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[Shahed]

What is so bad about the PAL FF games? Is there a comparison?

....and how about the PSN re-releases, do they carry the same problems?

They are so much slower among other things . I never realised until the last few years, but now that I do it's hard to go back. Ignorance is bliss and all.

Here's FFX.

And yes the problems are still there in the PS1 and PS2 Classics. Even the PS4 versions of PS2 games although the FFVII port is fine. It also messes things up making the Excalibur II speed run in FFIX nigh impossible with a way to skip the FMV scenes.

 

[Shift Breaker]

What is so bad about the PAL FF games? Is there a comparison?

....and how about the PSN re-releases, do they carry the same problems?

Everything is slower. The difference is that notable that I still find watching videos of the US version of FFVIII weird, like they're being played in fast forward. This affects the PS Classics versions too, as they're just emulated versions of the PAL games.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

They are so much slower among other things . I never realised until the last few years, but now that I do it's hard to go back. Ignorance is bliss and all.

Here's FFX.

And yes the problems are still there in the PS1 and PS2 Classics. Even the PS4 versions of PS2 games although the FFVII port is fine. It also messes things up making the Excalibur II speed run in FFIX nigh impossible with a way to skip the FMV scenes.

Everything is slower. The difference is that notable that I still find watching videos of the US version of FFVIII weird, like they're being played in fast forward. This affects the PS Classics versions too, as they're just emulated versions of the PAL games.

You're right.

Ignorance is bliss. That looks so bad.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

The only good thing about PAL FFX is that it was actually a localization of FFX International, not the original FFX. To this day I have never played with the non-Expert mode of the Sphere Grid.

 

[Seven Force]

hopefully it will never happen and SE will put up the International Zodiac Job System instead. lol

They'd kinda have to. All of their other ports have usually been based off the most content complete release of the games in question (FFX & X-2 HD being based off of the International versions, the KH ports being the Final Mix versions, even FFV and FFVI on mobile/PC having the extra content from the GBA ports)

 

[Elaugaufein]

They'd kinda have to. All of their other ports have usually been based off the most content complete release of the games in question (FFX & X-2 HD being based off of the International versions, the KH ports being the Final Mix versions, even FFV and FFVI on mobile/PC having the extra content from the GBA ports)

The only issue is that Zodiac Job System in some ways made the game worse. You're much more limited in what you can do with characters as a result and because there's more classes than party members there's a decent chance you'll never be able to use some things in a playthrough. I don't think there's been an extended versionwhere that was true at such a fundamental level otherwise (FFX-2 PAL swapped around two items and FFX-2 International made Catnip useless but that's pretty small beans by comparison and that's the largest change I can think of in terms of making the mechanics worse for the player) .

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

OMG Im so happy right now.
I was clapping thorugh that trailer like if it were a remake.
I never thought I was going to see the day of an official HD port (I really hope mods can do the bcakgrounds justice though).
My favourite FF ever.

Well it's not that surprising. FFVII was for the majority of Europe the first JRPG they'd heard of or played since the genre was practically non existent beforehand over here.

It is on VIII but not VII. No idea why.

Illusion of Time and Secret of Mana disgress with you.

 

[Berordn]

The only issue is that Zodiac Job System in some ways made the game worse. You're much more limited in what you can do with characters as a result and because there's more classes than party members there's a decent chance you'll never be able to use some things in a playthrough. I don't think there's been an extended versionwhere that was true at such a fundamental level otherwise (FFX-2 PAL swapped around two items and FFX-2 International made Catnip useless but that's pretty small beans by comparison and that's the largest change I can think of in terms of making the mechanics worse for the player) .

Couldn't they just include the original license boards as an option? Kind of like X's international sphere grid.

 

[Russ T]

Illusion of Time and Secret of Mana disgress with you.

Both of those are action-RPGs. While some bundle them together with the likes of FF7 just because they're Japanese, they play very differently.

 

[Krejlooc]

In. "Lost the source code" theorists bopped.

...this is assuredly emulation. Do you seriously think the source code is of any use these days?

