The Random Thought Thread.

[JG]

I agree with that sentiment.  Definitely need more rain up here.

Take mine.  I need to mow my yard but it's rained 7 of the last 10 days.  And I haven't even had a hurricane run me over.





Anyone else finding FFIV for DS much harder than the original?  Its noticably harder than the old FF4J-HardType, too.

Cagnazzo (the water elemental) is a freaking beast in this one.  In the original you could relax while Tellah killed him with nothing more than a pair of Bolt3 spells.  Now they've given him the capability to counter-paralyse and cast both Sleep and Slow on the whole party.  And when he whips up water around him you don't have time to cast Thundaga.  Half the time you can't get Thunder out because Palom's snoozing (he's very susceptible to Sleep) and Tellah's slower than molasses when he's Slowed.  If Cagnazzo does get Tsunami out you're likely doomed as its an instant kill on Palom and Tellah and usually takes Porom out, too. So bring Thunder-casting items (Zeus's Wrath) to stop Tsunami before he finishes it.  I got past him but it still took 5 tries.  Not the cakewalk that battle used to be.

Also, don't try the boss battles at Speed 1.  They'll likely attack twice before you finish selecting your target.  Knock it down to 3 to make things fair.

And lastly, I don't like that alot of useful treasure has been replaced with spell-casting item treasure.  About half the weapons and armor seem to be missing.

Haiku are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refridgerator

That's not how you spell refrigerator, but it helps make your point.

[ROMate]

Yes I know. =D

[Hyperguy]

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "If I had a nickel for everytime..."

[黒い灯影]

does variations of the sentence count?

[BubblegumCake]

I want bigger boobs... But not to have to gain weight or have a kid for them.. Or surgery... =D

[ROMate]

I want bigger boobs... But not to have to gain weight or have a kid for them.. Or surgery... =D

Oh they're fine. =P

[tetsaru arigashi]

I want bigger boobs... But not to have to gain weight or have a kid for them.. Or surgery... =D

There's TONS of different B.E. methods...  o_o;

Oh they're fine. =P

BLASPHEMY!  I may not be a bra... but I DO support big boobs.  =D

[Nitorin]

Anyone else finding FFIV for DS much harder than the original?  Its noticably harder than the old FF4J-HardType, too.

Well I heard that back then...When FFIV was released in Japan.(Snes) It came out in America as FFII.I heard that our version(wich is totally true) was way easier cuz the japanese thought we sucks =P  I did'nt try the version on DS but I played on Ps1 version.It was way harder.Our characthers have less HP and SP too.On Snes the Paladin had so much more HP.

by the way,the boss..humm don't remember his name meh..Well its the part when you only have Yang,Cid and yourself in some Cave.The Bard play a song to help us kill the boss.That boss was a pain in my opinion.

[Xierfrogs]

I am a cat. S-M-R-T.

[DualSoul]

Well I heard that back then...When FFIV was released in Japan.(Snes) It came out in America as FFII.I heard that our version(wich is totally true) was way easier cuz the japanese thought we sucks =P  I did'nt try the version on DS but I played on Ps1 version.It was way harder.Our characthers have less HP and SP too.On Snes the Paladin had so much more HP.

You seem to have missed the part where JG00 mentioned it was harder than the JP FFIV as well.  To anyone who owns the game, how are the dubbed voices?

by the way,the boss..humm don't remember his name meh..Well its the part when you only have Yang,Cid and yourself in some Cave.The Bard play a song to help us kill the boss.That boss was a pain in my opinion.

I believe that was the dark elf.

[Nitorin]

You seem to have missed the part where JG00 mentioned it was harder than the JP FFIV as well.  To anyone who owns the game, how are the dubbed voices?

I believe that was the dark elf.

meh >_< my bad~   Voices?I saw some previews but I had no idea there are voices.

About Dark Elf I think your right =P

[JG]

You seem to have missed the part where JG00 mentioned it was harder than the JP FFIV as well.  To anyone who owns the game, how are the dubbed voices?

Pretty good.  It sounds a little electronic though as you'd expect from the compression and downsampling for the DS's capabilities.  Its only used in the really important scenes though.  I'm up to the Three Sisters and there's been maybe 4 or 5 total minutes of voice audio so far.

