Final Fantasy on the GBA continues to be a delight. It’s funny, when I was younger I used to look at FF on the NES and SNES and assume they would be obscure, frustrating, and hard games to play. I didn’t play many JRPGs growing up (Pokemon and FFX are touchstones here), but now I have and I only really feel that way about a game like Baroque. It’s nice to have actual evidence of… growth of whatever kind this might be called.
But yeah I really enjoy it. It’s almost too easy, or maybe it’s just that its difficulty is flipped compared to other Final Fantasy games in my experience. The dungeons are by far the hardest thing to put up with, while the bosses are just push overs. I’m not really complaining here, just noticing things.
I have two of the crystals as of last night. The graphics on this version are stupendous.
The GBA games are tuned much easier than the originals, and tge GBA version messes with the funky but magic system of the original which is weird because OG FF1 is super well balanced and well designed. I’m less on an expert on OG FF2 though, so I can’t comment on its difficulty.
But that said I don’t think either is brutally hard, especially not the first.
it also has mega picross where some of the numbers span TWO cololumns like a little twisty snake, but diagonally connections don’t count and they don’t touch any other of the numbers listed so it’s not actually too hard
i am trying out wizardry on the wonderswan, because i can never play proving grounds of the mad overlord enough times in my life.
not sure about the development history of the game, but so far, it is not just a quick and dirty port based on the famicom release, like so many other versions are. it doesn’t use jun suemi’s art or kentaro haneda’s music. i’ll have to get further in to see if it uses the new map layouts the famicom port had, or if it uses the original apple designs. i will do this knowing full well that i will be the only one who cares about this.
I’ve been catching up on all the 3ds picrosses and I like the mega picross puzzles a lot because they’re finally puzzles I can’t just do in my sleep/so zooted that I can’t use words any more. Have to actually think! Work my brain!
well great i fucked up and forgot about the whole “wonder gate” thing this version has. there’s a romhack that has all the extra mazes unlocked, and take a guess as to which version of the game i wasn’t playing! my party was almost leveled up enough to take out werdna, but that will have to be put on hold for now and make a new party on a whole new save file, so that i can investigate the mystery that is…
I’m interested to know! I love the first Wizardry and am always intrigued by the differences between all the various ports. I didn’t even know there was a WonderSwan version. Those other maps sound interesting too.
Having gotten to that point, I’ll tell you now: they are the original Apple ][ maps. I had mistakenly believed that the Famicom game was the basis for other ports of the game (at least on console), and it kind of is, but only for the art, with the music only appearing again on the Super Famicom and the recent PC remake (the Playstation and Saturn version use a different soundtrack, with the WS game having another soundtrack different from those). The Famicom map designs are only in the Famicom release.
The Wonderswan port is definitely its own thing, with a lot of differences that I’m still trying to put together.
Steam Deck is finally teaching me that no, no I do not need every setting cranked to max for games to be good. There are still a few settings in Hitman I ought to tune down for better frame rate, but other than the game just chewing through battery, it runs great.
(I should go through the fashion show area of Paris to see how it handles everything there)
Anyway, after playing through the Hitman 2016 suite of levels multiple times across multiple platforms for the last eight years, I’m finally knocking out some challenges I’ve never done before by just…thinking around them, or combining them.
It takes a lot of prep work, but you can easily get the “kill Jordan Cross and his lawyer as the stalker” challenge by first using a crew member costume to sneak into Jordan’s suite and drop an exploding phone in front of him, running down and getting the exterminator disguise and telling the manager to clear the suite, quickly running and getting a hotel staff costume and leading the lawyer to the atrium, causing him and Jordan to argue, then running up to the lawyer’s suite, knocking out the stalker and taking his outfit, and waiting for them to argue on the balcony and calling the explosive phone.
Thank you! I don’t actually know the map differences very deeply so this is making me curious—the version I know best is the SFC version. I guess from what you’re saying it has the original maps? I played the MSX version a bit a little over a year and a half ago, but only a few floors (I encountered some sort of technical problem I don’t quite remember now, but felt it was quite stylish overall—the little pulse sound for each step was a nice touch). I’m not sure which maps it would’ve had although I may not have gotten far enough in to note any differences; kind of unsurprisingly it seemed quite similar to the DOS version in many ways so I wouldn’t be surprised if it had the same maps as that one…which I guess are probably the originals too from what you’re saying?…I’m having a surprisingly hard time finding information about all this online, only little bits of scattered info. I have gathered that the differing floors are 6–8, but not much beyond that…I kind of recall Lily knowing more about this but she’s asleep.
Once sort of interesting thing I did see is that this fan wiki page calls the different maps the “original maps” （「オリジナルマップ」） and “classic maps” （「 クラシックマップ」）, which I suppose must be a sign of the enduring prominence of the FC version.
