They must have forgotten how to do it right.

[Dhalin]

I know I'm pretty late to the punch here, but I finally had the desire to fire up my Wii and play Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.

Final Fantasy IV was one of my favorite games, Final Fantasy or no. I "bought" TAY awhile back, but I kept getting side-tracked by this, that, and everything else.

Anyways, I finally got to playing it, and I was astounded at the poor design with the battles, enemies, and such.

I know it has been quite some time since Squeenix has released an old-school RPG, but surely they didn't forget how to properly make a game?

Good God, I could rant on all day about poor design in this game. I think the storylines are the only thing keeping me playing it; I probably would have quit on it a long time ago.

First, you got the plethora of situations where you only have 1-2 people in the group at any given time, neither of which is really much of a healer (forcing you to do lots of level grinding before you can survive a dungeon without running away from everything). That wouldn't be so bad in itself, annoying, but not game-breaking, but they take it a step further:

They make these groups of 1-2 people fight enemies that have crippling status attacks, but don't give you any items to guard against said status attacks. Right near the beginning of the game, Kain is on Mt. Ordeals by himself. Very first battle, is an Ambush. A hydra-like monster, and 2 zombies. Before I even get a turn, the hydra paralyzes Kain. Oh, that's nice. At least the zombies can only do 5-ish damage and Kain has 1500.

Well, the Snake can do 70-80, though. And as soon as Kain's paralyzation wears off, it paralyzes him AGAIN before he can get a turn. I wait several times, before just resetting the game. Guess what? I got that very same ambush again. Same thing. Reset the game again, finally on the 3rd try, I got the same battle, but no Ambush and successfully jumped the stupid hydra before it could paralyze me.

I wrote it off as a freak accident, but I got to the part where Ceodore and the Hooded Man are climbing a cliff face. The 2nd area involves a part where Ceodore (the only guy with the healing spells) falls down the cliff and is separated, and you're in control of the hooded man. Very first thing that happens, he gets Ambushed by 2 Medusas. He doesn't even get a single turn, and the game wouldn't let me run away before he was petrified. Nice one, Squeenix. Nice.

This right here, is poor game design. There should never be a Game Over situation that you are utterly powerless to stop. Both examples above happen in places where there's nothing to protect you from it (there were no resist paralyze charms/items, no resist petrification charms/items) and you get killed before you can even take a turn.

Final Fantasy IV never did this, neither did V, or VI. The game didn't throw petrification at you until you had 3+ people in your group, and enemies that had paralyze didn't use it every single turn they could, either. They knew better, back then. They understood how to make a game reasonably challenging, but yet avoid the unwinnable scenarios that tend to just annoy people instead of being fun.

And secondly, what's up with enemies doing more than half of your HP in damage, with Ceodore / The Hooded Man? The damage seems a bit ridiculous to me, having to pop Hi-Potions every other time somebody gets hit. Does that ever get better, as you get into the game? And how does the game handle some of the other peoples' scenarios... I shudder to think of trying to have Rydia solo anything, if she's anything like she was in FFIV, for example. Ceodore wears heavy armor; Rydia does not. If the average mook can 3-shot Ceodore, what happens to Rydia? etc.

[Romirez]

Squaresoft > Square Enix. the company went to **** right after FF7/8. the days of the Final Fantasy reign should be coming to a close, because they don't have the quality of the 16bit final fantasies do. hell, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is better than 13... <.<

[Dhalin]

Squaresoft > Square Enix. the company went to **** right after FF7/8. the days of the Final Fantasy reign should be coming to a close, because they don't have the quality of the 16bit final fantasies do. hell, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is better than 13... <.<

I thought 9 was decent, IMO.

Then X came out... they had a decent idea going, but I just can't get past the voice acting in some parts in the game (the fake laughing scene... the volume goes off, lol) and the whole obsession with the underwater soccer game. Some people like it, but I'm kinda 'meh' on it.

X-2 had the most awesome ATB of any ATB game, ever. Too bad they wasted it on a game that had one of the most weird (and to me, worst) "class" systems ever. I mean, come on, dresspheres? Who thought That was a good idea?

