Final Fantasy 4 DS First Impressions (Best DS game?)

[Chris]

But the idea of "balance" came in after the SNES days (well, somewhat) and we're supposed to now have RPGs by design where you shouldn't have to level up anymore.

You're bitching about a game that is a remake of the game that was still in the SNES days, so your "theory" doesn't apply. Besides, I think most modern RPGs are too easy, anyway. They shouldn't be 7th Saga hard, but at least provide a challenge.

Challenge is not exclusive to levelling up. Levelling up is an antiquated technique to extend the length of the game, it's no longer required. That's what I was sayin'. I expect to level up a bit in FF4 DS or CT DS but if I had to level up in Mass Effect, it's stupid

I love when poeple call it an arbitrary way of extending a game. Last game I played where levelling was thefocus of character development I beat in 30 hours.....since they went away from that what do games average? 50-70 nowdays? if I played an old school game focused on levelling the only way to take that amount of time is to powerlevel the shit out of everyne to max, get every subquest, and have left the system running for an extra 8 or nine hours while I'm at work

[SineSwiper]

Actually FFT doesn't give you access to skills your enemies won't have via leveling. You get stuff the enemy can't use as unique characters join. If the enemy can have 5 guys that use Lightning Stab or Dark Sword you'd be pretty screwed.

What I meant was that when enemies leveled up (by virtue of Ramza's level), they were more powerful in stats, but with some small exceptions, the skills weren't upgraded.

[Don]

Actually FFT doesn't give you access to skills your enemies won't have via leveling. You get stuff the enemy can't use as unique characters join. If the enemy can have 5 guys that use Lightning Stab or Dark Sword you'd be pretty screwed.

What I meant was that when enemies leveled up (by virtue of Ramza's level), they were more powerful in stats, but with some small exceptions, the skills weren't upgraded.

Well FFT skills don't really get more powerful in a linear fashion anyway. A high level black mage might have the level 4 spells but you'll never get them off on time anyway. A high level archer could have charge +20 but that'll never actually hit anybody. The higher level enemies do have access to more skills but it's not a linear upgrade otherwise a level 99 enemy should have everything in his class mastered. But you don't really need too many skills in FFT anyway.

[Julius Seeker]

I believe this was something people brought up with Dragon Quest 8. The problem seems to be your average enemy has a selection of attack say:

A. Does normal damage to one guy
B. Does low damage to everybody
C. Does some status effect
D. Does lots of damage to everybody

And it's completely random whether attack the enemies pick, so if you got a case where both enemies pick attack D you're pretty screwed.

The only game where I saw this being addressed well is Grandia where enemies both have a charge up time (generally longer for bigger moves) and a recovery time. It won't completely stop enemies from starting with their biggest move but at least they won't be using anything else for a while if they use their most powerful move right away.

You pretty much nailed it. In Final Fantasy 4, I didn't need to level up at all, but sometimes I was killed because of too much attack #D, but that wasn't a huge deal because there are very very few locations in FF4 where you travel for lengthy periods of time without saving... and even then it can all be avoided if you're not gathering all the treasure in one go (like in the final dungeon and Bahamut's cave).

I mean, you COULD level up so that multi-attack D's won't kill you, but I guarantee you that I would have a much better time with the game not levelling up than you did with levelling up. It's like those people who play FF8 and actually waste time drawing all their magic (and draw it without knowing the return formulas so it essentially takes what feels like forever) rather than refinining most of it.

[Flip]

I believe this was something people brought up with Dragon Quest 8. The problem seems to be your average enemy has a selection of attack say:

A. Does normal damage to one guy
B. Does low damage to everybody
C. Does some status effect
D. Does lots of damage to everybody

And it's completely random whether attack the enemies pick, so if you got a case where both enemies pick attack D you're pretty screwed.

The only game where I saw this being addressed well is Grandia where enemies both have a charge up time (generally longer for bigger moves) and a recovery time. It won't completely stop enemies from starting with their biggest move but at least they won't be using anything else for a while if they use their most powerful move right away.

You pretty much nailed it. In Final Fantasy 4, I didn't need to level up at all, but sometimes I was killed because of too much attack #D, but that wasn't a huge deal because there are very very few locations in FF4 where you travel for lengthy periods of time without saving... and even then it can all be avoided if you're not gathering all the treasure in one go (like in the final dungeon and Bahamut's cave).

