What have you been up to lately with your SNES/SFC?

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

I cleared the "sci fi" scenario (Cube).  This was pretty much exactly what I expected... a very linear "adventure" game where you just have to go to certain rooms, talk to certain people, and press certain buttons in a very specific order.  Having said that, the scenario doesn't really require you to figure anything out, other than learning the layout of the (pretty small) spaceship you're on, because you're almost always told exactly where to go.  That's good, because there's nothing worse than a super linear game that still gives you the illusion of freedom.

 

Anyway, the story ended up being pretty fun with some nice twists, and I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would.

 

After completing the first seven scenarios, you unlock an additional scenario that takes place in your typical medieval fantasy world and plays a lot like a standard RPG.  So that's up next.

Edited November 15, 2023 by newtmonkey

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

I played through the medieval scenario ("Oersted") in one sitting last night.  It's probably the most conventional scenario in the game, as it takes place a fantasy kingdom and has you gathering a party to defeat the demon that stole your fiancée, the princess of the kingdom.  It of course uses the standard Live A Live combat engine, so it's a bit more tactical than your typical RPG.  It's also by far the most difficult scenario thus far, but not too bad if you pay attention (I didn't have to grind at all).

 

There are some cool twists.  Instead of sending the last hope of the kingdom out with clothes and a wooden stick like in most RPGs, you're allowed to take anything you need from the castle, so you start out fully decked out in awesome stuff.  All the upgrades you find are from random drops or treasure chest.  There's also a very cool twist at the end, which I won't spoil.

 

Anyway, this was a lot of fun!  Next up is the final scenario, where you get to pick any of the heroes from the previous scenarios as your main character, and then have to go around finding everyone else to select three other heroes for your final party.  Should be fun!

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

Finished!

As I mentioned earlier, the final scenario has you selecting one of the heroes from the previous scenarios as your main character.  You're then tasked with tracking everyone else down and getting them to join you.  From there, you're free to explore the (very tiny) world and figure out what to do.  The best thing about this world is that each of the characters has his or her own unique dungeon to explore in order to find their ultimate weapon.  Each dungeon has its own quirk, and they are a lot of fun to explore.

 

The game actually has several endings depending on choices you make at the beginning and end of the final scenario, with the best ending requiring the most effort.

 

What a great RPG!  I had a blast with this one, and I'd rank it right up there with Square's best.  I'm actually looking forward to playing the remaster, though probably not for a while.

[Wayler]

Was off work a few days this week because of corona and thus had a bit of gaming free time when I got a little better. Terranigma was my choice, partly inspired by the SNES box art thread. It had been a while since I played this one. In fact so long that I did not remember a thing about it but I guess I have played this one to a point on an emulator.

 

The first part of this game gives you an eerie feeling with the weird world map, ingenious effect. I'm not really sure at this point what the plot is. God & Devil imagery in the intro, resurrecting continents, it's all very grandiose. The problem I had with the earlier game in this series, Illusion of Gaia, was that the plot tried to do way too much and felt so disjointed while also the playing experience being too linear. This does seem to follow the same tropes but at least I can pretend to choose my own way because I literally have to walk on the world map, instead of forced location choosing. And there is more cohesion to the story, I know generally what to do. The combat is great, best of the series so far. I'm now 4½ hours in and just freed Africa or something. Interesting to see what happens next and when will I get to see people.

[Austin]

I picked up a copy of Vortex yesterday with the intention of giving it a honest go to see if I can "find the fun" in it. It was one of those my friends and I could never get into back in the day.

 

When I went into it my biggest worry was dealing with the complicated controls. You have four different transformations: A walker, a jet, a car (sort of), and a shielded form where you can't be hurt (sort of). The walker formation in particular has extra controls for swapping its two arm turrets, and it and the driving formation have a jump button. There's also a "quick turnaround" button which is quite handy. All that said, the controls ended up coming pretty naturally and I was swapping transformations constantly on the fly in no time, and the game actually seemed like it had the potential to be fun. That is, until I started to run into poor design choices that ultimately ruin the experience.