FF12, again, good idea, but they fell short and missed the mark. Whether it was the annoying "Treasure Chests almost always contain double-digit gil or a single potion" thing, or the fact the game was just too darn short (I finished it, first play-through, at just over 25h playtime).

FF13, I dunno. Can't say anything, never tried it.

That, and they absolutely ruined the -Mana series too. One of the cooler franchises around, and they absolutely trashed it.

[Romirez]

i've never actually played the Mana series unfortunately.

[Dhalin]

i've never actually played the Mana series unfortunately.

If you ever do, start with Secret of Mana.

Note the awesomeness.

Then, try Seiken Densetsu 3. You'll have to either find a patched version, or, download the japanese version + patch and apply the patch yourself. I've only tried a little of the game, but it looks like it was done much the same way, with some additions.

Then, if you ever see it laying around in a discount bin, try Legend of Mana. Not quite as good, some people liked it, some didn't, so YMMV.

Once you do that, there's Sword of Mana (GBA), I thought was OK for being a gameboy game. It was closer to Secret of Mana, with some Legend of Mana mixed in.

The PS2 game? Forget it. They removed all of the things that made the previous Mana games cool, and instead tried to make it more of an action game instead of an RPG game where the Mana series started. Your hero doesn't really progress; they gain temporary levels which are erased at the end of each stage (who thought THAT was a good idea!?) and you gain levels by picking up little gems or fruit or whatever the heck those little things on the ground are (like Spyro games). Actually, you could compare the PS2 -Mana game to Spyro games easily.

Now, I liked Spyro, but... the problem? You're not playing a dragon in this. You're playing some kid who gains temporary levelups, with no item hunting and annoying boss fights (I found the first boss fight quite annoying. Not hard, just annoying). If I recall correctly, he looked kinda weird/stupid looking too.

So yeah, there's the rundown on the Mana series. At least try SoM sometime, to get a taste of why it *was* awesome, but is no longer so.

[Riaken]

The Last Remnant is a sweet rpg game, pc and or xbox360 ps3.

[Dhalin]

The Last Remnant is a sweet rpg game, pc and or xbox360 ps3.

I guess I'm just old-school or something, but I miss RPGs that played like the old-time greats did: FF4, FF6, Breath of Fire 1 - 3, Lufia 1/2, etc.

Newer RPGs tend to keep experimenting with different, and "new" battle systems, and try to add lots of gimmicks to impress the younger gamers out there.

And when they *do* give us an old-school game, they tend to screw it up in some way (like they did 'The After Years' as I pointed out above), or, like the PS1 Re-Release of Chrono Trigger (where you had to wait 10-15 some seconds between battle and field mode -every single time you fight a battle- due to the PS1 having to decompress the ROM data over and over and over again -- lazy programming methods) for example.

Or, if they do make a newer game that actually has a battle system I like, there's something else in the game that completely turns me off (FFX-2, FF12), or the game is just too darn short because of them trying to stick way too many FMVs and Voice-Acting for each and every thing that's said in the game. When you can pick up a title, and get to and completely trounce the Final Main Storyline Boss within 25 hours on your first play-through, there's something completely wrong.

[Riaken]

Newer RPGs tend to keep experimenting with different, and "new" battle systems, and try to add lots of gimmicks to impress the younger gamers out there.

But newer rpg games have half nekkid chicks in it, screw the days of dragon warrior on nes or final fantasy 1-6.

[Dhalin]

But newer rpg games have half nekkid chicks in it, screw the days of dragon warrior on nes or final fantasy 1-6.

I miss the older Breath of Fire games... especially #1 and #3... where your hero turned into a *real* dragon, and laid the beat-down on all of the enemies... lol. I loved that. Anytime Ryu uses his Brood powers, you know someone is getting a royal beating.

They need more games with dragon protagonists, or even people who are part, or half-dragon. Heck, a "draconian" (bipedal dragon, somewhat like khutit only with wings) character would work too.

