What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[soprano1]

I don't like the character sprites on the PSP version at all

I like some of the bosses sprites. They still look better than the mess that was the mobile/pc ports of V and VI. Damn, those look so bad it makes me sad to look at them.
Maybe we could bump your topic to continue this discussion there?

[FinalBaton]

I like some of the bosses sprites. They still look better than the mess that was the mobile/pc ports of V and VI. Damn, those look so bad it makes me sad to look at them.
Maybe we could bump your topic to continue this discussion there?

some bosses do look really cool on PSP, yeah.

never seent the mobile/pc port, will google it some

[Blinge]

Yeah those mobile ports are terribu.

You know emulating FF4 on ppsspp allows you to turn the console's filtering off and let you actually see the sprites w/ pixels 'n' all.
I'll get a screenie later.

[soprano1]

Yeah those mobile ports are terribu.

You know emulating FF4 on ppsspp allows you to turn the console's filtering off and let you actually see the sprites w/ pixels 'n' all.
I'll get a screenie later.

Post a shot of the option too, please.

[dan76]

I've started playing Metal Gear Solid V. I'll make it clear, I don't like these games. Never gelled with any of them. It was £7 in a PSN sale - thought this would be different. I'm on mission 3, played about 2-3 hours... It's ok, what it does it does well but it's pretty basic stuff so far. The mother base thing seems overly convoluted but maybe I'm not being patient enough. There are a ton of cutscenes but apparently the other games gave even more? Screw that. One thing is for sure I've never seen a director's name pop up on screen so many fucking times. This guy must have the smallest dick.

I hope it gets better. Just got the sniper rifle but I really want to find the puppy, might have missed it. The game runs well, highly polished but it hasn't grabbed me yet.

[soprano1]

One thing is for sure I've never seen a director's name pop up on screen so many fucking times. This guy must have the smallest dick.

That was on purpose, since he was leaving Konami on bad terms with them, and knew they would remove his "existence" from the company. Hell, after he left, they did this:
https://www.destructoid.com/konami-remo ... 5977.phtml
Mind you, Kojima is no fucking saint. But he's no Keiji "It's better than nothing" Inafume.

[Squire Grooktook]

Maybe i'd have preferred the FC version to steam though.

The only thing good about Final Fantasy 3, is the absolutely adorable chibi character models in the DS version. Unlike FF4's DS remake, they completely capture the charm of the cutesie 8-16 bit character sprites.

Otherwise avoid IMO.

[Blinge]

Yeah those mobile ports are terribu.

You know emulating FF4 on ppsspp allows you to turn the console's filtering off and let you actually see the sprites w/ pixels 'n' all.
I'll get a screenie later.

Post a shot of the option too, please.

Oh, doesn't look all that different actually. click zoom tho. https://imgur.com/SC530x9

option is Game Settings > Texture Scaling > Off
ah so that's what it is. Doing this makes text a bit jank though.

[Sumez]

I like FF3
It feels kinda redundant considering FF5 though.

[Mischief Maker]

Final fantasy final shmantasy.

Just play Lords of Xulima, like a grownup.

[FinalBaton]

The only thing good about Final Fantasy 3, is the absolutely adorable chibi character models in the DS version. Unlike FF4's DS remake, they completely capture the charm of the cutesie 8-16 bit character sprites.

Otherwise avoid IMO.

I hope nobody is gonna pass on FF3 because of this post

It's a great Famicom RPG. People who like old school JRPGs owe it to themselves to give the original FC version a shot.

[ZacharyB]

Final Fantasy V is definitely the better job game... what with its feature of taking helpful mastered abilities and adding them onto other jobs. Final Fantasy Dimensions on iOS does this too, maybe even better.

Final Fantasy III was very good for when I eventually considered this too fussy and just wanted to relax.

I read about an interesting challenge for FFIII lately: going through the game with all four characters as the same job.

The DS version is good because the classes were rebalanced, to the point of being able to take any class you want all the way to the final boss. Although, only three opponents maximum could be fought at a time, because of memory limits on the DS.

If you still prefer the Famicom version, look up a romhacking.net hack called "Maeson's Mix" which is supposed to rebalance the classes for that version, making them more useful. There's also a FFIII randomizer out there if you want to get funky.

[FinalBaton]

V did come up a bunch of years after III, so it's expected to be more fleshed out. III was ground breaking for the time, and executed pretty damn well and is still fun, and I can't help but be very impressed by that.

Oh well, I guess I lean more towards the "savour an era's achievements even if they're dated some, as long as they're fun and have lots of charm I can forgive the quirkiness" camp, whereas some others lean more towards the "this gameplay needs to still be extremely impressive and fresh in 2017 or I won't bother" camp. And I can understand this philosophy, it's totally valid.

I'll be the first one to say : I'm not a great gaming critic(always loathed playing gaming critic, actually). Rather I'm more of a "share my enthusiasm" guy. I admit that I have never cared much iabout the "does this still hold up today" parameter. lol

[WelshMegalodon]

If "original difficulty" means constantly risking a random death to a bunch of Mindflayers due to bad luck and losing all progress, then I don't need it.

I've beat Final Fantasy four or five times and this has happened to me maybe twice. On both occasions I remember being able to run away before a full-party death and use Raise (LIFE if you feel more attached to that nomenclature) to revive any dead party members. Even if the Mindflayers' touches of death bypass immunity checks from items like the ProRing, the odds of them actually wiping out your entire party in one or two turns is almost too low to really warrant mention.

"this gameplay needs to still be extremely impressive and fresh in 2017 or I won't bother"

Bah!

