Final Fantasy As A Turn Based

By November 2018, it had shipped over four million copies worldwide. Dragon Quest XI S sold 303,204 physical copies in its first week in Japan in its Switch version. The 3DS, PS4, and Switch versions sold a total of 5,000,000 units in Japan

Source google
and trust me bro
but either way thats still *** huge compared to ff16 sales in japan, what ff16 sold like 300k lol?

Sacrilege. That move specifically belongs to General Leo who has the major characteristic of not undergoing Magitek infusions.

Get it like the rest of us through Gau's Rage command! D: Heretic! (Or replace one of Cyan's Sword Techs for it or something).

There is no need to be sad tbh. As a turn-based lover myself I think turn-based game mechanics are far more advanced in the recent years thanks to indie dev(Larian Studio included, they are technically indie dev) continue to push the limits of game design.

Many newer indie turn-based games have fun mechanics like stacking status ailments so they are game changing, or telegraphed attacks so defense matters, or utilizing environment as part of strategy etc. It's more fun than old 90s turn-based this way imo.

If you prefer more of a "chill" turn-based experience with simple game mechanics we have handheld jrpg remasters and mobile games. You can even turn on auto battles in mobile games and play them whenever you are awake!

If anything we are in a very diversed era with tons of choices for different people. I honestly don't care if a turn-based game doesn't have 300m budget since budget doesn't add anything to gameplay. A big budget cinematic action game can co-exist with turn-based games just fine imo.

Oh have you played the FFVI PR? They fixed Cyan and he's pretty awesome. Now you chose the ability and it charges in the background like all the other abilities, the charge times on much shorter. Of course I still didn't like them so I reduced them to about the same as Sabins skills or generic offensive spells. I have Quadra Slam hitting for over 6K on each hit and Eclipse wiping most screens. For Cyan you just stack STR until it comes out of your eyeballs unless you really like Eclipse, then it's MAG. I even increased max atk from 255 to 512 and Shadow's pinwheel's can hit for 20K.

And yes, having Celes able to do Shock is awesome, though I turned it's atk power down from 120 to 100.

I bought all the pixel remasters twice. Once on Steam as they came out individually (again on Switch with a physical copy of the collection), where I only got around to playing I, IV, and VI (on PC). And the quality drop in VI's sprites along with them not altering item descriptions from Woolsey's SNES translation BUT altering item names along with a few other things grinded my gears too much, so I got too salty to play past World of Balance, and concluded I'd be better off emulating the vastly superior SNES version (or just playing it on my SNES on an old CRT I still have from 1998).

Also, Cyan wasn't really broken. He just wasn't the best DD once you understood how to optimize the gameplay. Which you didn't need to anyway... But the old way to optimize Cyan use was to party him up with Umaro, Gau, and Mog (if you're dedicated to using the character skills). This way, Umaro, Gau, and Mog will actively continue to use skills without input while you wait on Cyan to charge his sword techs.

I'm pretty happy with PRs 1 through 5, but they did 6 a disservice again. The only real positive I can say about it, is it's a step up from that absolute dogshit Steam version.

Unfortunately garbage like WRPGs and the Japanese trending to more action style combat to appeal to the masses instead of fans dominate the market.

Good news for non-icrap owners though is Fantasian is being ported to steam. (Mistalker studios founded by Sakaguchi etc).

They built FFVI the exact same way they did the rest, redrawing original textures / sprites then rebuilding the entire game using Unity. It was not a port, none of the original code was kept and instead they rewrote all the functions and battle scripts inside Unity's own system. This makes it amazingly easy to modify since BepInEx can be used to extract / insert resources into the game directly and editing stuff is as simple as editing a csv file.

The SNES version sprites were designed to run on a CRT with rounded pixels, scanlines and low resolution. In SNES FFVI they added more detail in the sprites then in the previous games, and used the nature of a CRT make it look better then it was, with the PR versions they had to redraw them but without any good filter.

And that is probably my only issue with the PR versions, they only have one built in filter and it sucks, they don't even have basic bilinear or trilinear filtering, much less HQ2X. I ended up using ReShade to implement my own set of shaders that made the game look better. Also used a mod to change the movement FPS from 40 to 60, yeah they had the movement animation set to 40 FPS which makes it look janky on PC, thankfully super easy fix.

You can see that doing side by side comparisons of the raw sprites
https://imgur.com/BFwR9h7
https://i.redd.it/r3zahe3qc8571.jpg

But remember how I said it was based on Unity and we have an easy way to insert new resources? Well you can easily just replace the sprites with the original SNES ones if you want.

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy6pixelremaster/mods/15?tab=description

Though some folks prefer the Record Keeper version

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy6pixelremaster/mods/44?tab=description

They left the engine open so you can go down a rabbit hole if you want.

