Love having all my party members twiddling their thumbs defending and healing while one guy fails his steal rolls 10 times in a row
I extra love it if the steal move deals damage so you have to also worry about the target dying from too many failed attempts
I double extra love it when it's a boss battle when on top of everything else the story momentum just grinds to a halt while you fuck with a stupid RNG for 5 minutes
This is partly why FF9 was a terrible installment in the Final Fantasy franchise. Such a garbage thing to centre the game around and with zero innovation in this aspect.
At least 7 played around with a magic system and the way it interacted internally.
At least 8 changed the system for summons and stat boosts, despite being flawed.
Each of those were central to the story and the way the game played. What did 9 do? Uhhh... you have to steal. A lot. Also there's a job system except it's a pseudo-job system which is really anaemic. How thrilling!
Yup, this mechanic is EXACTLY what killed FF9 for me. I'll probably get around to finishing it one of these days, but I'm not going to be happy about it.
First of all, I will not stand for this FF9 slander. It's my favourite or 2nd favourite behind FF7 depending on what phase of the moon you ask me. Seriously though, replaying and playing through classic turn-based JRPGs as an adult has led me to realise the underlying gameplay systems just suck in general. The games are all piss easy and there's basically zero skill or thought involved
I mostly just enjoy and evaluate them on aesthetics, music, characters and story. Someone should try making a classic JRPG but with the game mechanics replaced with something that's actually good
Have you played Omori? It's not rocket science, but I thought the emotion system was fun to play with.
9 has that in spades.
One thing that frustrated me with FFs starting at 12 was relative improvement to combat coming at the expense of more and more story beats. 15 was the worst offender, but it was all downhill after 10.
I haven't played it but I struggle to imagine how it could be worse than FF13, a game that was nothing but a bunch of cutscenes strung along by narrow corridors
Give me my guy running around on a big globe map representation of the game world or give me death
I know I say this like every time it's brought up, but I will reiterate yet again: FF13 is the ideal JRPG to play while drunk. The out-of-combat mechanics are "Hallway Simulator 2009." The in-combat mechanics are "mash these three buttons in this sequence, unless it's this slightly more annoying type of encounter, then use this other sequence instead." The rest of it is forgettable cutscenes where Snow yells a lot over his shitty nu-metal leitmotif, and the story is so incoherent that it wouldn't matter if you were sober anyway. Some people drink to forget; if you're playing FF13, you drink to not remember in the first place, and it's a better experience for it.
Gonna make Final Fantasy nerds mad, every time they try a new system that isn't just "select attack until you win, heal as needed" they get mad and claim that changing away from that system "dumbed it down" and "made it a mindless button mashing game" ironically.
You're looking for FFXV which pushed the limits of Final Fantasy innovation.
I liked that one a lot, though the latter half of the game felt a little rushed. It was pretty despised by a lot of old final fantasy fans though.
My main issue with the action game mechanics is that it stops being an ensemble cast and turns into a story about one dude because turn-based is the only reasonable way to control an entire party
I thought the FF7 remake handled that pretty well
One thing I hate about a lot of classic Square JRPGs that you are strictly verboten from benching the designated anime boi hero. Let me run around town as Cid, Tifa or Red XIII you assholes
I don't mind having a forced party if it makes sense for the story. I don't like it as much when it's enforced for no apparent reason
Am I a joke to you?
Yeah, on reflection that was something they really got into with the PS1 games
Yeah you either need the Chrono Trigger treatment or an ensemble cast like FF6.
FFXV did a great job of telling a four character story with action rpg mechanics.
But dis it do a good job of feeling like you were playing the whole party?
Yeah that's a pretty fair criticism. The last couple have felt that way.
Yeah but when JRPGs try to do something different, they usually end up with incredibly contrived and bizarre nonsense, like the Dressphere stuff from FFX-2 or the Paradigm system from FF13. What I'm saying is: make a Fallout 1/2 style CRPG that looks like Xenogears
I liked the Paradigm system.
My absolute favorite turn based combat system is in Star Renegades. Never been more engaged in video game combat without real time elements than in that one, unfortunately it's a roguelike.
That sort of thinking is what got us in the mess we're in today, with everything being just shittier action game.
JRPGs were fine
I beat ff9 as a stupid kid without ever stealing anything, it's only necessary if you're trying to 100%.
It's like arguing that maxing out Freya's dragon slayer move is a necessary mechanic. Sure, it'll make the optional super boss less annoying, but it's really not necessary.
In the same way that you can beat FFX without playing Blitzball (aside from half of a mandatory game) but my point isn't that you must do it, rather that it's central to the story and yet it's straight up tedious and completely lacking in any imagination.
I guess having more than one item available to steal was the major innovation in this respect?
Blitzball is a major aspect of FFXs story, but in FFIX stealing is just an option on a menu. I guess I agree that it's not a good mechanic but I disagree with the weight you put on it.
It's a bit of a problem when most of the game's mechanics feel unnecessary
Stealing during combat was not nearly "most" lol, rest of the game was more or less fine.
I mean most of the deeper mechanics and content. It's just there for completionists
I would argue that grind for full completion is not even mechanics, it just fake content using the normal mechanics and maybe force you to minmax and run around really much.
FF9 was amazing.