Boss
I did, but in âmy versionâ, donât know if it counts :))
dungeon
My main complaint about the dungeon is that itâs too similar to Zott. The club pace forced a weekly break between the two, but if it wasnât for that we would have had two very similar dungeons back to back.
It also seems that we arenât done with Babil yet, so I expect more of the same tileset soon.
It certainly beats just having more random caves though.
Dungeon
Aesthetically for sure, but yeah I was gonna say weâve gone to a dozen caves already so Iâm happy to be out of those and I think this is standing out more as a repeat because it looks way more interesting and better than a cave.
A little enemy reuse was kinda whatever but I think there were a lot of types and enough unique to satisfy me still.
Week 6
Iâm curious, how did other people find out how to unlock the underground? Iâve played this game before and remembered what to do with the well, but for the life of me canât remember how I found out about it. Talking to the NPCs around town you get a lot of âweâre descended from dwarves!â, though I wouldnât call that much of a hint.
I clearly read too much fantasy because I saw this and immediately thought, âExcuse me, you lost your mermaids? Where would you even keep mermaids in lava land⊠oh thereâs an ă there.â
The dwarves are cute, although for me theyâre mostly memorable for the bold theme music and their love of ă©ăȘăŒă . And then of course we get the return of Lydia! Yay, summons re-enabled (ïŸÂŽăźÂŽ)ïŸ*:ïŸâ§
The tower was a little grueling. In one of those tiny treasure rooms at the start, I got attacked every time I took a single step. I started the room with full MP and left with almost none after having Lydia summon Shiva on multiple fire dog groups! It got better once I picked up the frost weapons + cat claws later, but whew.
Iâd totally forgotten about ă«ăČă€ăšâs existence but really enjoyed how weird the fight is, including the silly beginning where the Frankenstein expy attacks the master!
Others have said already, but Iâm not sure what Yan thought to accomplish by locking himself in an exploding gun room. As a monk who seems to have spent a lot of time on top of a mountain, heâs not exactly a tech expert. 0/10 way to leave the party. Cid on the other hand, went out with style that I respect.
Responding to stuff other people said
Ha. Iâm surprised at what an impression Xenogears made, even on people who left the club months before it ended 
I beat the boss after it took the second form but unlike what some others experienced, it didnât self-destruct. I did some digging and apparently that only happens if you take too long to kill him. Hope yâall found the weapon chests and are using summons!
Seconded! I also took a screenshot of this sprite last week in Zot and forgot to post. Itâs such a Yoshitaka Amano looking lilâ guy, love it.
reply
Youâre told to go to this town to continue, and you know that the dark crystals are underground, so itâs not too much of a stretch to assume that the prominent well at the center of the area had something to do with it.
As for using the magma stone, I suppose itâs an educated guess⊠We just received it after all.
Week 6
Oh yeah, I didnât actually write for Week 6. Lots of stuff happening but at the same time it being the second tower dungeon in a row does make the second tower feel like a bit of a blur to me.
I do however like how different the two towers feel, and the bosses also stood out quite a lot. Always liked the creepy randomness of Calcabrina (and the dwarf princess being pissed because you broke the dolls) and the professor has a random little comical boss battle that however stands out. Love how techy and âwrongâ it all is with this mad scientist becoming a creepy zombie android in what has otherwise been a pretty medioeval fantasy world until now. The highest technology we have seen is the airships and that hovercraft and then suddenly you have a Frankenstein robot and a creepy android.
Itâs cool! I like it when game play around with genre expectantions like this.
Speaking of language learning: whatâs a quote that stood out to you in particular? Maybe it was something that gave you trouble, or at the opposite something you thought would be difficult but actually understood immediately?
Bonus question for those playing the Pixel Remaster/GBA/not sure about other versions: how long did it take you to realize the dude in the logo is Kain? (Always found that a bit funny)
Finally caught up last night.
Week 6
Looks like most of my complaints have already been raised in the thread. Going down to hell seemed really cool but they didnât do much interesting with it. The dwarf castle and tower of Babel both feel like locations that couldâve been on the surface. Golbez is really just speedrunning these crystals, huh? I understand that narratively speaking, you canât thwart stage one so we need to see Golbezâs plan to conclusion, but the number of crystals that have slipped through our fingers is getting a bit comical.
Rydiaâs return was really cool in the moment, but Iâm not impressed with her gameplay-wise. FF4 has this annoying cast-time layer on top of ATB where all her big spells take forever to get out, so the melee fighters tend to clear half the field while sheâs charging up. There were some ice-weak enemies that she should be great against, but they gave us an ice spear for Kain that makes him even better. About halfway through the tower I stopped fiddling with the menus and just started autobattling. Rydia and Rosa were doing chip damage with bows, but everyone else was effective enough that it didnât really matter and I could just heal up between battles.
I think everyone else has covered Yan and Cidâs back-to-back sacrifices pretty well so I wonât belabor it. Hopefully we get a cool new ally next week. FF4 is still head and shoulders above 1-3, but this week was definitely a letdown compared to what weâve been seeing so far. And oh my god I hate smushing my face into walls to find hidden passageways.
I finished this week in 3:19, for a total playtime of 16:44. The first hour or so was just flying around the surface world doing the side content thatâs been available since we got the airship.
gotta catch'em all
The crystal gathering gimmick is starting to wear thin, in FF1 it was kind of fresh I guess, in FF3 it was tied to the job system so at least I was looking forward to collecting more, but this time it just feels like a foolâs errand because itâs pretty clear that Golbez is going to succeed and trigger his doomsday machine somehow and weâll have to kill god or whatever in order to stop it.
