Final Fantasy VI Advance?

[Special K]

I am ashamed. I just got annihilated by the first Ultros. Jesus, Doug, put them in the back lines.

 

First time I played the game, It took me at least six tries to beat Ultros. His tentacle will kill people in one hit on the front lines.

[AndrewTS]

Don't worry, I died there 2 times as well. It's been so long since I played a FF I forgot to throw Banon in the back.

 

After that it was cake. Auracannon/Fire/Autocrossbow/Pray, although I did have to Pheonix Down/Hi-Potion Sabin once.

[Special K]

The thing that makes Edgar/Sabin scary, is sure they do lots of damage, but it's equal from the back row.

 

has aynone done the limit breaks in this game? I did them twice, with SAbin. It was instant death. I remember doing like 5000 famage against the last mine boss with Sabin.

[AndrewTS]

Yeah, the Super Figaro Bros. are pretty much utter boss rape for the entire WOB. I knew the Tools were same damage from back row, but I didn't think of/try Sabin in the back, because I also have Black Belt equipped to make him counter-attack and I wanted max damage.

 

I haven't gotten a desperation attack yet, though.

[Special K]

Andrew have you ever played Suiooden II? I gaurantee, it will blow your socks out of your ass.

 

EDIT: I forgot just how awesome Edgar was. Character-wise.

[AndrewTS]

I haven't played Suikoden 2. I have played the first one to completion, but 2 came out after I'd pretty much sworn off the genre. So many a time I'd passed a marked-down copy by and am now kicking myself for it.

 

I'll get one eventually, but I don't relish paying $120 to an ebay seller only to get a scratched up disc with no instructions or case. I'm still holding out a slim hope Konami will finally bring over Suikoden I+II for PSP. And my slim hopes are somewhat rejuvenated now that we're actually getting Rondo in the U.S.

 

Suikoden 2 becoming easily available has got to happen sooner or later, somehow.

 

I have Mog in my party now.

 

"That old dude Ramuh taught me your language, kupo!"

 

So, Ramuh was a stoner?

 

Mog isn't a SLAM-dancing Moogle anymore, though.

[Big Ol' Smitty]

Thinking about this game makes me sad.

 

How come games aren't good like this anymore?

 

Am I just being nostalgic?

[AndrewTS]

Maybe a little of both.

 

I miss the days when console games didn't have loading times, and were mostly pick-up-and-play without extensive tutorials and cinemas.

 

However, that's why I love my DS / GBA SP and still have old consoles hooked up and in use.

[Special K]

The old-school games do really have something going for them. IMO:

 

FFVI is the best game ever, definitely the best RPG ever.

 

Super Bomberman is the best multiplayer game ever (Smash Brothers has picked up a lot of the slack)

 

Symphony of the Night is the balls, and Konami just keeps pumping out clones. For once, I am totally in accord.

 

I really think it's all about age. At some point, you're just too fucking old to invest a lot of time in a game. Case in point: I think FFXII is really good. I leant it to a friend to play a month ago, and I haven't missed it.

 

Andrew, do try to find Suikoden II. It's seriously one of the best RPGs ever. $120? Criminy.

[AndrewTS]

The old-school games do really have something going for them. IMO:

 

FFVI is the best game ever, definitely the best RPG ever.

 

< Biased > FFVI is not better than Chrono Trigger. < / Biased >

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

FFVI is not better than Chrono Trigger.

[Special K]

Is too! Between those excellent games, though, there's no losers.

 

FFVI, Chrono Trigger, SuikodenII and Valkyrie Profile. Those, in my mind, are the best of the best of console RPGs. They're my favorite games. IMO, FFVI is tops.

 

Back to the topic, though. Did anyone actually save Shadow the first time you played the game? That's pretty freaking random. I think, if it's your first time, FFVI has a very solid level of difficulty, not so much dependent on level grinding like such 'great' games as Phantasy Star II.