I mean, you COULD level up so that multi-attack D's won't kill you, but I guarantee you that I would have a much better time with the game not levelling up than you did with levelling up. It's like those people who play FF8 and actually waste time drawing all their magic (and draw it without knowing the return formulas so it essentially takes what feels like forever) rather than refinining most of it.

Well, having prior knowledge of FF games, when you draw on a boss and get flare or something you know if pretty ridiculous, then you find yourself drawing the shit out of it. Yeah, you may not know if its the best for a particular stat, but you know its gonna rock, and most of the time you are right making the next 3 hours of the game a breeze. I like FF8's system, but once you know it you can cream the game in no time by abusing it.

[Don]

Most of the good spells in FF8 is still obtained via drawing, but you only have to be level 30 (or rather the enemy has to be) to get the highest level spells from draw. Of course having encounter-none on the island closest to Hell/Heaven works too.

[Julius Seeker]

I only tackled the islands of heaven and hell once, and it made the rest of the game a cake walk. It's not required to finish the game... but if you're going to tackle Omega, you essentially have to get all the best of everything to have a chance, Holy Wars increase the chance.

I like FF8's system a lot myself, but if I were to be on the design side in a remake, there are some easy fixes that I could think of for some of the exploits involved. The major one I can think of is giving the player the ability to refine tents early on; and allowing them to junction that magic.

[Flip]

I like FF8's system a lot myself, but if I were to be on the design side in a remake, there are some easy fixes that I could think of for some of the exploits involved. The major one I can think of is giving the player the ability to refine tents early on; and allowing them to junction that magic.

To make the game easier in the beginning? FF8 was already easy and with abuse, one of the easiest in the series... why is making the beginning simpler a major revision that is needed?

[Don]

You don't even need to do much with junction, just chain pass your turn when low on HP and get a limit break every round!

[Don]

I think this is what I did in FF8 when I went through the game with low levels (but not ridiculously low like say, 5):

Draw Water from the beach near starting point and junction to Magic (it's about Ra strength spell and you get it early).

Refine cards for 300 Holys.

Draw 300 Meltdowns and Reflects in the past at the end of the CD1 as Laguna (you don't encounter enemies with these abilities for a long time in the real world). You may need to level him up to level 30, but not like this is hard.

Draw 300 Full-Lifes from Tonberry King.

Draw 300 Triples from either Ceberus or Odin.

There's probably something you can pick up 300 Curagas somewhere along the way.

The only thing you won't have is Ultima, Meteor, and Aura (from Seifer but at that point you can't go back). I don't think you can draw Meteor from any easy enemies, and Ultima obviously takes a while to get unless you're doing Encounter-None on the Heaven/Hell islands.

[Julius Seeker]

I like FF8's system a lot myself, but if I were to be on the design side in a remake, there are some easy fixes that I could think of for some of the exploits involved. The major one I can think of is giving the player the ability to refine tents early on; and allowing them to junction that magic.

To make the game easier in the beginning? FF8 was already easy and with abuse, one of the easiest in the series... why is making the beginning simpler a major revision that is needed?

Sorry, I worded that weirdly, the tent thing was an example of one of the exploits I was describing that should be fixed.

As for ease of FF8: You'd be surprised, though, how many people played Final Fantasy 8 without even knowing about refinement or using the junction system effectively. There are people out there that attempt to power up their characters by leveling, and others who do it purely by drawing. You're right, if you know how to play the game, it is incredibly easy; but I still feel FF6 is the easiest. If you know the games: FF4 (the NA SNES one), 6, 7, 8, and 9 can all be rushed through and completed; the others I find more difficult to do such a thing.

[Julius Seeker]

For Curaga, those can be obtained very early on by refining tents. Get those, pump up HP and then just be in critical all the time for limit breaks. Being in a critical state leaves you with more than a safe amount of HP until some time on disk three if I am remembering correctly.

[Don]

Well as long as you got Meltdown on Vitality and Reflect on Spirit (think those are the highest booster in these fields besides Ultima) you're pretty safe from dying since enemy attacks scale to your level as opposed to progress.