 

Jumping in I thought to myself, "I should put it on Easy mode." I never play on Easy mode, but since I could never get anywhere back in the day, I figured it would help me get into the game easier. The end result? A game that is still hard as hell. Enemies do a lot of damage, and certain traps on level 2 will take away a third of your health bar in one hit. And you will be getting hit a lot as you try to figure things out. "Easy" mode is basically redundant.

 

There are zero checkpoints that I am aware of. This hits kind of hard on the first level. You are tossed in, floating through space, and your first thought is to methodically shoot everything down and play it safe, right? Sure, that seems like a good idea.. until you get to the boss, get annihilated by its projectiles that you can barely see, screen fades to black, aaaaaand... you're dropped right back at the beginning of the stage. It takes what feels like ten minutes to get to the boss with that strategy, so I eventually gave up, switched to the jet and flew past everything just to try the boss again. I got lucky once and made it to stage 2, but I didn't really feel like I figured out a meaningful strategy on the first boss and it just felt like luck, unlike in something like Star Fox.

 

Vortex is often compared to Star Fox, but it's really its own unique thing. Stage 2 demonstrates this as it is a ground mission where you have full 360-degree movement. You have to explore, collect keys and other sorts of important items to make progress. Lots of trial and error, but it's still kind of neat/interesting for the time. Other mechanics are also introduced, such as underground bunkers that require you to ride elevators to get into them. The game switches to first-person mode when you're underground and you have to try to avoid all sorts of traps.

 

So, it's at this point where some of its questionable design choices really got to me. I ended up dying and getting sent back to the beginning of the level. "OK", I said, "That's fine, whatever." Until I realized that none of my items carried over!! There are three or four keys you have to find, and there are four underground bunker sections that you have to access, with all sorts of trial-and-error gameplay required, on top of finding where you can even use all the keys. They want you to do THE ENTIRE LEVEL IN ONE LIFE. 

 

The icing on the cake? When you get a Game Over, there's not even a continue screen. It sends you back to the title screen where you have to enter the password for the level you were just at. And it doesn't even save this--get a Game Over again, and you'll have to type the password in again just to retry the level you just died on. It's freaking ridiculous, even for late 1994 standards.

 

The big shame is that Vortex is truly a one-of-a-kind sort of game on the platform. The 360-degree stages in particular seem interesting, and the different formations are cool to play with and switch between. And the music is quite solid. But with ridiculous damage output (even on "Easy" mode), zero checkpoints or item carry-overs, to even just making it hard to get back into the game after you've lost all your lives, it's like the developers intentionally didn't want people enjoying this game. What a waste of resources, time and effort. This really could have been something special.

 

In a way it still is, since the passwords are out there and you can just jump in and explore some later levels. That said, I prefer learning how to get through my games from start to finish and not just toying around with a handful of stages here and there. Ultimately I would love to see a ROM hack that implements item carry-overs after dying, adds a continue option, and adjusts the damage output on certain objects and traps. That alone would make it a much better game.

 

Now to figure out if there's a discernable pattern/strategy for that first boss..

Edited November 26, 2023 by Austin

[Wayler]

Interesting insights for Vortex @Austin. I have entirely skipped the pure SuperFX games on SNES, then and now. I feel that it was an unnecessary evolution for the console, I played PC games if I wanted 3D.

 

Terranigma

Nearly 6 hours in and things are getting pretty interesting plot-wise as the humans have arrived. I won't get too into detail, but things take a really sharp turn with a deer episode that came out of nowhere. So the story flows along nicely, but I have a few criticisms about the gameplay. Firstly, what is up with the magic system? It feels completely useless. You collect these Magirocks, which there seems to be a finite amount in the world and then you exchange them for spells (which in turn are also finite). But I have yet to encounter a situation where a spell would be useful because your melee attacks will take care of any foe. Healing spells maybe, but there are plenty of healing items already and they can be replenished. And there's really no telling how effective a spell is or how it really works. I suppose you could go to a dungeon and try out all the spells to see what they do and then restart the game but I see no point in that. So I have decided to just collect all the different spells to fill out the magic box and leave them be. I would rather have a system like in Illusion of Gaia, where it is a collect-a-thon of something and you get new abilities or bonuses in exchange of said something.

