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

[Morenatsu.]

I actually prefer normal anime-manga fantasy to weirdo art. Of course weirdo art is good too, but.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I actually prefer normal anime-manga fantasy to weirdo art. Of course weirdo art is good too, but.

you ever watched Wizards?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Amano’s style conveys a sense of movement to the sprites while being stuck in a static pose. I would like to see his original concept artwork translated to 3-d. It would not be straightforward - his artwork often features quirky touches like unbalanced features and incorrect proportions such that making a direct 1-1 rendering difficult - but it would be worth it.

Absolutely. There's a good example of that with the gold knights in FF3 actually. Here's the sprite in the pixel remaster and the concept art, and they kept the pose near identical to the art which as odd as it looks when a group of them slide out from the left that weird pose gets your imagination whirring more than if it was just KNIGHT DUDE STANDING THERE. One slightly interesting thing is the traced out cape, which when I was trying to search up an image for the concept art before giving up and taking a screenshot of it in-game I saw people mistakenly saying it was Goldor since he's the boss of the gold knight area and DOES have a cape.

Also agreed that it would be awesome if someone could translate his art well to a 3D game. I'll just link to this picture so I'm not spamming TOO many pictures in here, but doesn't that piece of art make you want to play a game set there? That's from FF1 since as mentioned there's minimal landscape art listed in FF3, but that kind of scene combined with his characters and monsters just looks like it would be a great game to experience. Get someone demented enough to come up with Morrowind levels of alien culture and place and just go completely wild.

I recall the artist for this being interviewed and he didn't even remember drawing it because he was pumping out so much art at the time.

Understandable I guess, FF1 was '87, then FF2 was '88, then FF3 was '90 (Then 4 - '91 and 5 - '92 sweet Jesus) and it seems he kicked out a good stack of art for each game on top of any other work he was doing.

you ever watched Wizards?

Wizards is probably at least part of my ongoing love of sword and sorcery cheesecake art with fucking Elinore, I'll still use Necron 99 occasionally in party based RPGs especially if I get custom portraits, and launching into the "THEY KILLED FRITZ, THEY KILLED FRITZ, THOSE LOUSY STINKING YELLOW FAIRIES! YOU HORRIBLE ATROCITY-FILLED VERMIN! YOU DESPICABLE ANIMAL WARMONGERS!" spiel when not entirely appropriate. As much as I recognize it's a shit movie I fucking love it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Wizards is probably at least part of my ongoing love of sword and sorcery cheesecake art with fucking Elinore, I'll still use Necron 99 occasionally in party based RPGs especially if I get custom portraits, and launching into the "THEY KILLED FRITZ, THEY KILLED FRITZ, THOSE LOUSY STINKING YELLOW FAIRIES! YOU HORRIBLE ATROCITY-FILLED VERMIN! YOU DESPICABLE ANIMAL WARMONGERS!" spiel when not entirely appropriate. As much as I recognize it's a shit movie I fucking love it.

Late 70s/early 80s had a lot of experimental fantasy movies that aged like fine wine.
Fire and Ice is one of my alltime favorites even if it's not great. I love the animation.

 

[Gastrick]

For story to gameplay, it only got really bad with the PS2 and long animated-voiced cutscenes. The book-like storytelling of PS1 worked a lot better and the writing was higher quality than most of what came after. FF7 only had 45 minutes worth of video cutscenes,
and 8, just under an hour
out of 30+ hour games, so around 2%.

 

[Duraframe300]

Tbh, Amano makes every single character blond. It's a good thing they don't follow his art verbatim.

Blonde Terra is better.

 

[Duraframe300]

Amano’s style conveys a sense of movement to the sprites while being stuck in a static pose. I would like to see his original concept artwork translated to 3-d. It would not be straightforward - his artwork often features quirky touches like unbalanced features and incorrect proportions such that making a direct 1-1 rendering difficult - but it would be worth it.

There are only a few games that went close to such an art style. El Shaddai for example.

As for FF games, Dissidia actually stuck close (or at least closer than mainline games) to Amano's designs .

 

[j2alg]

I actually prefer normal anime-manga fantasy to weirdo art. Of course weirdo art is good too, but.

