December Holiday Festivus Retro GOTM - - Final Fantasy

Vanessa · Dec 6, 2018

Hateyou said:
I’ve asked you this before and don’t remember an answer. Is that a giant frame of M.U.S.C.L.E. Men on your wall?

I did answer back then! But that's okay; yes they are.

Had to custom build the display by hand and have the entire mass produced line-up (236 in all). I think they're cute and quirky (worth some $ nowadays for the set too!) #nerdlyfe

Milestone #1 completed

Time to take a break for a few days

I think the early game of FF1 is the roughest patch to get through on runs. Stuff like the Zeus gauntlet and Heal staff make the mid-to-late game much less stressful.

Crone · Dec 6, 2018

Janx said:
I've seen a lot of negative reviews on it. If its an option just get your prefered emulator and bluetooth a PS4 controller to your phone.

I've got an extra Ps4 controller at home, that's for sure.

I've got a gaming laptop I bring with me, it's just fairly useless without internet the games I normally play. Maybe I'll load this up on it, and bring my Ps4 controller with me.

pharmakos I read you had some troubles, but got it figured out. Mind laying out the best emulator you found to do this game the right way!

I'll get it loaded up this weekend and try and catch up!

Hateyou · Dec 6, 2018

Vanessa said:
I did answer back then! But that's okay; yes they are.

View attachment 185211

View attachment 185213

Had to custom build the display by hand and have the entire mass produced line-up (236 in all). I think they're cute and quirky (worth some $ nowadays for the set too!) #nerdlyfe

Milestone #1 completed

View attachment 185214

Time to take a break for a few days I think the early game of FF1 is the roughest patch to get through on runs. Stuff like the Zeus gauntlet and Heal staff make the mid-to-late game much less stressful.

Awesome display. Had a lot of those, hits me in the nostalgia feels.

pharmakos · Dec 6, 2018

Crone said:
I've got an extra Ps4 controller at home, that's for sure.

I've got a gaming laptop I bring with me, it's just fairly useless without internet the games I normally play. Maybe I'll load this up on it, and bring my Ps4 controller with me.

pharmakos I read you had some troubles, but got it figured out. Mind laying out the best emulator you found to do this game the right way! I'll get it loaded up this weekend and try and catch up!

PSXeven worked for me. There's several places to download it according to Google, I forget what site I got it from. Worked pretty much out of the box, I think the only setting I had to change was to make full screen keep the original aspect ratio instead of stretching to match screen resolution.

Vimm's Lair: Preserving the Classics has the Final Fantasy Origins iso that contains the game (along with FF2)

Edit -- oh yeah, it needed a BIOS file from elsewhere. I used the one that was in my failed ePSXe install that I grabbed from Vimm's Emulation Vault.

pharmakos · Dec 6, 2018

Crone just sat down at my computer and looked at the options screen to refresh my memory, and remembered that I also had to turn on FPS limiting and set it to Auto-detect FPS. It was running as fast as my processor could get it without that setting on, lol legacy emulation programs.

Crone · Dec 7, 2018

I forgot how small all the files were. Got it up and running, but I don't have a controller with me on this trip, but I go home tomorrow.

For a Ps4 controller to work, I have Ds4Windows, and that's worked in the past. Will that just work, and buttons be mapped correctly for FF?

pharmakos · Dec 7, 2018

Crone said:
For a Ps4 controller to work, I have Ds4Windows, and that's worked in the past. Will that just work, and buttons be mapped correctly for FF?

Yeah that's what I'm doing

Siliconemelons · Dec 7, 2018

Got my class change as I mentioned...

I miss the NES sprites as they looked "grown up"

The PSP ones just look like they got new armor, or in the case of black mage, clown pants.

pharmakos · Dec 7, 2018

so much more grinding required in the earlier versions. spent an hour yesterday just sailing around between Elfheim and Pravoca just to get level 2 spells for all three of my mages. going to attempt Marsh Cave without any level 3 spells.

pharmakos · Dec 8, 2018

Well hell, I thought Tents restored magic in the PSX version. My plan to restore magic charges after doing the north branch of the Marsh Cave didn't work out. All the way back to Elfheim...

Four hours in so far and still not sure I grinded enough for Marsh Cave haha. The versions with OG difficulty are fucking brutal.

Bought 23 Antidotes and went through 10 of them just going through the dead end in Marsh Cave and back.

Had enough Gil to grab one Mythril sword now that I'm back in Elfheim tho. Could have bought a level 4 spell for that much, but my mages are only level 8 and so only have 1 level 4 charge per inn visit right now. That sword will be a lot more useful than a single Ice2 or Haste.

Szlia · Dec 8, 2018

There is an odd design idea in the march cave: there seemed to be linked chests. For example, you can find a steel armor (or whatever it is called in english) in a number of different chests, but once you grab it, all these chests become opened. I guess the idea is that you want to the player to get some core items without having to comb the whole place...

As far as dumb design go though, reaching a village when there is suddenly like $20k+ of stuff worth buying (and it can be much more depending on your group), is like begging the players to grind for hours... Well... I obliged. The problem is that the beat of the game seems to be: grind next to towns and go to an inn once spells and hp run out, flee every fights when actually adventuring. So basically 4/5th of the play time is spent grinding semi afk while watching TV or Twitch.... great design guys!

