Official Sequal To Ffiv Announced

[JackDyce]

Originally Posted by Fenix

Well, it was more the paying for episodic content that bothered me.

Agreed. Eventually I'll buy it and give it a playthrough, but not right now.

[Shooter McGavin]

Originally Posted by alchemist

So, did everybody give up on this game?

The last part has been released. Is anyone playing it other than me?

Im playing it right now, looks like I am in the final dungeon and this game is next to impossible.

[alchemist]

I agree with that, the game is hard. I am relying on bands a lot. They seem to be the only hope in most boss battles

[Shooter McGavin]

Originally Posted by alchemist

I agree with that, the game is hard. I am relying on bands a lot. They seem to be the only hope in most boss battles

Well if the bosses are elemental old school black magic seems to be the best choice of attack especially against

Spoiler:

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The Four Elemental Fields from FFI

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But the game is still brutal and unforgiving even againts normal enemeis. Blue Dragons can wipe out your party in one attack and regular enemies seem to have 1.5x time the speed of your regular characters. Finally the chances of getting being attacked from behind is at least equals to the rate of a regular front battles.

[Shooter McGavin]

Phew I finally finished this game. All I can say that this game really reminds me of Chrono Trigger when you consider the "bands" and overall story. The game was fine, I mean if they just fixed up the 2nd rate narrative and tiresome finale, this would have been a excellent companion piece to FFIV. There were actually times in the final chapter where I felt this was more epic than the original game, plus the character interactions were a nice touch. Maybe if they decided to make this game to a next-gen console with more effort put in the game. Oh well.

I noticed some characters were improved and gimped here from the previous FFIV.

The ones that were gimped are ...
Kain - His attacks are pretty weak, his jump take awhile to charge and doesnt to that much damage but and ultimately is used to be Cecil's "band buddy"

Rydia - Her magic is still strong and her summons are useful against multiple enemies but her effectiveness againts bosses dont really amount to much especially when her summons take forever to charge.

Cid - Cid was never an impact player in FFIV but this guy is really slow in The After Years. In the final dungeon enemies usually attack 1.5x faster than your characters. Cid is sitting duck.

Fu So Ya - Same stats strong enemies In his chapter, he will die a lot.

Upgraded/Improved
Edge - Edge's speed will prove a significant role in the more intense battles. His strength and defense has also greatly improved here even matching Cecil's.

Rosa - A slight upgrade only. Her healing powers have reduced noticably. But Araise, slow, haste are useful spells. Especially slow. Also her attack power has improved significantly and can actually do some substantial damage.

Edward - The After Years' most improved character from the original cast. His attack power is substantial and his Salve/slave skill is very useful especially with an Economy Ring. Making him a great character foe replenishing HP and MP.

Unchanged
Cecil
Yang
Palom and Porom (they can be improved depending on how you handle them later on)

[gilgamesh_8]

A few thoughts.

Ceodore does not need to be in this game. He seems to have little personality of his own, and his very existence is derivative. In fact, I would like him more if he didn't have a name derived from Cecil, implausible because I've never heard of anyone actually having that name.

Spoiler:

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And the Lunarians? Their caretaker is dead, and Zeromus seems to be very present "with nothing to hold him back anymore." It seems safe to assume the Lunarians are screwed. Yet Golbez never mentions them, despite being half Lunarian.

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[Crono2000]

Well I finally found time to start this up. I'm 2 hours in and I just finished the first 2/3 of the intro chapter and I'm skipping Kain since that isn't supposed to be played until later; I'll be doing the order it was intended to be played in. I'm enjoying this so far; it seems much more story heavy than the original. I do have to agree with everyone though: this game is hard! The part where you are towing 2 level ten mages around freaking sucked. I just realized that different monsters come out during different moon phases so maybe that had something to do with it, but they just weren't pulling their weight.

[Nilfalasiel]

Is it just me, or does anybody else have a problem with the fact that

Spoiler:

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the game basically nullifies every single other FF from I to VI? Yes, cameo bosses are a cheap commercial tactic, but I like them better when they aren't explained at all than when they contrive some explanation like the Creator and his world-destroying antics. Ok, I don't really care about FFI, II, III and V, but having VI just wiped out of existence really doesn't sit well with me. If it got wiped out while Terra & co. were still alive, I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't have put up at least as good a fight as the FFIV crew. And if it got wiped out after Terra & co. died, it still feels like their efforts were for nothing. It's a bit like Chrono Cross...only worse.

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Add to that the fact that the 17 year gap is hugely artificial, and you have a storyline that I really don't feel good about. Seriously, if you look at what most of the characters are up to during the game, they're mostly things that would've felt a lot more natural happening 2-3 years after the end of FFIV. Especially in the cases of Kain, Edge and Rydia. Honestly, the only valid justification for those 17 years is to introduce Ceodore...but he doesn't even play an important role in the storyline! In the end, it all boils down to the old FFIV crew anyway...So why handicap the whole game for the sake of a second-rate character...?

But yeah, this is just like any other FF sequel so far: fun gameplay, bad storyline. And considering that I rate storyline far above gameplay, I'm starting to think more and more strongly that SE should stop making sequels. At least in the FF series. Please? Remakes, spinoffs, whatever. Just not sequels.

