Post by Warlock on Feb 12, 2013 21:13:03 GMT -5
I finished this one (first run) a couple weeks back, but I haven't gotten the chance to post about it yet. I know that there's some new stuff at the end of a new game plus run, but I'm probably not going to play through again... Maybe if it was a 'full' NGP option and I could just blaze through everything, but I'm not really that interested in playing through everything again just to reach some new superbosses. I've written up a longer post about it for SC's blog- I'll link when it goes up- but I thought maybe I should add a last couple bullet-point highlights here, since that's likely to revisit the same ground I've covered here in previous threads.
- In the end, I find myself really ambivalent to the whole "Augments" concept. I read through the Augments FAQ after I finished the game the first time, and it looks like I did miss some of the better ones (Kick being the most obvious oversight), but the selection I got was quite powerful... The game got significantly easier, in fact, after I'd put together the Draw Attacks/Counter/Defend combo, even if I missed the handful of additional abilities (Kick and Brace) to make it truly broken. That being said, while the addition of the Augments is a well-intentioned effort to correct the lack of customization that was FF4's biggest weakness, I can't help but feel that it doesn't add a whole lot to the game either. FF4 is designed such that you've always got a relatively balanced party to begin with outside places where you're supposed to have an unbalanced party; tweaking characters just didn't feel like it had that significant of an effect... I think it's rather telling that by the end of the game, most of my characters only had a one or two aguments at all.
- The iOS interface: Ugh. It's not great, I have to admit- the iPhone just doesn't have enough screen real estate for everything. Combined with the unforgiving speed of the ATB in this version, the frantic, clumsy fingerpaining required to select battle commands can be pretty frustrating at times... Autobattle helps this, but it's still a problem. Not one that makes it unplayably hard, but it's quite frustrating at times to wipe because a menu refused to scroll fast enough or put you in the White Magic menu instead of the Black Magic one.
- I like the way Autobattle is implemented! I feel like there are a lot of games with some sort of "everybody fights automatically" command that's just not quite adequete to use for most battles. It makes me want to try FFXII to see how the Gambits work out there.
- I'm really happy with a lot of the balance changes they've made. Most of the bosses now feel like honest-to-goodness challenges, although the standard combats are brutal later on in the game on Hard mode. I also appreciate that they've tweaked a lot more of the equipment to be viable for a wider period in the game or differentiated more from items you get around the same time... Comparing, say, Kain's Spears (lower attack power, double damage if he hits with a Jump) with the various Axes (higher attack power, no damage bonus from jumping) that he gets around the same point in the game requires actual thought now- which of these is more useful? Is there a benefit to attacking more often for less damage in this area? See also the replacement of Cecil's Drain/Blood sword with the totally different Slumber sword- is it worth giving up the higher attack of other weapons available at the same time for the sleep effect?
On the other hand, especially on Hard, several of the bosses are quite vicious. There are a couple that require very specific strategies right off the bat, which- again- can be a pain combined with the interface (I admit it: once or twice I set up my 'first moves' as autobattle commands to get them off faster at the beginning of the battle). The worst offender in this case was probably Golbez in the Dwarf Castle, who I was only able to just barely best with a very specific series of moves (including "have Kain jump immediately so you can get a chance to use buffs/debuffs before the cutscene"). It doesn't help that every attempt against him requires you to fight the Calbrena and sit through the longass in-battle cutscene before you fight him in earnest. Zeromus was a pain, too, before I figured out that you could Defend to reduce Big Bang's damage. I enjoyed the challenge, but I definitely wiped more than a couple times on my way through the game.
- One subtle change that I thought was a really clever addition was the explicit labeling of enemy counterattacks- it turns major battles almost into something closer to puzzles to know that doing X will always result in Y, instead of just having it happen and leaving you to figure out if it was a counter or part of the boss' normal routine. I kind of wonder if part of the reason Kalisiin felt that so many enemies were getting a bazillion moves to her one was that many of them were bosses with unlabeled counters in their behavior... At any rate, it makes boss battles feel more like tactical excercises than endurance matches, which I thought was a big improvement.
