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[Durante]

It's slightly slower than the other games because it was pushing more graphics and driving the PSOne to its limits, but its slowness tends to be way overblown on GAF.

It really isn't. I replayed FF9 last year, and I feel like you spend 10 hours throughout it just waiting for battles to start up and end.

Those looong drawn out startup camera pans were clearly only there to mask model loading. And they're terrible.

The in-battle speed is a relatively minor issue comparatively.

 

[valkyre]

One of my favorite FF games....

The art in this game is just beautiful. I hope it releases soon, I am probably going to be hitting the buy button as soon as it appears in Appstore.

 

[Falk]

The in-battle speed is a relatively minor issue comparatively.

It adds up to be honest.

Like the complaints are culmination of everything.

seconds of black screen, followed by seconds of panning around the battle environment and loading the enemies/characters. Then the ATB is a little slow and actions take forever to actually execute. Sometimes when they do it's like: oh that command I picked a while ago!

Pretty much how I felt. (PAL)

I'll take the arguments cuz I haven't played the game in years, but I'm hoping someone will seriously take me up on that youtube video thing. I'd love to see a comparison of battle speeds between FF games

... You suggested it, what's preventing you from doing it?

 

[dickroach]

... You suggested it, what's preventing you from doing it?

no capture card

 

[Widge]

It really isn't. I replayed FF9 last year, and I feel like you spend 10 hours throughout it just waiting for battles to start up and end.

Those looong drawn out startup camera pans were clearly only there to mask model loading. And they're terrible.

The in-battle speed is a relatively minor issue comparatively.

I remember not having an issue with the camera pans but I really didn't like the sheer amount of time it took to fill the ATB gauge. I used to have to set the battle speed to max to stop me losing my sanity.

You could tell the engine was being pushed to the max though. No "massive" bosses and the battles running so slow. There was one magic, Flare, that, for some reason, ran really smoothly as its animation played out... you'd get a brief glorious patch of smooth fps.

I was sadder that the summoning animations were shortened without Boost. I love a good 2 minutes of summoning glory!

 

[Syntsui]

I'll take the arguments cuz I haven't played the game in years, but I'm hoping someone will seriously take me up on that youtube video thing. I'd love to see a comparison of battle speeds between FF games

Do it yourself. Search Final Fantasy VII/VIII/IX battle and see it first hand. It is significantly slower.

 

[Falk]

no capture card

Oh, I thought you meant sourcing a bunch of youtube videos.

 

[dickroach]

I honestly didn't even think of that (it's late), but still it'd be good to know if all games were at the same settings (max battle speed) on original hardware, in the same kind battle scenario (I guess either a 3 on 3 or a 1 on 1 with a guaranteed 1 hit kill for each turn).

I'll see if I can whip it up tomorrow because I am genuinely interested. like IX probably is a little bit slower, but not "I can't play this game" slower.

 

[Ghost_Messiah]

So first Final Fantasy XV looks amazing, then the Final Fantasy VII Remake looks beyond incredible and now this? Square Enix is on fire lately. Amazing announcement.

 

[UnblessedSoul]

I hope theres a 4:3 option for the cut-scenes, zooming in and cutting off the top and bottom doesn't work well for ff9 cutscenes, since there is so many close ups and how big their heads are in general.

 

[Syntsui]

I honestly didn't even think of that (it's late), but still it'd be good to know if all games were at the same settings (max battle speed) on original hardware, in the same kind battle scenario (I guess either a 3 on 3 or a 1 on 1 with a guaranteed 1 hit kill for each turn).

I'll see if I can whip it up tomorrow because I am genuinely interested. like IX probably is a little bit slower, but not "I can't play this game" slower.

I can't prove it right now, but test it when you can later. It is not only slower but there is a considerable ''loading'' before and after the fight.

 

[Silver-tongued]

I hope some modders will make it possible to disable random encounters entirely.

 

[Syntsui]

I hope some modders will make it possible to disable random encounters entirely.

In a perfect world, they would implement the system of Bravely Default where you can customize not only the battle speed, but the encounter rate.

 

[Falk]

I'll see if I can whip it up tomorrow because I am genuinely interested. like IX probably is a little bit slower, but not "I can't play this game" slower.

Well, different people have different tolerances to different things - pain threshold, bad posting, country music, etc.

It's not a black and white thing and what's acceptable/unnoticeable to some is terrible to others, sometimes due to factors outside of personal preferences (how much free time, etc)

Still, like you said, a more objective measurement on 'how bad' it is would be awesome, on top of the PAL time tax.