Graphics-wise, the rest of the game is close to FF7 for ye olde first generation Playstation.  But obviously, there's less screen resolution and the characters are noticably more super-deformed so the faces can be made out more clearly.

But the video! The opening 3 minute video is worth the $40 alone though.  Its got a great frame rate (I'd guess 25 fps) and uses the full resolution of both screens.  I could hardly believe the DS was capable of that quality.

By the way, the game uses the 1 gigabit rom chip for the DS.  The original SNES game was a mere 8 megabit - so the DS version is 128 times bigger.  I'm sure alot of that went to the video.  It also makes one wonder if a faithful remake of FF7 will be in the works in a couple of years.  I think Square could make it happen with a 4Gb chip if they convert half the video to polygon-scenes.

[bfg00]

By the way, the game uses the 1 gigabit rom chip for the DS.  The original SNES game was a mere 8 megabit - so the DS version is 128 times bigger.  I'm sure alot of that went to the video.  It also makes one wonder if a faithful remake of FF7 will be in the works in a couple of years.  I think Square could make it happen with a 4Gb chip if they convert half the video to polygon-scenes.

That would be awesome.  My old copy of FF7 has crapped out on me so I would love to get a new one with update graphics.

[JG]

Why did Square make all the relatively easy fights hard and all the hard ones easy?

The Magus sisters are so easy now they did maybe 2000 damage tops to me, killing only Yang once during the course of battle.  These ladies are tough in the original, even when you know exactly what to do (that is, to kill Mindy first.)

Yet the formerly easy Calcabrina (the doll in the dwarven castle) now has one hit kills with its 1100+ damage foot stomp counter.  The Calcabrina fight thus evolves into attack, get stomped, cura, cura, jump attack, get stomped, cura, cura, possibly get Hold or Confuse cast against you, repeat.

And right after Calcabrina they throw Golbez at you.  This battle is possibly a game showstopper.   If you've played FF4 you know you get to start this battle with three dead characters and just Cecil and Rydia living.  Well, harder than the original that it is, Golbez doesn't give you a single turn to recover, attacking before you get a chance to do anything with Bio, which forces you to heal with Cecil.  Rydia gets one attack, then the shit hits the fan.  No matter what magic he casts next you're screwed.  Bio, Fira, Blizzara, and Thundara will force Cecil to heal your two members or you'll die from the poison of Bio before his next chance to cast Cura comes around.  Golbez's only other attack is Osmose and thats no better because if he gets Cecil you're healing spells are gone and you're forced to choose between hipotioning both characters until you can't anymore, or ethering one of the two and letting the other die; if he Osmoses Rydia your only means of attack disappears but at least it gives you a turn to get ahead of the poison countdown.  In the original you used to get a chance to phoenix down and heal up Rosa to defend against his attack, but he's too fast in this one.  Every time I revive Rosa he knocks her down before the followup Cura can be cast.  Very aggravating because without both Cecil and Rosa up you're not getting Yang or Kain up either.  Seems that the only way past Golbez is to hope he keeps Osmosing Rydia until Rosa is able to help.  So far I've not seem him cast Osmose twice in a row that you'd need to get Rosa to where she can help.  I got torched by him four times tonight and suspect I'll now have to spend alot of time fighting dark imps to raise some levels before I'll get enough HP to survive the Bio poison countdown for more than one turn.

These boss battles are really starting to piss me off.  The one hit kills and super-counters are too much.  To always do 60-120% damage to a character wearing the maximum armor you can give them at that point in the game is retarded and demonstrates a lack of playtesting.  (They even gave a couple of one hit killers to normal enemies, too.  I got surprised once by a pair of the ice panther enemies and they both cast Icestorm before my characters ATB bars filled, doing 650-700 damage per character and wiping out the whole party before I even got a chance to react. Lousy.)  I don't remember using Cecil to heal much during boss battles but he's doing that more often than attacking now.  Not the role he's intended for but the one the game forces you to play.

