Final Fantasy IV Advance

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Neo Rasa
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Post by Neo Rasa »

I'm about halfway through the game now, I gotta say again that I'm blown away by how much better the translation is than the SNES version.
sjewkestheloon
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Post by sjewkestheloon »

anyone have any information about the pal releases? i know that they are all coming but when? i need my fix. :x
Neo Rasa
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Post by Neo Rasa »

sjewkestheloon wrote:anyone have any information about the pal releases? i know that they are all coming but when? i need my fix. :x
No European date yet, probably March as that seems to be the timetable for games released in Japan/US simultaneously around this time.

From what some other Europe-based gamers tell me though you'd probably be saving money if you imported it from the US now. :?
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Moogs
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Post by Moogs »

LoneSage wrote:My stupid ass still needs to beat the PS1 port. Happens to me everytime in RPGs, I get near the end, take a break for a few days and that turns into weeks, then months. Now I feel the need to go and beat it, problem is I haven't played it in so long I've forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I'm just in Cid's airship, dickin around with some Ogres.
Really, don't even bother beating the PS1 port, cos it sucks. All the PS1 ports of SNES RPGs suck. Between the awful load times and the piped-thru-a-tin-can-music, it's just not the same.

If you really want to play FFIV again, get the GBA version.
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FatCobra
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Post by FatCobra »

Moogs wrote:
LoneSage wrote:My stupid ass still needs to beat the PS1 port. Happens to me everytime in RPGs, I get near the end, take a break for a few days and that turns into weeks, then months. Now I feel the need to go and beat it, problem is I haven't played it in so long I've forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I'm just in Cid's airship, dickin around with some Ogres.
Really, don't even bother beating the PS1 port, cos it sucks. All the PS1 ports of SNES RPGs suck. Between the awful load times and the piped-thru-a-tin-can-music, it's just not the same.

If you really want to play FFIV again, get the GBA version.
I returned the PS1 ports as soon I bought them. I'll put up with the GBA's techinicalities, such as dumbed-down difficulty and crappy music, instead of the shitty emulation that the PS1 ports are.

I'm pretty sure they retooled the game from scratch for the GBA, whereas for the PS1 ports, they got lazy and just threw a ROM and a substandard emulator in a disc. I think most of the budget for those ports went towards making the unnessicary FMV's. :lol:
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Neo Rasa
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Post by Neo Rasa »

Your correct actually.

The difficulty of the GBA version is very nice though, definitely feels harder than the US version (Baigan doing like 450 damage in a single attack on a back row character?).

I on Dawn of Souls though is MUCH easier than any other version of the game. Enemies often won't cast/have their most powerful spells from the original, and FFI uses a standard magic point system instead of having to rest to memorize a couple of spells. It's good in that you can actually USE SPELLS now and plan things out better in battles, but it goes too far to that extreme and becomes a little too easy.

FFII was always impossible to lose at anyway due to the inherent system. Good in concept, fun game anyway though and I do like the story and characters.
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FatCobra
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Post by FatCobra »

Ok, sounds like FFIV is the next GBA game I'm gonna get when I have $35 laying around. I just bought Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga used, and that's a great game as well, I'd like to call it "the cure for the common RPG," since it takes all RPG clichés, obeys them at first, and then knocks them aside with a Koopa shell.

FFIV (or FFIIusa, to be more exact) was my first FF game and the story touched my heart in ways no other game did (although I was a little to young to understand some of it).

Later FF's did spoil me because of customizable parties, but FF4's diverse characters and it's story-driven party is still way much better than customizable characters because each character in FF4 played a role in the story, and I noticed in RPGs where the characters can be customized, the story really suffers.
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Neo Rasa
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Post by Neo Rasa »

Yeah it's interesting how western and eastern RPGs today go to those extremes of either shit story/characters with tons of options or decent story with a set party.

