Final Fantasy Megathread

[Lena CE]

I don't mind it tbh. The game was designed and written in such a barebones way that it would feel kinda forced to tack a bunch of depth or lore onto them. When I go back to FF1 I'm going back for a quick, simple, charming RPG that I can beat in a pretty short period of time. If they bogged it down with a bunch of post-hoc worldbuilding and such I just wouldn't be interested, I have a billion other games to give me more expansive stories. The handful of nuggets we do get that lead to some decent speculation on how or why certain aspects of this world are the way they are can be fun to talk about with others though.

FF2 I could see getting some more story tidbits tacked on since its clear that a lot of the story and characterization was compromised for various reasons. A longer prologue and some extra bits here and there to help certain things within the story flow would be nice, but I'm also not in any rush considering how much work they'd have to put in to take this 20ish hour game and make it a 30+ hour long game with a story that actually feels super coherent. What little bits we get are fine at driving the plot forward and much like @MasterEn I actually like that games like Dissidia helped flesh out characters like WoL, Garland and Firion. I get wanting that in the main game, but I really don't think the effort it would take to bring those tidbits into those original games would really be worth it, and the games are mostly fine without it.

One way I could phrase it is if the stories are at a 1-3 out of 10 in terms of simplicity, the amount of effort needed to take that to a 6 or 7 - let alone anything higher - to satisfy people who want a meaningful story and better worldbuilding would just be absurd. If they tried half-assing it when adding to it, neither the people who appreciate the simplicity nor the people who want something in-depth would be happy.

Hell when it comes to FF1 you can more or less get a more fleshed out version of that game's plot with FF3, a game I also appreciate for being pretty barebones.

 

[Strategist Strategist]

I heard they started doing proper manual lore in ff4.....with backgrounds and all any documents of these old manuals you talking about?

I mean, its mostly in the game. The kingdom or Corneria, you rescue their princess from Garland, Matoya the witch, etc... there are characters and lore.

FF2 has even more lore. The wild rose rebellion, princess Hilda. The four main characters have backstories, there are side characters.

Its not much, but its something.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Quite a fair assessment I don't have much of an issue with FF1 I be fine with more interactions with NPCs and that's fine.

I talked before how FF2 could use some fleshing out won't repeat much of what I said but I don't think putting more dialogue and using already existing textures, data etc would be extremely costly heck they could take some parts of the novel you know I be happy if they translate the novel to english or arabic

 

[MasterEn]

No bro simply no....the game itself needs to have lore if it didn't hook you up on its story then why would you seek explanation somewhere else in an entirely different style of games? The game itself should tell me garland is x y z not get some lore more than 20 years after the game launched

FF1 and FF2 have plenty of lore. A lot of it was in manuals and supplemental material, as was common at the time of cartridges with limited space. Some of it was in the sparse dialogue in the game, though.

i believe it was in this thread that it was brought up that nes games were very limited in storage space. and you can cram in more text in japanese than in english. all characters were limited to 1 text box in the nes version.
game manuals were design to get around that limitation, but that stuff is nearly non-existent nowadays, and could be considered irrelevant due to the large storage space games can have today. i agree that the info should be in the game, but games had limits back then
very extreme limits.
and from what it looked like, no game in the series was ever supposed to relate to one another, let alone have sequels or prequels.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I mean, its mostly in the game. The kingdom or Corneria, you rescue their princess from Garland, Matoya the witch, etc... there are characters and lore.

FF2 has even more lore. The wild rose rebellion, princess Hilda. The four main characters have backstories, there are side characters.

Its not much, but its something.

FF1 feels more inline with classic fantasy I think you got dwarves , elves undead etc a witch and sentient brooms im much less concerned or care about 1 since its just....1 warrior being OP early is all that matters.

But that's the problem with 2 it keeps building up to something epic but ends up dropping the ball at the last moment and dungeon design feels like trolling from the devs....it bothers me a bit that they can make FF2 story on par with 4 and even 6 but choose not to.

