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« on: December 17, 2011, 04:50:30 PM »
FF4: TAY:
Completed...mostly, still planning on going back and killing the three bosses I didn't kill in the final dungeon.
Final levels of 52-55, Ceodore/Ursula/Kain/Rydia/Leonora final team(Fuck your "Curaja", who needs that. I have X-Potions.).
General thoughts...well, it's an odd game with surprisingly more to talk about than expected. I think it hashes out as a 6/10 game.
On the one hand, there's the plot. Or: OH GOD THE ENTIRE PLOT OF FF4 IS HAPPENING AGAIN NOW WITH SUPERFLOUS GREEN HAIRED GIRLS BEATING ON PEOPLE AND STEALING SUMMONS wait now the moon's falling because of THE POWER OF EVOLUTION which apparently drives people insane and causes them to create clone armies of green haired mind linked girls to assault everything they used to hold dear. also apparently the myriad facets of evolution allow you to create FF1 through 6 bosses, but no original ones besides the final. huh. how about that.
On the other hand, within that, the whole concept could be worse. The plot reads like mediocre fanfiction made into a total conversion hack-but, not actually *bad* fanfiction. The distinction is that the character work usually is bland to good (with one hiccup in early Edward, though at least it wasn't out of character for him to be that pitifully stupid) and that new characters aren't bad by and large.
Also, two things tend to make me excuse it: One, to judge by things like the developers room(which seems kinda small...) and the fact that it was episodic with multiple episodes coming out in a month originally(if I read that right), it kinda had restrictions on how much polish it could have, and two, the fact that it manages to better the source game it's a sequel of in plot. Basically I respect it's technical limitations about as much due to that, if I understand this right.
I'm not defending it, overall, though. It's not good on plot, much like FF4 is not. But it's probably a bit better.
Gameplay...again, the game plays like a big total conversion romhack, and this is where it shows more. A few FF4 dungeons are *not* reused(higher floors of Babel, Giant of Babel, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh), but they're definitely a minority. On the other hand there's a bunch of new dungeons, including Challenge Dungeons...which have very hit and miss designs. Sometimes they're basically FF4 dungeons, sometimes they're not good(No...no, the impact crater idea was not good enough to make me do versions of it three times). Sometimes they're lazily phoned in things like Yang's "Hold up while sleeping" Challenge Dungeon, sometimes they're Edward's actually neat-if impractical to repeatedly do-Challenge Dungeon.
Even within recycling, there's a lot of variance-Sometimes the dungeon is FF4's final, which you retrace twice as an intro dungeon and a final in Lunarians chapter, and is generally kinda fun for what it is...Sometimes they're redoing waterfall cave. Twice. urgh.
The mainly consistent thing is the actual gameplay, though. About half the additions and all the old characters but Cid are usable to good, which is about 15 out of 21(I believe)-not too bad. Out of the ones that suck, at least they had coherent ideas except for Harley, who may have been a victim of time constraints.
Enemy design tends to be FF4+bigger skillsets+2x damage and durability, which tends to be great, and some of the gimmicky CD bosses tend to be fun. Final dungeon has a lot of fun boss designs too, though they have so many bosses(like 30 in that chapter?) that they start to hit the limits of FF4 mechanics for how much different you can make bosses. At my low levels, several fights seemed impossible and a few others took surprising strategy. It works in that regard.
Also shoutouts to built in frameskip autobattle. Extremely good idea that needs to be in more games.
AND NOW, RANDOMLY COMPARING CHARACTERS BECAUSE I LIKE FF4 GAMEPLAY TOO MUCH(for some mysterious reason)! The only place you'll see someone say more about Zangetsu's gameplay worth than *flush*!
In the order I got 'em:
Ceodore: Hey look it's one of the interesting new character designs, where you put Cecil and Rosa in a blender and see what comes out.
Ceodore has three real phases in the game-1 to 20~, 21~-44 and 45+.
That is to say, from L1 to L20 Ceodore is *amazing*. He picks up healing at intervals as regular as any of the White Mages and heals about as much per shot(a bit less, albiet, and with less shots), and hits things harder and takes hits better.
