General Gaming Beat FF4.

[Bacon]

For real don't have a lot to say.

 

• I'm playing the remake rather than the remaster.
• Cecil's VA was a horrible choice but everyone else actually sounds pretty good for a game like this.
• Overall, having a better time than in FF9 so far, just became a Paladin.
• Dark Knight > Paladin. Paladin is for dweebs. Want a FF with a Dark Knight MC. Cloud but he never chills.
• I guess I'm a fan of this old style of JRPG, but due to it being a remake it actually feels fresher than FF9.
• While cheap, there is something about the in-game cutscenes that feels really modern when compared to the 7-10 CGI cutscenes. They are well animated and better than the constant "emoting" that characters do outside of the CGI scenes in a game like FF9.
• I've played a lot of this before a know most of the story but most of it feels pretty new considering I last played it in 2007.

[Fizzzzle]

FF4 is great. The story is kind of more simplistic than the later games but also in some ways more "grown up."

 

I've kind of been wanting to go back up it. I haven't played it in a looooong time. Apparently the PC version of the remake got rid of the stupid difficulty spike of the DS version that had me grinding for like 17 years.

[Bacon]

34 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Apparently the PC version of the remake got rid of the stupid difficulty spike of the DS version that had me grinding for like 17 years.

I picked hard to give me the DS experience since I had never beaten it lol. I played FF4 on normal late in 2022 but found out normal was "easy" and hard was the DS difficulty so I quit. So far, it's been harder than FF9 since I actually died a few times to bosses, well, mostly the mombomb. Well, actually only the mombomb, but it's been pretty fun. Didn't miss all the status ailments tho. I swear like 40% of all battles afflict someone with something.

 

Counter is great and if anyone is getting picked on I can cover them and shit is ez street.

[dualhunter]

9 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

FF4 is great. The story is kind of more simplistic than the later games but also in some ways more "grown up."

 

I've kind of been wanting to go back up it. I haven't played it in a looooong time. Apparently the PC version of the remake got rid of the stupid difficulty spike of the DS version that had me grinding for like 17 years.

 

The DS version was definitely harder after having played the GBA version a few years before. Even when I played the hard type version of the original I didn't really find it noticeably harder so the DS version was striking. But my bad memory of the DS version is fighting yellow flans or something like that for a 1/256 drop. I think I had killed well over a thousand of them before finally getting the drop. I was quite pleased that the Pixel Remaster didn't have that particular drop, though it did have some other rare drops.

[Bacon]

No one understands

[dualhunter]

3 hours ago, Bacon said:

No one understands

 

That's what I was talking about, so I understand. Took me at least 4x the average drop rate, had to keep track myself when the slay count maxed out. I was so glad the remaster didn't have that.

[Bacon]

5 hours ago, dualhunter said:

 

That's what I was talking about, so I understand. Took me at least 4x the average drop rate, had to keep track myself when the slay count maxed out. I was so glad the remaster didn't have that.

Wow, I like how I totally missed that part of your post lol. Shit was, well, not that bad considering I just loaded up Netflix. Still, after two hours I was going "come'on baby, daddy needs a new pair of shoes!" every time the item section appeared on the victory screen, as, unlike other titles, there is no item notification if an item didn't drop. Like, not only do you need to hope an item drops which isn't a high chance, you also need to hope the rare item drops. Shit is a .4% chance of a drop. Is there an enemy with a 5% drop later, but I wanted to do it now.

[Bacon]

I'm on the moon.

 

I like how the music is literally farts

 

[TheLeon]

I started playing the pixel remaster earlier this year, and it was weird. I liked how fast the remasters were for 1-3, but it was jarring with 4. It was like every 20 minutes I had a new team, and Cecil had his big change at like hour 3. It was nice not having to grind at all, but the story at that pace was wild. 

[Bacon]

1 minute ago, TheLeon said:

I started playing the pixel remaster earlier this year, and it was weird. I liked how fast the remasters were for 1-3, but it was jarring with 4. It was like every 20 minutes I had a new team, and Cecil had his big change at like hour 3. It was nice not having to grind at all, but the story at that pace was wild. 