 

[mieumieu]

...this is assuredly emulation. Do you seriously think the source code is of any use these days?

I don't think emulation can improve vertex precision and implement perspective correction, which is characteristic in 3D PSX games.

They never said that they lost the source code, didn't they? It is most likely that the original assets for rendering these backgrounds are lost.

 

[Son Of D]

Couldn't they just include the original license boards as an option? Kind of like X's international sphere grid.

That's probably what they'll do. Option for XII "Vanilla" and XII International.

 

[Elaugaufein]

...this is assuredly emulation. Do you seriously think the source code is of any use these days?

It would be yeah. It's much easier to port from source to source than to try and reconstruct a game from binary decompilation and porting or emulation and inserting the needed hooks for things like a new UI and extra features. I've translated C source code into Java and PSP MIPS machine code into Python and the first was muuuch easier than the 2nd.




That by no means indicates they definitely do have the source though. You can do some pretty major changes without it (see pretty much every Fan Translation ever, especially on the older platforms), it's just harder.

 

[Fdkn]

I always heard the tales about lost assets and code for FFVII (and FFVIII I think) and how because of those they learned than they needed to be more future proof in that regard, but this is the first time I see IX included on the list.

 

[Finalow]

If you played the PAL version you'd agree with us.

It ran at 50hz, but squares way of dealing with 50hz was just to slow the whole game down (not skip frames)
it made acquiring the ultimate weapon IMPOSSIBLE. (not exaggerating) and the battle system was even slower than the NTSC.

that's the version I played, and as I wrote it's not that bad, at some point I just got used to it.

speedruns of the game are around 9 hours, even if the PAL version is a bit slower I don't think it's impossibile to get the Excalibur II, just extremely hard.

 

[Elaugaufein]

that's the version I played, and as I wrote it's not that bad, at some point I just got used to it.

speedruns of the game are around 9 hours, even if the PAL version is a bit slower I don't think it's impossibile to get the Excalibur II, just extremely hard.

You can get the Excalibur II on PAL versions but you can't do a full content max stat run on PAL versions (not enough time). (If an NSTC Speed run is 9 hours then PAL is 10.8, the game literally runs at 5/6th of the speed, so things take 6/5ths as long )

Not sure if you could get it without skipping movies / mashing through all conversations even if you do minimal side content on PAL.

 

[Novum_Veritas]

You can get the Excalibur II on PAL versions but you can't do a full content max stat run on PAL versions (not enough time).

Not sure if you could get it without skipping movies / mashing through all conversations even if you do minimal side content on PAL.

What was Squaresoft thinking with the 12 hour mark? It is weird to encourage people to rush the game just to get the sword. I never knew about the Excalibur II tbh. I only played the PAL version though, guess that explains it, also lack of internet access at this time.

 

[RiverKwai]

So what are the chances that they screw this up somehow?

This is my favorite FF game of all time, with my favorite FF character of all time in it, and while I've noticed the battles are slow, it's never reeaaallly bothered me much. If they are speeding the game up, that'll be even better!

If they drop a turd on us though, I might rage. How good are these ports usually?

 

[pooptest]

So what are the chances that they screw this up somehow?

This is my favorite FF game of all time, with my favorite FF character of all time in it, and while I've noticed the battles are slow, it's never reeaaallly bothered me much. If they are speeding the game up, that'll be even better!

If they drop a turd on us though, I might rage. How good are these ports usually?

You must be referring to Vivi


And not my list (YouTuber's list), but FF7 made it to the top 10 worst PC ports: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1165244

So, here's hoping they can only go up from here and they release an amazing port.

 

[RiverKwai]

You must be referring to Vivi

You can assume whatever you want. Maybe I'm talking about Quina Quen?!

 

[UncleSporky]

What was Squaresoft thinking with the 12 hour mark? It is weird to encourage people to rush the game just to get the sword. I never knew about the Excalibur II tbh. I only played the PAL version though, guess that explains it, also lack of internet access at this time.