When we handed over the Troya crystal without resistance I at least thought we were done with that part of the game, but then the dark crystals were introduced and that meant another round of âletâs go watch Golbez snatch more crystals while we just look haplesslyâ.
Surely itâs the last time Square will use this gimmick in a Final Fantasy game, right? Right? Right?!
I didnât notice the bird, it definitely looks surprisingly similarâŠ
Itâs funny that the JRPG trope of half your party just not being present for gameplay is now so universal that weâre all complaining that FF4 doesnât use it. When you think about it, FF4âs party system is more realistic in some ways, but the gameplay and narrative advantages of a party selection screen are great enough that it became the standard approach for decades. Of course, as game design has swung hard toward realism and away from abstraction, games like FF15, FF16, and Kingdom Hearts 3 are back to using FF4âs system of having a narrative justification for every party change.
Honestly I think how FF4 has had a revolving door of party members has been pretty good for the game. Because thereâs not real character customization, never having the same exact group for long lets us keep re-tweaking exactly how to efficiently take out enemy groups. Battle system could use a tiny bit more depth to really bring that to life but I still think itâs giving me something to think a little about. Though everyone keeps mentioning auto battle and I dunno if this is a case of the auto battle you have being too smart or pixel remaster getting easy again because Iâm getting pushed a little in resources, not to the point of failure but I feel like I need to manage them by hand. Itâs hard for me to imagine using that and having it work out in some of these longer dungeons.
The PRâs autobattle is very basic. For each character it repeats the command they did last turn, retargeting only if the previous target is dead, and switching to ăăăă if they run out of mana or whatever. Most of the earlier dungeons had a bit more resource management, but this one had enough save points in the back half that I didnât worry about it. Cottages are very cheap.
I agree on needing some reason to switch up your party. FF3 tried to do that with all its dungeon gimmicks but even though this gameâs system is more restrictive, it feels less artificial and therefore less grating. Iâve seen some complaints online about the FF4 dungeon with the magnetic field gimmick and I think itâs for the same reason.
I like RPGs that give save points before the boss. It means that you can use your spells in the dungeon proper instead of hoarding resources, and then you get to go all out when facing the boss.
Changing party members
Iâm thinking about why FF4âs constant party change doesnât feel a bit âgratingâ like the one we had in 2, and I think I have it narrowed down to three crucial changes:
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Except for Cecil, all party members change around, not just the fourth rotating party member, which gives less the impression that the fourth party slot is basically reserved for temporary guests. Thereâs multiple points in the story where Cecil finds himself alone and has to gain the trust of a new set of allies (first with Rydia, then Mysidia), meanwhile in 2 we had our group of three plus a tagalong.
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More party permutations in general allows for more interactions. You had the moment where it was Cecil, Rydia and Tera, then Tera leaves and Edward comes in, then he leaves and suddenly itâs Tera again but this time with the twins, and each little group has their own little balance and things you have to pay attention to, almost like a mini puzzle.
Just think back to Week 3 where it was Black Magic Festival Galore with Palom and Tera nuking the undeads on Mount Ordeal vs the last couple of weeks where youâve had three heavy physical attackers. It keeps things fresh! -
You donât have to build them up from zero. Yeah, you have to still give them gear, and they take it away when they leave, but you donât have to invest in buying the fifth Cure tome to slap on the newest party member like you had to do in 2.
Caves, towers, towers in caves, next week has everything:
Week 6 thoughts
- This week was kind of whatever, especially the tower that I finished up today. Except for Rydia coming back, because sheâs my favorite character.
- Two more pointless deaths. But I knew it was coming. Last week I realized that the 5 characters on the PR cover must be the final cast, so I knew Yan was going to die. I figured Cid would just become our pilot or mechanic, but alas he had to die as well.
- I missed one enemy from the tower that just never spawned, so no platinum trophy for me, not that I really intended to get it.
Pretty sure FF5 is about crystals as well. I definitely think they overused the concept in these early games. Thinks will get refreshed quite a bit starting with FF6.
Am I the only one who primarily uses physical attacks with the mages? I equip them with bow and arrow and they do pretty good damage. I just heal in between battles and save MP for attacking for bosses. The only real exception was using Ifrit to demolish the hoard of blobs.
Iâm doing the exact same. Offensive magic is just kind of a PITA to use. The summons at least are worth it when you donât care about your MP, but so far it seems like all the black magic is only really good if you already know the enemyâs weak to it - and who has time to poke around for weaknesses when you could be ăăăăing?
Completely agree. Also not going to waste a turn to scan a regular enemy, and for some insane reason it doesnât work on bosses.
Donât know quite why I got so far behind but here I go catching up
Week 6
Yeah this week was ok. I think ăăă€ă«ăźćĄ was a bit too similar to last weekâs tower which was a shame, but the dwarf stuff was cool. I also liked getting the ice weapons that let the party do mega-damage
I did make a small error of judgment where I got to the 8th floor, and then thought âthereâs another branch and this looks like the correct way to go so Iâd better go check on that other branchâ and walked all the way back down to the 5th floor or whatever only to find the door was locked and I had to go back to the 8th floor again. And to make it even worse I didnât even get to go down the other branch. Guess weâll be back again later
The frankenstein boss was fun - I beat it before the professor so did see the second form. And got the self-destruct which was funny because he says something like ăăźăăżăłăŻăȘăă ïŒ before self-destructing. Was less funny for ă«ă€ăł who got hit, but he didnât die
I do love how present ăŽă«ăăŒă¶ is throughout the game, we actually have a reason to hate the guy and want to beat him because he keeps showing up and doing evil stuff on screen. Leaps and bounds ahead of the other games in that regard. Also ăȘăăŁăąâs entrance was hype moments and aura but I loved it. Seeing the mist dragon and realising who it was, and then getting to play with her new summons was great