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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2021 1:36:51 GMT -5
The games aren't that long ( ~ 6-8 hours) But is that playing blind, or doggedly following a walkthrough? FFL3 does seem like an odd duck to the series. From what I've briefly read, Kawazu wasn't involved much and the team tried to make it more a traditional JRPG. According to Wikipedia, Square's concept for the The Final Fantasy Legend was a title that could be completed in eight hours, based on the duration of an airplane flight between Narita, Japan and Honolulu, Hawaii. And from what I seem to remember Kawazu didn't have any involvement, because he was working on Romancing SaGa for the SNES.
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Post by Ex on Apr 13, 2021 12:49:15 GMT -5
@hutonchickenlegs
Well I've got 5.5 hours invested into TFFL thus far, and I just took the vortex under the ocean, in search of the blue sphere. I don't know how far along that puts me in the grand scheme of the plot. I haven't been playing with a walkthrough, but I ended up using one last night for a quick solve.
It was because I was trying to find the air seed. The old man said it was in the palm tree in the center, and I eventually figured out what that meant. I found that particular palm tree. But when standing on that particular palm tree and pushing A, nothing would happen. Then I discovered via the walkthrough, that you have to stand in front of the palm tree, facing it, then push A. Which after the fact makes sense enough, but at the time it was unintuitive (it was late and I was tired). This was after getting frustrated trying find THE exact floating island that would move, amongst the 20 or so identically looking non-moving islands. I also got stuck for a bit when the Steward walked through the wall, but I didn't realize he'd done that, so I didn't know to find the secret entrance as a result. The game's got some crusty idiosyncratic design at times, and I wouldn't blame anyone for using a walkthrough to get passed stuff like this. But as far as knowing where to go in general, and surviving random battles, that's simple enough.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2021 13:16:57 GMT -5
You're one third through the game. In my experience, the next dungeon will ramp up the difficulty. Or maybe you're a great player (or I suck, haha).
Oh, and yes, some of these puzzles are not intuitive at all. I'm using a guide as well (I seem to have forgotten a lot of stuff, especially in the fourth world).
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Post by Ex on Apr 13, 2021 13:27:57 GMT -5
Well the game's pretty generous on the amount of X-Potions you can carry, not just on your person, but also in your inventory, so staying alive isn't too difficult thus far. I do find it irksome that my mutant's spells keep changing. They had some wicked Flame and Ice spells, then those went away and were replaced by some buff and debuff stuff. I wish the player had more agency as to which spells a mutant gets to keep. The game may become difficult for me yet, but so far the only difficulty has been in figuring out the idiosyncratic stuff like I mentioned above. But this was a 1989 release, so some crusty design's to be expected. Overall I've been enjoying the experience.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2021 13:41:56 GMT -5
Final Fantasy Legend II gives somewhat of a leniency in gaining a new abilities; it will always replace the one at the end of the list (and you can put your worst ability at the bottom). How is your Monster doing? In my experience, the Monster falls behind with the rest of the party, because you've no clue which monster meat to let it eat.
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Post by Ex on Apr 13, 2021 13:54:12 GMT -5
Yeah the monster has been the weak link so far. At one point it had evolved into an Oni, which was useful, but then it was a Ghoul which wasn't. At this point I think it's a P-Frog. The thing that irks me with the monster evolution, is that if you feed the monster a particular type of monster meat, that doesn't necessarily mean the monster will evolve into the creature of which it ate. I mean one time I fed the monster Zombie meat, and it turned into a Condor. It's all pretty random. But as Sarge said, Kawazu clearly had a lot of D&D influence, and D&D is all about those random dice rolls. What kind of party are you rolling with?
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Post by toei on Apr 13, 2021 14:06:22 GMT -5
Yeah the monster has been the weak link so far. At one point it had evolved into an Oni, which was useful, but then it was a Ghoul which wasn't. At this point I think it's a P-Frog. The thing that irks me with the monster evolution, is that if you feed the monster a particular type of monster meat, that doesn't necessarily mean the monster will evolve into the creature of which it ate. I mean one time I fed the monster Zombie meat, and it turned into a Condor. It's all pretty random. But as Sarge said, Kawazu clearly had a lot of D&D influence, and D&D is all about those random dice rolls. What kind of party are you rolling with? This is what I mean when I say Kawazu doesn't think about how his mechanics play out. The monster usually ends up sucking. I think what you anticipated/wanted was basically the demon fusions from Megami Tensei. This mechanic was introduced all the way back in 1987. So FFL was basically just doing a crappy, randomized version of it that's never really worth it in the long run.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2021 14:12:54 GMT -5
To make it even more random; transformation does not only depend on the monster meat the Monster eats, it also depends on the monster type the Monster currently is.
I'm using a Mutant F, Human F, and two monsters. Like I said, I'm using a guide so I know when to eat which meat. And even then, my Mutant and Human are dealing way more damage (on average).
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Post by Ex on Apr 13, 2021 14:18:39 GMT -5
toeiI don't disagree that the monster evolution can be problematic. It doesn't reward careful player planning such as how MT/SMT fusions work. I still appreciate the spirit of experimentation that Kawazu brought to the table, though. When you try new ideas, not every idea is going to be a slam dunk. But sometimes they are. For example I like how you can buy level ups for the human characters, and systematically decide how much HP, strength, and agility they have. It's a bit like assigning experience points in practice, but it was still a novel approach. Also having chainsaws and submachine guns in a fantasy game is novel, especially for a 1989 release.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 13, 2021 14:42:14 GMT -5
Yeah, it's not completely random, but you're also not guaranteed that eating a higher rank monster will be an upgrade. Basically, you want to save often when looking to upgrade.
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