All in all, I'm really quite happy with the remake, and I'm very glad that I had the chance to play it.
- HC
- In the end, I find myself really ambivalent to the whole "Augments" concept. I read through the Augments FAQ after I finished the game the first time, and it looks like I did miss some of the better ones (Kick being the most obvious oversight), but the selection I got was quite powerful... The game got significantly easier, in fact, after I'd put together the Draw Attacks/Counter/Defend combo, even if I missed the handful of additional abilities (Kick and Brace) to make it truly broken. That being said, while the addition of the Augments is a well-intentioned effort to correct the lack of customization that was FF4's biggest weakness, I can't help but feel that it doesn't add a whole lot to the game either. FF4 is designed such that you've always got a relatively balanced party to begin with outside places where you're supposed to have an unbalanced party; tweaking characters just didn't feel like it had that significant of an effect... I think it's rather telling that by the end of the game, most of my characters only had a one or two aguments at all.
- The iOS interface: Ugh. It's not great, I have to admit- the iPhone just doesn't have enough screen real estate for everything. Combined with the unforgiving speed of the ATB in this version, the frantic, clumsy fingerpaining required to select battle commands can be pretty frustrating at times... Autobattle helps this, but it's still a problem. Not one that makes it unplayably hard, but it's quite frustrating at times to wipe because a menu refused to scroll fast enough or put you in the White Magic menu instead of the Black Magic one.
- I like the way Autobattle is implemented! I feel like there are a lot of games with some sort of "everybody fights automatically" command that's just not quite adequete to use for most battles. It makes me want to try FFXII to see how the Gambits work out there.
- I'm really happy with a lot of the balance changes they've made. Most of the bosses now feel like honest-to-goodness challenges, although the standard combats are brutal later on in the game on Hard mode. I also appreciate that they've tweaked a lot more of the equipment to be viable for a wider period in the game or differentiated more from items you get around the same time... Comparing, say, Kain's Spears (lower attack power, double damage if he hits with a Jump) with the various Axes (higher attack power, no damage bonus from jumping) that he gets around the same point in the game requires actual thought now- which of these is more useful? Is there a benefit to attacking more often for less damage in this area? See also the replacement of Cecil's Drain/Blood sword with the totally different Slumber sword- is it worth giving up the higher attack of other weapons available at the same time for the sleep effect?
On the other hand, especially on Hard, several of the bosses are quite vicious. There are a couple that require very specific strategies right off the bat, which- again- can be a pain combined with the interface (I admit it: once or twice I set up my 'first moves' as autobattle commands to get them off faster at the beginning of the battle). The worst offender in this case was probably Golbez in the Dwarf Castle, who I was only able to just barely best with a very specific series of moves (including "have Kain jump immediately so you can get a chance to use buffs/debuffs before the cutscene"). It doesn't help that every attempt against him requires you to fight the Calbrena and sit through the longass in-battle cutscene before you fight him in earnest. Zeromus was a pain, too, before I figured out that you could Defend to reduce Big Bang's damage. I enjoyed the challenge, but I definitely wiped more than a couple times on my way through the game.
- One subtle change that I thought was a really clever addition was the explicit labeling of enemy counterattacks- it turns major battles almost into something closer to puzzles to know that doing X will always result in Y, instead of just having it happen and leaving you to figure out if it was a counter or part of the boss' normal routine. I kind of wonder if part of the reason Kalisiin felt that so many enemies were getting a bazillion moves to her one was that many of them were bosses with unlabeled counters in their behavior... At any rate, it makes boss battles feel more like tactical excercises than endurance matches, which I thought was a big improvement.
All in all, I'm really quite happy with the remake, and I'm very glad that I had the chance to play it.
- HC