 

Then there's the aforementioned magic box, which works as the menu for the game. I like the idea and it's very unique but it's rather slow to use. Luckily there's not too much stuff to use or equip. But they really should have implemented a dedicated button for the map.

 

Lastly, the music in this game is very meh. There are a few tracks that are otherworldly, such as some of the map themes or when a continent is resurrected. But mostly the soundscape is rather bland and the dungeon music or the boss fights are downright annoying with their constant repetitive drumming.

 

But overall, I'm enjoying the experience.

[+GoldLeader]

12 hours ago, Austin said:

I picked up a copy of Vortex yesterday with the intention of giving it a honest go to see if I can "find the fun" in it. It was one of those my friends and I could never get into back in the day.

 

When I went into it my biggest worry was dealing with the complicated controls. You have four different transformations: A walker, a jet, a car (sort of), and a shielded form where you can't be hurt (sort of). The walker formation in particular has extra controls for swapping its two arm turrets, and it and the driving formation have a jump button. There's also a "quick turnaround" button which is quite handy. All that said, the controls ended up coming pretty naturally and I was swapping transformations constantly on the fly in no time, and the game actually seemed like it had the potential to be fun. That is, until I started to run into poor design choices that ultimately ruin the experience.

 

Jumping in I thought to myself, "I should put it on Easy mode." I never play on Easy mode, but since I could never get anywhere back in the day, I figured it would help me get into the game easier. The end result? A game that is still hard as hell. Enemies do a lot of damage, and certain traps on level 2 will take away a third of your health bar in one hit. And you will be getting hit a lot as you try to figure things out. "Easy" mode is basically redundant.

 

There are zero checkpoints that I am aware of. This hits kind of hard on the first level. You are tossed in, floating through space, and your first thought is to methodically shoot everything down and play it safe, right? Sure, that seems like a good idea.. until you get to the boss, get annihilated by its projectiles that you can barely see, screen fades to black, aaaaaand... you're dropped right back at the beginning of the stage. It takes what feels like ten minutes to get to the boss with that strategy, so I eventually gave up, switched to the jet and flew past everything just to try the boss again. I got lucky once and made it to stage 2, but I didn't really feel like I figured out a meaningful strategy on the first boss and it just felt like luck, unlike in something like Star Fox.

 

Vortex is often compared to Star Fox, but it's really its own unique thing. Stage 2 demonstrates this as it is a ground mission where you have full 360-degree movement. You have to explore, collect keys and other sorts of important items to make progress. Lots of trial and error, but it's still kind of neat/interesting for the time. Other mechanics are also introduced, such as underground bunkers that require you to ride elevators to get into them. The game switches to first-person mode when you're underground and you have to try to avoid all sorts of traps.

 

So, it's at this point where some of its questionable design choices really got to me. I ended up dying and getting sent back to the beginning of the level. "OK", I said, "That's fine, whatever." Until I realized that none of my items carried over!! There are three or four keys you have to find, and there are four underground bunker sections that you have to access, with all sorts of trial-and-error gameplay required, on top of finding where you can even use all the keys. They want you to do THE ENTIRE LEVEL IN ONE LIFE. 

 

The icing on the cake? When you get a Game Over, there's not even a continue screen. It sends you back to the title screen where you have to enter the password for the level you were just at. And it doesn't even save this--get a Game Over again, and you'll have to type the password in again just to retry the level you just died on. It's freaking ridiculous, even for late 1994 standards.