 

[Tiamant]

There cannot be an FFIX thread without the absolute best cover that humanity has ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhD8iCf5QyY

 

[Mistle]

My favourite FF out of the ones I've played. Awesome that new people will get to experience it, I have a lot of great memories.

 

[Heartfyre]

There cannot be an FFIX thread without the absolute best cover that humanity has ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhD8iCf5QyY

Or one of the best rearrangements from Distant Worlds.

 

[notaskwid]

There cannot be an FFIX thread without the absolute best cover that humanity has ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhD8iCf5QyY

That was damn great, thanks for sharing!

 

[Parsnip]

Actually that Valkyria Chronicles music remaster thingo (for everyone else, this was an unofficial hobbyist modder thing) is on hold because... uh... reasons.

Reasons which will become clear later this year.

I think.

I'm reading between the lines here and I'm jumping to multiple different conclusions.

Damn you.

 

[valkyre]

Seems I cant wait for the ios release, GAF should I play this on Vita or PS3? I am afraid of PS3 because I think in 55 inch TV the game will look horrible lol...

 

[Sinatar]

it's bothering me how everyone's calling this game so slow.
I used to think so as well till I played it again a few years ago and went into the config menu and changed "battle speed" to max from the start. it's not any slower than FF6-7-8. and if it is lemme get a youtube video comparison.

It takes 45 seconds from the time the screen flashes to the time you can enter your first commands in battle. That's the issue, not the speed of the battles themselves.

 

[Syril]

I think the main factors besides the pre-battle loading is that most of the enemy special attacks have these pseudo-spellcasting animations that add three seconds onto everything and the bizarre decision to have the ATB running during all the animations so that everyone is constantly queuing up their actions behind each other.

http://youtu.be/XW_C8e-9GsI First of all, this is three minutes to finish a battle where they party only made three rounds worth of actions, but also notice that When Quina enters the Eat command that wins the battle it has to run through three more actions, the first of which was queued up half a minute previously. I remember when I played this, I would end up going into a submenu so that the ATB would pause just to let everyone's actions play out so that I could make decisions properly.

 

[Havok1313]

I remember when I played this, I would end up going into a submenu so that the ATB would pause just to let everyone's actions play out so that I could make decisions properly.

This. This is one of my favorite rpgs ever, but the battle system is what makes me unable to replay it. I don't have the free time to give that kind of patience to video games anymore. I'm pretty happy that I'll be able to play this again, it's been a long time.

 

[The n00b Avenger]

FF9 generally takes 15 seconds for the battle to load once it starts. FF7 takes ~8 and FF8 takes ~11.

As for ATB, 9 is 6-7 seconds for the ATB to fill from 0 near the beginning of the game even on the fastest setting (depending on the character, but that's near the beginning before you increase your speed)

FF7 and FF8 ATB took 6-7 seconds too... at the default speed setting. The difference is that if you set them to the fastest setting it would fill up within less than 3 seconds.

I guess it doesn't seem like much of a difference but if adds up over time when you keep running into encounters. And yeah, there's a long pause every time an enemy casts something and the funky queuing

 

[bwahhhhh]

FF9 generally takes 15 seconds for the battle to load once it starts. FF7 takes ~8 and FF8 takes ~11.

As for ATB, 9 is 6-7 seconds for the ATB to fill from 0 near the beginning of the game even on the fastest setting (depending on the character, but that's near the beginning before you increase your speed)

FF7 and FF8 ATB took 6-7 seconds too... at the default speed setting. The difference is that if you set them to the fastest setting it would fill up within less than 3 seconds.

I guess it doesn't seem like much of a difference but if adds up over time when you keep running into encounters. And yeah, there's a long pause every time an enemy casts something and the funky queuing

yeah, it's been 15 years (wow) since I've played it, but I immediately noticed and vividly remember that the ATB bar fills up slow as hell when I started the game, even on max speed. It's not as big an issue after you're halfway through the game, because your stats have increased and the ATB fills up quicker, but at the very start of the game it was incredibly slow.

I really enjoyed the game, it's probably tied for my 3rd favorite FF, but that and the load times kept me from replaying it, so I'm really looking forward to this HD remaster.

 

[aravuus]

What the fuck, how didn't I notice this before?!

