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Post by Ex on Apr 15, 2021 1:51:45 GMT -5
I made it to the 3rd world in TFFL tonight. So far staying alive and being effective in combat has been a piece of cake, I haven't had a single death yet. The unintuitive plot progression not so much a piece of cake though. I used a walkthrough twice tonight, once because I wasn't going to search 40 different fake orbs till I found the real one, second because I didn't know I was supposed to go back to the old man on the island to get the red sphere. This game is pretty awful at guiding the player through its progression narrative, but the gameplay itself is still pretty fun. I'm probably nearing 8 hours invested now, which seems like a lot for this title, but I've spent a lot of time wandering around since I wasn't using a walkthrough. This netted me loads of money, which I've been using to afford the best equipment, and buy copious amounts of stat power-ups for my humans. I think if someone were rushing through this game using a walkthrough the whole time, that would shave off a lot of the grinding, which would make their team less powerful as a result, and yeah then the game might be challenging.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 15, 2021 12:45:05 GMT -5
Yeah, that's very much how a lot of these games are balanced. The Dragon Quest games, once you get into DQIII and onwards, tend to be structured such that just in the natural course of exploration you won't need to grind very often. Even without discrete levels, just the act of constantly running around will beef up your mutant, and lots of money will get you some awesome humans. I saw it suggested somewhere (and I generally agree) that beefing up AGL first is preferable, since it helps your accuracy. I believe both it and STR cap off at 254 or 255, despite only displaying 99. If you want an awesome team, well... do it! Also, if memory serves, the HP600 items aren't very useful from a cost perspective - it's actually more efficient to buy HP400s despite them only giving 1 HP. Just takes longer, so if you're just drowning in money Scrooge McDuck-style, you can splurge on them.
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Post by Ex on Apr 15, 2021 16:21:41 GMT -5
I have been feeding my two humans an even mix of Strong, Agility, and HP200/400. They are doing well. Although my mutant is just bonkers with how high they've developed. I'm guessing mutants level up based on how many fights you've won or something. I've had a lot of money due to fighting so much, due to wandering around exploring and not always knowing where to go. I've noticed that when people railroad JRPGs using walkthroughs, they tend to end up underleveled towards the end of the game. That's never a problem for me, but my completion time is always considerably higher as a result. I think it's well established on HRG that I hate using strategy guides or walkthroughs, but with really old JRPGs like TFFL, progression can be so byzantine that it's actually warranted to use artificial aid occasionally - just to know WHERE to go and WHAT to do. Also there's the matter that JRPGs of a certain vintage were purposefully made convoluted to encourage buying the official strategy guides.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 15, 2021 16:34:22 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, a lot of old RPGs get kinda bonkers with their progression.
I'm pretty sure stat growth is mostly tied to how strong the enemy is that you're fighting, as well as the weapon you choose to use. Rapiers are keyed to speed, whereas swords are keyed to strength, for example. You can still get stat bumps from lesser encounters, but you've got a better chance against stronger enemies. At a minimum, this is a mechanic that carried forward through the series, especially when you hit the "spark" moves in Romancing SaGa. You've got a much larger chance to spark if you're fighting a tough enemy or boss.
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Post by Ex on Apr 16, 2021 1:07:00 GMT -5
The Final Fantasy Legend
Tonight I beat Su-Zaku, got the fourth orb, thus finished the fourth world, went back to the tower and saved. So I'm near the end.
The skyscraper dungeon in the fourth world convinced me this game would be a nightmare without a guide. That skyscraper was full of walk-through-fake-walls paths, hidden doors, false stairs, just all kinds of purposefully cryptic game design I'd gladly leave back in the '80s. I'm basically convinced anyone who's beaten TFFL in modern times used a guide to do it. There's so much BS game design insofar as progression is concerned. I can see Japanese commuters back in the '80s having the patience for that kind of stuff, but not gamers today.
On the other hand, battling of monsters and surviving is still a cakewalk. I beat Su-Zaku with a single Hyper hit. My mutant kills all monsters instantly using either Stone or Death spells, which are dirt cheap and easy to load up on. You can hoard X-Potions and Elixirs to stay alive. No, the random battling and boss fights in this game have been a joke so far. Only thing that trips me up is the purposefully unintuitive game design. (It'll even let you sell critical key plot items!) I've just given up on making sense of it, and am begrudgingly using a walkthrough to guide my way through the remainder of the experience. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy and respect TFFL, but I won't mind once it's behind me.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2021 14:18:49 GMT -5
The Final Fantasy Legend
Tonight I beat Su-Zaku, got the fourth orb, thus finished the fourth world, went back to the tower and saved. So I'm near the end.