I just think you are misremembering. Even on what is considered the harder DS version, the pacing is exactly like that. It's There are two parts of extended time where you have a solid party, but even that doesn't last too long. The story is a very fast-paced game. Probably only a 20-40 hour game at most.

[TheLeon]

6 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I just think you are misremembering. Even on what is considered the harder DS version, the pacing is exactly like that. It's There are two parts of extended time where you have a solid party, but even that doesn't last too long. The story is a very fast-paced game. Probably only a 20-40 hour game at most.

I probably am. I thought I had played a lot of the DS version, but I started seeing new things after maybe 5 hours with the remaster. 

[Bacon]

I beat it. Felt a lot like FF3 3D, but without the jobs. I really liked the Augment system and how I could basically make an outright tank with taunt. I was thinking about getting all the best loot in the game, and I basically did except for the very best armor and the onion weapon/armor. All of that is a very long grind. There is a NG+ feature, which is how you fight the super bosses, but I didn't even bother making a post-game save for it as I won't be doing NG+ on a save that doesn't have the best armor and sword.

 

I probably won't bother doing all the NG+ shit anyway. It is really only for the super bosses and stat maxing. I'd like to do the super bosses but I don't really have the desire to play it again for just that. Hate shit that is only unlocked by beating the game.

 

Game is about an 8/10. I think people have a really strong nostalgia for it, but it is not overly remarkable. The story is just meh. Lots of old tropes and dumb writing and with most of the story not really mattering I feel like. What is funny tho is that it really kinda just is FF9. An alien race has come to town to take over the world for its race, and the MC has the blood of the Alien race but has lived their lives with the non-alien race. Both MC's even have a brother who is the bad guy, tho for different reasons. And for how much of a legacy Kain has spawned, he's kinda lame lol. Most of the characters are pretty much one note except for Cecil. Rosa might as well be an unnamed NPC. Rydia is neat in concept but her growth was basically meaningless. Edge was alright. I kinda like him since he seemed to have heart and here didn't feel like he only existed to save the world. It was really most of the temp characters that had more of an interesting and personal story. The overall theme was just more FF3 light/dark coexist which was fine, but basic. I wish I had beaten FF4 on the DS when I owned it as I think I would have appreciated it more when I was younger and when every new game felt fresh to me.

 

I plan on playing 5 and 6 at some point this year. Don't know squat about those. Tho I know 5 seems ignored by most. Those will be the first pixel FF's that I play that have a "real" story. I also think I'll play the pixel remaster of FF4 at some point as well as I am actually curious about it when compared to the 3D remake. I actually think I would enjoy that version due to FF4, in general, being "basic". Cuz I really enjoyed FF1 for what it was but I am having a harder time doing that for the 3D remakes of FF3 and FF4 and even FF9. I'm also interested in replaying FF7 after all this time. More time has passed since I last beat it than from the time of my birth to when I last beat it. FF8 will be interesting because I have only seen that game beat once and never played it myself and have pretty much no memory of that's games events. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up having a high opinion of it because of my lack of familiarity. I play on ending with FF10 and not bothering with 13 or 15. I may one day try out 11 but who knows lol. And FF10 being my stopping point will feel great because I never beat it. I made it all the way to fighting Tidus's dad, but I couldn't beat him and thus I never beat the game. I made it to the next-to-last boss and never beat it. I've seen everything about that game except for the last boss and ending.

[Fizzzzle]

I just started playing FF4 again today.

 

One thing I'm doing is I'm using a guide, though (not that you really need one for simple exploration really, for the most part. There aren't that many missables)

 

HOWEVER, every time the guide is like "you should probably level up your characters to [x] before moving on," I'm just cheating it.

 

It never ceases to shock me how much of the scale of these old RPGs I played when I was younger was entirely dependent on mindless grinding. The worst offense in FF4 is when Cecil gets reset to a paladin and has to start over at level 1. If you just went forward with the game as normal, you would be fucked. Without grinding, you can get him to about level 10-11 before the next dungeon, but ALSO if he's not at least level 18-20 before the next dungeon you're fuuuucked, since he is your only melee fighter at that point in the game. So that means hours and hours of grinding. So, I just decided to say SKIP and put his level to like 22 before moving on.

