Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster Series

Arbitrary said:

I've played the harder version of FF4 that the Japanese got and what it felt like was everything had a 50% counterattack rate.

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Yeah. The US version had that too, to a lesser extent. In my weekend FF2-US plow, there were a lot of fights where the enemies were getting an action for every attack I did because they were so counter-heavy. Antlion is the first instance of it and that's just the beginning. That means you can slow it down when you're getting overwhelmed, though. The game is much wimpier than I thought it was as a kid. Back in the day I ran into a brick wall fighting The Elements, this time I cruised past it. I ran away a lot, and exploited elemental weaknesses on bosses. The only hard parts of the whole thing are Zeromus and Wyvern, the latter of which is optional. They have Shinryu syndrome of annihilating you right off the bat. Gotta have the HP to survive their initial attacks, which meant I had to grind some before those.

Chris said:

Are you playing FF4 Easytype again?

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I played the FF4 US SNES version, which is what I said was a lot shorter than people remember, to prove a point.

Call it "Easytype" or whatever the Japanese lingo is but I proved said point.

Arbitrary said:

There's typically a spot right after you get the airship that can fly over lava where I get shat on in the Sylph and Summoner caves. The sealed cave is kind of a mess in general given the instant kill shit but it's got big exp in it at least. I totally got stuck on the boss as a kid. I just didn't have the numbers.

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Oh yeah, those sections can be trouble spots. The key is to cast Float on the group (it can target all) and the floors in Summoner (and Sylph?) won't damage you anymore. Have to re-cast it every time you change floors. The floors absolutely wreck you. Once that's done those places are no problem. Summoner's Cave is actually a good leveling catch-up spot if you find a Conjurer that summons Arachnes. All they do is Quake, which misses cause everyone's floating. Just stand there murdering summoned Arachnes over and over for like 25 minutes, then gain ten levels or whatever.

Sealed Cave is a problem 'cause all those Trapdoors suck to fight and the boss isn't exactly easy either. I think you can get through the entire cave only fighting one Trapdoor if you know the exact route though. Maybe it was two. Can avoid the other 12 or however many there are lurking around.

Another thing I did was keep the battle speed on 1 most of the time so the battles were fast, then turn said speed down to 4 for boss fights which made them significantly less punishing at lower-than-normal levels, which I had since I was also running from any undesirable fights.

Talenvor said:

I am pumped for this. Haven’t played FF1 since the late 80s. FF4 and 6 are my two favorite snes games. Haven’t played 4 in 25 years and 6 I started a replay on the snes classic thingy a few years back but got busy with other stuff. Looking forward to running through them all. Question though; are FF2, 3, and 5 worth it compared to the other 3 in the bundle? I really don’t want to pay $75+ for the bundle if I won’t touch half the FFs.

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I think so. 3 and 5 are both really good from a pure gameplay perspective. They have class systems and you can customize your party any way you want while leveling up classes and learning abilities. 5 is considerably bigger and has a more robust class system.

FF2 is the weak point of the six. Kind of a fusion of FF1 and a SaGa game. It pre-dates the actual SaGa series so they branched off from it. This Pixel version of FF2 is definitely the best version I've played. The ability to turn off encounters altogether makes the game vastly more enjoyable, as does the option to make HP go up every few fights automatically. Gives it more of a normal leveling system while retaining customization, and removes the need to beat your own characters up for an hour to gain any major HP. Hands-down the best FF2 I've played. So yeah I'd say all six are worth it.

Gavinmad said:

Looking at the list of excluded bonus content (mainly from the Advance era remakes) I'm reminded what a low-effort cash grab the pixel remaster series is. Would it really have been that much more work to include the 1-2 bonus dungeons and super bosses that came with the Advance versions?

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I felt this way too for a while. SE seems to do a lot of low-effort stuff, especially when it comes to ports.

However at this moment in time I think I prefer that the PRs are basically "purist versions" that keep everything the way it was in the originals. A lot of the optional content added later kind of unbalanced the equilibrium of their respective games. Especially FF4's super equipment and FF1's optional dungeons which were scattered throughout the world and boosted your levels/equipment way beyond what they were intended to be for the main quest (Unless you waited and did them all at the end, in which case they'd all be too easy).

As someone who really liked all the bonus stuff (FFVI needed an uberboss) I'm alright with the PRs. So SE's laziness inadvertently worked out this time, IMO.

Gavinmad said:

Hell naw, I'm not violating what is probably my favorite game of all time by subjecting it to speed-run treatment. Besides I don't even currently have a 2d version of FF4.

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Yeah I don't like to violate my favorite games with speedruns either. This FF4 run, however, was more like I just played it normally and didn't waste time, made use of my rough memory of shortcuts, avoided a lot of fights. Was a lot like the very first time I ever played it actually, except I actually know my way around now.

I think I might jump ahead from FF2 to FF4 tonight, at least for a bit...part of me still considers FF4 the second game and FF2 basically a DLC/offshoot of FF1.

Got the FF1 platinum last night, about 2 hours after I finished the game. Was a very easy plat because nothing was missable and it tells you exactly where you missed chests. Be halfway thorough while going through the game and you might not even have to do clean-up. Looks like all the other plats have missable stuff though, so they'll be less of a free ride than FF1.

