Squeenix Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster - New Remasters of Final Fantasy I-VI

[Spike]

Playing FF1 on NES emulator, with the FF Restored hack that fixes bugs and I believe fixes the translation. What a charming little classic. Love the music, the enemy design sprites are great. Fun spells/combat for its era. Truly from a time where innovation and invention were common in the gaming industry.

I said this before I played Marsh Caves...Holy smokes. Baba ganoosh! I made it through, though. Apparently that is the biggest difficulty spike in the game, and the hardest part of the game...? The poison and paralysis are unbelievably obnoxious. And it's getting annoying how every 5 frickin steps I trigger an enemy encounter. I'm the one who is triggered! I got the mystic key and crown, though. Still really like this game despite my blood pressure skyrocketing.

 

[Spike]

I have played this game for two days straight. Yesterday I was awake for about 19 or 20 hours. I played it for the vast majority of that time, only breaking once to eat and maybe twice to pee. This is a true classic, agonizing warts and all (how about how frickin slow it is?). Favorite chune, codexians? For me, the choice is simple.

 

[Lemming42]

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'd sometimes just let this play. Reminded me of Ultima in some ways.

 

[Athena]

Does anyone here have FF9 on Switch? Is the port really as bad as I have heard it is? I've heard, among other problems with the port, that the pre-rendered backgrounds look terrible and battles take a long time to load.

The pre-rendered backgrounds look terrible in every version that isn't the original played on a CRT or using CRT shaders. There's an AI upscale mod for PC but it looks kind of bad IMO.

 

[Spike]

I'd sometimes just let this play. Reminded me of Ultima in some ways.

I let a great number of the tracks just play. So many greats. The overworld music, the town music, Matoya's Cavern/Cave...And I just beat it! I have conquered Chaos and saved the world, lads! Now...To enjoy Stranger of Paradise maximally!

P.S. I said I played using a hack that fixes bugs, but I don't actually think I applied the patch correctly or something. So I played just normal NES FF1, hah! Truly the way to play. At the very least apply the patch. Can't beat the NES sovl.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Reminded of Ultima? What NES version? What patch for NES FF1? (Or patches that are the best)

 

[911 Jumper]

Does anyone here have FF9 on Switch? Is the port really as bad as I have heard it is? I've heard, among other problems with the port, that the pre-rendered backgrounds look terrible and battles take a long time to load.

The pre-rendered backgrounds look terrible in every version that isn't the original played on a CRT or using CRT shaders. There's an AI upscale mod for PC but it looks kind of bad IMO.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I saw a bit of the AI upscale mod recently. I was thinking about getting FF9 to complete my 3D FF collection on Switch. But it's £50-£60 for the physical version with the game on the cart. Just doesn't seem as if it's worth it.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Reminded of Ultima? What NES version? What patch for NES FF1? (Or patches that are the best)

C64 Ultima IV soundtrack, specifically the Castle, Towns, and Rule Britannia tracks. It's less that they sound alike, and more that to me, they sound reminiscent. YMMV

According to the poster, these are MIDI tracks that "were perhaps converted" from the C64 source. Seems close to what I remember, more so than the Apple II versions anyway.

 

[Spike]

Reminded of Ultima? What NES version? What patch for NES FF1? (Or patches that are the best)

Excuse me, I was talking about this restored patch. A significant number of spells do not work in vanilla FF1 (rofl) such as poison not working when you cast it on enemies, certain buffs not working for your bros (SABR and TEMPR), a spell that, rather than debuff the enemy's evasion, it buffs it lol. All of this was present in the NES cartridge for FF1 and there have been numerous attempts to fix them such as this hack I tried using: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1631/
However, I saw no changes to the font or text or anything so I can only assume I in fact played the charmingly busted vanilla version which was full of bugs. The game is still playable and enjoyable, as long as you're aware of these things and avoid accordingly. There are certain things that get calculated wrong too, and some weapons are not as good as they should be such as XCALBER. Despite this, XCALBER is still incredible and probably overpowered. Most of the bugs work against your favor. There is one notable one that works in your favor but I can't recall it at the moment.

 

[Damned Registrations]

My favourite thing about FF1's shoddy quality is that there's a wisdom stat, which your spellcasters have the most of, obviously. This stat does nothing. Not because someone made a typo and the intended formula doesn't work; but because they never wrote such a formula. There is no code in the game regarding wisdom except how likely it is to increase on level up. It's just a pointless number.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

At least it means the red mage is more usable because his heals are not weaker.

There is one notable one that works in your favor but I can't recall it at the moment.

Probably this.

The critical hit bug is present in every version of the original Final Fantasy (though its status as a bug in more recent versions is debatable since it seems to have been intentionally retained). Instead of loading a weapon's critical hit rate, the game loads the weapon's index number. The practical effect of this bug is that critical hits are slightly less common than they were intended to be at the beginning of the game, and substantially more common than they were meant to be at the end of the game.

AstralEsper's patch above fixes it though.

II. BUG FIXES

* Weapon index is used for critical value.

[...]
It's noteworthy that no official release of Final Fantasy fixes every bug. Even FF: Origins does not fix the Critical Hit Bug or the Intelligence Bug, which are the two biggest bugs in the game. This will provide you with the most authentic Final Fantasy experience possible, as it was designed to be, unencumbered by bugs, censorship, or text data limitations. It is my hope that you find it enjoyable.

 

[Spike]

At least it means the red mage is more usable because his heals are not weaker.

There is one notable one that works in your favor but I can't recall it at the moment.

Probably this.

The critical hit bug is present in every version of the original Final Fantasy (though its status as a bug in more recent versions is debatable since it seems to have been intentionally retained). Instead of loading a weapon's critical hit rate, the game loads the weapon's index number. The practical effect of this bug is that critical hits are slightly less common than they were intended to be at the beginning of the game, and substantially more common than they were meant to be at the end of the game.

AstralEsper's patch above fixes it though.

II. BUG FIXES

* Weapon index is used for critical value.

[...]
It's noteworthy that no official release of Final Fantasy fixes every bug. Even FF: Origins does not fix the Critical Hit Bug or the Intelligence Bug, which are the two biggest bugs in the game. This will provide you with the most authentic Final Fantasy experience possible, as it was designed to be, unencumbered by bugs, censorship, or text data limitations. It is my hope that you find it enjoyable.

That's hilarious. I was critting left and right end-game. And even before that. However, I recall a certain spell or something as well that works in your favor. Maybe a weapon? I was just looking at it the other day...

 

[Max Stats]

Been playing some of these (I and IV, specifically) on the Switch. Found them enjoyable. Already beat multiple releases (including the first US releases back in the day) of these over the years but I appreciate the new map functions, and the abillity to turn off battles when I'm just trying to search an area I've already had many fights in and I just wanna explore a bit without being interupted or just get through an area already. Using multipliers for gold and xp cuts back on needed grinding, good for playing as a pick up and play a bit at lesiure activity.

May not be the best versions, certianly not perfect versions, but I had fun with them, and that's what counts. I already have VI downloaded so I'll get to that sometime, probably after FFVII with Ominslash + Beacuase patches. One to update the graphics one to fix the translation.

FFII, though, nope. That game can eat a chode. Played through that on GBA, and nope, never again, not with that asstacular leveling system.

 

[Morenatsu.]

FFII is ~atmosphere~ tho

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Stupid early USA release where II was what? IV or some shit?

 

[Baron Dupek]

that took completely by surprise - it doesn't look like that in the whole game