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Post by Discoalucard on Dec 18, 2018 10:58:21 GMT -5
www.hardcoregaming101.net/final-fantasy-tactics/Part of the foundation of the strategy-RPG genre, and still one of the best of its kind. This article took a LONG time to put together - I think I was playing these games around this time last year, just to give an idea - so pardon any messiness, or if I got anything wrong. In the three times I played through the original FFT, I never really understood the story, so most of my comprehension was gleamed from reading wikis. The Advance titles will be featured in the coming days.
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Post by eatersthemanfool on Dec 21, 2018 6:26:13 GMT -5
I think FFTA catches a lot of undeserved shit. It's a big departure from the original but it's not a bad game in its own right. I thought FFTA2 kinda sucked though.
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Post by chronotigger65 on Dec 23, 2018 18:23:13 GMT -5
So how many games will be in the article?
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Post by Discoalucard on Dec 23, 2018 18:25:42 GMT -5
So how many games will be in the article? All three are posted. There's also a mobage but it's been out of commission for over four years.
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Post by chronotigger65 on Dec 23, 2018 18:29:47 GMT -5
So how many games will be in the article? All three are posted. There's also a mobage but it's been out of commission for over four years. I'd thought there were more Tactics games then that.
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Post by kaoru on Dec 23, 2018 18:38:29 GMT -5
Nope, there's really just the Original and the two Advance games. Though Crystal Defenders and Revenant Wings might be worth a mention, since they also are tactics games in Ivalice.
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Post by Discoalucard on Dec 23, 2018 20:48:36 GMT -5
Nope, there's really just the Original and the two Advance games. Though Crystal Defenders and Revenant Wings might be worth a mention, since they also are tactics games in Ivalice. I'm gonna eventually assemble a book that has all of this, plus Final Fantasy XII, as well as a new Vagrant Story article.
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Post by vnisanian2001 on Dec 24, 2018 1:44:36 GMT -5
FFVI (which I am playing on the SNES Classic at the moment) has a part that could be thought of as a forerunner to this game. The part where you have to defend Barron from incoming forces when trying to approach Kefka.
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Post by synbios on Dec 29, 2018 14:29:31 GMT -5
Probably unpopular opinion and I'm biased from looking at my avatar but I think FFT is a pretty boring game compared to Shining Force III that was released slightly earlier. I like FFT much better than FFTA but still nowhere near as exciting as the battles and character design of Shining Force III. Now that I've played the full translated 3 scenarios of SFIII and the premium disc FFT series feels even more like slogging through mud in FFT with characters I don't care at all about. There's something about the play mechanic that feels so unnecessarily clunky compared to Fire Emblem, Langrisser or SF series.
I love the core FF series up to and including the PS1 games, and strategy RPGs like this are my favorite genre, but I've never understood why so many consider this the greatest SRPG, it's probably not even top 15 or 20 for me. I suspect for many it was their first exposure to the genre where I had been playing Shining Force I/II and Warsong in 16 bit era. Stuff like Advance Wars series, Fire Emblem or even the pretty basic Military Madness plays much better too.
For many years SFIII was almost impossible to access but now that there is decent Saturn emulation it's crazy more people haven't played the gigantic translated 3 scenario epic.
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Post by Ace Whatever on Dec 30, 2018 8:01:59 GMT -5
It mostly comes down to accessibility. Way more people played the original FFT than SFIII Scenario 1, and right now there are like 11 almost hassle-free ways to play FFT legally (most of which cost under 10$) across 8 different devices and nearly just as much emulation options.
Playing SFIII right now requires obtaining one semi-rare American Saturn disc and 2-3 semi-rare Japanese ones that can easily run you up to triple digit dollars if you don't know where to shop. And when you get past that Saturn emulation still isn't a cut and dry affair for everyone.
I could be wrong but I also think that SRPGs that allow you to grind outside the main story battles tend to be more like than the ones that don't. My understanding is that grinding in Shining Force requires you to game the system somewhat.
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Post by synbios on Dec 30, 2018 12:33:03 GMT -5
It mostly comes down to accessibility. Way more people played the original FFT than SFIII Scenario 1, and right now there are like 11 almost hassle-free ways to play FFT legally (most of which cost under 10$) across 8 different devices and nearly just as much emulation options. Playing SFIII right now requires obtaining one semi-rare American Saturn disc and 2-3 semi-rare Japanese ones that can easily run you up to triple digit dollars if you don't know where to shop. And when you get past that Saturn emulation still isn't a cut and dry affair for everyone. I could be wrong but I also think that SRPGs that allow you to grind outside the main story battles tend to be more like than the ones that don't. My understanding is that grinding in Shining Force requires you to game the system somewhat. Those are good points. I guess Fire Emblem and even the US released Genesis SRPGs (Warsong, SFI, SFII, SFCD) would have been the better comparison, those games have been easy to get in emulation, compilations, remakes, etc for quite a while. There are several SRPG series in the 8, 16 and 32 bit era that are more fun for me to return to and replay than FFT...and I'm a bit of a Final Fantasy fanboy when it comes to traditional JRPGs. The only part of SFIII a player has to grind/build up for is to beat the premium disc which is INSANELY hard. If you're an experienced SRPG player you'll maybe have three or four times you need to retreat in maybe 140ish major battles, which results in 'grinding' when you restart the same battle leveled up, it's definitely less challenging than some of the Fire Emblem games that way. There are very fun small side quests within battles that involve racing thieves to treasure in temples, but otherwise the only way to grind is to retreat before winning a battle. If you're a player who builds all the party members the game is more fun and challenging in my opinion than trying to pick an all star team every battle. Don't mean to bash on FFT, just I think it is mostly circumstance that it's treated as the all time champion of the genre. I do absolutely love the look and art direction of the game, just not the character development and the gameplay feels unnecessarily sluggish. Given what Sega did to the SF series after the magnum opus SFIII, I wish FFT could have become an epic amazing series with a dozen entries.