Wow crazy!! This is honestly shocking to me and very exciting!! For some reason I had never thought to check before. The SFC version has one of my favorite soundtracks of any game probably, and I do know they’re (brilliant!! ) arrangements of the FC pieces. I’m listening to the WS OST right now and it seems like it has very nice audio too—the music is pleasingly haunting and the sound effects have a lot of crunchy character. This is making me want to try the WS version
As a side note, I found a page with a long list of unusual traits of the WS version. Since it’s in Japanese, I decided to translate some of the ones that seemed more significant to me for the sake of some language practice, in the hopes that they might be useful. There are some other interesting entries too I might do later on, especially further down the page. I need to stop for now and attend to other things. (Also, if it turns out I’ve misunderstood anything, I apologize ):
When you get a surprise attack, if you try to run at that time and fail, the enemy party will get a free round like they would in other circumstances, and can even cast spells during it.
If you get into an encounter while turning, like instead of after taking a step, and then run away, you are not moved onto the prior tile, but rather just turned back in the direction you were facing before. This means that you can’t do things like kick down a door, spam left-right until you get into combat, then run from battle and be outside the door again.
It’s impossible to run from Murphy’s Ghost, the special guard party on B4F, *W*E*R*D*N*A*, or enemies summoned by treasure chest alarm traps. The site notes that this prevents you from running from alarm trap encounters in order to roll again for an enemy group that would give better XP. Also, you apparently can’t run at all when you’re playing under the game’s special “survival mode” (and the game just ends if your party wipes).
As opposed to many other versions of the game, if you camp on one of the “placed encounter” tiles, you can get into an encounter there immediately on leaving the camp menu.
There is an interesting-sounding graphical glitch you can apparently see on the supplementary maps BLACK AND WHITE and SQUARE. Basically, instead of representing dark tiles with crosshatching on the floor like in the FC version, the game apparently just represents the entire area of that tile as all-black. If there are walls on the left and right of that tile, then when you’re standing just in front of it, it says that you’ll be able to see through those walls. It notes that that this doesn’t occur anywhere in the main map, only on those other two.
On the MUSEUM map, as well as “personal use map C,” there is a strange bug where “Arch Mage (B)” enemies, which are typically Level 6 Mages, are actually Level 2 Priests. They note that you can expect Montino instead of Madalto when you see them for this reason. Also, “Arch Mage (A)” enemies even show as Level 2 Priests despite typically being Level 2 Mages.
Neither Makanito nor Lakanito can be disabled, and the effectiveness of Lakanito is simply determined by the enemy’s instant death resistance alone.
Katino works on many enemies that it normally would not, although they will almost always awaken on the following turn. Enemies that are weak to sleep will be unable to awaken all the way up to death after a single Katino, although they can still recover from a Manifo.
You can still use magical items when “magic sealed” is on.
Monsters that call for help will continue to do so even when there are 7 or more of them.
Enemies will sometimes use Parry just like your characters can, and it will increase their AC in the same fashion. If everyone on both sides uses Parry, then after you select “Fight” and press the A button, you will be returned to the command screen immediately.
If you stack effects from AC-changing spells like Bamatu or Morlis, it will appear to work like in other versions, but in fact the AC will only decrease/increase for the first cast. They do say that you can combine different AC-changing spells successfully. Also, they say the game appears to be entirely missing the Fear status, so that Morlis and Mamorlis only raise AC.
As opposed to versions where a character can only have their level drained on one occurrence per encounter, in the WS version this can happen over and over. They even say that because a paralyzed, dead, etc. character is still on the front row that turn, they can have their level drained by a full 20 before the turn is finished(!). Likewise, they say there is no restriction on how many times you can cast Haman or Mahaman. They also warn that if you chose one of those spells and then cancel, the character will still lose a level.
This version sounds rather odd, and kind of surprisingly buggy even for Wizardry. I’m curious how you’re liking it so far.
bloody checkers (xbox live indie game) - if demon’s souls is the playstation 3’s king’s field, bloody checkers is the xbox 360’s demon’s soul’s
true crime: new york city (playstation 2) - i went to seinfeld’s upper west side apartment in the game and i (personally) had an auditory hallucination of a slap bass note
Red Pages Brother: Don’t listen to Blue Pages Brother.
Blue Pages Brother: Red Pages Brother disgusts me. Do not listen to what he says. Bring only Blue Pages, and bring them to me.
played the remaster on the switch, not sure what the changed but it plays well. i still think it’s great! its biggest problem is a lack of attention to detail… your immersion in the world is broken easily, but for a Doom clone with adventure elements this is a good time imo
RADIENT SILVERGUN
too many buttons!!! i just want to shoot!!! i tried like 50 times but couldnt get into this. its satisfying when you get the sword thing to go off on a boss and wipe it out though
DEMONS TILT
why do modern indie devs feel the need to add twenty thousand explosions whenever something happens in their games, it makes them so much harder to read especially to someone like me with vision impairment
I have gathered that the differing floors are 
For some reason I had never thought to check before. The SFC version has one of my favorite soundtracks of any game probably, and I do know they’re (brilliant!! 
I’m curious how you’re liking it so far.