Enter

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

The true power of Final Fantasy 3 was in your heart all along.

Really enjoyable, that final dungeon was a doozy but that's been my favorite game yet. Job system was fun, world was fun, story (Such that it was) was fun, combat probably had the best balance between easiness, cheese, and difficulty. Was slightly disappointed to find that Desch wasn't dead and he even goes back to his knocked up peasant girl in the end, but oh well. It was a sweet little ending even if it was ruining some of my amusement. Warriors of dark un-fucking stuff when light gets more powerful is a cool premise and it would've been nice to have more on that, but considering how fucking sparse and weird FF1 and 2 are that's fine. Summons were a bit disappointing but black magic felt quite good, and ninja was hilarious even though you only get it in the final dungeon. Also always appreciate a story about wizards fucking everything up because they're assholes. Have a picture of the dread booba beast

Dunno when I'll start up FF4, started a bunch of games like an idiot so it's a bit questionable to get started on FF4 too but these have been making a habit of worming to the front of my play list ever since I started 1 on a whim. Curious to see how the SNES games pan out, too.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

STRIPPERS! SLAUGHTERING THE INNOCENT! KILLING A LITTLE GIRL'S MOTHER AND THEN KIDNAPPING HER! Lasted about a week before I broke down and started the next FF. Played fuck-all so far but that's a hilarious opener compared to the last 3 games. Reaches near slapstick levels of comedy only instead of knocking over furniture and pies to the face it's OH GOD I JUST KILLED AN ENTIRE VILLAGE AGAIN WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING. Dig the little text crawl to set the stage when you come flying back after taking the crystal, too. Implying the king's possessed and eventually I'll be a big damn hero and save the day and all that jazz but it was fun having it talk about how our kingdom (And Baron is a terrible name for a kingdom. At first I thought they were talking about the title of baron, then I thought they were talking about someone NAMED or CALLED Baron, then I finally realized it's the fucking kingdom of Baron) got access to airships before everyone else and has been stomping the shit out of everyone.

Combat-wise I haven't played enough to judge it much, but the semi-real time combat's less obnoxious than I feared. Also interesting that it seems like there are casting times and time for abilities to activate. Managed to kill myself since I was spamming darkness for AOE attacks since dark knight in FF3 didn't hurt himself doing AOE but it appears that's no longer the case in 4. It's seeming really easy but since I'm not even an hour into it that's to be expected. Looking like FF4's gonna be another fun game. Actually that screenshot there reminds me, secret passages look like they're going to be a bit harder to spot than in FF3. There's a secret passage by that old lady on the right which is harder to notice than in 3. That might be rectified because the little girl's leveled up a bit and has a magic mapping spell but I haven't fucked around with it yet to see if it shows secrets or how WELL it does.

 

[Kalarion]

Interesting trivia: back in Ye Olden CRT Dayes, it was possible to adjust the TV's image settings such that hidden passage tiles showed up as slightly lighter versions of their surrounding tiles.

It would actually look like this on the TV:

That would have been very useful when trying to figure out how the fuck to get to Ragnarok (or whatever it'll be called in this version) in the Lunar Subterrane. It was an excellent cock-tease- you can see that beautiful fucking sword sitting on a pedestal but you just... can't... reach it.

Edit: fixed image I hope.

 

[Hassar]

Interesting trivia: back in Ye Olden CRT Dayes, it was possible to adjust the TV's image settings such that hidden passage tiles showed up as slightly lighter versions of their surrounding tiles.

It would actually look like this on the TV:

That would have been very useful when trying to figure out how the fuck to get to Ragnarok (or whatever it'll be called in this version) in the Lunar Subterrane. It was an excellent cock-tease- you can see that beautiful fucking sword sitting on a pedestal but you just... can't... reach it.

Edit: fixed image I hope.

I wonder how Cecil and Co. would sense the treasure chests through the wall. But I don’t bother thinking through game universe logic.

 

[Duraframe300]

Interesting trivia: back in Ye Olden CRT Dayes, it was possible to adjust the TV's image settings such that hidden passage tiles showed up as slightly lighter versions of their surrounding tiles.

