Do you think that, overall, WoTL is a disappointment?

[Dokurider]

First, you have the whole deliberate slow down for no apparent reason. Then you got the fact that you have to grind one class to 9999 JP just to have a shot at upgrading the Onion Knight, (And the way they do it is asinine as well. I mean, it's true no one use Fly, but, are you really going to make it cost 4999 JP? You couldn't have just coded the job so that you have to reach 9999 JP to master it, or if you couldn't have done that, just make some placeholder ability that costs 4999 JP or whatever. Why did you think it was a good idea to begin with?) which, at best, you can only have 5 people get (due to Zodiark or whatever). Granted, there are ways to get it on other team mates, but I'd rather blow my brains out.

However, what really clinches it for me is that fact that they made no attempt at balancing the game at all. The other ports of FF at least tried balancing the games out. Here, it's not even attempted. You can still roll over the computer like they weren't even there, and you are still only going to use a handful of classes and a handful of abilities. I wasn't expecting 1.3, but I was expecting something. And that, to me, is the biggest disappointment in WoTL. Hell, even if I wasn't spoiled by 1.3,  I would have been disappointed. Granted, the new translation and cut-scenes are nice and the addition of new battles (most of which you can't get to without a friend), and being able to go head to head against other players is nice, but, in all honesty, those can only go so far. The game is still broken, and because of that, FFT is still an example of a game that could have been one of the greatest games ever made, but is shackled down by it's myriad of flaws. I mean, all they had to do is at least try. FFT is a complicated game, and I wouldn't have blamed them at all if they didn't get it right. Just trying to balance it out would have elevated WoTL in my eyes. But they didn't, so I consider WoTL, a disappointment.

[Kaijyuu]

However, what really clinches it for me is that fact that they made no attempt at balancing the game at all.

Understand that their target audience is nostalgic fanboys. Any modification to the core gameplay would have a ton of people crying foul. And they certainly wouldn't turn it into 1.3 -- at least not difficulty wise, unless they WANTED to alienate the majority of their customers.

The game should've been balanced when released on the ps1. But it wasn't, because of time restraints or whatever. That's what hacking is for - to make a game you like even better (or to put a new spin on an old idea).

[Vanya]

The disappointing parts for me are the extra content being locked away by multi-player exclusivity and the completely nonsensical slowdown.

[SilvasRuin]

which, at best, you can only have 5 people get (due to Zodiark or whatever). Granted, there are ways to get it on other team mates, but I'd rather blow my brains out.

Low faith and low MA caster, smack an enemy summoner with it.  90% chance of learning it, 50% chance of crystalizing when dead, 90% chance of being in the crystal.  That's a 40.5% chance to learn on one character from a battle with an enemy Summoner if you keep it going long enough to grab the crystal.  And really, do you NEED that many with Zodiark?  Onion Knights suck in this game anyways.

[Dokurider]

However, what really clinches it for me is that fact that they made no attempt at balancing the game at all.

Understand that their target audience is nostalgic fanboys. Any modification to the core gameplay would have a ton of people crying foul. And they certainly wouldn't turn it into 1.3 -- at least not difficulty wise, unless they WANTED to alienate the majority of their customers.

The game should've been balanced when released on the ps1. But it wasn't, because of time restraints or whatever. That's what hacking is for - to make a game you like even better (or to put a new spin on an old idea).

Like I said, I wasn't expecting 1.3 at all, but I was expecting something. They balanced Edward in the DS release of FFIV and I haven't heard no fanboys bawwing over that, so I don't think that was a problem.

[SilvasRuin]

I think the main issue was laziness.  And I suspect tactical RPGs are harder to balance than the normal turn-based RPGs.  I don't think anyone has a clue what they were thinking for the slowdown though.

[Dominic NY18]

Regarding Fly, that was probably it's JP cost in the original Japanese version of FFT, since this is really a port of the Japanese version (for the most part). Just FYI, since I agree that its JP cost is ridiculous. That aside...

Understand that their target audience is nostalgic fanboys. Any modification to the core gameplay would have a ton of people crying foul. And they certainly wouldn't turn it into 1.3 -- at least not difficulty wise, unless they WANTED to alienate the majority of their customers.

The game should've been balanced when released on the ps1. But it wasn't, because of time restraints or whatever. That's what hacking is for - to make a game you like even better (or to put a new spin on an old idea).

^^^^This.

The only disappointing thing about it is the slowdown (and the multiplayer to a lesser extent, but I've people to play with and two PSPs in a pinch, so it isn't as much an issue with me).

Like I said, I wasn't expecting 1.3 at all, but I was expecting something. They balanced Edward in the DS release of FFIV and I haven't heard no fanboys bawwing over that, so I don't think that was a problem.

They buffed Edward, which he definitely needed. And he's still very good. If anything, he was better in FFIV Advance when he rejoins you and he's given his best equipment.