 

The big shame is that Vortex is truly a one-of-a-kind sort of game on the platform. The 360-degree stages in particular seem interesting, and the different formations are cool to play with and switch between. And the music is quite solid. But with ridiculous damage output (even on "Easy" mode), zero checkpoints or item carry-overs, to even just making it hard to get back into the game after you've lost all your lives, it's like the developers intentionally didn't want people enjoying this game. What a waste of resources, time and effort. This really could have been something special.

 

In a way it still is, since the passwords are out there and you can just jump in and explore some later levels. That said, I prefer learning how to get through my games from start to finish and not just toying around with a handful of stages here and there. Ultimately I would love to see a ROM hack that implements item carry-overs after dying, adds a continue option, and adjusts the damage output on certain objects and traps. That alone would make it a much better game.

 

Now to figure out if there's a discernable pattern/strategy for that first boss..

 

Yeah,  Thanks Austin!

 

You gave it the ol college try so I don't have to.  I never had this BITD,  but now I have it in the cart collection (and I need to look because I think I have a duplicate cart of it too),...I Do remember I kept meaning to sell it;  One of them at least...

 

I tried it for all of 5 minutes once,  but I couldn't get into it and went on to something else...

[Tanooki]

5 hours ago, Wayler said:

I have entirely skipped the pure SuperFX games on SNES, then and now. I feel that it was an unnecessary evolution for the console, I played PC games if I wanted 3D.

 

Do you mean the 3D polygonal type of the FX titles wording it like that?  Doom is a pretty playable and fun attempt at the game that runs alright, and well not that I'm a big fan but Yoshi's Island is the other FX2 title people lose their minds over.  I'd get it if you meant the low frames all triangles style stuff as some of it is slow, and some of it is chug slow (like stunt race.)

 

Also terranigma one I've never attempted, meant to for decades yet never have.  I own the other two titles though and have a long time, good stuff too, so that last one is just strange to me it wasn't picked up by Nintendo like gaia was.

 

 

...and vortex I had that long ago, don't remember it being that repressive but perhaps I never pushed it that hard or was just more comfy with low frame rate stuff.  I remember transitions in form were pretty well done, controls worked fine, but I do remember being a quick death damage sponge but seem to have blocked out about the die and do it all over routine so maybe that's why.  It was a $5 cart I grabbed off a shelf around 95/96 and found it fine, but nothing amazing.

[Wayler]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Do you mean the 3D polygonal type of the FX titles wording it like that?  Doom is a pretty playable and fun attempt at the game that runs alright, and well not that I'm a big fan but Yoshi's Island is the other FX2 title people lose their minds over.  I'd get it if you meant the low frames all triangles style stuff as some of it is slow, and some of it is chug slow (like stunt race.)

Yea, I meant the polygonal pollutants like Star Fox, Vortex or Stunt Race FX. Not for me. 

[WavyGravy]

11 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

Also terranigma one I've never attempted, meant to for decades yet never have.  I own the other two titles though and have a long time, good stuff too, so that last one is just strange to me it wasn't picked up by Nintendo like gaia was.

 

Victim of timing, I think. Enix America was shut down by then, so the publishing would have had to fall to someone else, but a game like that (lots to translate, expensive 32Mbit cart) was probably too risky for most still in the SNES game to bite. Terranigma was a late 1995 release in Japan, and Nintendo was mostly gearing up for the N64 launch at the time, so they probably didn't want to divert resources into Terranigma either. If they were to latch on to the localization that Enix was doing for PAL regions, that wasn't done until late December of '96, so it would have missed that late-November Christmas shopping season.

As for what I'm up to, I'm currently CRT shopping and dangerously close to puling the trigger on an FX Pak Pro. I'll be heading home for the holidays (4000-ish KM away) and able to grab my old consoles which have been in storage for many years, so I'll get my backup SNES (you should always have at least 2! What if one breaks? Then you have NONE!) and all of my Sega machines, too, so lots of old-school goodness coming up! Assuming there aren't lots of repairs to do after all this time.