Then he drops off a cliff in the middle as you realize that A: His HP relatively sucks for a tank build, and B: He takes a while to get above Cura, and C: His Cura scales worse than a real White Mage. He functions, for a while, like Cecil/Kain with far less HP and less damage and uh Protect/Shell...?
Then he picks up his good buffs and Curaga in the late 40s and his niche is back, albiet weaker than it was before. He worked extremely well for me at my pitiful levels by that point, because he can and will live through things that will flatten any other healer at those levels. This is nice. Also he gets Reflect/Protect/Shell which are great on a secondary character.
Nothing wrong with his equips either, Awaken got used a few times but probably less than most abilities(needs less charge time so I can heal with it). Pretty good, albiet weird.
Cecil: Hey look, it's FF4 Cecil, except...uh, everything's working against him except one thing. Let's count the ways, shall we?
-He is utterly crap until Depths. At which point he's L40. Which was...average for me...who was using everyone in the cast and trying to keep levels down on purpose. For anyone *sane* he's underleveled badly.
-There are multiple heavy armor/holy sword users now. Namely, Ceo and Kain.
-Ceo and Kain have more strongly defined niches. Specifically, Kain is better than Cecil at what he does(*everything he does*, unless you really value Cover), while Ceo has better healing.
-Holy Sword focus is flakier in this game. Excalibur is good when you get it...at the start of Depths, which is roughly 40% of the way through the final dungeon. Ragnarok and Ultima Weapon are excellent...but Ultima Weapon is notably not a Holy Sword(so Golbez wants it too), and Ragnarok is, from all accounts, on the hardest boss to beat(I didn't bother trying Atma/Shinryu/Omega yet, disclaimer).
Now, this hits Ceo and Kain...but, Holy Lance is actually pretty good in this game, 140 power and flying/holy seems to hit a lot of enemies hard(Deathgaze was the most notable, or "Ha ha 10k jumps".). Cecil's fallback is...axes. Which are about as good on raw power...but don't have the good element and cut off shields. (he still may be the best axe user. sadness.)
So you've got a character with good stats and equipment who somehow is fairly useless.
Except he does have one secret upside. You see, there are Bands in this game, AKA CT combo attacks except...uh...no, that's basically it. They're useful in one of four cases:
A: The token roughly .6 repeating per chapter good Band before endgame.
B: White mages who deal crappy damage up until the final bow unless they're in a combo. (This does very very little for Rosa, more for Porom who at least gets upgraded Twincast, and...I think it's actually best for Leonora, need to test Particle Bomb at endgame though. I know the Palom/Rydia/Leonora combo actually did the hands down most of any combo for me at around 20k with a fairly decent charge time, though.)
C: Kain combos, because Kain is the best at everything.
D: Cecil combos.
Cecil gets Trinity Crusade with Kain/Rosa for one of the highest damage values I saw out of Band testing(17kish), Twin Drive with Yang(which seems to be 5-6k and fast enough to justify it, which is okay), Vibra Plus with Ceo(which I think unfocuses against multiple targets, the times I used it against crowds got respectable MT damage but I've heard reports of it slamming hard into the damage cap against bosses), and Double Pressure with Golbez(MT ...para? stop? with no charge time at all, seemed to work pretty solidly.).
Does any of this save him? No probably not, but at least he A: Has some point, and B: Has good raw stats as well. This will put him above some people I will talk about...
Cid:
uh...Cid's horrible.
How bad? How about half average speed before equipment(which he doesn't get speed boosting versions of)? How about axes/hammers which are all twohanded at endgame? How about no good point in the chapter he's a part of *or* the final chapter? How about no less than four other people better at using axes than he is, and three better people at using hammers? How about not even being all that special on HP, and gameworst Spirit/Int so that he can get smacked harder by magic?
He's bad.
Rosa: Kinda boring. Statistically best white mage with lousy combo attacks(Doesn't matter once you get Holy. Which of course I haven't yet.) and good everything else. Her vs Porom is "Rosa is slightly better until about three or four bosses from the end, then Porom mauls Rosa with Doublecast, unless you don't give that to her.". Blessing is kinda neat(low MP healing!) but otherwise she's basically standard.
The Hooded ManDark KainKainHoly Dragoon KainThe Turbaned Man EL HOMBRE DEL TURBANTE:
Well, let's see.
