Final Fantasy Hacktics

SoM? shadows of Myre? or Swords of Mana?

Secret of Mana.

You get to pick 3 people from 6, and each has multiple class changes to go through as the game progresses.

Dragon Force was my first thought too Kuraudo. That is a freaking awesome game.

hrmmm, ill check it out

Dragon Force to.

Its amazing how some of the most perfectly executed games are the really old ones... i wish the current industry would get off the"visual" ass of society and start developing gameplay, not flashy 3d siezure inducing nightmares they prefer to call "vector Masks"

Somebody mentioned Dragon Force? ^.^

:3 lol celdia

Also, has anyone noticed something? the japanese LOVE to cuss in their games... at first i thought it was just some of the translaters decided to add in some emphasis...but no...the japanese cuss like that in every game. even ff1...holy crap ff1 cussed alot more than i thought

o.o

Dragon Force for the win. If only I could get a Saturn emulator working well enough for me to play the second one. I actually own a copy of the US version of Dragon Force.

I agree with you Sentinal Blade, I think the gaming industry is trying too hard in the wrong places. Plus originality and quality visions are being stifled. No good.

Quoteif your not into walls of text, dont read this post, but if you want ot respond to anything said before this post...read this post...

Yeap take Bahumut Lagoon...

IT was one of the last released games for the snes, and even though it doesnt show any cripser graphics over the earlier games, it was still a high end game, utilizing alot of the system.

As i said, it was SO unique with what it did. every element of that game was pure win, just in a style all its own.

It was never released stateside.

Due to it being so late in teh consoles lifespan, they didnt waste much more time on it and soon developed n64...which had alot of good games. but AGAIN, even THIS early in gaming, they scrapped originality and innovation fot "better graphics" i know alot of games that did things only half as good as they shouldve cause the focus was more on aesthetic appeal than anything else. ff7 for example. decent plot. decent upgrade of the battlesystem. decent characters. decent sidequests. At the time. above average graphics.

i have a feeling that if FF7 was made into a 16-bit game, it wouldve been more than a huge success, it would really be the incredbile game everyone says it is.

if you dont want an FF related example, lets span this into the future.

Im sure most of you are aware of the 360 game Mass Effect? this game introduced a new graphical system called "ICS", or, individual cell shading. This was "supposed" to make the game look more crisp and very life like.

dont get me wrong, it had excellent graphics. but they spent 80% of their work hours on ICS. Which in the end, is really just blocky shadows and annoying darkness across the face when something important is said or happens.

This fits in just fine with the rest of the games. all going to the graphical improvement discusion. Problem with this is that they FOCUSED on ICS, and it did not turn out to be a nice style of art at all during cinematics, and got down right annoying. They spent nearly 2 years on a system that failed, when they couldve just used Halo's graphics engine, which i dont nessacarilly hate/love, but it did have good graphics, and spent an immense amount of time on MORE storyline development, and rather than making 9/13 of the planets in a galaxy completly barren, maybe give some life to them. This had a good storyline and excellent replayability, but there wasnt much to do other than the main storyline until you got a few good hours into the game, and even then the content didnt last long.

Almost 90% of all programming goes to development of graphics. Gran turismo 4 took nearly 5 years of being developed. They have one of the largest teams on ANY programs history, that includes NASA, and 3/4 of that was devoted to making the graphics look as pleasing as it did. Though the gran turismo team did an excellent job, bringing in real drag racers for research and things is an excellent idea, but my point is that the game wouldnt have had such a huge wait time and then a hype-kill when it didnt include everything that shouldve been included.

Looking at todays games being developed, i see very few doings right. My favorite is Champions Online. this is a superhero MMO based on teh champions tabletop game.

you know what they did?

RECYCLED A GRAPHICS ENGINE

i think the world just imploded. all they did was take City of Heroes graphics engine nad slightly tweaked it to give more of a comic book feel. for 2 years, the graphics engine has been untouched, save for bug fixes. They have had an exuberant amount of time to focus on gameplay. this is the way it should be. not some convulated engine that needs to be based on something like "Unreal" and then eventually be changed so much it cant even say it was based off of the Unreal Engine.

Now im done ranting, but can anyone name a game that is going to graphicaly intensive and most likely lacking gameplay? other than FF13?

Langrisser is just as great as i remember it btw. ALOT of fun, and a decently involving storyline and character class system =D

Quoteholy crap ff1 cussed alot more than i thought

There's profanity in FF1? I have played that game more times than I can count...probably more times (number of plays and/or play time) than any other game ever (possible exceptions being FF6 and FFT) and I honestly can't think of a single curse word in the entire game. Am I just having a major Alzheimer's moment or are you referring to one on the remakes? ...actually, thinking about it now, I can't remember much of the dialogue at all from that game. I've gotten used to just playing thru in different ways without talking to most people. I think I 'talk' to the well and fountain in Corneria more than anything else non-essential in the game.