[Tanooki]

@WavyGravy I've always figured it was Nintendo to blame like you said there in a way.  They did Gaia, promo'd it heavily, even had a t-shirt give away too in the packaging.  Maybe Gaia sold poorly so they just didn't care.

 

I never intended to shop for a CRT but ended up with that 9" Panasonic Color monitor(PVM) trading a few cheaper games for it, and it's a nice one to have for specific things or moments when time is short or light guns need to blaze.  The SD2SNES(FX Pak) is vital if you really really care about Super Famicom and SNES, especially sticking to otherwise real hardware.  I've got the backup theory going here too in ways, I keep redundant stuff.  Have a DK Super Set, but also have the SuperNT(had the SupaboyS it choked after years), NES toploader(hdmi) then the action set and a av famicom too (and a honeybee and a 72 into 60pin so I can swap around.)  Plenty of gameboys too, 2 solder fixed Virtual Boys, Mega SG to my Nomad, even now have 2 N64 systems with my day1 hdmi modded as well.  Not much here doesn't have a second other than the game gear and my Japanese gameboy light.

Depending on that storage most your stuff should be fine, I'd be more paranoid about anything with moving parts (optical consoles) as they tend to get issues stored or not.  I had my original gamecube utterly quit on me about 2 years ago, no reason, wasn't exactly ever heavily used except its time on the market.  I did replace it but it made me nervous about it ever since, and I rarely use it now because the prices are so disgusting it's demotivating and I won't pay it.  Honestly considering offloading my gamecube collection, despite how I like it, I don't like the other factors.

[Austin]

With all this talk of Terranigma, I decided to fire up Illusion of Gaia, as I haven't finished it since the late '90s. I always remember enjoying it back then. Going through it again is bringing back a lot of memories. It's definitely straightforward when it comes to its story and world progression, but the visuals and audio are quite solid, the story doesn't overstay its welcome, and the gameplay is really fun. I just wrapped up the Incan dungeon, went through the next story beats and landed at the next place where I put it down for a break. I plan on picking it back up and finishing it.

 

I dabbled with a few other SNES games as well. First off is two more Super FX games I managed to snag over the weekend (to use on the Super NT, since the Jailbreak can't do Super FX)--Dirt Traxx FX and Stunt Race FX. Dirt Traxx is probably one of the more mundane Super FX releases, but the engine seems pretty solid and it plays decently. The characters on offer and the soundtrack doesn't do much for me, but to have a supercross style game, in 3D on a SNES, is.. kind of like DOOM, a novelty to say the least. And the fact it plays well is a major plus, too. Stunt Race FX on the other hand is loaded with charm, but it's one I could never get into because of its awful framerate and notoriously sluggish controls. For some reason.. it finally clicked with me this time. It's all about properly managing your controls, staying off the walls and boosting as much as possible (it's a bit like Hydro Thunder in that regard). I had to bail out on Expert mode though as things got much more tense and it was hard managing to stay on the track, but I'll probably go back and try it again down the road, and I want to check out its other gameplay modes too. I can't say it's a strong recommendation in this day in age given how slugglish it is, but there is an improvement ROM hack of it I'd like to try one day (say, when I get my MiSTer working again), so maybe that can help boost the enjoyment factor a bit.

 

I grabbed a copy of Taz-Mania as well and put some time into it. I always heard bad things about this one, but honestly it's pretty fun. It's a basic arcade-style game with the goal being to grab a set amount of kiwis running down the road. I think I can see why some don't care for it, as being more of an arcade-like experience, you have to really be on top of the gameplay and watching out for your surroundings, otherwise you're going to be run over by vehicles left and right. I made it to Act 3 (which is probably 8 to 10 levels in) and was still enjoying myself and will definitely be going back to it. It's also a pretty decent looking game too, with smooth, rising track/road motion that would surely tickle Kirk in his happy place.