Here's a missable guide for FF2 that I'm gonna refer to:
https://steamcommunity .com/app/1173780
("The Player's Checklist" is the part you want)


After I finished the FF1 plat I went back and finished the last thing I had to do with FF1 NES, the last dungeon with four White Wizards. Started this like a year ago. A four WM game is a doozy on the NES, but I think I actually had more trouble with 4x Th/Ni and maybe even 4x BM. Being able to actually revive was a huge help in TOFR.

So I'm basically totally done with FF1 now, unless it gets remakes again or something. 15 or so runs over the years and I've completely tapped it out.


Kind of unrelated, but while I'm clearing out phone images, here's a shot from the FF4 ending. It's cool how this game (and series) often expresses so much with just the sprites, no dialogue. Like this scene where Edge gets all shy when Rydia shows up and just kinda avoids talking to her despite her obvious interest. The "sprite personalities" in these early FF games are really underrated.

joz123 said:

I just need to finish the bestiary for FF1. Warmech is a pita to get, was fighting on that bridge for a few hours and never got him.

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Took about an hour for me, then I got him twice in five minutes (kept fighting there 'cause everyone was like 95 and I figured I might as well finish off 99). It really is completely random. On the NES it was 1/64 odds and when you entered the room there was a "probability counter" with 64 possible fights listed that it'd just go through until the list ran out, then refresh it in a different order. Leaving the room also refreshed the list. Which means that you were guaranteed to get Warmech within 64 fights if you didn't leave the room, in that version. Not the case in the PR, it could take all day if it wanted to. I assume the chance is still 1/64, it just isn't guaranteed within 64 anymore.

I wonder if the Pink Puff / Pink Tail was the same way in OG FF4, like was I guaranteed to get it within 4320 fights if I stayed in that room? Think I did over a thousand trying to get the damn thing.

Having to get the Pink Tail in FF4 is going to be the grindiest trophy in the whole series for most people if it's the same as the SNES version and I'm pretty sure it is.

Only real bad grind I had in FF2 so far (about halfway through it) was that one missable bird enemy that spawns in the Empire. I grinded in the desert outside the arena for like an hour looking for it. Then found out that it only actually spawns in the crescent-shaped forest around the Dreadnought's parking place. Didn't take much longer to get it.

Outside of that rare spawn, the only other missable enemies are the desert mobs (that I accidentally farmed) and a few sea mobs once you get the boat. So you knock out all the missable enemies pretty fast at least.

Gavinmad said:

Supposedly one of the few changes the pixel remaster kept was the addition of Sirens to the Namingway store on the moon. Using one in that room will automatically give you a flan princess fight, so you only have to hit a single 1/64 instead of two consecutive 1/64s.

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I'm guessing that was the item that was originally called Whistle, and summons the rare mob for your area once.

I might do the grind normally to shoot for level 99 (you need 70+ for 100% anyway) given how quickly I was able to get 99 in the SNES version in that room. Then when I get up to around 90 and still don't have it, I'll start dropping Sirens.

When I was a kid, I found one Whistle all game and it was in like, the very last chest for some reason. I was SURE that it would summon Culex if I used it in the right place. You know, Culex, the secret super-boss from Super Mario RPG with the FF4 sprite and music. Actual game magazines were saying at the time that Culex was from FF4. I expected him to show up, probably as the higher power behind Golbez. So I was surprised when he never appeared all game, and concluded he must be a hidden boss. Nope, he was made for Mario RPG, and isn't so much as a concept art cut from FF.

The kind of funny things that happen when your first RPGs are Chrono Trigger, FF6, and Mario RPG.

Gavinmad said:

Supposedly one of the few changes the pixel remaster kept was the addition of Sirens to the Namingway store on the moon. Using one in that room will automatically give you a flan princess fight, so you only have to hit a single 1/64 instead of two consecutive 1/64s.

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Looks like in the Pixel Remasters, enemy drop calculations are done for all enemies onscreen. In the past, FF4 would pick one enemy out of the battle and then do the drop calculation for that enemy. So a 4x Pink Puff fight was a 1/64 chance of getting a tail, but now it would be 4/64 or 1/16.

I did some FF4 PR last night (up to the Tower of Zot, so like...a quarter of the way?) and got the Goblin and Cockatrice summons fairly quickly from normal playing. Which has NEVER happened before in any kind of timely manner. From what I'm reading I just had good luck though, the 4 hidden summons are still really rare.

Still need Mindflayer and Bomb. You can use Sirens to spawn Mindflayers at will in the endgame, but not Bombs. Best bet there is probably still the western Lunar tunnel and just grinding away. I've heard the Bomb summon can be as bad as the Pink Tail, and I don't think I've ever gotten it either.

Regardless, all this stuff is gonna be a lot easier to farm than I'm expecting, from the looks of things. FF4's plat might not take ages!

Done with FF2, that took about 10 hours. 2 on Weds (after the FF1 plow) and about 4 each yesterday and today when I was busier. FF4 messing up the order cause I tried it out for a bit, but it'll get reordered and straightened out.

Anyone else even playing these, or are we just buying them to collect dust?