I don't think the intent is to encourage people to do it. It's just a really tough to see easter egg. Similar to the FF12 only-open-these-specific-chests thing for the spear. The average person isn't supposed to get it, and the average person shouldn't feel bad if they don't.

 

[BocoDragon]

I don't think the intent is to encourage people to do it. It's just a really tough to see easter egg. Similar to the FF12 only-open-these-specific-chests thing for the spear. The average person isn't supposed to get it, and the average person shouldn't feel bad if they don't.

Agreed.

Somewhere along the way the concepts of "secret items" became frowned upon in "100% completion/platinum trophy" culture.

 

[Mifec]

Cut it with that 60 FPS crap. We now have ways to register inputs almost as fast as 60 on 30, if it's not an action game there is no way to tell them apart with modern techniques.

Also, "smooth animation yummy yum yum" yeah cool. The backgrounds are animated at a much lower framerate. They are not generated in 3D.

Forcing 60 FPS would ruin the game entirely since the characters would behave much faster than the world they are in.

So NO, this game should not be 60 fps for the sake of being 60 fps.

One day FPS begging will be bannable for the same reason of port begging, look at the situation right here.

2016 started off with some pretty embarrassing posts I see.

60 for the sake of being 60 is a hilarious thing to say.

 

[Roxas]

Cant wait to play this game how it should of been all those years ago. PAL version of the game is desperately slow

 

[AgeEighty]

And not my list (YouTuber's list), but FF7 made it to the top 10 worst PC ports: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1165244

So, here's hoping they can only go up from here and they release an amazing port.

There's a difference: With FFVII they were cleaning up a pre-existing port made in 1998 by Eidos, which had a lot of flaws already baked in. With FFIX, they are starting fresh.

Though I'm not sure whether that's cause for more or less concern.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Agreed.

Somewhere along the way the concepts of "secret items" became frowned upon in "100% completion/platinum trophy" culture.

Couldn't care less about trophies. I haven't gotten a Platinum on a single Disgaea game despite having beaten the final Baal fight in 3 of them because I can't be bothered to do the stupid crap that you'd never do for any reason but to get trophies.

Silly content traps annoy me though (be they permanent missables or the way of encountering fiends in SMT IV). I don't see what value they add to a game. I'd generally like games a lot better if I didn't have to check a walk through before playing to find out what particular pieces of moon logic the developers thought it'd be a good idea to put content behind.

(And in the case of the Exaclibur II it's particularly annoying because its one of the items you need for stat maxing. Though a lot of Final Fantasy games are terrible like that. I, III, IV, VI and IX all require counter intuitive gameplay for significant parts of the game to max stats in the end game to various extents (I is fairly mild (certain classes need to promote by certain levels), III requires you to level up as whatever class has the highest HP modifier at most levels and to get access to certain classes by certain points, IV has random and potentially negative stat growth at high levels, VI and IX require low level runs through most of the game in order to have the equipment you need to max stats))

 

[Yabberwocky]

They are so much slower among other things . I never realised until the last few years, but now that I do it's hard to go back. Ignorance is bliss and all.

Here's FFX.

God, I had no idea the PAL version was that slow in comparison! (I still haven't gotten around to playing the remasters, I had no idea what I was missing.) No wonder I used to hate the walking speed!

I'm looking forward to playing FFIX at a more reasonable speed, too, even without the high speed mode component.

 

[Cjdamon042]

So what are the chances that they screw this up somehow?

This is my favorite FF game of all time, with my favorite FF character of all time in it, and while I've noticed the battles are slow, it's never reeaaallly bothered me much. If they are speeding the game up, that'll be even better!

If they drop a turd on us though, I might rage. How good are these ports usually?

Their ports are generally fine. Worst case scenario I can see happening is battles limited to 15fps or whatever and field music resetting after every battle. The latter seems to happen a lot with SE these days.

Having said that, as stated in a comment above this isn't technically a port. That changes things. I'm not really worried though.

 

[AgeEighty]

...this is assuredly emulation. Do you seriously think the source code is of any use these days?