The skyscraper dungeon in the fourth world convinced me this game would be a nightmare without a guide. That skyscraper was full of walk-through-fake-walls paths, hidden doors, false stairs, just all kinds of purposefully cryptic game design I'd gladly leave back in the '80s. I'm basically convinced anyone who's beaten TFFL in modern times used a guide to do it. There's so much BS game design insofar as progression is concerned. I can see Japanese commuters back in the '80s having the patience for that kind of stuff, but not gamers today.
On the other hand, battling of monsters and surviving is still a cakewalk. I beat Su-Zaku with a single Hyper hit. My mutant kills all monsters instantly using either Stone or Death spells, which are dirt cheap and easy to load up on. You can hoard X-Potions and Elixirs to stay alive. No, the random battling and boss fights in this game have been a joke so far. Only thing that trips me up is the purposefully unintuitive game design. (It'll even let you sell critical key plot items!) I've just given up on making sense of it, and am begrudgingly using a walkthrough to guide my way through the remainder of the experience. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy and respect TFFL, but I won't mind once it's behind me. I'm at the same part as you. Su-Zaku is indeed an easy boss. He can be killed instantly with a Stone spell. My Monsters are becoming overpowered right now (I've a Pudding and a Fireman).
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Post by Ex on Apr 16, 2021 14:37:35 GMT -5
Yeah Stone is probably even better than Death, because Death doesn't work on undead enemies. I don't know, Stone might not work on Medusa enemies. But between these two spells, it's just a cakewalk to cream enemies left and right.
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Post by Ex on Apr 16, 2021 23:28:00 GMT -5
The Final Fantasy Legend is a JRPG developed and published for Game Boy by Square. It's widely considered the first portable JRPG, and it's the first entry in the venerable SaGa series. This game was also the first million+ seller for Square, launching its principle creator Akitoshi Kawazu into high esteem with the company. Square later released a Japan-exclusive remake for WonderSwan Color, which was fully English translated in 2016. For being a 1989 release, there are a considerable amount of unique ideas to the genre design (non-PC JRPG I mean). The most important being nonlinear progression, custom character/party creation, and a mix of modern weaponry into a fantasy setting. The story's nothing to get excited about. Basically you'll have to climb the Tower of Babel and kill God. +This sure ain't your typical JRPG. +A considerable amount of player agency. +Lots of variety to the settings, keeps the environments fresh. +Despite a weak plot, there's often humorous moments. +Nobuo Uematsu's OST is above average (though lacks variety).
-Cryptic progression makes a walkthrough mandatory. -Balancing issues to say the least. -Random encounter rate can be grating. -Monsters as party members are more often a miss than a hit. -The random battles and boss beating is all a cakewalk.
I have a hard time believing anyone beat The Final Fantasy Legend without a walkthrough. This game sometimes really goes out of its way to trip you up and leave you confused as to how to proceed. And since this game forced me to use a walkthrough as a result, I hold that against it. The rest of the experience was pretty fun though. I enjoyed the unusual game design ideas, the freedom I had over my party, the ability to explore how and where I wanted (quasi-open world). Unfortunately none of the battles or bosses ever made me sweat; JRPG veterans won't find any challenge here in that regard. Though if you do, there's supposedly some glitch with the Saw that makes you practically invincible. I didn't use the Saw glitch, though I did drop a literal nuclear bomb on the final boss. For being the first portable JRPG, The Final Fantasy Legend is a lot more success than failure. I found it charming, creative, and a nice diversion from all the template tropes the JRPG genre is often inundated with. I plan to check out the sequel later this year, hopefully the cryptic crap will be toned down and the difficulty toned up.
Ex's time to beat: 12 hours (played ~85% of it without a walkthrough) Ex's rating: 7/10
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Post by Sarge on Apr 16, 2021 23:47:13 GMT -5
I think you're going to love FFLII. It's easily one of my favorite portable RPGs, and polishes up the experience a ton. Congrats getting through it!
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Post by Ex on Apr 16, 2021 23:58:17 GMT -5
I think you're going to love FFLII. It's easily one of my favorite portable RPGs, and polishes up the experience a ton. Congrats getting through it! I'm looking forward to it. I remember enjoying the game briefly in 1991, but I haven't played it since then, so have forgotten pretty much everything except ROBOTS. Also everybody says that the first SaGa game was renamed "The Final Fantasy Legend" for the west. But apparently the Japanese on the box art that says 魔界塔士 translates as "The Final Fantasy Legend" . So the Japanese name for this game is actually The Final Fantasy Legend SaGa. I mean, that's not much of a title change actually.I was probably 100% wrong actually.
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