First, there's the vastly superior turban Kain. Who basically kicks ass: End chapter equipment in Ceo's chapter, basically just a generically good tank in Kain's...rather shortish on raw gameplay...chapter. The latter is probably the worst point for any Kain or Kain derived being. I cannot believe I just typed that sentence seriously... at any rate he gets the chapter's token one decent combo(with Ceo...who he gets two later good Bands with as well...) and generally is pretty solid. The only reason not to abuse his awesome is because you want to break later Kain more. He doesn't need it.
Then there's Dragoon "I cut myself while having wet dreams about Rosa" Kain. Who is for no good reason better than the vanilla flavor, though this is mostly due to positioning and levels. Still, that's worth a ton-in Porom's chapter he makes the Challenge Dungeon go from HELL to doable thanks to his great equips/levels and he's basically perfectly capable of soloing things the other times you get him. Which is good, as he's soloing things the other times you get him.
Finally, there's Holy Dragoon Kain, who gave up his Turban for power, a dark path indeed. Sadly, it worked. Depending on when you upgrade him his HP ranges from "great" to "jesus christ why are you matching Yang on HP" and holy swords is a nice pickup. Blink and Haste(which he always has no matter his level at transformation) is a wee bit more major than anything else he gets, not that Esuna's bad either.
So basically he's Cecil+. Oh and Jump can be twinked this game thanks to Rapid Ring 3/4thing charge times if you get it(or the v2 halving it but tail drop plot. The v1's at least just Challenge Dungeon plot.). Yeah he's kinda stupid good...
Rydia:
Earlygame she's randomly L15 and starts with Stop and Ra spells, which randomly makes her the most durable character in her team for a short period, and makes her basically the person that's killing everything.
Then for the rest of her chapter she doesn't get better, until the Challenge Dungeon decides to randomly force her levels to 40 in order to clean it out. mutter.
Generally speaking, Rydia functions like a Black Mage that A: Works better at lower levels(thanks to fixed summon pickups; In particular, Leviathan's very reasonably fast, and Mist Dragon's not bad either.), B: Doesn't have to worry about MOOOOOOOOON (and can still take advantage of Black Magic+ moon phase), and C: Is fundamentally boring. Obviously I used her because of that A thing, though. I mean Palom wouldn't have gotten Flare until like the final two fights or something at my levels. <_<
Luca:
Cid, now with twice the magic stats(still bad), less HP and Attack(not enough less to really matter), 1.5x the speed or something(still bad, but this is a notable improvement), and Minerva Bustier(which is basically tailor-made for Luca).
Unlike Cid this is actually pretty usable, though not especially good. Bonus points-she's bloody great in Rydia's chapter, where A: She's the tank, and B: She gets access to a 55 power weapon like halfway through it(just walk out of the Sealed Cave after two minutes or so in and toss some Ore at the axe you just got. Voila, 55 power axe.). She also gets times where, you know, the ability to equip a shield *matters*. stupid Cid.
Calca:
Uhhhhhhhhhhhh well in Rydia's chapter he can slooowly do less magic damage than Rydia. Or status maybe. Or you could say fuck it and have him use a Dancing Dagger instead. Dancing Daggers are pretty good.
In final...well, the dolls get a really nice set of unique equipment, albiet as *very* late rare drops. And get Final Outfit's 30/15/+10 to all stats, which is shiny.
...that makes Calca still a very bad HP fighter who has a by-now *very* bad skillset. Calca isn't redundant, unlike many TAY characters that have issues...he's just hopeless.
Brina:
Well, she has all of the traits statistically Calca does, except even worse Strength and Stamina. And the same equips.
And a skillset. That...consists of randomly casting one of: Cure through Curaja MT, 20% MHP MT healing, MT Protect/Shell/Haste/Blink with a moderate charge time.
Both in Rydia's quest and in final, this gives her a use, unlike Calca. She's fairly good mindless random-bashing healing, MT Blink/Haste are good things, and her poor stats get augmented a lot by Final Outfit. With the uberdrops she's probably outright good(150 power dagger and armors with better defense value than Adamant), and even without them she's at least not awful thanks to Final Outfit/Assassin Dagger giving her a very fast turn to get to her healspam. It's okay enough, though not better than Edward as I initially thought it would be.