It would actually look like this on the TV:

That would have been very useful when trying to figure out how the fuck to get to Ragnarok (or whatever it'll be called in this version) in the Lunar Subterrane. It was an excellent cock-tease- you can see that beautiful fucking sword sitting on a pedestal but you just... can't... reach it.

Edit: fixed image I hope.

I wonder how Cecil and Co. would sense the treasure chests through the wall. But I don’t bother thinking through game universe logic.

That's not the problem. I mean they would just straight up see the passage and decide to explore it.

The logical issue with those early 2D *secret passages* is that they aren't secret passages at all.
They're just passages obscured by a ceiling only the player sees.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Interesting trivia: back in Ye Olden CRT Dayes, it was possible to adjust the TV's image settings such that hidden passage tiles showed up as slightly lighter versions of their surrounding tiles.

That's pretty damn cool. It's even a little similar to how FF3 pixel remaster handled it, though it only highlighted secret passages once you'd entered them. But as soon as you set foot into one then any other secret passages within sight would be lit up similar to that. Surprised me when FF4 pixel remaster didn't. I even found that secret passage you're showing in your picture there but I think I missed a few chests in that dungeon so I must've missed some other secrets, I'll have to head back in there at some point since I've been a successful treasure hunter in every FF thus far but I keep getting bitten in the ass by not filling in the bestiary.

Speaking of bestiaries, I do like how the bosses seem a little more dynamic and interactive in FF4. Even the enemies, figuring out not to use magic on those healing blobs for example. Still haven't gone far into FF4 yet since I'm juggling other games along with it but the semi-real time combat hasn't chapped my ass too bad. Though the magic mapping spell turns out to just show all locations on the world map, nothing to do with locations you're currently in. Guess it makes sense since you get access to it so early, less a way to pick up secrets and more a way to give you some direction in world wandering.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Particularly enjoyable song alert, Mystic Mysidia. As found here, since apparently the pixel remaster soundtracks tend to get scraped off Youtube. https://www.greatestgamemusic.com/soundtracks/final-fantasy-iv-soundtrack-pixel-remaster/
Wandered into Mysidia and came to a complete halt to listen to the music.

About my only complaint with FF4 thus far is the enemy sprites aren't that cool compared to 1-3. And that's not MUCH of a complaint, it just feels like it looks a little worse than they did.

 

[newtmonkey]

Particularly enjoyable song alert, Mystic Mysidia. As found here, since apparently the pixel remaster soundtracks tend to get scraped off Youtube. https://www.greatestgamemusic.com/soundtracks/final-fantasy-iv-soundtrack-pixel-remaster/
Wandered into Mysidia and came to a complete halt to listen to the music.

About my only complaint with FF4 thus far is the enemy sprites aren't that cool compared to 1-3. And that's not MUCH of a complaint, it just feels like it looks a little worse than they did.

Glad to hear you are still enjoying the FF games!
FF4 has probably the greatest soundtrack in the series, though FF6 is also right up there. Enjoy!

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Glad to hear you are still enjoying the FF games!
FF4 has probably the greatest soundtrack in the series, though FF6 is also right up there. Enjoy!

Still pretty damn great! Was wondering if the first SNES game would turn me off with added story but it's been enjoyable even if it hasn't felt as open as the previous 3. Random NPCs tend to have duplicated dialog more often which is also a minor shame, but the adventure has more of a focus to it rather than "Well you're heroes go wander around and do shit". The party's been fairly fluid too which is interesting, people joining and dropping out and rejoining etc. Even had a crossdressing male stripper in Fabul so I can pretend I'm playing Lisa the Painful. Classes are interesting as well, although I wouldn't mind losing the bard. He's fun story-wise and I thought he was a useful healbot until I realized his healing ability was just sharing out my damn potions.

I might still lean toward FF2 as my favorite soundtrack overall, but I'm not very far in 4 so that could easily change if they hit me with some more really good shit like Mysidia.

Edit: Now that I'm actually exploring Mysidia, AAAAAAAAA FUCKING WIZARDS. Turned me into a frog, served me poisoned beer, and roofied me and then turned me into a fuck pig. Wouldn't have expected such degeneracy from a JRPG for children.