 

Because I am stubborn, I tried Vortex again with the goal being to formulate a strategy for the first boss. The best I've come up with is staying in your mech form and unloading both forms of firepower at once (since the game lets you do that), then switch the shell form to use the bombs (where you remain invincible), then by that point the boss's health bar is low enough where you can switch to the jet then pray to god that you don't get hit by his attacks (and in every instance, I did). Did the strategy work? Not consistently. I did make it to the second level once in that session, then after my first death basically said, "Screw this." That might be the last time I see anything of Vortex. Game is just too poorly designed to be fun without cheating.

[newtmonkey]

@Austin

I played through Illusion of Gaia for the first time somewhat recently, and really liked it!  It's indeed very linear, but I liked how it mixed real and fantasy environments, and I found the story to be quite endearing and well-told.  It's a game I never got into back in the day, so it ended up being a very pleasant surprise.  It has a great soundtrack too (just reading the title brings to mind several tracks).

 

I actually had Stunt Race FX back in the day, but I don't think I fully appreciated it for what it was back then.  It seemed so slow and jerky compared with F-Zero, but I remember thinking how cool it was to go up and down hills in a racing game.  Having played it recently, I think it's a decent game that's slightly hampered by the hardware, but still very playable and enjoyable once you get into it.

Edited November 29, 2023 by newtmonkey

[Tanooki]

What Austin said about Stunt Race is on point.  I never was big on it, ever, but didn't give it much likes even at first go about it in the mid 90s because of that delay spike to touch vs action on screen, and the frame rate just didn't help it either.  The thing is in later ownership periods of the cart I got used to reacting like a second early, and then wham...it works, even if it is a bit low on the frame rate still.  And yes he is right entirely, hydro thunder that thing.  Budget your laps, budget your turbo refills, and when you have a period of non-legit turns...blast it. The game, the stage designs, it's all well done, it's just hiding under a surface of delay.

 

Illusion of Gaia is a gem in itself, NoA saw it so they didn't let it die, but instead published, promoted it, and even gave the t-shirt away too.  They saw the charm, and that charm is there in the good pace it works with, coupled with the fantasy take on real life spaces in the world around those cultures it chose to work with.  It plays great, looks and sounds amazing, still holds up quite well now.  To think it was a jump from what was Soul Blazer to that you really see how much more Enix got a grasp on the hardware using that as a start and it shows.

[Wayler]

While I mostly agree on what has been  said about Illusion of Gaia, I don't know what fumes need to be inhaled to see it as a well-told story. It does have interesting set-pieces and surprisingly deep and thoughful subjects but the path to those points is held together by the faintests of string, if any. There is no rhyme or reason why you are travelling from place to place, stuff just happens. Or simply doesn't happen, you are just told to go somewhere because of...reasons? 

 

Terranigma feels more coherent and I'm interested to see where the story goes. The set-pieces are imaginitive and now there is also enough string to hold it all together. And it has been surprising to see things like a winery and a man who has turned to booze after a traumatic massacre of villagers. Alcohol is something that was always censored from western Nintendo releases before and bars were changed to something stupid like "coffeeshops". Has this been left as is because this was only released in PAL region? Or had they just realized the idiocy of censorship in '96?

 

[Austin]

37 minutes ago, Wayler said:

While I mostly agree on what has been  said about Illusion of Gaia, I don't know what fumes need to be inhaled to see it as a well-told story. It does have interesting set-pieces and surprisingly deep and thoughful subjects but the path to those points is held together by the faintests of string, if any. There is no rhyme or reason why you are travelling from place to place, stuff just happens. Or simply doesn't happen, you are just told to go somewhere because of...reasons?

I wouldn't call the story telling great. At least, it's not particularly involved. Character conversations tend to be pretty cut and dry. However, I think there's a lot of charm. Just when you think a situation is going to be wholly cookie-cutter, they throw you a curve ball that just oozes with charm or humor. An early one is when you walk into your house and your character is like, "Uh... why is there a pig in my house?". Later on (and one of my favorites so far) is when you reach your grandmother, whom you thought had been killed by a mercenary. She tells you she fed the killer a pie, which in turn gave him indigestion, giving her enough time to escape. I was like.. "WHAT", and laughed for a couple of minutes, haha. It's not like she rushed out the door by the skin of her teeth, or climbed out a window. She gave him a stomache ache, haha! It's just creative and the game has a bunch of moments like that. The story execution is not going to win any awards, but it's at least enough to keep me engaged in the slower parts of the game.