I admit that I have never cared much iabout the "does this still hold up today" parameter. lol

It's disgustingly overrated.

People are way too obsessed with the idea of games being "outdated" and painfully quick to dismiss "old" games for being made in a time where developers were still "figuring out how to make games" (as if we aren't still doing that). Rather than "does this hold up?", what we should really be asking is something closer to "was it ever fun in the first place?".

Note: I'm quoting an earlier version of FinalBaton's comment above. He has since edited his post to tweak the wording a bit.

[FinalBaton]

It's disgustingly overrated.

People are way too obsessed with the idea of games being "outdated" and painfully quick to dismiss "old" games for being made in a time where developers were still "figuring out how to make games" (as if we aren't still doing that). Rather than "does this hold up?", what we should really be asking is something closer to "was it ever fun in the first place?".

I def agree with that

I've put the older version of my post back in. As old Jack(Burton) always says : "What the hell..."

[BrianC]

I'm glad both III FC and V SFC have fan translations so I can play the translated versions on real hardware. Then again, I agree on the GBA V being a nice port, as well.

[Squire Grooktook]

I hope nobody is gonna pass on FF3 because of this post...People who like old school JRPGs...

Yah I don't like the 8-bit era jrpg's at all hue.

[soprano1]

Oh, doesn't look all that different actually. click zoom tho. https://imgur.com/SC530x9

option is Game Settings > Texture Scaling > Off
ah so that's what it is. Doing this makes text a bit jank though.

Texture Scaling options are off in my settings, actually. Thanks anyway.

[Sumez]

III was ground breaking for the time

I don't know, it came out after both DQ3 and DQ4, both of which were already incredibly expansive for Famicom titles, and with DQ3 already featuring a class changing system similar to that of FF3.

I do think FF3 was the first really good FF game though, and mostly just "forgotten" due to how incredibly awesome the next game turned out to be. I don't think I'd ever want to replay 1 or 2, but I can see myself returning to 3. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who's not already a big classic JRPG fan.

[Blinge]

Oh well, I guess I lean more towards the "savour an era's achievements even if they're dated some, as long as they're fun and have lots of charm I can forgive the quirkiness" camp, whereas some others lean more towards the "this gameplay needs to still be extremely impressive and fresh in 2017 or I won't bother" camp. And I can understand this philosophy, it's totally valid.

<3

I'm like the former with the added autism of wanting to play every game in sequence sometimes..

[Sumez]

I can certainly appreciate archaic game design and their shortcomings, and I love to take in the history of video games, observing how they evolved. But with that out of the way, I don't see why you'd ever expect anyone to put up with that.
If a game is good, it's good. If you have to take all kinds of contemporary issues into consideration to be able to appreciate it, then maybe it just isn't a particularly good game. Or to put it in another way, if a game doesn't "hold up" in 2017, why SHOULD I play it in 2017, when I have a bunch of other alternatives that do - including games that were released in 2017 as well as 1987.

All the best games I can think of from the 8-bit generation are just as immediately fun and playable as they were when they came out, and that's mostly because they are in fact good games

[FinalBaton]

I guess you need to be in the right state of mind. In my case, it's "craving 8-bit RPGs". Which makes FF3 a delicious treat, as it's a great RPG for the system.

[FinalBaton]

why SHOULD I play it in 2017

the answer is : you don't have to

but that doesnt change the fact that it's a super solid 8-bit RPG

[Sumez]

Don't get me wrong, I'm craving 8-bit RPG's as well. I just accidentally double dipped on a CIB Dragon Warrior 3.

[Blinge]

Just finished The Last Guardian

I really really liked it. The complaints about bad AI are so overblown, it annoyed me twice in the whole game.
Also the performance issues don't happen on ps4 pro it seems.

If i get a free day soon I wanna try and play the whole Team Ico trilogy back to back..

[FinalBaton]

Just finished The Last Guardian

I really really liked it. The complaints about bad AI are so overblown, it annoyed me twice in the whole game.
Also the performance issues don't happen on ps4 pro it seems.

If i a free day soon I wanna try and play the whole Team Ico trilogy back to back..

It was already on my radar but now you're really making me want to play it

[kaicooper]

finished Commandos Behind Enemy Lines (finally)
this game is pure madness hhhhh...such a great stealth game
if not the best

now playing 2 games..
Sonic Mania - a great gift for Nostalgia geeks like me
Commandos Beyond call of duty - oh man this's even harder then BEL

[Blinge]

It was already on my radar but now you're really making me want to play it

Well I'd better backpeddle a bit in that case so i don't give the wrong impression; there were 3 or 4 times I can remember the framerate dipping below 30.

It is overall leagues better than the performance on a regular ps4: at least in the first few hours of gameplay I saw at a friend's place.

[Sumez]

I played TLG on a regular PS4, and while performance issues are definitely noticeable, I never considered them a problem that interfered with the experience of the game. Also agreed that criticism towards the AI is severely overblown.

I was generally not too blown away by the game, though. It's a nice, cute game, and a great little experience. But compared to the incredible epic experiences of Ico and SotC that have stayed with me ever since I played them the first time, this one comes out a bit short. Partly because "I've seen it before" (mostly from Ico), but also it just seems to lack some of the unique below-the-surface magic that especially Ico had.

[Blinge]

It might be you being older and more grizzled?

Played Ico/SoTC for the first time (hd) in 2012, loved them, played them to death.
TLG feels like a worthy Ico successor to me.

Glad to hear that performance issues weren't gamebreaking though.