reading your post, i feel that there’s something to be said about FF6, Chrono Trigger and FF7 following each other closely (two years apart each?) with the world of ruin in 6, the points you mention in CT, and the mako-/eco-terrorist sub plot in 7.
Thing is, i don’t know yet what it is.
The abstract, phantasy-esque WoR, followed by the slightly more uncanny time travel induced act=>consequence feedback loop of CT, followed by the depiction of the slums and the futile struggle in FF7… I’ve never looked at these topics in combination, as some kind of period where each of them was devised, worked on, and signed off.
I really enjoy the friction of final fantasy 1. Its like food thats too spicy to me. I wish I could articulate it better but I love the problems. I just gotta truck through it. Some day Ill play it again but I had two different cart batteries die on me (different carts) and start me over half way through.
The fact that you can often just go home in ChronoTrigger really sets it apart as a fun breezy game. I loved that as a kid, now it feels a little melancholic.
I never really felt like the pacing was bad in CT, like I always had a thing to do or check on that often yielded some kind of result. But with any end of the game wandering I don’t think the designers are totally in control of the pacing at that point.
7’s lack of a “home” and actually getting literally locked out of the home city is interesting but at the same time I feel like returning to the capital / shinra home base should be important later in the story. But I also wish Avalanche operatives were more numerous and out there …operating in the world. The game feels SO BIG until I look at the component pieces.
I still need to finish it, Im kinda floating in side-quest land at the moment. I have NO IDEA how the side content in the game is supposed to be discovered or consumed. You just have to wander and poke and prod or check a guide. With the 3D world and operating the High-wind I found the traversal a little arduous. Where as in 6 I was actually excited to wander, especially once you find something totally crazy like GOGO.
I like FF3 DS a lot, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless they wanted the experience of a JRPG without the need to invest much time in its systems and story.
I agree that you become more powerful the longer you stick to a job (gotta love 32 hits per regular attack), but that never deterred me from switching stuff up. Don’t the stat penalties for switching jobs only last a few battles?
I disagree about the writing. Unlike in Octopath, the writing in FF3 DS is brisk and concise. There’s just enough to indicate motivations and to keep the plot moving.
check this out, i loaded a save state on PSTV and it caused some of the midi notes to be cut shorter than usual
check out 0:36 for what i think is the first instance
also ps1 looks really good on pstv now with the sharpscale plugin set to integer scale + ps1 games set to pixel, it’s magical
A few years ago, there was this program that would glitch out SPC files (that, or you just went in and deleted chunks of it in a hex editor or something), so you’d get weird effects, like incorrect notes, missing instrument tracks, et cetera. It worked pretty good with Majin Tensei 1 and 2 tracks because they were already sort of dance-y. If it worked with PSF files the same way, I bet FFVII tracks would glitch out well.
just uploaded the 1997 FF7 DVD. apparently toshiba bundled it with a computer or something in japan. i think this is the highest quality you can get of any of the FF7 cinematics that are included (it’s not all of them, and the quality on these varies too - the ones with in-game models overlaid are noticeably lower quality)
but yeah these appear to be much higher quality (480p i think) versions of the cutscenes than the more compressed, 240p versions on the PS1 discs, enjoy:
note: i have no idea what they put in the modern stuff like the steam or switch versions of ff7
edit: actually i figured out a better way to capture this, more to come
according to someone on a forum this was ripped and up on youtube at some point but i can’t find it there anymore.
not sure about that. some of them i remember, but others seem less familiar. i definitely don’t remember seeing that much detail on all the gold saucer structures, it is kind of incredible how much detail is lost on the ps1.
btw, there are interviews with the devs at the end. wonder if i can find translations of the interviews? it might be possible to add youtube subtitles to the video
take 2
this one has more stuff but might not be quite as clean, maybe? not sure how youtube handles 960p videos
i have one more coming upscaled an extra pass that should look better after youtube gets done with it
All of the gold saucer flybys are in the game, but you can miss most of the the date ones by not pushing up to look out the window when your date “oohs” at something. Spending that much money and time on something a player can miss entirely with a single timed button press is what Final Fantasy is really about.