Cyan was brokenly bad because unlike previous games, FFVIs combat is about leveraging special abilities. For many this is the "magic" stat, for some it's Strength (Vigor). In Cyan's case his abilities not only had ridiculous charge timers, they locked out every other party member and you basically didn't play the game for a minute or two at a time. You will deal more damage just pressing "attack" then waiting on a charge bar. Quadra Slice for example is a fixed 72 strength attack on four random targets, Cyan could get two to three attack rounds in during that period with a weapon power much higher then 72. Quadra Slam was a 70 strength defense ignoring attack on four targets, Cyan could get four to seven attacks at 150-200+ strength during that same time. Thankfully they fixed it in the both the crappy Steam and PR version, it's a command you chose and charges in the background at a much faster rate then before, just like every other characters ability.

I keep replaying FF Dimensions on my phone.... not Dimensions 2, that pile of hot garbage isn't worth it. But Dimensions story, battle system and job system keep me coming back

Only really in the first part before you gain access to Espers, after you get Espers it becomes about stat building, and all of the most powerful damage options in the game revolve around spells and equipment, rather than the individual skills (though some skills are really damn good and they do all grow off stats).

In this regard every character in the game either does more damage with their regular attack or regular magic, over their unique skills (or those options are preferable vs. making them uncontrollable). There's also a good portion of character skills that deal little or no damage (or have their effectiveness curved by gaining stats and levels/making the character uncontrollable).

These include:

Morph
Runic
Steal
Sketch
Dance
Swdtech
Throw*
Rage*
Slots**

With the worthwhile personal skills being
Tools
Blitz
Lore
Mimic
Throw*
Rage*

* - These skills are actually absurdly powerful, but have costs not associated with other skills, namely Gil/Items for Throw and the timesink of the Veldt to be specific.

** - has a pause exploit where you can trigger the best damage combo from the slots / always achieve success making it slightly better than terrible if you can reliably perform the pause exploit.

After you reach the World of Ruins Coliseum, the de facto way for every single character in the game to deal the most damage possible revolves around the relic, "Merit Award." This relic allows any character to equip any piece of gear, allowing all characters to equip the Offering(Master Scroll in later, inferior editions) and the Atma Weapon or Valiantknife, allowing literally any character spec'd into HP and Vigor (or just a ton of levels) to deal x4 hits for 9999 that bypasses defense. It also allows for whacky things like Wind God Gau too, but I digress.
That's for single target, of course. The way to maximize damage on multiple targets is to equip the Gem Box and the Economizer, then use the X Magic for Ultima Quick Ultima Ultima for 9999x3 on everything.

Knowing this, Cyan doesn't really fall behind the other characters even though Swdtech is slightly worse than most of the other damage dealing skills. His skill just isn't usually his optimal play except for the early segments of the game leading up to Magitek Research Facility, but this is true for almost the entire cast. But unlike the rest of the cast, you could also trigger the Psycho Cyan glitch, and turn him into an absolute murderer.

But even outside of the ideal scenario of Merit Awards, you can still get multiple Genji Gloves, minimum two per playthrough, and simple Fight command with two hits out paces a lot of other damage options. The Quick spell by itself cements magic as the be all, end all (though it more or less already was).

Basing your play solely around the character skills for the entire game is fun, as the game is easy enough that you can do it, but the game revolves around magic and gear more than them, in truth.

This is patently untrue, especially before later versions when they fixed various bugs. The entire game, from the moment you get Edger until you beat Kefka, is about leveraging special abilities to do obscene damage, this includes Magic. Any character who didn't have an obscene ability to leverage fell behind.

The most powerful combo in the game was Gem Box (Soul of Thamasa) + Economizer/Gold Hairpin then doing X-Magic -> Ultima -> Quick -> Ultima -> Ultima -> Ultima -> Ultima for 45~50K damage. Next was Offering + Genji Glove +Light Bringer/Valiant Knife (or Ultima Weapon for non Locke), then X-Fight -> Attack x 8 with each attack doing 3000~9999 damage each hit totaling 24~80K. Then it's Setzer Loaded Dice + Offering, a bit random but pretty reliable for 12~32K damage. Then we get into non-obscene but still powerful attacks like Drill/Chain Saw, Phantom Rush, Throw and other attacks/combos that will hit 9999 every time.

Gau, mechanically sucks, he only seems good if someone refused to use any of the existing broken abilities on different characters. Gau's "strongest" setup is building for magic and doing Quick -> Ultima + Ultima for an easy 15~20K per round of full screen piercing and defense ignoring damage. But literally any character other then Umara can do that. That combo is available immediately after getting the airship and snagging the moogle charm then getting Locke to unlock the Narshe doors.


This ... explains so much..

That is not how those weapons work. Both weapons deal the exact same damage at 9999/9999 HP as they do 500/500 HP. In the case of Ultima Weapon, the HP percentage is what is used as the final damage multiplier, Valiant Knife is similar but inverted.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/930370-final-fantasy-vi-advance/faqs/13573

Boosting HP does absolutely nothing for those weapons, boosting Vigor/Strength will until it caps at 128. FFVI-PR lets us raise that cap which does some interesting things.

