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Let's Talk About Square Enix's PC Ports of Their RPGs

Celcius

°Temp. member
Square Enix has done a great job with their newer PC RPG releases like FFXIV and FFXV.
However, their older RPG ports on PC have been less than stellar.

Some articles on the flaws on the PC port of Chrono Trigger: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Lar...make_the_Right_Way_Chrono_Trigger_Edition.php
https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/27/17059510/chrono-trigger-pc-mobile-port

When I look at FF9 I hear stories of crashes, there's no true analog movement but just 8-directional movement, menus have been changed, etc...
Both of the above PC ports are based on mobile ports, not the original PSX games.

The PC port of Final Fantasy 6 is also based on a mobile port and users have complained about the new look there as well. Personally, for these games I'd rather have a straight port of the original release on Steam rather than all the changes done. To their credit though, they do add some new features like achievements, speeding up battles, etc...

Then we get to newer games like the FF13 series. I've heard stories of performance issues, crashes, less than great controller support, etc...
For example: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIII

I'm not sure how the ports of FF7, FF8, FF10, and FF12 are.

I have both FF14 and FF15 on PC and I consider both to be excellent ports. FF14 supports both high resolutions and high frame rates, runs very smoothly, controls great etc... Final Fantasy 15 also allows you to do high resolutions and high frame rates, and even has support for some graphical options that consoles don't have, like nvidia gameworks and extra high resolution textures. It also supports HDR, though I don't think it looks great and prefer to turn it off. It works flawlessly with my DualShock 4 controller too.

Nier Automata is another example of a less than stellar port:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-whats-up-with-nier-automata-on-pc



I understand that they didn't always release their games on PC and have gotten better at supporting the PC platform over time, and I fully expect FF16 to look and run great on PC.
However, I'm confused about how they could mess up their older releases... for example, I'd say Chrono Trigger looks worse than the original release, not to mention the crashing reports. What are your thoughts, GAF?
 
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Tschumi

Member
Ff12 ZA doesn't disappoint me, looks better than the PS4 version, yeauh~ i love the art style in that game, and it's pretty resource light if i understand things right, so yeah I'm ready to please.. play it with a ds4
 

hybrid_birth

Gold Member
I played FF lightning returns on pc. I really didn't have any issues. It was my first time playing so i don't know how it compares to console.

I played with a controller.
 

Larxia

Member
The FF XIII Trilogy ports are really quite bad...

XIII is... okay-ish now, but still has huge issues. When it launched it was limited to 720p with no graphic options at all.
They later patched it with a few options, but if you run the game over 720p, the ennemies description in the menu will be invisible as it only works in 720p.
The cutscenes are also sadly really badly compressed. They use the bink video format, they are HUGE in size, and still look really bad, apparently equal to the 360 versions, far from the great quality of the cutscenes on ps3.

The framerate is also stupidly broken. The game itself is not demanding at all and runs fine...but the menus / UI ruin the framerate. When you walk around, you have to press select to hide the mini map, because if it's there, it will make the framerate much less stable, with huge framerate drops, but if you hide the map, it's a steady 60 fps.
It's the same during combats. With the GeDoSaTo tool from Durante, you could disable the UI, and I did some tests and if you hide the UI during combats, you get a steady 60 fps even during very heavy action scenes with lot of stuff, but if you display the UI (which is required to play), it will constantly jump between 60 and 30-40 fps, all the time.

XIII-2 is definitely the worst of the trilogy. It launched with all the options added in XIII, but for some reasons the framerate is ATROCIOUS in this one. When I played it back then on windows 7, it constantly jumped between 30 and 60 fps, there was no way at all to get a steady 60fps. It was either 30, or 60, no 55 or anything. Someone made a map to allow arbitrary framerate, but if you do that and your game drops between 30 and 60, it will be slowed down, so it's not ideal at all.
And when I upgraded to Windows 10 and tried it again, it was worse than ever. It's now impossible to ever get 60 fps, now it runs between 20 and 30 fps, it's unplayable.
I stopped this game on ps3 as soon as I completed the story, I didn't want to do any sidequests because of how badly it ran, when they announced the PC version, I thought it would finally be possible to enjoy this game, but nope.

Lightning Returns is the best of the trilogy (as a port and maybe as a game too, gameplay wise). There's no weird stuff going on, options are fine, no weird bugs related to the port (the only funny thing is that the game will tell you to not turn off your ps3 during loadins lol).
It still suffers some framerate drops, mostly in Yusnaan from what I remember, but it's very occasional, it's not all the time, and it's some drops to 45-50 in specific places for a short time, not some weird jumping around between different locks like the previous games.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
It is a shame that you cannot buy FFIV, FFIV The After Years, FFV, and FFVI on Steam with OG graphics.

And you should be able to get the FFI and II remakes they put out for Playstation with load times gone.
 

Hudo

Member
I can live with mediocre ports if they released them at the same time as the other version(s). No more temporary exclusivity bullshit. Square is a big third-party. No need for any exclusivity deals.
 

Mista

Banned
It’s not only SE. PC ports in general are mostly garbage

I reached to a point where I applaud if I played a decent PC port. It’s like they aren’t bothering with any effort
 
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