I know it sounds like I'm complaining but I think I have a right.  I put FF4 up there behind only Skies of Arcadia and Dragon Quest 4 on my list of all time favorite RPGs, but the DS remake is seriously threatening that ranking.  Its got a lot of eye candy but game-wise its not holding a candle to the original.  Its just too inconsistent in its progression of difficulty from one dungeon to the next and from one boss battle to the next.

[Nitorin]

>_> meh  Well I'd still like to play. FF4 is pretty much one of my favorite too(even tho FF6 was the best in my opinion). And wow 1 hit kill sucks so bad.Lol even normal monster? >_< I guess you need lot of revive potion(pheonix down?).

[Xierfrogs]

I loved it in FF6 when you got attacked by the train. It's like "OH SHIT THERE'S A GHOST TRAIN IT'S GOING TO KILL US" but then 1 phoenix down kills it. ><

[JG]

I guess you need lot of revive potion(pheonix down?).

You need alot of everything.  Alot of enemies gain status counters and if you're not careful you can run out of the curative items at a bad time.  And if you're really unlucky you can get poisoned or stoned before you're even given the opprotunity to even purchase the needed items (antidote and gold needle respectively.)  All I can recommend is that, as soon as you get the chance, load up on 20 or so gold needles.  Obviously you're using alot more magic in this version than the original, so you need to have some ethers handy every once in a while, too.  I probably burned 15 ethers in the Loadstone Cavern alone, because you constantly need to restock Telleh's black magic and Cecil's white.

I think the games been setup to use a wider area of magic that you used to.  Esuna took a backseat to the curative items in the original - now its a relief when your character learns it for the reasoning above.  On the otherhand Life (now Raise) used to be easy to cast in the original - now its a whopping 25mp and phoenix downs are the way to go unless you've got MP to burn (probably not until you free Rosa, as Telleh's black magic is far more valuable and Cecil [usually] doesnt learn it until you've already got Rosa back.)  And spells you never bothered with in the original are needed now...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...such as Slow.

The only way you beat Golbez is to Slow him, so you get at least two turns to his one.  (And the only way to Sow him, as I've found out, is to get Rosa to about level 36 so she's got enough speed to cast it before he summons.)

[Nitorin]

hummm The game sound cool but you know what?I hate when they make a game,harder by adding monster with 1-hit-kill,always faster then you(attack first),give them crazy spell that destroy your entire party...You can't no more rely on your *RPG SKILL*. I mean what can you do?Only option left? LV UP

[JG]

Well if you played the original its a good buy - it plays like a hard mode on some other RPGs.  But if you haven't played the original it may be over the top.

Actually I've only spent time leveling up three times: when I first got Rydia and couldn't go far from Kaipo before she'd die; when I first got the twins and they couldn't go far from Mysidia before dying, and when I got Rosa back and immediately went underground to face Golbez (see above).  I clearly recall doing alot more leveling in the original (especially at the very beginning, when Cecil becomes a level 1 Paladin, and again right after the Golbez fight when you regain a very weak Rydia.)  I think they've increased the EXP given for each fight so you fight less battles and raise levels faster.  Its therefore adjusted the areas and times when you need to level up to keep up with the story.  Less sidetracking to level up than before but not quite the art/science that newer RPGs have mastered.  (IMHO, Skies of Arcadia and FF9 [barring the optional Ozma battle] both nailed it perfectly - there's absolutely no need to level up beyond the battles those games have provided along the way, yet they remain enough of a challenge to not be too easy.)

Wish they would have risen the new party members levels a bit to be more in line with the rest of the party though.  When you get Edge he comes in at level 35 but the rest of the party is probably 45 or higher.  Rosa's got more HP than he does right now and that's just wrong.  At least he's not dying with every hit...

[BubblegumCake]

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "If I had a nickel for everytime..."

Woooh, I must be tired, I randomly read that as "If I had a nickel for every dime..." .. LOLZ.  Also, On the FFIV tangent. I just saw the Shark-creature things (forgets their names) But.. The one.. the one with the cowboy hat... ::Giggles.. cracks up:: It's so damn cute in the strangest way. HAHAHAHAHA. Also, I want to be a Viera, They're hot. BUT NOT FURRY! D:<