 

[MasterEn]

FF1 feels more inline with classic fantasy I think you got dwarves , elves undead etc a witch and sentient brooms im much less concerned or care about 1 since its just....1 warrior being OP early is all that matters.

dungeons and dragons "My boy!"
a couple of nerds from japan found out about the game and lost their shit over it. they almost got hit with a copywrite lawsuit for straight up using the beholder enemy for a boss fight in the ice cave near the launch of ff1.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

i believe it was in this thread that it was brought up that nes games were very limited in storage space. and you can cram in more text in japanese than in english. all characters were limited to 1 text box in the nes version.
game manuals were design to get around that limitation, but that stuff is nearly non-existent nowadays, and could be considered irrelevant due to the large storage space games can have today. i agree that the info should be in the game, but games had limits back then
very extreme limits.
and from what it looked like, no game in the series was ever supposed to relate to one another, let alone have sequels or prequels.

Of course comrade they were limited its 1988 doom wasn't even a thing yet.....but they got better tech in origins release and more....now that's my gripe there im not mad at the original ff2 it tried to do its best with the available tech.

 

[MasterEn]

Of course comrade they were limited its 1988 doom wasn't even a thing yet.....but they got better tech in origins release and more....now that's my gripe there im not mad at the original ff2 it tried to do its best with the available tech.

considering how much early game design is compared to the wild west, we should be glad that most of the games boot up when the power button clicks in. the fact that the game saves your progress, is playable and coherent are practically miracles by those standards back then.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Ever since cyperpunk2077 release it seems we went back to that state since modern games for some reason are buggy mess....we went back to square 1

 

[Strategist Strategist]

i believe it was in this thread that it was brought up that nes games were very limited in storage space. and you can cram in more text in japanese than in english. all characters were limited to 1 text box in the nes version.
game manuals were design to get around that limitation, but that stuff is nearly non-existent nowadays, and could be considered irrelevant due to the large storage space games can have today. i agree that the info should be in the game, but games had limits back then
very extreme limits.
and from what it looked like, no game in the series was ever supposed to relate to one another, let alone have sequels or prequels.

It was really common to have most of the lore in the manuals back in the NES era. Like the NES Zelda games had almost no text in them, but the manuals had all of the backstory explaining the kingdom of hyrule, Ganon, Impa the retainer to Princess Zelda, and Zelda.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Anyway can we just appreciate that after 2 they added save points in dungeons.

 

[MasterEn]

Anyway can we just appreciate that after 2 they added save points in dungeons.

yeah, that's a very welcomed addition in any game.
no complaints here.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Absolutely man , if you didn't have warp on you in FF2 you kinda in trouble , in 1 warp is difficult to get so the trouble is doubled.

Btw is it true if you choose to learn a spell in ff2 in battle its instantly level 8 spell?

 

[MasterEn]

Absolutely man , if you didn't have warp on you in FF2 you kinda in trouble , in 1 warp is difficult to get so the trouble is doubled.

Btw is it true if you choose to learn a spell in ff2 in battle its instantly level 8 spell?

no. there was a weird exploit in the nes version where you could grind stats like crazy in one round of battle. the stats and spells are supposed to get exp from the rank of the enemies that you fight. i think the level 8 thing is the furthest that you can get early game with the weak enemies around the starting area. you can get shields up to max before getting minwu though. i did that after getting him, but i was playing the psp version, meaning i had access to soul of rebirth.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

no. there was a weird exploit in the nes version where you could grind stats like crazy in one round of battle. the stats and spells are supposed to get exp from the rank of the enemies that you fight. i think the level 8 thing is the furthest that you can get early game with the weak enemies around the starting area. you can get shields up to max before getting minwu though. i did that after getting him, but i was playing the psp version, meaning i had access to soul of rebirth.

That sort of exploits is crazy and quite funny.

 

[MasterEn]

That sort of exploits is crazy and quite funny.

you just select an action and then let the game select an enemy; but instead of confirming, you cancel and repeat as much as you want. weirdly simple, but effective.

 

[Tonberry]

Does anyone know if there’s a hack of FF1 on PSP that gives it the classic magic system? I know there’s one for the GBA version, but PSP version with Vancian magic would probably be the ultimate version for me.