Unless they can re-do the HUD in an emulated game, this isn't one.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Unless they can re-do the HUD in an emulated game, this isn't one.

You probably can (it depends on how the HUD is implemented for whether it would be prohibitively complicated). You can insert "hooks" into an emulated game and use them to change things. That's how the built in cheat codes in emulators work (Action Replays etc do the same thing its just that their hook is physical). Or GeDoSaTo can apply different effects to HUDs. I'm not saying that this is emulated, only that there's very few things you can do with full source and porting that you can't do with emulation and various manipulation to content files / memory injection / process hooking, it's just that the former is much much easier.

 

[AgeEighty]

You probably can (it depends on how the HUD is implemented for whether it would be prohibitively complicated). You can insert "hooks" into an emulated game and use them to change things. That's how the built in cheat codes in emulators work (Action Replays etc do the same thing its just that their hook is physical). Or GeDoSaTo can apply different effects to HUDs. I'm not saying that this is emulated, only that there's very few things you can do with full source and porting that you can't do with emulation and various manipulation to content files / memory injection / process hooking, it's just that the former is much much easier.

I see. Well that's just one more reason to think it's a port and not an emulation.

 

[alf717]

hopefully it will never happen and SE will put up the International Zodiac Job System instead. lol

And put a shirt on Vaan

 

[Freshmaker]

And put a shirt on Vaan

Vaan not existing at all would be fine too.

 

[Frecklestein]

And put a shirt on Vaan

 

[Falk]

Stole Balthier's clothes

Wonder if he stole Balthier's girl too

 

[Dark_castle]

So much better with a shirt underneath. Vaan in FFXII has to be Akihiko Yoshida's worst character design ever.

 

[Falk]

Time Mage in Bravely Default is hilariously way up there

 

[Elaugaufein]

Time Mage in Bravely Default is hilariously way up there

Time Mage and Summoner have never really had great designs as classes. But yeah Bravely Default's Time Mage was terrible (Who wants to dress up like a clock? What, Nobody ?)

 

[JeffZero]

Stole Balthier's clothes

Wonder if he stole Balthier's girl too

I'd prefer if he stole Balthier's lines.

 

[APZonerunner]

A high-speed mode is fine, but I really wish they would fix the internal issues with the game in general. I don't want them to bring all the flaws of the PS1 version into this and hope that "High Speed Mode" will make them palatable.

They really need to just fix the sluggish performance.

• The load times were terrible (which should hopefully be fixed just by being on PC/smartphone)
• Battles ran at 15 FPS (it should be 60)
• Animations in battle are probably also capped at 15 FPS. Those need to get unlocked as well.

Basically, just fix the horrible shit they had to do to get the thing to run on the PS1. Don't use High Speed Mode as a crutch to ignore the engine's problems.

Can't speak to 9, but in the case of 7 simply unlocking the FPS of battles fucked with all sorts of internal clock stuff in the way they ran, which is why they couldn't do it there. PC Modders tried to make it work for years, and actually did in some instances, but it was still temperamental and sometimes incredibly broken as a result. In this regard the 3x speed, where everything is tripled in speed evenly or whatever, was a good compromise.

These broader problems could of course be fixed and compromise would be a whole lot less necessary, but they might be more costly and time consuming to spend and SE is obviously making hard decisions on what is and isn't worthwhile for these ports. If they didn't think it worthwhile for 7, I'd struggle to see them thinking it so for 9.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

It's ironic how Ramza, who has the body of a woman, and Ashley Riot, who wears buttless pants, manage to be better designs than Vaan.

 

[Berordn]

It's ironic how Ramza, who has the body of a woman, and Ashley Riot, who wears buttless pants, manage to be better designs than Vaan.

Buttless pants are an important statement in Ivalice.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Vaan had horrible skin textures. Those abs

 

[mieumieu]

Can't speak to 9, but in the case of 7 simply unlocking the FPS of battles fucked with all sorts of internal clock stuff in the way they ran, which is why they couldn't do it there. PC Modders tried to make it work for years, and actually did in some instances, but it was still temperamental and sometimes incredibly broken as a result. In this regard the 3x speed, where everything is tripled in speed evenly or whatever, was a good compromise.