[alchemist]

I finished the game friday

Spoiler:

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I guess we are to assume that the creator destroyed the other FF worlds. This really doesnt make sense, particularly in the context of FF6. If I remember right, that world had NO crystals! Are we to assume there was some connection in the crystals like in the Maenads? IDGI And omega and lord dragon didnt even come from crystals...they were just there. Thats wierd. The story never really explained why these monsters came from these crystals. How did the archfiends and prior FFIV bosses come from crystals yet the player finds all of the blue planets crystals near the bottom of the moon? Maybe the creator can make them to access creatures from any world? Thats a better explantion than "he destroyed all the FF worlds" I didnt like the Golbez death option. There really wasnt any way to know going in unless you saved and repeated the battle multiple times. On top of that, the Dark Knight didnt even come from a crystal! Where did he come from? On top of that, how did the Maenads control all the Eidolons and Cecil? "Chained to another Dimension"... what? The game was cool. It was a challenge until I got my characters to around level 55 and I even had to think a bit for around 5 levels after. The plot holes, however, hurt my head.

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Yes, LOL at the 17 year gap. Kain sure is a lonely, messed up dude

[gilgamesh_8]

Spoiler:

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I don't think we are to assume all the other worlds were destroyed. That would be to assume the Creator acts in an even-handed, rational and just manner, yet he goes bonkers at the end of the game. Destroying the planets in the first place is irrational. I think the cameos were added to add a sense of gravity, scope and mystery to the plot, and I think it worked. On closer analysis, they don't all make sense. No crystals were mentioned in FFII and FFVI. While it's possible they could have come and gone, I don't see how they would have captured Ultros unless they were there in Ultros' lifespan. The explanation for the Crystals in FFV seemed to be that they coalesced naturally out of nothing. So perhaps it is best considered as an alternate dimension, where things are very much like FFI-VI, yet the Creator put Crystals there. Or is it possible the Creator just flew by some of those other planets, or briefly dropped in? Because most of the monsters he calls forth are from FFIV. It seems to me the Creator can conjure up matter quite liberally from the Crystals, like a replica of the entire Lunar Dungeon, the same precise monsters that attacked Fabul the first time, Rubicante popping in at Eblan, the Baron monster clones. I don't think the monsters need to stay close to their Crystals.

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[Nilfalasiel]

Hmm, interesting remarks there.

Spoiler:

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I like the alternate dimension explanation, I was actually considering it myself lately. I thought that the greatest inconsistency came from FFVI's absence of crystals, but you're right, they weren't mentioned in FFII either. Another possibility I considered was that maybe the Creator wiped the respective worlds of FFI-VI (barring IV) of all living beings when he found that they weren't evolving as he liked, and kept their crystals *before* the events of each game. I don't think he actually says that he downright destroyed the worlds, just that he annihilated their civilizations. But the crystals could've maintained a link to their original planets, and so kept track of which new organisms managed to evolve on those planets after the Creator wiped everything. In that way, you could avoid the nullification of FFI-VI, but also explain how things like Ultros or Phantom Train pop out, even if the crystals didn't exist in those worlds during their lifespans (and they certainly didn't in FFVI). But yeah, the more I think about it, the more the alternate dimension explanation appeals to me.

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[Crono2000]

I'm surprised at how long this game actually is. I put about 16 hours into the individual chapters and so far I'm about 5 hours into the Crystals chapter and I'm only about halfway through the subterrain. The encounters aren't hard down here but two of the bosses have been tough. Cagnazzio kept healing for more then I could damage him so the fight took 15 minutes to finally get lucky and kill him, so frustrating. Golbez really is the god character this chapter.

The hardest part of the game for me was Edge's chapter. The part where your team re-joins you I was struggling to beat the placed encounters; I almost gave up but beat them all after several attempts. The Lunarians chapter actually gave me no trouble which seems to be different from everyone else.

EDIT:
Well I finished the game today at 27 hours total... about ten more than I was expecting to get out of this. Then again the 6 hour long final dungeon over did it a bit much... I mean seriously how many bosses do we really need to fight? I was really enjoying the plot of the game until it disappeared for 6 hours. Also, that final boss is a pushover. Spoiler time.

Spoiler:

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The fight with the mysterious girl and Bahamut was actually pretty tough because at level 53-55 it's tough to start the fight and struggle to get healed and set up properly... go in with black magic boosted and you might as well hit reset. But seriously, that final boss was retarded easy and I really hate the epileptic reminder of the ExDeath fight. On the plot... I don't chose to think that the other FF worlds are destroyed; I think the game was just going for a tie in and excuse for 50 bosses. Again, VI team could own the creator.

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Overall I enjoyed this but as it's been said the finale DRAGS. If I had the patience I'd level up a team of 5 of the new crew (I did the final dungeon with the varsity team) just to see how different it plays out. Originally I was going to let Rydia sit out thinking the final boss might play out like in the original IV where she's just dead weight but man, she was dealing out the most damage by far.

No more FF IV for me... ever I think.