[Black Lushus]

My first time through, I lost Shadow up on the floating island because I didn't know you had to sit and wait for him. Pissed me off when I read that later in a strategy guide.

[EricMM]

It made me EXTREMELY guilty to find out you could save him

[{''({o..o})''}]

I did. I had a couple minutes left and wanted to make sure I hadn't missed any treasure chests. I only left him there once in all my playthroughs, and that was just to see what Relm's dream was.

 

Another question somewhat similar, did any once else figure out the Lete River leveling trick on their own?

[AndrewTS]

I don't see the point of doing it first time through with Banon. You have no espers to bump your stats up. Plus, who really needs to grind in this game anyway?

 

Back to the topic, though. Did anyone actually save Shadow the first time you played the game? That's pretty freaking random. I think, if it's your first time, FFVI has a very solid level of difficulty, not so much dependent on level grinding like such 'great' games as Phantasy Star II.

 

I did, but because a friend told me.

 

This friend apparently moved away (one day he just vanished--and I still had a copy of Twisted Metal 2 he lent me!), but he lended me the game and told me all the hardest-to-find, juiciest secrets. He spilled the info on getting Water Rondo, saving Shadow, the vanish/doom and vanish/xzone trick, and getting the Paladin Shield.

 

In fact, he got me into RPGs period. At one time I never played an RPG. Then he loaned me Earthboard. I played it,loved it, and beat it. Then he lended me Final Fantasy III (US). I played it, loved it, and beat it. Then he loaned me Chrono Trigger--you get the pattern. He loaned me Final Fantasy II (US). I liked it, although I didn't love it as much as the others.

 

So, within a semester's time, I played FFVI, FFIV, Earthbound, and Chrono Trigger. Shortly after I rented and beat Super Mario RPG.

 

So, I was kind of spoiled on RPGs by playing the very best ones all in one clip.

 

Suikoden was pretty much the next major RPG I played, which I enjoyed a lot. Then I played FFVII...which is pretty much where the genre began to jump the shark in my mind.

 

I believe FFIX (I skipped 8), Chrono Cross, and that RPG Beginning With X That Shall Not Be Named had made me pretty much give up on the genre. Now I really only bother if it's exceptionally good or deviates drastically from the turn-based humdrum (see: the Paper Mario games, for instance, and Kingdom Hearts series).

[AndrewTS]

Ted Woolsey interview (starts about 43:30 in this podcast):

 

Link

[El Psycho Diablo]

I never had the SNES version, so this is really my first time playing it. I ROMed it years ago, but never got very far.

 

I only have a few complaints:

 

One: Stop taking characters out of my party, damnit. Leave Celes right where she is.

Two: Why didn't this get the full remake treatment on the DS instead of 3? Well, with Square's statement they'll be remaking more games, hopefully it'll happen.

Three: Getting the magicite from the Auction House is really a pain in the ass. I got Golem on the first try, but the other one won't come up.

[AndrewTS]

1. Well, at least it isn't like FFIV, where characters seemly will scripted-die at random.

 

2. FFVI can stand on its own just fine. FF3...can't. The Wonderswan remake of FF3 (which the other ports of I and II are based upon) was cancelled, too, so they couldn't just touch up an existing enhanced port.

 

In 2007, producer Hiromichi Tanaka explained in an interview that the WonderSwan Color remake had been abandoned because the structure of the coding of the original NES game was too difficult to recreate on WonderSwan Color.

 

--From wikipedia

 

Sounds...unusual, but whatever.

 

3. Eh, just keep trying. Do you have enough gil for it?

[El Psycho Diablo]

Ironically enough, I got it two tries after I posted that. From what I was reading, you only have a small chance (something like 12%) to get the other magicite after you buy one. The Angel Wings, Angel Ring, and that stupid chocobo have much higher percentages.

 

Fixing to to go the Floating Continent, and I'm probably almost too prepared. Terra and Locke are just points away from having every spell from the 14 espers I have at this point, and Celes is fairly close.