They added some bonuses to the game though for after you beat it, you can go through a bonus area for the characters that can't battle the final boss/dungeon, get new ultimate weapons for each of them, then take them into the final battle! So if the game seems too easy after all, feel free to fight Zeromus with Edward, Porom and Palom. :D

I gotta say again that the translation is quite good. There's still a lot of cheesy/campy lines left but they're more cleary intentional now. A lot of the stuff regarding Cecil and Kain's motivations is also much clearer than usual. Stuff that was kind of shaky plotwise in the US SNES version makes much more sense now.
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FatCobra
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Post by FatCobra »

Neo Rasa wrote:They added some bonuses to the game though for after you beat it, you can go through a bonus area for the characters that can't battle the final boss/dungeon, get new ultimate weapons for each of them, then take them into the final battle! :D

I gotta say again that the translation is quite good. There's still a lot of cheesy/campy lines left but they're more cleary intentional now. A lot of the stuff regarding Cecil and Kain's motivations is also much clearer than usual. Stuff that was kind of shaky plotwise in the US SNES version makes much more sense now.
I remember I once got a harp weapon in some dungeon after the spoony bard had left my party in the SNES verison (this was way much later in the game, when Cecil was a paladin and I was in the underworld for the first time), and I was like WTF? Maybe they were going to implement some sort of character switching but took it out?

I hope they left "You spoony bard!" in the game. That line always cracked me up. By the way, what the heck does spoony mean anyway? :?

And I've always thought Kain was such a double-crossing bastard. One minute, he's fighting on your side, the next he's working for the bad guys! WTF?!?
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Neo Rasa
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Post by Neo Rasa »

Yeah that whole Kain thing is done much better. There's some good foreshadowing of it in the Mist Village at the beginning and everything.

In the original it was like "he's brainwashed, no wait he just hates Cecil anyway, no wait he's brainwashed for real, and cured, and not, uhm..."

Spoony bard! is there. As is "Who is this snippy octogenerian?" :D

Seriously, great game, well worth the money. Easier to learn the enemy weaknesses too since it has the beastiary like in Dawn of Souls, you get the full stats for any monster you kill.
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landshark
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Post by landshark »

FatCobra wrote: FFIV (or FFIIusa, to be more exact) was my first FF game and the story touched my heart in ways no other game did (although I was a little to young to understand some of it).
Ahh, so this IS FF2? That's still been my favorite FF to date.
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Post by LoneSage »

FatCobra wrote: I hope they left "You spoony bard!" in the game. That line always cracked me up. By the way, what the heck does spoony mean anyway? :?
I always thought it meant that Edward (he was the bard, right?) liked to spoon with Tellah's daughter. Spooning meaning you've got a girl sitting in your lap and you feel a sexual attraction -- but without the zex! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spoon I'd say the third definition is the most accurate one of spooning.

Hope that clears stuff up.
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Moogs
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Post by Moogs »

LoneSage wrote:
FatCobra wrote: I hope they left "You spoony bard!" in the game. That line always cracked me up. By the way, what the heck does spoony mean anyway? :?
I always thought it meant that Edward (he was the bard, right?) liked to spoon with Tellah's daughter. Spooning meaning you've got a girl sitting in your lap and you feel a sexual attraction -- but without the zex! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spoon I'd say the third definition is the most accurate one of spooning.

Hope that clears stuff up.
Um.. no.

This is what Tellah meant.

And, besides, it even has "a stupid person" as one of the definitions on the urban dictionary.
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LoneSage
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Post by LoneSage »

I prefer my sexual-feeling Edward.
but thanks for correcting me. Wrong all these years :(
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FatCobra
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Post by FatCobra »

While we're on the subject of SNES Square RPG to GBA ports, they really need to port Super Mario RPG!
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Neo Rasa
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Post by Neo Rasa »

That game is brilliantly written, but I don't think it compares to Superstar Saga.
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BrianC
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Post by BrianC »

FatCobra wrote:While we're on the subject of SNES Square RPG to GBA ports, they really need to port Super Mario RPG!
I wouldn't mind that, but I can just hear the harsh complaints now, if something goes wrong with the port.
Last edited by BrianC on Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ganelon
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Post by Ganelon »

Which is why they should just take the lazy approach and just port the game without messing with anything.
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sethsez
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Post by sethsez »

Ganelon wrote:Which is why they should just take the lazy approach and just port the game without messing with anything.
Which would be possible if the GBA and the SNES had exactly the same specs, but they don't, so alterations would have to be made just like every other port.
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FatCobra
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Post by FatCobra »

Neo Rasa wrote:That game is brilliantly written, but I don't think it compares to Superstar Saga.
While Superstar Saga is a good game in its on right, it's not as complicated as SMRPG. Although Saga does have Luigi in it and RPG doesn't....