Slots is terrible, don't use it, stick with Loaded Dice. Again Cyan's best setup was to use the Psycho Cyan bug, or in later versions to use Genji Glove + Tempest x2 (Kazekiri) and Offering while specing for magic if possible. Tempest's 50% proc on MT Wind attack would fire off several times with the total damage being well above 9999. It's not better then the other characters but it's better then waiting a looooooong time for a bar to charge, though I guess you could take a coffee break during that time.

Merit Award was something to try to make the weaker characters better by letting them equip OP stuff they normally couldn't, Light Bringer, Ragnarok, Loaded Dice, Minerva and such to try for a decent attack command.

I love turn based games. Beat all the older FFs, Chrono Trigger/Cross and original Pokemons many times over. With that being said, it gets tiresome. I used to play chess religiously, and I loved doing so for years in competitive tournaments, but it eventually got old and I moved on. I still sometimes play a game against a computer opponent on my phone, but it's not something I want to do every day.

I believe the key to video games in this generation is variety. You want games to be able to incorporate different styles of play without them feeling forced or convoluted to the detriment of the player. That's why games like the original FFVII stand the test of time, because the core gameplay and little minigames combine to an overall experience. Some you have to do, while others are optional, but the key here is variety.

Nobody wants to be stuck doing the same thing day in, day out, and if you are one of these people, you're in the minority. Life is about experiencing different things and not getting stuck in a loop. When that happens, you begin to question what you are doing, and that's when it's no longer fun.

They actually kinda suck in a playthrough where you're leveling. The high rolls are inconsistent.

Particulars aside, my point still stands. Cyan wasn't bad or terrible in VI, and the abilities aren't central to doing well in it, since a lot of them are actually worse than other options once you involve relics and equipment. Also Magic is not an ability or skill once you acquire Espers, because you can teach anyone, anything.

Also the Offering doesn't allow for magic attacks on weapons to trigger, at least in the original. It also splits physical damage on all weapons that aren't Valiantknife/Atma weapon, making using it in conjunction with the Illumina/Ragnarok/Non-V/A not a good idea (if you're dealing 9999 a swing with anything other than Atma/Valiant, then it gets split down to 2200~2400 damage a swing, better with weapons that can cast on hit to just Genji/Hero's Ring and hope you trigger spells on both hits).

...
You don't get loaded dice (Fixed Dice) until Kefka's tower in WoR, which is accessible right after getting the moogle charm. Until then Setzer kinda sucks since it's just auto-attack or magic. Fixed Dice are special because their damage is not reduced when using offering so you get four attack rounds at full power.

Damage done is equal to twice Setzer's level multiplied by the roll of each die. If all three dice show the same number, damage is multiplied by that number. Ignores Master's Scroll damage penalty. They also ignore defense and never miss.


Offering reduces damage by 1/2, I even provided you the BMG you could just search and see it yourself. This reduction is early in the formula and before the 9999 cap is applied making it an even smaller reduction once you start breaking 9999. Atma / Valiant do not get any special treatment by Offering, they just happen to ignore defense. Ragnarok/Light Bringer have the highest battle power of the regular weapons along with silly defensive stats, making them hit capped pretty regularly for anyone with high strength. The proc is only 12% or 25%, not really worth fishing for. Genji Glove was glitched in virtually all previous versions, it was supposed to apply a -25% damage penalty when used but only did that with one weapon equipped. This bug was fixed in the trash Mobile version along with the recent PR version. This had made GG + Offering combos not as awesome as they were in previous versions.


For Cyan that would be 4 procs of Wind Slash. A 48 damage MT wind attack. Bio has a base damage of 53 as an example. Spamming Wind Slash's is better then regular attack but not by much. And yes Cyan sucked because that is all you can do with him and most everyone else could do better. This is highlighted in the newer version by him being able to belt out Bushido's at the same speed the rest can do Tools / Blitzes / Magic and those Bushido's can be made to be really good.

Bravely Default series is turn based too.

Not really apples to apples. DQXI was released on multiple platforms, multiple _times_ (you need a *** spreadsheet to know the differences between all the versions), and has been out for years. FF16 is a platform exclusive for now and has been out for six weeks.

I'm not saying it'll overtake DQXI, but pointing at the current states and saying LOOK SEE is just silly.

Anyway, DQXI rules

Loved the DW series and had a ton of fun with IX and XI. My only gripe with XI is like, half the game is after you beat the game, which just feelt weird.

That's mostly a function of the fact that
DQ9 holds a special place in my heart because when I played it, I apparently missed the part where you're supposed to recruit party members, and did the entire game with just the starting character. I didn't even realize anything was wrong (I mean, DQ1 had a single character, it's not without precedent!) until I got to a boss I was really having trouble with and finally relented and checked GameFAQs. They were like "you should be about level 22" and I was like *** I am level 34, what do you mean twenty-OH THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT MULTIPLE PARTY MEMBERS, HOLY ***.

At that point though I was committed, and just beat the whole game with only the main dude. Took a while.

this is my favorite way of differentiating information

GIVE ME THE CHARTS

LMFAO, yeah DQIX was pretty fun with all the jobs unlocked and how certain abilities transferred over. Though later on the game kinda felt like a fashion show with all the crazy looking outfits you ended up wearing.