Absolutely one of my favorite games ever, really hope they won't fuck up the port

The slow speed hasn't been a problem to me in the past couple of years tho thanks to emulators

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

There cannot be an FFIX thread without the absolute best cover that humanity has ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhD8iCf5QyY

That was incredible. Thank you

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

yeah, it's been 15 years (wow) since I've played it, but I immediately noticed and vividly remember that the ATB bar fills up slow as hell when I started the game, even on max speed. It's not as big an issue after you're halfway through the game, because your stats have increased and the ATB fills up quicker, but at the very start of the game it was incredibly slow.

I really enjoyed the game, it's probably tied for my 3rd favorite FF, but that and the load times kept me from replaying it, so I'm really looking forward to this HD remaster.

you also eventually have 4 characters versus 3 in the previous two, which makes the slower ATB less annoying. Its definitely too slow for a while

 

[entremet]

Seems I cant wait for the ios release, GAF should I play this on Vita or PS3? I am afraid of PS3 because I think in 55 inch TV the game will look horrible lol...

Just wait. You get the nice speed boost.

 

[AgeEighty]

It really isn't. I replayed FF9 last year, and I feel like you spend 10 hours throughout it just waiting for battles to start up and end.

Those looong drawn out startup camera pans were clearly only there to mask model loading. And they're terrible.

The in-battle speed is a relatively minor issue comparatively.

The camera sweeps are in all three of the PSOne games, and while they aren't quite as long as in IX, they're long enough to be distracting. It's a matter of a couple seconds. Again: IX was pushing the hardware more at that late stage, so it's understandable. But the difference isn't huge.

I hope some modders will make it possible to disable random encounters entirely.

If it has the same options as VII, that won't even need to be modded in.

Personally, I'd like to see every game like this given the Bravely Devault 0% > 200% encounters slider.

 

[Falk]

But the difference isn't huge.

If we take 7, 11 and 15 secs at face value, camera sweep in IX is almost twice that of VII and almost 1.5x that of VIII.

That's a pretty big relative ratio. It may just be a few seconds extra, but considering how often combat is, it adds up.

 

[WolvenOne]

The camera pan isn't a big issue. Heck, even the slow battle speed isn't a deal breaker. Mind you even very very sliiiiiiiight improvements in both these areas would improve battle a ton, but regardless..

 

[LakeEarth]

I mentioned this in other threads, but I beat FFIX this year, but I was still craving some PSone RPG goodness so I tried Wild Arms. I realize it's doing a hell of a lot less on the hardware, but holy crap I swear for easy battles you're back to the map in Wild Arms before FFIX is done panning around.

Speaking of easy battles, I discovered that the best place to level up in FFIX is against these dragons that were susceptible to level 5 Death. But I could only do it for so long, as the battle still took a minute just to do that one single action (battle start -> return to map).

 

[AgeEighty]

If we take 7, 11 and 15 secs at face value, camera sweep in IX is almost twice that of VII and almost 1.5x that of VIII.

That's a pretty big relative ratio. It may just be a few seconds extra, but considering how often combat is, it adds up.

Sure, but you can't just take the battle load times in a vacuum as a measure of how slow the game is overall. There are a variety of other aspects of the game that may balance things out. IX certainly does not feel like a two-times slower game than VII in the final analysis.

Besides: in a way it's not fair to judge a game on the technological walls it hits, especially when a PC port may well mitigate them.

 

[batbeg]

There cannot be an FFIX thread without the absolute best cover that humanity has ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhD8iCf5QyY

God dang.

 

[Son Of D]

When the PC version comes out I'll compare animation length, battle speed and such between VII, VIII and IX. I don't have access to any PS1 copies at the moment (and even if I did they're PAL editions so it's not a good idea to use those for comparing speed).

I know animations will be harder to compare since VIII and IX are more detailed model wise, but it'll still be neat to compare similar stuff like Flare, attack animations and summon animations (heck I might throw in a Knights of the Round vs Eden vs Ark comparison for whatever summon lasts the longest).

 

[Nibel]

Still can't believe one of the best games of all-time gets the push it deserves; super happy about this.

Square Enix rebounding from FFXIII so quick.. approaching god-tier era SE again

 

[Falk]

Besides: in a way it's not fair to judge a game on the technological walls it hits, especially when a PC port may well mitigate them.

Well, the thread of conversation was about how the opinion that original's sluggish feel was overblown, with the implication that we're talking about back in the day (especially with PAL entering the discussion).

It's a valid opinion. Dealbreaker for some (which I think is silly, mind you), unnoticable to others, but still a valid opinion. FFIX was more sluggish.