I could point to the buffs to Rafa, Malak, and Meliadoul in this case, but I don't think that's quite what you're getting at.

[formerdeathcorps]

I found it disappointing as well.  Translation issues aside (which does offend some "nostalgic fanboys"), deleting spell quotes and other small tidbits while increasing spell animation time is rather unnecessary (even with the new sidequests and previously Japanese only text; the game file still has plenty of space).  More significantly, however, we all know that calculator and Holy Swordsman needed to be weakened.  The only people who would have "cried foul" are the ones reliant on CT5Holy or Orlandu to win fights (which can hardly be called strategy; you can set your units to AI control and still win).  Similarly, the multiplayer-only items not only take away from the difficulty of the game (you can get rare equips from non-story battles at much lower risk), but also decreases the importance of the story in getting items,=.

In short, Square didn't fix what should have been fixed, and added in more bugs and unbalanced features.

[Dominic NY18]

For starters, are we talking about just "balance" or are we really just talking about difficulty?

How much would have been enough? How much more difficulty or balancing before some folks in here would have been satisfied?

I can tell you right now that Orlandu and Calculators aren't the only "problems."

Ii sounds like some folks expect their ports to be significantly more difficult than the game it's based on. How many ports of older games are like that?

[formerdeathcorps]

For me, I'd say balance = boss or storyline significant battles are hard enough that no setup with 5 units at equal level can win by setting all units to save fading life without having a 50%+ chance of permanently losing at least 1 character.

[SilvasRuin]

That's difficulty, not balance.  Balance would be altering job innate abilities and multipliers so none of them are particularly useless, giving some sort of drawback to the math skills, speeding up spells so they don't become useless later on, making monsters compete with humans more, taming the power of the Knight Swords and buffing up the usefulness of cloths, harps, axes, and flails, and doing something to make Shirahadori less game breaking.

[Kaijyuu]

If you want your game to sell well, you make it easy enough that the vast majority of your players can beat it. That's why the game is "easy" in many parts (did they nerf Velius in wotl? He was definitely harder than necessary on the ps1).

If you think the AI shouldn't be able to win battles, understand that many players are much less intelligent than the AI.

[Smitson]

Hell no, I love WOTL. My main beefs are the multi player, (it would be cool if you could do it yourself with two teams or something...) and the slowdown. Other then that basically everything is better over vanilla...

[Donkeyton]

WOTL was a quick and dirty port of the PSX engine, which was obviously optimized for the PSX hardware. Not all of the code made a smooth transition, which is why you see things like the unfortunate effect/spell slowdown. Had WOTL been a ground-up rebuilding of the FFT software, slowdown and other relics would have been eliminated. But that would have been more costly and time consuming an undertaking than Square-Enix probably deemed worthwhile, given the potential market size for the game on the PSP (quite small, if extremely loyal).

At the end of the day, there is usually a decent business reason for cost-cutting decisions like these. In the case of WOTL, the decision probably had a lot to do with estimated market size and revenue projections weighed against potential development costs. In the final analysis, it made more financial sense to port over the old game and spend time on cutscenes, a new translation, and a few new characters and events, but probably didn't make sense to rebuild the game from soup to nuts. Square knew that the die-hard FFT fans would buy this game in any form, half-baked or otherwise, so long as it was baked at all. And honestly, I can't say I blame them. I'd rather have a flawed, but additional-content version of FFT on the PSP than no version at all.

It's fun to play armchair developer/publisher and discuss all the things we would have done differently were we in Square's shoes. But we need to remember that the actions of a for-profit company are bound by the constraints of profitability vs. loss. Square isn't going to release a game at a financial loss if at all possible. This is the cold, harsh reality of video game publishing.

[Mari]

My only problems with the game were that I didn't like the new style of translation - Story and names..

I didn't like the slowdown damn near all the time in every battle..

And I didn't like the horrible new sound effects.

Other than that, it was good stuff.

[Oberon]

i didnt find a problem with tha psp version.the typos were fixed up big time but the addition of luso kinda suckd. balthier however was awesome. plus his job had safeguard. but i hated that u couldnt steal elmdores genji equipment.

[Mickey B]

I don't like the small party size. I think the max party size should be huge (given the size difference between a PSP memory stick and a PS1 memory stick).
Are there any codes or hacks to increase the max party size?
If not it needs to be done!

[Wiegraf]

^Thats a good idea, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon. At least the room is bigger than the PS1 version

[LastingDawn]

I don't like the small party size. I think the max party size should be huge (given the size difference between a PSP memory stick and a PS1 memory stick).
Are there any codes or hacks to increase the max party size?
If not it needs to be done!

We can only Dream in the PSX version that we can have a 24 Member Party, that's one of the better things in War of the Lions in my opinion.

[Oberon]

that would be awesome though, i hate the fate that i have to dimiss 5 of my members in order to fit guys like orlandeau and the byblos in my party.