 

There's another big difficulty spike right after you get the airship.

 

 

I haven't been making the game too easy, I don't think. My characters still die sometimes. I just removed the busy work. And guess what? I'm pretty sure I'm going to finish this game in less than 20 hours.

 

Also remember: there is no crafting element to this game. Mindlessly fighting enemies over and over again does nothing but gets your stats up.

 

 

[Fizzzzle]

Oh I lied a bit: after Cecil turns into a paladin, you DO get Yang back as a melee fighter before the next dungeon, but by that point he is also underleveled and the next dungeon negates the bonuses of his elemental claws.

[Bacon]

7 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I just started playing FF4 again today.

Are you playing the 3D remake or a pixel version? With Cecil starting at level 1, I just walked back down the mountain instead of teleporting out and I ended up basically the same level. I never had to grind or anything. I played the 3D remake btw.

 

Almost and edit, but I guess I did grind because of this:

On 6/2/2023 at 6:32 AM, Bacon said:

No one understands

 

I forgot lol. That set me ahead enough so I never had to grind for levels.

[Bacon]

Still funny how Kain is like THE dragoon people base the Job off of and he is just an incel who gets

Spoiler

mind controlled

because of that. What a loser.

 

[Fizzzzle]

59 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Are you playing the 3D remake or a pixel version? With Cecil starting at level 1, I just walked back down the mountain instead of teleporting out and I ended up basically the same level. I never had to grind or anything. I played the 3D remake btw.

 

Almost and edit, but I guess I did grind because of this:

 

I forgot lol. That set me ahead enough so I never had to grind for levels.

I'm playing the 3d remake. I made a straight run down the mountain after the reclass and I was level 10 or 11 by the end.

 

12 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Still funny how Kain is like THE dragoon people base the Job off of and he is just an incel who gets

  Hide contents

mind controlled

because of that. What a loser.

 

I haven't got to the part yet where he becomes good again, and it's been so long since I've played it, but my headcanon is that he never was mind controlled. He was just trying to sabotage Cecil so he could slide into Rosa's DMs and then regretted it later. I don't think he foresaw that Rosa would literally risk death to find Cecil again. He even says something to her like "I'm better than he will ever be."

[Bacon]

4 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I haven't got to the part yet where he becomes good again, and it's been so long since I've played it, but my headcanon is that he never was mind controlled. He was just trying to sabotage Cecil so he could slide into Rosa's DMs and then regretted it later. I don't think he foresaw that Rosa would literally risk death to find Cecil again. He even says something to her like "I'm better than he will ever be."

Not to destroy your headcanon, but you can read his thoughts once he is in your party and you see him resisting the MC lol.

[Fizzzzle]

5 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Not to destroy your headcanon, but you can read his thoughts once he is in your party and you see him resisting the MC lol.

That's why I said it's been a long time since I've played it. It's been 15 years since I've got to that part of the game.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I love it. I've only ever played the DS remake, but I intend to play the Pixel Remaster at some point. I want to go through all of them eventually.

[Fizzzzle]

So like... Once Cecil gets added to your party as a level 1 paladin, the game basically expects you to spend 2-3 hours between each dungeon just grinding levels.

 

That is such bad game design by modern standards. Fighting endless hordes of random enemies literally does nothing except pad the game time 

[Fizzzzle]

So I should have realized that the guide I'm using for what level I'm supposed to be at was made for the DS version, which is the PC version on hard mode.

 

I just finished the sealed cave and I'm at the moon and I'm just murking motherfuckers. Like 80% of battles I can just put on auto battle.

 

I should have accounted for the possibility that you don't need to be nearly as high of a level playing on "normal"

 

Also I haven't cheated my levels in a while, but spending a fucking stupid amount of time completing the sylph cave made me over leveled anyway. Fuck that dungeon in its yucky bum.