These broader problems could of course be fixed and compromise would be a whole lot less necessary, but they might be more costly and time consuming to spend and SE is obviously making hard decisions on what is and isn't worthwhile for these ports. If they didn't think it worthwhile for 7, I'd struggle to see them thinking it so for 9.

It cannot be better said than this. Legacy game programs, with weak to non-existent floating point processing power, with sprite animation and all sorts of frame-based game logic, just don't behave like what we are accustomed to now.

It is more realistic to just wait for remakes than porting teams to take an enormous amount of time to fix all these problems.

For newer games though it is a bad habit to program like this.

 

[Elaugaufein]

It cannot be better said than this. Legacy game programs, with weak to non-existent floating point processing power, with sprite animation and all sorts of frame-based game logic, just don't behave like what we are accustomed to now.

It is more realistic to just wait for remakes than porting teams to take an enormous amount of time to fix all these problems.

For newer games though it is a bad habit to program like this.

I'm actually a little at a loss as to how you manage to integrate game logic and frame rates in non-action games in the first place. There's literally no reason to do that and it's not like it makes anything easier design wise, unlike in action games were building logic into the frames let you do things like implement pseudo-cooldowns / warmups (via animation length) and check hitboxes at the moment an attack "connects", etc. I can only guess it had something to do with the very limited resources available on older consoles which often required dubious programming techniques to get the most out of.

 

[Son Of D]

Vaan had horrible skin textures. Those abs

Pretty much. They looked terrible in FFXII. But they didn't really look that bad in Dissidia 012.

So if XII HD were to happen, just remake his textures to not be shit.

 

[mieumieu]

I'm actually a little at a loss as to how you manage to integrate game logic and frame rates in non-action games in the first place. There's literally no reason to do that and it's not like it makes anything easier design wise (it does in action games (since you can do things like check for contact via clipping at a given moment etc) but as I said that's a different kettle of fish).

I cannot speak for them but these early developers likely already had the habit developed during earlier generations (no floating point, no internal clock(?), everything is sprite based so variable FPS is not quite achievable), and they can also squeeze some remaining juice in the hardware by having less amount of time calculations. Also if you don't deal with multiplatform programming it is a good choice whatever genre you do since even if you develop an RPG you still need to deal with collision and such.

On sixth gen and later hardware though there is no excuse, but you still see them on more console-centric games like RE4, Dark Souls or Valkyria Chronicles. They eventually got fixed... mostly.
It also has something to do with code quality checks.
Frame-based code could easily be snuck in if the development team is not hard on this, these code may never break your game until you decide to port to more varied platforms.

 

[Mivey]

Why is his lower body much better protected than his arms and upper body? Does Van only fight against dwarves? In which case, that is an economically reasonable decision. (Except against dwarves with projectile weapons)

Maybe he put on the female armour by accident. . .

 

[CaviarMeths]

It's ironic how Ramza, who has the body of a woman, and Ashley Riot, who wears buttless pants, manage to be better designs than Vaan.

It's not really a total disaster if all it needs is a white shirt underneath the vest to look pretty great. It's a bad design, but a totally salvageable one.

Ramza's fine too. Ashley is the real tragedy in Yoshida's portfolio.

I'm not even sure Vaan is the worst design in XII. Ashe is pretty bad with her pink miniskirt in the desert. It's like Yoshida tried to design a Kingdom Hearts character and failed.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

It's not really a total disaster if all it needs is a white shirt underneath the vest to look pretty great. It's a bad design, but a totally salvageable one.

Ramza's fine too. Ashley is the real tragedy in Yoshida's portfolio.

I'm not even sure Vaan is the worst design in XII. Ashe is pretty bad with her pink miniskirt in the desert. It's like Yoshida tried to design a Kingdom Hearts character and failed.

I think Elza is the worst design in XII:

But, since she's a minor NPC, she was probably designed by Nao Ikeda (of Team NORA fame) rather than Yoshida.