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Post by Discoalucard on Dec 30, 2018 13:11:14 GMT -5
For me, I played FF Tactics first, then went back and rented one of the Shining Force games (I forget which), and I just couldn't get into it. Granted, it was a much older game even by that point, but I think it also kind of ruined Shining Force in general for me. I only played a bit of 3, and while I liked the music and presentation (for as much as a Saturn could do), it just didn't have the system depth.
There's a lot of tactics games I can't really get into because they just don't stack up to FF Tactics. The closest are some of the Front Missions (3 and 5 are my favorite even if 3 is pretty simple) and the Devil Survivor games. Valkyria Chronicles is pretty good too though it has a number of other quirks that annoy me.
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Post by synbios on Dec 30, 2018 13:31:08 GMT -5
For me, I played FF Tactics first, then went back and rented one of the Shining Force games (I forget which), and I just couldn't get into it. Granted, it was a much older game even by that point, but I think it also kind of ruined Shining Force in general for me. I only played a bit of 3, and while I liked the music and presentation (for as much as a Saturn could do), it just didn't have the system depth. There's a lot of tactics games I can't really get into because they just don't stack up to FF Tactics. The closest are some of the Front Missions (3 and 5 are my favorite even if 3 is pretty simple) and the Devil Survivor games. Valkyria Chronicles is pretty good too though it has a number of other quirks that annoy me. Maybe I'll give FFT another shot soon, I wonder if playing FFTA more recently is tainting my view. FFTA seems like a total slog compared to a fire emblem game and is more fresh in my mind. I played FFT when new about halfway through, halfway through again a few years later, then FFTA only about five years ago for first time and did not care for it even though I loved the setting and look. SFIII alliance mechanics are very subtle and not at all explained with in-game tutorial as was becoming common at the time. To be honest my first playthrough when I bought the game new on release in 97 I didn't even know it was a thing. Understanding the alliances better makes the game more fun but also easier...which can be counteracted by picking the lowest level party members which still makes every battle fun even for experts. The biggest weakness is that while battle pace is fast and fun, especially in the first scenario there is slowdown not just in battles but in menu access. The menus slowdown history starts in Shining the Holy Ark where it's really horrible and gets a little better as you progress through the 3 scenarios of SFIII. Holy Ark actually feeds into the story and uses same flawed menus systems but it's a dungeon crawler, not SRPG.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Dec 31, 2018 17:13:49 GMT -5
FFTA seems like a total slog compared to a fire emblem game and is more fresh in my mind. This is the problem I have with a lot of tactics games FFT being the most notable offender. Game play feels so slooooooowwwww. FFTA was one of my first tactics games and I played it to completion when it first released, but later that year when we got our first Fire Emblem I could never go back. I couldn't get into FFTA2 when it released either. That being said I do think FFTA has one of the better stories in a Final Fantasy game. Marche's struggle to convince his friends to go back to their reality is interesting. Advance was also notable for being the first Square release on a Nintendo console since the Super Nintendo I believe. I remember being really excited for it when seeing it in game mags at the time.
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Post by Sac (a.k.a Icaras) on Jan 1, 2019 6:20:39 GMT -5
Probably unpopular opinion and I'm biased from looking at my avatar but I think FFT is a pretty boring game compared to Shining Force III that was released slightly earlier. I like FFT much better than FFTA but still nowhere near as exciting as the battles and character design of Shining Force III. Now that I've played the full translated 3 scenarios of SFIII and the premium disc FFT series feels even more like slogging through mud in FFT with characters I don't care at all about. There's something about the play mechanic that feels so unnecessarily clunky compared to Fire Emblem, Langrisser or SF series. I love the core FF series up to and including the PS1 games, and strategy RPGs like this are my favorite genre, but I've never understood why so many consider this the greatest SRPG, it's probably not even top 15 or 20 for me. I suspect for many it was their first exposure to the genre where I had been playing Shining Force I/II and Warsong in 16 bit era. Stuff like Advance Wars series, Fire Emblem or even the pretty basic Military Madness plays much better too. For many years SFIII was almost impossible to access but now that there is decent Saturn emulation it's crazy more people haven't played the gigantic translated 3 scenario epic. I still hold out the (probably vain) hope that Sega will officially re-release Shining Force 3 one day, hence why I haven't yet attempted Saturn emulation for SF3 (despite REALLY wanting to play it)
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