 

I think the story overall makes sense as well. You do things for reasons, and those reasons are explained pretty well in the game. It all sort of makes sense to me at least. Though, if you have a tendency to quickly scroll through text boxes, then it is easy to miss key points.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Austin

[Wayler]

Terranigma

I have hit a temporary wall. The game decides to present you with a boss that is ridiculously overpowered compared to anything else encountered. My efforts were in vain so I had to result to online help. Apparently you have to either grind levels (which will make the rest of the game easy) or spam the bastard with a particular spell and cross your fingers for the rest of the fight when that magic is depleted. Not willing to grind my path to victory, I resulted to learn myself the baffling magic system of this game. Turns out the magirocks you collect don't go away when you use magic but they return to your pool so you can buy more magic. None of this is explained in the game btw. 

 

So now I have to use all my useless spells to get more magirocks and then buy the spells needed to defeat the boss. Somehow the stats of this boss feel like a coding error or some other oversight. But I have been assured this is the low point of an otherwise excellent game. We shall see when I get the willpower to try again. 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Wayler
spelling (not the magic kind)

[Wayler]

Terranigma

Got through the tough boss eventually. The game then decided to pause the action and it was just town hopping for a while. Really weird pacing on this one.

 

Eventually you gain the ability to travel the world more freely and it is a nice distraction to find some hidden goodies. But then I realized the art direction and era is all over the place in this world. It's like three different centuries rolled into one. There's also a very weird instance in one city where you encounter the office Quintet, the game's developer, which results in odd fourth wall breaking antics. Really took me out of the game, a bizarre addition. 

 

All these different and disjointed elements make it feel like a swansong or a last hurrah for the system and they threw everything plus the kitchen sink at it. But despite these hiccups, I'm still enjoying my play through. 

[newtmonkey]

Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest

I decided to resume my replay of this, and I'm nearing the end.  This time around I'm playing the Japanese version (no differences other than text of course), and decided to ignore the battle arenas as they are the very definition of "grinding."

 

Anyway, this game kind of sucks, and not (only) because it's overly simplified compared even to console RPGs.  I understand it was meant as a "beginner" RPG, but I'd argue that it's a very poor introduction to RPGs.  It probably did more bad than good in getting people into the genre.

 

I suppose the developers thought that random battles were what was stopping USA KIDS from enjoying RPGs, so all enemies are visible on the screen.  However, they just stand there in fixed locations, usually in one-tile wide corridors, so you absolutely have to kill most if not all of them just to fully explore the dungeons.  In their attempt at removing the "grind" of random encounters, they made the entire game a massive grind.  There's no worse feeling than tediously clearing a winding corridor full of enemies, only to enter a door taking you to yet another corridor full of enemies.

 

Worst of all is that nearly every single enemy from the very start of the game to the end, takes two hits to kill.  It makes it feel like you're making no progress at all, like you're doing the same exact thing 10 hours in that you were doing during the first 15 minutes.

 

You almost always have two characters on your team, which means you can kill a single enemy per round.  During the last 25% of the game, seemingly every single encounter is against three enemies, each of which has status effect attacks/magic and/or healing.  You can't really do anything to prevent enemies from casting spells, so you just hope that both of your attacks hit before the enemy can stone/paralyze/sleep one of your characters or heal itself, making the battle even more tedious.

 

That's not to say that the game is difficult, though, as you are never in any danger of losing, thanks to generous healing spells and items.  Even if you do somehow manage to lose a fight, the game gives you the option to start the fight over from the first round.  So in other words, battle is just a complete waste of time with no tactics or strategy whatsoever, and you cannot even avoid it by running from annoying enemies like you can in basically any other "real" RPG.