Hmmmm..
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Ganelon
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Post by Ganelon »

sethsez wrote:
Ganelon wrote:Which is why they should just take the lazy approach and just port the game without messing with anything.
Which would be possible if the GBA and the SNES had exactly the same specs, but they don't, so alterations would have to be made just like every other port.
I'm talking about the same game as in not messing with the translation, not remaking the visuals, and not modifying parts of areas. It's entirely possible to port the same essential game intact, just like any other faithful port despite minor and inevitable visual and aural discrepancies.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Neo Rasa wrote:Yeah that whole Kain thing is done much better. There's some good foreshadowing of it in the Mist Village at the beginning and everything.

In the original it was like "he's brainwashed, no wait he just hates Cecil anyway, no wait he's brainwashed for real, and cured, and not, uhm..."
Hmm, I found the plot elements to be identical. In the Snes version, as in this one, it's pretty clear that Kain was being brainwashed but was more susceptible due to the fact that he was jealous of Cecil and liked Rosa. Even though the Snes script gets bashed for being so "neutral", I still like it better because it feels classier and I like its labels better.
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FatCobra
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Post by FatCobra »

Got it today!

Wow, is this game a trip down memory lane or what? I barely notice the lag, although the character animation is not as smooth as the SNES version. Great game despite the minor flaws.

:UPDATE: I just got the airship, and the lag is noticable, but at least the ship doesn't zoom at warp speed like the one in FF1, it's hard to land that damn thing in that game.
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SAM
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Post by SAM »

Ganelon wrote:Which is why they should just take the lazy approach and just port the game without messing with anything.
That's exactly what I wish they have done in porting R-Type III... :?
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Andi
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Post by Andi »

Just beat the game today. It was a lot of fun and didn't ever get boring aside from a sort of tedious last dungeon (but that is sort of an RPG staple it seems). The ending was satisfying as well.

...now the bonus dungeon? Forget that crap.
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sethsez
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Post by sethsez »

SAM wrote:
Ganelon wrote:Which is why they should just take the lazy approach and just port the game without messing with anything.
That's exactly what I wish they have done in porting R-Type III... :?
They had no choice, since they didn't have the source code to work with. It had to be rebuilt from the ground up.
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BrianC
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Post by BrianC »

sethsez wrote:
SAM wrote:
Ganelon wrote:Which is why they should just take the lazy approach and just port the game without messing with anything.
That's exactly what I wish they have done in porting R-Type III... :?
They had no choice, since they didn't have the source code to work with. It had to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Yeah, that's true, but the GBA one still screams rush job. The classic mode in Tempest 2000 and Steel Empire GBA (I think) were rebuilt from the ground up and still turned out great. I know that games don't usually turn out as well without the original code, but the developers messed up on the hit box, hit detection, and numerous other things with the R-Type III port. Even a port in the vain of GB R-Types would have been much more acceptable. But, yeah, R-Type III turning out different from the SNES one wasn't done on purpose.
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Post by Neo Rasa »

Yeah weren't they legally stuck into making it from scratch within three weeks? They ended up having to rip sprites from ZSNES or something. :shock:
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sethsez
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Post by sethsez »

BrianC wrote:
sethsez wrote:
SAM wrote: That's exactly what I wish they have done in porting R-Type III... :?
They had no choice, since they didn't have the source code to work with. It had to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Yeah, that's true, but the GBA one still screams rush job. The classic mode in Tempest 2000 and Steel Empire GBA (I think) were rebuilt from the ground up and still turned out great. I know that games don't usually turn out as well without the original code, but the developers messed up on the hit box, hit detection, and numerous other things with the R-Type III port. Even a port in the vain of GB R-Types would have been much more acceptable. But, yeah, R-Type III turning out different from the SNES one wasn't done on purpose.
S'all I'm saying. I know it's a piece of shit. :P
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FatCobra
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Post by FatCobra »

*casts Life2 on topic*
*topic is revived*

I've finally beaten the final boss using all the characters, and now I am exploring the bonus dungeon. Some of the bosses there are insane! But I love the trials for the different characters, they add to their story.
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