We need more of those around.

Shadow Hearts (and the sequel) is another good example. Only, the Hero didn't turn into a dragon; he turned into a demon instead. A couple of his demon forms look almost like a draconian, only a much shorter tail and different head. Still, though, Cool indeed.

[Romirez]

agreed, i have Breath of Fire 3, and got to the stage where you fight what's her name in dragon form. hard as hell. we need more dragon-type games, other than Istaria.

[AmonGwareth]

I actually loved FF12. Being able to see the monsters you're fighting, to have to worry about adds, to be able to explore into areas that aren't your level made it feel non-linear. And that was a very nice change of pace for a FF game.

[Vahrokh]

I miss the older Breath of Fire games... especially #1 and #3... where your hero turned into a *real* dragon, and laid the beat-down on all of the enemies... lol. I loved that. Anytime Ryu uses his Brood powers, you know someone is getting a royal beating.

They need more games with dragon protagonists, or even people who are part, or half-dragon. Heck, a "draconian" (bipedal dragon, somewhat like khutit only with wings) character would work too.

We need more of those around.

Shadow Hearts (and the sequel) is another good example. Only, the Hero didn't turn into a dragon; he turned into a demon instead. A couple of his demon forms look almost like a draconian, only a much shorter tail and different head. Still, though, Cool indeed.

Imho there is a worse issue than this.

1) Software companies turned from "vision" powered artisan craftmanship to pure money making machines. This heavily impacts on many aspects of the gameplay.

2) The new generations of players are different than ours. They are more materialistic, less idealistic, with less fantasy and even "hope" than us. The new games cater to them.

I found the highest heights of satisfaction when winning against bosses in a MUD, when everything was "just" stupid text yet the game inspired the fantasy beyond belief. I was a credible dragon who climbed the "hero" ladders by outperforming human opponents, I was credibly married with a dragoness and we lived in our deeply customized lair with our RP history written on our entrance portal.

Now go tell this to a "modern" gamer and they'll bellyroll in laughter to say the least.
There are no true MMOs for "over 40" people, Istaria and the old EvE Online are probably the closest still actively developed.

Nowadays the MMOs are about solo "dailies" with no soul, no socialization no substance. A bunch of randoms thrown together each playing his solo thing and horrible things when they are forced doing those "5 men parties" instances.

Even Istaria... I SO LOVED when we had community events, when we fought the evil TOGETHER.

My ever lasting best moments in my "graphical gaming" life:

- a Chiconis with 200 hatchlings all doing their stuff

- a Chiconis meeting with all of the Elders for figthing against the plague

- First server's Ascension to Ancient together with years old friends.


**** if I miss those moments, regardless of how much money I could throw at something, I cannot revive those events again.

[Dhalin]

I actually loved FF12. Being able to see the monsters you're fighting, to have to worry about adds, to be able to explore into areas that aren't your level made it feel non-linear. And that was a very nice change of pace for a FF game.

The battle system was O.K. and all, and mayhaps the story wasn't too bad, but the game was way too short, and I hated the gimmicky treasure system where 99% of all treasure chests contained either a potion, 10 gil, etc. Lame.

It was basically an offline FFXI, as many people have said. They did it fairly well, but it could have used vast improvements.

Oh, and the License system had to go. It was lame, and made no sense. "Hey, I picked up a mithril sword but I can't use it because I'm not licensed to use it, even though I am able to use a steel sword which is almost the same dang thing" crap. And "Anyone can cast anything". I miss the days of FF4 where you had Rydia casting summons and black magic, Rosa was the white mage, you had the Paladin, the Ninja... you couldn't turn everyone into everything.

Also, the "Only one spell may be cast at any given time" totally sucked too. I'm looking at you, Gilgamesh and your cheap dog that spams spells over and over again, meanwhile you can't cast a Curaja because the dog is constantly chain-casting. Your Curaja cast meter is full but your character stands there 5+ seconds waiting on his "turn" to cast, while Gilgamesh is pummeling your characters to death. *rolls eyes*