PS: Just got the Nitro (TNT in english?)

pharmakos · Dec 8, 2018

Szlia said:
There is an odd design idea in the march cave: there seemed to be linked chests. For example, you can find a steel armor (or whatever it is called in english) in a number of different chests, but once you grab it, all these chests become opened. I guess the idea is that you want to the player to get some core items without having to comb the whole place...

That's the way every dungeon is. And yeah, it's really strange and frustrating actually, if you're not using a guide/map.

Therage · Dec 8, 2018

Gotta use the peninsula of power while you can! Or am I thinking of the wrong one. (just restored the bridge out side of cornelia myself veye beginning still but haven't had a day off yet)

Siliconemelons · Dec 8, 2018

EYE farming once you can... and yeah Zeus Guantlet makes "mid game" aka the "middle" half lol much doable as lit2 owned a lot of stuff.

Thief in PSP is actually good, because they gave him "small" mode of ninja - aka more "hits" and accuracy... in OG he had shit for accuracy and hit same/ less (I think) in number than warrior.

pharmakos · Dec 8, 2018

Therage said:
Gotta use the peninsula of power while you can! Or am I thinking of the wrong one. (just restored the bridge out side of cornelia myself veye beginning still but haven't had a day off yet)

i think there are some versions where the Peninsula of Power is nerfed. i do have access to it in mine, tho, so yeah, thanks for the reminder. probably should hit it up now that i'm level 10.

Vanessa · Dec 8, 2018

Was about halfway through Ice Cavern in hopes of taking the Trio Of Tards to the skies with the Floater Stone and the PS3 crashed. PS3 and backwards compatibility is such a dicey situation with these old titles.

30 years go by and I'm still victimized by glitches in vidja-games! Haha.

True story tho: the worst meltdown I had over a glitch was when I was like 7 or whatever and playing Castlevania and finally, omg FINALLY beating the Grim Reaper (those 4 bubbles of life per hit and spinning scythes can go to hell... hard as shiiiiiit for a kid and still hard as an adult) and then as I was trying to get through the clock tower with all those eagles and hunchbacks the game froze and the music was stuck on this one droning tone, taunting me like an evil banshee to have to [RESET] from the beginning.

pharmakos · Dec 8, 2018

Vanessa said:
Was about halfway through Ice Cavern in hopes of taking the Trio Of Tards to the skies with the Floater Stone and the PS3 crashed. PS3 and backwards compatibility is such a dicey situation with these old titles.

30 years go by and I'm still victimized by glitches in vidja-games! Haha.

True story tho: the worst meltdown I had over a glitch was when I was like 7 or whatever and playing Castlevania and finally, omg FINALLY beating the Grim Reaper (those 4 bubbles of life per hit and spinning scythes can go to hell... hard as shiiiiiit for a kid and still hard as an adult) and then as I was trying to get through the clock tower with all those eagles and hunchbacks the game froze and the music was stuck on this one droning tone, taunting me like an evil banshee to have to [RESET] from the beginning.

You playing off a disc or playing the digital download? I heard the disc has a bunch of bugs like that. FF1 should be completable but FF2's bugs are game breaking to the point of not being able to finish the game supposedly.

Siliconemelons · Dec 8, 2018

I forgot to mention one "challenge" that I do- a carry over from how my OCD brother played - was that because all characters start @ 0exp and follow the same level arch he NEVER got exp with a dead member so they always were the same level.

Needless to say FF2 rustled him

Szlia · Dec 9, 2018

Got through the earth cave and the castle of ordeals, team is at 19 now. It's interesting how the game tries to have a different flavor for each dungeon or even different areas of a same dungeon, like in the earth cave that loop that serves no purpose but which has encounter on every tile. Joke's on them, because what is supposed to be some sort of trap is a super efficient spot to farm cash and xp!

You have to question the balance of this game though... warriors do considerable single target damage for free, have the most hp, can wear the most damage reducing armor AND can have shields that further reduce damage AND provide additional avoidance.... their drawback should be their lack of healing, curing or multi target damage, but the sever limitation in spell usage for casters makes it so most of the healing and curing is done with items. Worse, you even get items that anyone can use with infinite in combat uses of spells... So yeah, I have a white mage that currently spends her time using a group heal staff or a all targets thunder gauntlet... a warrior could do the same job and have twice the hp and three times the armor and a shield....

Also, cursed be low level encounters that just waste your time in a game without auto combat nor flight without menuing. Cursed be poison that never runs its course in a game with severely limited spell usage. Cursed be general item shops without the full list of items, forcing you to sail around the world to restock on some curative items. Cursed be low level monsters that can't deal damage but still can insta kill your characters (petrification, death spell...). Oh and cursed be spell casting enemies that can wipe your group without you having a say in it....

pharmakos · Dec 9, 2018

Szlia said:
You have to question the balance of this game though... warriors do considerable single target damage for free, have the most hp, can wear the most damage reducing armor AND can have shields that further reduce damage AND provide additional avoidance.... their drawback should be their lack of healing, curing or multi target damage, but the sever limitation in spell usage for casters makes it so most of the healing and curing is done with items.

And then after the class change they get to learn White Mage spells!

Are you playing the NES version man? Think you're the only one if so.

And have you played this game before? I can't actually tell from the way you write about it.

Glad to have you playing along with us tho, your write-ups are always top notch dude.

December Holiday Festivus Retro GOTM - - Final Fantasy

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