The well is my personal favorite though. ^.^

Quote[Sentinal's Really Long Rant]

While I don't have the motivation to go get legitimate statistics about anything to further your point, I agree whole-heartedly. I'm a retro-nerd. The older the game the more I'll like it from the start. This might have something to do with an Atari and a Commodore64 being my first video game systems (and a VIC-20 but I find most people don't know that one...) In line with the whole retro vibe (something I like to claim I was into before it was 'cool' to walk around wearing a Mario Bros. wristband from Hot Topic; something I refuse to do) I'm rarely amazed by the new graphics that keep coming out. Well, yes, its all very shiny and pretty but there's no depth, no character, no game, just a lot of pretty colors and perfectly sculpted digital bodies (which is the basis for another rant entirely). Almost everything that comes out now (and a majority of what's been released in the past decade or so) has been the video game equivalent of Paris Hilton: a lot of stuff to make something bad look pretty and interesting and a lot of people clamor together about how much they love how it looks but for anyone looking for something other than a pretty package its seen for what it really is, shallow, pathetic and over-hyped.

QuoteNow im done ranting, but can anyone name a game that is going to graphicaly intensive and most likely lacking gameplay?

DQ8.

The series peaked at six, imo.  Seven went overboard on the fetch quests AND massive job system, most of the skills being overlapped (think FFTA), worthless, or super-awesome-necessary.  Then eight came along, with its kickass graphics (they hired the guy who did DBZ) and voice acting (best I've seen in a game to date -- maybe it was because the Brits did it?), but the gameplay got even worse -- the characters were pre-set, and while able to branch out, they were still mostly the same type of unit (fighter - hero - wizard - healer) which shot the replay value down.  And then most of the skills from DQ7 got cut and you were left with the bare-bones of the system, which ultimately is identical to the one from the NES era.  Final Fantasy at least has evolved to an ATB system, and with the addition of XII gone so far as to cause character placement to be a battle element, along with the gambit system which is so awesome.

Just for the recorded the DBZ guy Akira Toriyama was always the Dragon Quest Character designer for all the games. Or at least the large majority.

@Celdia

I assume i forgot to mention it was japanese games i was talking about cussing


@Philsov

DQ couldnt possibly be more summed up so perfectly.

FF XII was excellent, it was a work of REAL innovation. but i do find myself missing the old style battles, like in ff4-7...

There should be a company dedicated soly to making "traditional" games. as in, making a game that is innovative, and more than likely 2d, with the same elements we love but with new mechanics.

Perfect example would be anotehr game like ff5

You have a "decent" storyline, i admit it could be alot better, but exdeath is one of the only FF Villians to actually achieve his goals, however short lived.

You have EXCELLENT replayability. everytime you play through the game, you can use new strategies, as opposed to some, like ff9, which was on of hte better FFs, but it still lacked in tactics customizing.

Lots of side bits and so forth.

Also now that im done with my new gameing developer idea. it should be said that story isnt everything.

If you play through FFT 10 times. its still FFT story. but with FFT you can play a different way each of those 10 times.

If you play ff7 10 times. its STILL the same plot, but you can only change so much.

*pouts*  I miss out on so much because I'm not a polyglot. I wish I were better wired to learn languages. I can pick up some words here and there but actually trying to really learn a new language is like trying to swim up a waterfall of molasses for me. >.< Though not being able to understand Japanese does keep me from playing import games with every free waking minute I have.

EDIT: Something that came to mind on this subject, and as an inverse example of good graphics/bad game, is a recent game release that is being hailed both for its great gameplay but by today's standards terrible graphics. Mega Man 9. The Blue Bomber has still got it, even in all hit 8-bit glory. ^.^

Quote from: "Cheetah"Dragon Force for the win. If only I could get a Saturn emulator working well enough for me to play the second one. I actually own a copy of the US version of Dragon Force.

I agree with you Sentinal Blade, I think the gaming industry is trying too hard in the wrong places. Plus originality and quality visions are being stifled. No good.

Two copies of Dragon Force, FTW.  Can't get the emulator to work either, FTL.

And I completely agree with Sentinal as well.  I choose gameplay over graphics anyday.  Isn't that why most of are here posting on this board?  FFT has amazing gameplay, that was addictive enough to play over and over for ten years until Philsov, Zodiac, and others (the incredibly beautiful people that they are) developed a way to improve upon the gameplay.  This wonderful escapade has paved the way for new renditions of FFT, storywise and spritewise.

If only developers would emphasize gameplay, there would be a lot more quality games out there.

*ponders* I've had some major problems getting my Saturn emulator to work but recently I got things configured and it works like a dream. What exactly are you guys having issues with? Maybe I can come up with something.

I'm a mac user and there isn't an emulator out that runs it.

*twitches a bit*

*slaps self*

...be good...

Magic crystal ball will Celdia be able to get a working emulator? *Throws it at Celdia's Comp.* Now go get something with windows....and that is shiny.

shiny and reflective!!!