Yang: Yeah he's pretty awesome.
Generic clothes? Surprisingly good lategame. Claws? Multiple good options. Twinking? Fun fact; An Adamant Shield doesn't slow down Monk damage. (this is twinking by FF4 standards) Stats? Basically awesome, including gamebest HP(I think, though this probably varies. I'm pretty sure Golbez at L30 has more than Yang at L30...) and good stats overall. Focus ignore moon for some reason? Sure. Cover Counter is actually vaguely useful? Again, sure.
Yeah, he's pretty awesome. Simple, but.
Ursula:
Yang with FAR less HP, notably less Strength/Vitality...and a more useful skillset, including free heals(not that great), Tenketsu's random "normal physical or hit weakness/ignore defense(I think) or big explosion 2x damage(I think)" which is actually good for a short charge time. Also way more speed. Also Minerva...which...matters less than it should, as Brave Suit actually has better bonuses than Minerva(just...Brave Suit's available to half the cast. So Minerva still matters). Also access to a back rank attack if you get the Queen's Whip.
So basically she's comparable to Yang. And both are really good. Go fig.
Palom:
Uhhh Rydia that relies only on one skillset, gets the spells fast enough to at least vaguely keep up with Rydia in the endgame, and gets a crack at Doublecast. If you give it to him. Which, you may not.
He's pretty simple. Marginally worse than Rydia/Golbez unless you get him that, at which point he's better but not unmitigatedly. Simple.
Leonora:
Oddball. She functions a lot like Ceodore, in a way.
That is, during the earlygame she starts out (at L3) with Cure/Esuna/Raise. Gets Cura at normal levels. Picks up...lousy damage L1 spells as well. Picks up Stop at L30. Actually is pretty good for this stretch!
Then she uh stops getting spells for a while. Well, I mean. There are spells gained. They are all white magic status spells. That are worse than Stop. Picks up...L...2 black magic at mid-40s. Takes until like 45 to get Curaga, at which point she stops *utterly sucking*...but the other White Mages pick up Curaja notably earlier than her(which you want for the final battles. Not that I had it~), and Arise/Holy *way* earlier. Especially Holy. Which she gets at 70.
So basically she gets a good status but has worse healing gains later to make up for it. This makes her awful until she FINALLY gets Curaga, not as good as the other healers until she FINALLY GETS CURAJA, and then she...still can't do damage as well as them until L70, but at least Stopping randoms is actually good and at least the bosses do enough damage so that this isn't as pitiful as it is in FF4.
Basically she's not actually abysmal but she's got problems. Ultimately she's the best white mage, especially if you give her Doublecast, but that eventually is L70. She's interesting as a design, at least.
Edge: Really good.
The dual-wield weapons generally tend to be better(The best boomerang actually raises a stat holy shit), the ninja unique equips are nice(Flame Scarf, in particular, is just awesome for being a Cursed Ring without the downsides and with good stats), he has well balanced stats, his MDur isn't pitiful anymore, I think higher end Ninjitsu is relatively better than the old ones used to be(though having said that...they're later), and he gets ST healing(which matters during his chapter, at least. X-Potions rule this irrelevant in the final chapter).
Oh and he can toss stars for 5k, which is nice. And cash is not very much of an object in the final dungeon. (If it becomes one equip the Gil Band on someone. I mean he's not tossing 50k Shuriken at randoms, but...)
I mean he's kinda weird, but he's good. In fact if Gekkou didn't exist I might take him over all three of the other ninja put together...
Gekkou:
The best axe/hammer wielder? Likely, actually. Better speed than either of the others, ninja equips are good enough to compete with Minerva(he gets a crack at Brave Suit, like Yang does, but even if he doesn't the Scarf's still good in a different way), and Shuriken, again, mean potentially high damage for bosses.
And Blast is...probably a better skillset alone, even off his poor magic stats, than Luca and Cid get. I mean, it's 3k damage against a Malboro! That...probably owns "I'm not a generic physical with range, honest" Big Throw and...whatever you call the thing that is Cid's special.
I'll let you know when any of this matters. But in all seriousness, he's good enough to actually be used. And for once I don't feel like an Axe/Hammer's two handedness is actually wasting much...