 

The Intangir are stupidly easy AP.

[AndrewTS]

Even without Vanish trick?

 

Oh, and here's a transcript of the Woolsey interview, for those too lazy to download the podcast/on 56K.

[El Psycho Diablo]

Yeah.

 

Takes a bit longer, but it's still easier than fighting other random encounters to get the same AP.

 

Get one of your casters to use Stop, use it again three turns later. Just pummel him with non-elemental attacks. Mog's Earth Dance works well here because of Rock Slide, Edgar's Drill, and Locke with dual Hawkeyes.

[AndrewTS]

Any reason for Drill over Chainsaw? Just a better hit rate?

[EricMM]

Reason?

 

That goddamn clock puzzle confused the hell outta me.

[AndrewTS]

Reason?

 

That goddamn clock puzzle confused the hell outta me.

 

[Jer]

Any reason for Drill over Chainsaw? Just a better hit rate?

 

Chainsaw gets worse as your level gets higher, because it does that autokill thing more often at higher levels and it never works. So by late game, Drill is tons better because Chainsaw just misses for 0 damage most of the time.

 

Is that picture Castlevania 2? Fuck that game, I spent hours as a kid walking from one side of the world to the other over and over trying to figure out how to advance the game, and didn't figure out until college you were supposed to kneel by the river or something. Ugh. It seemed like it would have been such a good game too.

[AndrewTS]

Yeah, that's CV2. Just like FFVI's Zozo, CV2 is populated by pathelogical liars, and people that flat out are incomprehensible.

[DrVenkman PhD]

Funny story... kind of... about my lack of skills at this game. 7 years ago or so, on the PS1 version, I just could not get the Blitz command needed to win what should be an extremely easy battle against Vargas. I finally did it, realizing I was making a stupid mistake, and vowed to not make whatever mistake it was again.

 

Here I am now, apparently making the same mistake, and not doing the Blitz properly. I don't know what I was doing wrong in 2000, but apparently I've been misunderstanding the highlighted buttons in the GBA version. Why I would think it was telling me to hit "up right down" and not "left", I don't know, but I blame it on the d-bad being black making me think the white in the instructions was showing what was to be pressed. I thought it was some weird way of saying "Right, Left, Right" (but with some leeway?), but I'll try Left, Right, Left now.

 

Man I feel dumb.

[TheSSNintendo]

Hate to post on an old topic, but apparently you can use the Vanish/Banish (X-zone) or Vanish/Doom combo. I can still use it against the Slagworms in the desert near Miranda, which is good for a quick 5 MP.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

I realized yesterday while playing through the Ancient Castle that I remembered pretty much everything in this game--the secrets, the plot developments, the cool tricks, and so on, even having not played it all the way through for 10, 12 years. I don't remember a damn thing about how FF7 moved, except for some of the really early stuff in Midgar. I think that probably sums up why I love this game so much.

 

I'm finding it a lot easier this time around. I guess being older and actually understanding that leveling with Espers is the smart thing to do makes it a pretty easy run. I also noticed how well the game trades you off between having Celes and Terra for the first half almost entirely--it makes sense that they're more or less the same character stats-wise, because you almost never have them together until you get the airship in the World of Ruin. It's also probably a lot easier because I realized that stuff like Edgar + Pearl Lance + Dragoon Boots + Dragon Horn is a lot more ruthless than picking "Chainsaw!" every turn.

[AndrewTS]

I realized yesterday while playing through the Ancient Castle that I remembered pretty much everything in this game--the secrets, the plot developments, the cool tricks, and so on, even having not played it all the way through for 10, 12 years. I don't remember a damn thing about how FF7 moved, except for some of the really early stuff in Midgar. I think that probably sums up why I love this game so much.

 

So I assume you remembered how to get the hidden (Odin?) magicite in the Ancient Castle.

 

There's a lot I remember about FFVII, but a lot I don't care to remember either.