 

[Unai]

Besides: in a way it's not fair to judge a game on the technological walls it hits, especially when a PC port may well mitigate them.

I don't agree. It's ok to be ugly because of limitations but the the slowness affects the gameplay a lot, so it's very fair to pass judgment on it since it can and often will be a detriment to the fun. It should have being judge back there and now. The same for new games.

Sure, some people are more sensible to it them others. It doesn't matter to the people that are sensible to it if the game was released 20 years ago or last week when it comes to how much fun they expect to have with a game.

 

[WolvenOne]

Well, as I've said a few times already. Assuming subtle changes like the opening animation and ATB fill rate can be modded without much hassle, I'd expect modders to tweak those even if Square Enix leaves them largely untouched.

Mind you, I don't really know if these are small changes or not. The opening animation probably isn't, but changing the ATB fill rate may change the frequency at which enemies attack, and unbalance things. I don't know, this is very much outside my area of expertise.

Just saying, even if SE doesn't make tweaks here, that's not necessarily the end of the road. <_<;;

 

[Falk]

Just saying, even if SE doesn't make tweaks here, that's not necessarily the end of the road. <_<;;

In all honesty, as pointed out - the 3x speed feature alone, assuming it works like VII PS4, will solve all sluggishness issues already.

 

[AgeEighty]

Well, the thread of conversation was about how the opinion that original's sluggish feel was overblown, with the implication that we're talking about back in the day (especially with PAL entering the discussion).

It's a valid opinion. Dealbreaker for some (which I think is silly, mind you), unnoticable to others, but still a valid opinion. FFIX was more sluggish.

Again: If your definition of sluggishness encapsulates nothing more than how long it takes to go from battle stinger to menu control, then yes, it's more sluggish. If you're talking about the game as a whole, I really don't think so. Especially when you factor in the fact that VIII made summons the most powerful attacks in the game and made you sit through every single lengthy animation sequence. Each game had bottlenecks.

 

[WolvenOne]

In all honesty, as pointed out - the 3x speed feature alone, assuming it works like VII PS4, will solve all sluggishness issues already.

Well, I'm assuming that also speeds up the rate at which animations execute, which means it might look a bit funky. It also might be a bit detrimental for the fights in the game where you actually have to be a bit careful about which commands you use.

Just saying, 3X is nice, but I mainly see that as a good tool for grinding. You're not going to want to play every battle that way.

 

[Unai]

Again: If your definition of sluggishness encapsulates nothing more than how long it takes to go from battle stinger to menu control, then yes, it's more sluggish. If you're talking about the game as a whole, I really don't think so. Especially when you factor in the fact that VIII made summons the most powerful attacks in the game and made you sit through every single lengthy animation sequence. Each game had bottlenecks.

Limit Breaks are the most powerful attacks usually. It's easy to play pretty much the whole game without summoning.

 

[Aureon]

There cannot be an FFIX thread without the absolute best cover that humanity has ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhD8iCf5QyY

Holy shit. Can't believe i didn't know this.

 

[AgeEighty]

Limit Breaks are the most powerful attacks usually. It's easy to play pretty much the whole game without summoning.

Yes, obviously, but limit breaks can't be cast on a whim. I'm talking bout regularly deployable attacks, and among those, summons in VIII are the strongest by a good bit.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Yes, obviously, but limit breaks can't be cast on a whim. I'm talking bout regularly deployable attacks, and among those, summons in VIII are the strongest by a good bit.

If we're talking about VIII, all you need to do is have your character in the yellow or close to the yellow, and press triangle repeatedly to get your limit break.

 

[The n00b Avenger]

Yeah, limit breaks in 8 pretty much can be cast on a whim. You can literally spam them.

Though if you get the right magic(particularly by playing the card game), junctioning good magic to strength is basically enough to kill everything in the game with a single regular physical attack, and bosses with a few hits.

 

[AgeEighty]

If we're talking about VIII, all you need to do is have your character in the yellow or close to the yellow, and press triangle repeatedly to get your limit break.

Which makes it a regularly deployable attack how? You still have to charge it up. It's not really viable to just sit there spamming them up from an empty bar, and if you do that, you're making the game even more sluggish for yourself.

 

[Necron]

There cannot be an FFIX thread without the absolute best cover that humanity has ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhD8iCf5QyY

Wow.

My favourite game finally has another release. I'm so happy...

2015 really was the year of dreams.

EDIT: Just saw his FF VI medley... amazing stuff.