 

[Palomides]

The early soundtracks are fantastic, and show Uematsu's classical leanings; I can't say I'm fond of most of the music after IX, though.

 

[Okagron]

Edit: Now that I'm actually exploring Mysidia, AAAAAAAAA FUCKING WIZARDS. Turned me into a frog, served me poisoned beer, and roofied me and then turned me into a fuck pig. Wouldn't have expected such degeneracy from a JRPG for children.

I honestly always loved this. Cecil washes up ashore, only to realize that he's near Mysidia, the same town he just fucked up and stole the crystal for Baron. Then the inhabitants proceed to basically fuck him up as vengeance in hilarious ways.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I honestly always loved this. Cecil washes up ashore, only to realize that he's near Mysidia, the same town he just fucked up and stole the crystal for Baron. Then the inhabitants proceed to basically fuck him up as vengeance in hilarious ways.

It's a great bit, and the touch of Porom and Palom being sent to spy on you (Presumably at least. Palom started to bring it up then his sister smacked him silly) to show that even the wise master doesn't really trust Cecil even though he's trying to be more accepting than basically everyone else in Mysidia is a nice touch. Even though there's more story in 4 it's still hitting that sweet spot where it's done with a light enough touch that you end up filling in quite a lot with your imagination which is great for playing a nice casual RPG. Casual RPG I do keep doing stupid shit in, however. Took me far too long to try out twincast and realize that's the real strength of Porom and Palom. When I was facing undead I was doing the usual "WM casts mass heal on enemies, BM casts mass fire" when really all I needed to do was just do a goddamn twincast.

Speaking of which, MOUNT ORDEALS IS OVER. A NEW CECIL EMERGES

(slightly suspecting tellah may be headed for the deadbook here soon, since i noticed he got access to seemingly all spells and he's got his revenge-boner guiding the party back to Baron so he can drop a meteor on them, but meteor costs 99 mana to cast and he's capped out at 90 and i noticed he didn't gain more when he got a level. i smell story beats coming up)

 

[Duraframe300]

Shamefur confession, but I didn't figure out the Cecil Fight when I was a kid for quite a bit, just kept wailing on him.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Shamefur confession, but I didn't figure out the Cecil Fight when I was a kid for quite a bit, just kept wailing on him.

The tip that keeps coming up that says, "You must not fight now." didn't clue you in?

 

[Duraframe300]

Shamefur confession, but I didn't figure out the Cecil Fight when I was a kid for quite a bit, just kept wailing on him.

The tip that keeps coming up that says, "You must not fight now." didn't clue you in?

I just barely figured out that you could *heal* undead for damage previously (Was my first real confrontation with the concept.). Arrived at the fight half-dead and low on potions and just tried my best to beat him like I did every other boss. No random dialog was gonna sway my kid self.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I just barely figured out that you could *heal* undead for damage previously (Was my first real confrontation with the concept.). Arrived at the fight half-dead and low on potions and just tried my best to beat him like I did every other boss. No random dialog was gonna sway my kid self.

If it makes you feel any better it took me longer than it should have and I'm not even a kid. I was just overthinking it with "Yeah I fucking BET you'd say paladins would sheathe their swords YOU JUST WANNA KILL ME" reasoning. Was still in more of a murderhobo mindset rather than hero redeeming himself and becoming a paladin.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I just barely figured out that you could *heal* undead for damage previously (Was my first real confrontation with the concept.). Arrived at the fight half-dead and low on potions and just tried my best to beat him like I did every other boss. No random dialog was gonna sway my kid self.

If it makes you feel any better it took me longer than it should have and I'm not even a kid. I was just overthinking it with "Yeah I fucking BET you'd say paladins would sheathe their swords YOU JUST WANNA KILL ME" reasoning. Was still in more of a murderhobo mindset rather than hero redeeming himself and becoming a paladin.

It's one of the things I appreciated about FFIV, that you're fighting yourself and the only way to win is to lay down arms. There are so many thematic touches like that throughout. The main thing I hate about the game is

Spoiler

The insane encounter rate on the Moon.