 6) on it. But it only has FF6, which is a bummer, I'll have to play my 3d remakes then.