Izayoi:
Pretty solid in Edge's chapter, thanks to having both the decent generic ninja Heal Pill, the power of Ninja ST Curaga and Ninja Raise, and the fact that Edge's chapter doesn't make the weaponry in it *too* far apart for raw power.
Utter trash after that. As in, very nearly as bad as Harley. ST healing and revival can entirely and VERY reasonably be replaced by items, leaving you with a character with mage weapons(albiet, those suck a lot less than FF4) and Frost. Which...is not a lot of damage and takes forever to get to boot. Still it makes her better than Harley? I guess. Yeah don't use her after Edge's chapter...
Zangetsu:
OLD MAN POWER. You kinda want Zangetsu to be good, conceptually, old guy with the power of human kite. Unfortunately, he uh is basically meant to be a mage type...that relies on Jump for most of the game. Now granted, Jump seems to ignore row, so he can be used. "can be used" is not a glowing assessment, as he's not particularly good at anything physical, and his magic stats-for some reason, the highest of the Ninjas IIRC-can't be used with anything notable until the 40s.
Basically he hits harder than Izayoi with everything, is more twinkable thanks to Adamant Shields at least being usable with *his* best weapon(Izayoi uses bows if you're sane), and er...uh...not much else. He's pretty bad. He's not much during Edge's chapter either, which is a pity.
Tsukinowa:
er he's Edge except worse at everything but speed.
He does have gamebest speed though, and at least his equip choices aren't horrid or anything. Uh...he'd...be worth thinking about if Edge didn't exist, but he does. Yeah. On the upside he has the whole "Second best character in Edge's chapter, probably" thing going for him, mostly because he's so damn fast early on. It levels off somewhat later, and equips make it level off more though. And he basically has no skillset. Unless there's some good steals I haven't heard about. Which there aren't.
Porom:
Bla bla healbot marginally worse than Rosa until she gets Doublecast if she gets Doublecast at which point she's better. The only notable thing here is that, unlike the Rydia/Palom dynamic, Porom would probably just be better than Rosa at equal levels. You're not likely to get those equal levels, thanks to Porom being one of the two worst chapters for EXP and Rosa starting out at like L30. But if you did...yeah.
Edward:
Hey look it's a healer that runs off cash.
Hey look it's a final dungeon that will give you 50k for one fight. Which you can boost if you want.
Edward gets kinda inflated by the final dungeon's cashflow. He's pretty good in his own chapter-his damage isn't as low as it should be(Edward's mighty scrub army is special), and Bardsong, which mostly not worth hitting enemies with, is a good support skill for free Protect+Shell/Haste and for free heals.
In the final chapter though, it's all about the Salves. Which gets you Curaja level healing and MT revival. Which, when you consider he can avoid telegraphed attacks with Escape(Hide), well...that's actually pretty good. Especially since he can buff too. Unreasonably good? Probably. Can sub for a White Mage? Surprisingly, yes! Can he do damage with his physical? Weirdly enough, his 98 power ultimate does good damage(because it hits weakness on every monster subtype). So yeah he's...oddly good. Go figure...
Harley:
This space reserved for someone that doesn't suck.
Or, see Izayoi and remove Frost and the useful period during the respective chapter. Yeah I'm sure they had more planned for her and just ran out of time. Or at least, I really hope so...
Golbez:
Hey look it's someone that can wield *everything*. And who is a black mage.
Golbez is a weird bastard. He has a tighter version of the curve that Ceo has(which in turn is a tighter version of the curve Leonora has).
That is, he is stupid stupid stupid good when you get him and you need him to be this good because his chapter hates you and all you stand for. Ga spells? 2971 HP? At L30? Yes please.
When you hit the final chapter, his stupid good weapon range and the fact that he has Ga spells and 2971 HP still shine very well! Until about L45 or so...where all he's gained from there is Quake. And he's...still good! Because he's a black mage with heavy armor and above average durability for a black mage and good physicals for randoms and etc.
I gather he starts getting HP again at levels past what I beat the game at, which would make him good again. That and he gets Ultima Weapon. Which I didn't get. But. In general he's really good anyways, so who cares?
So yeah that's babbling for you, have fun. ^_^
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