Edited December 20, 2023 by newtmonkey

[jeffythedragonslayer]

52 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest

I decided to resume my replay of this, and I'm nearing the end.  This time around I'm playing the Japanese version (no differences other than text of course), and decided to ignore the battle arenas as they are the very definition of "grinding."

 

Anyway, this game kind of sucks, and not (only) because it's overly simplified compared even to console RPGs.  I understand it was meant as a "beginner" RPG, but I'd argue that it's a very poor introduction to RPGs.  It probably did more bad than good in getting people into the genre.

 

I suppose the developers thought that random battles were what was stopping USA KIDS from enjoying RPGs, so all enemies are visible on the screen.  However, they just stand there in fixed locations, usually in one-tile wide corridors, so you absolutely have to kill most if not all of them just to fully explore the dungeons.  In their attempt at removing the "grind" of random encounters, they made the entire game a massive grind.  There's no worse feeling than tediously clearing a winding corridor full of enemies, only to enter a door taking you to yet another corridor full of enemies.

 

Worst of all is that nearly every single enemy from the very start of the game to the end, takes two hits to kill.  It makes it feel like you're making no progress at all, like you're doing the same exact thing 10 hours in that you were doing during the first 15 minutes.

 

You almost always have two characters on your team, which means you can kill a single enemy per round.  During the last 25% of the game, seemingly every single encounter is against three enemies, each of which has status effect attacks/magic and/or healing.  You can't really do anything to prevent enemies from casting spells, so you just hope that both of your attacks hit before the enemy can stone/paralyze/sleep one of your characters or heal itself, making the battle even more tedious.

 

That's not to say that the game is difficult, though, as you are never in any danger of losing, thanks to generous healing spells and items.  Even if you do somehow manage to lose a fight, the game gives you the option to start the fight over from the first round.  So in other words, battle is just a complete waste of time with no tactics or strategy whatsoever, and you cannot even avoid it by running from annoying enemies like you can in basically any other "real" RPG.

I think being able to save anywhere was good design.  The tutorial on how to save in FF3 (US) is terrible.  They missed a critical piece of information by not having the save point tell you that it is a save point point.  The manual has more information at least.

Edited December 20, 2023 by jeffythedragonslayer

[newtmonkey]

When you step on the first save point in FF3 (SNES), a dialog box pops up telling you exactly what it does.

Edited December 20, 2023 by newtmonkey

[newtmonkey]

Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest

I was only an hour or so away from finishing the game.  I completed skipped the battle arenas, but ended up at level 34 anyway, which seems to be around the level most people finish the game... proving that those arenas are just a big waste of time.

 

The final dungeon was alright, but not anything I hadn't experienced over the previous 10 hours of this game.  At least it wasn't an annoying slog like the previous dungeon, Pazusu's Tower.

 

By far the most difficult boss in the game is Zu, which you fight before the final boss.  Whether you win or lose against Zu depends completely on luck, since he seems to always go first each round, and has an attack that automatically kills a character.  If he kills one of your guys, and then decides to do the same to the other the next round, there is literally nothing you can do but just retry the battle from the beginning.  In comparison, the last boss was laughably easy.

 

---

 

It's not a good game, but I had bits of fun here and there.  The monsters are all cool looking and colorful, and it's got a great soundtrack.  That's about it lol.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

9 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

When you step on the first save point in FF3 (SNES), a dialog box pops up telling you exactly what it does.

This one?

 

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VI_SNES_script#First_events

 

The blue sparkley thing tells you what save points do, but it fails to tell you that it is, in fact, one of those save points.

[Wayler]

That is such a weird thing to complain about. How were you able to move at all in the game? I don't think the use of the D-pad was explained either. 

[jeffythedragonslayer]

Another person unhappy with the save points in that game: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/554041-final-fantasy-iii/74739939