 

[MasterEn]

Does anyone know if there’s a hack of FF1 on PSP that gives it the classic magic system? I know there’s one for the GBA version, but PSP version with Vancian magic would probably be the ultimate version for me.

i checked a bit on google, it doesn't look like it. your best bet is to find a modding tool or editor and go in and make those changes if possible.

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2025

i checked a bit on google, it doesn't look like it. your best bet is to find a modding tool or editor and go in and make those changes if possible.

that's another thing that the pixel remaster could have done, a difficulty swap. play with modern rules and mechanics or play the game in old school style.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Speaking of FF1 magic its sad the limit is only 9 for all spells should have been raised to 18.

 

[MasterEn]

Speaking of FF1 magic its sad the limit is only 9 for all spells should have been raised to 18.

that might be a hardware limitation. the nes handles displaying certain things weirdly. names could only be 4 letters long. to get around that for other things, they actually use an image in it's place for longer words. like when you see the message "poisoned", that's not really text, it's an image being displayed; if i am remembering correctly on how that worked.
it could be the that the space available for spell charges might be unreadable if 2 digit numbers were used.
the layout on the stats screen is like this:
MAGIC
0/0/0/0/
0/0/0/0
there is no telling what the raw data looks like or how it is organized internally.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

that might be a hardware limitation. the nes handles displaying certain things weirdly. names could only be 4 letters long. to get around that for other things, they actually use an image in it's place for longer words. like when you see the message "poisoned", that's not really text, it's an image being displayed; if i am remembering correctly on how that worked.
it could be the that the space available for spell charges might be unreadable if 2 digit numbers were used.
the layout on the stats screen is like this:
MAGIC
0/0/0/0/
0/0/0/0
there is no telling what the raw data looks like or how it is organized internally.

I dont mean the original release of the game when I mention 1&2 they are ancient , I usually mean the updated version the origins and subsequent ones those up to date I don't they have the same limitation as the 87 release

 

[MasterEn]

I dont mean the original release of the game when I mention 1&2 they are ancient , I usually mean the updated version the origins and subsequent ones those up to date I don't they have the same limitation as the 87 release

you didn't specify, so i went with the original release version.
i don't remember there being a spell limit like in the original being in the psx version. but it's been over like 2 decades since i last played it. might just not remember seeing it.

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2025

i did some checking around on the final fantasy wiki for a bit more information and i found this:

• Easy mode – A new "easy mode" was introduced wherein shop prices are cheaper and experience levels are gained faster with more rapid stat growth. Specifically, the Mage/Wizard spell pools are more generous and extend to the double digits for each level, unlike the standard mode where they cap at 9 per level. This mode is optional and can be chosen at the title screen.

link to source:

Final Fantasy version differences | Unknown+BreezeWiki

antifandom.com

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

you didn't specify, so i went with the original release version.
i don't remember there being a spell limit like in the original being in the psx version. but it's been over like 2 decades since i last played it. might just not remember seeing it.

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2025

i did some checking around on the final fantasy wiki for a bit more information and i found this:

• Easy mode – A new "easy mode" was introduced wherein shop prices are cheaper and experience levels are gained faster with more rapid stat growth. Specifically, the Mage/Wizard spell pools are more generous and extend to the double digits for each level, unlike the standard mode where they cap at 9 per level. This mode is optional and can be chosen at the title screen.

link to source:

Final Fantasy version differences | Unknown+BreezeWiki

antifandom.com

Lol I forgot that existed because I choose the normal difficulty option which said that its more similar to the original game.

Also I think the original version is unplayable since its buggy and has long loading times its one of the rare instances where playing a remake or a remaster is the best option.

 

[MasterEn]

Lol I forgot that existed because I choose the normal difficulty option which said that its more similar to the original game.

yeah, that would explain why you wouldn't have been aware of it. i think i picked easy mode but i didn't get very far in that one, so i didn't know either.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

yeah, that would explain why you wouldn't have been aware of it. i think i picked easy mode but i didn't get very far in that one, so i didn't know either.

They should have called it brutal difficulty cuz thats what it is.