Idk if it’s just my distance-to-screen or some fuckery I need to align w/r/t framerates, but the 30fps lock looks like absolute butt on my PC+monitor where it’s fine on my PS4+TV.
The big WTF moment for me was that they were deciding between higher resolution or number of colors. Huh? I didn’t think that number of colors was holding PS1-era Final Fantasy games back visually.
Last call for this on Windows 10 version with the Xbox Achievements I think. It’s being removed from Game Pass on March May 15. The Xbox version is on sale for $25. The PC Win10 version has already been delisted so if you didn’t buy it already you will lose access on March May 15.
So I started the game over on Win10.
Man, I can see why they want to stop supporting this version. It is rough in some areas, like really poor frame rates.
Ok, so from the hour or so I played yesterday, some impressions.
- Modern games have gotten a lot better at actually recording voice acting. Like in this game, it’s super obvious when someone speaks a line, there’s like a pause before and after. It doesn’t sound nearly as good as modern voice acting, not because of the voice work itself but just the way the audio clips are recorded.
- Oh my god, the hand gesticulating. I’d forgotten about this. So characters say their lines and wildly swing their hands around and it looks so weird now. I haven’t replayed this game since about 2011 or so, and I had completely forgotten about this little quirk of games from this era. Jeez, it looks so cheesy!
Oh, one more note. The game asked me if I wanted the Standard Sphere grid or the Expert Sphere Grid right at the start, warning me that I couldn’t change my mind later. And mind you, it did this without telling me anything about what’s different about them or what they are.
Anyway, I’m familiar with the Standard Sphere grid from having played the game many times on PS2, but after some googling, it turns out that the Expert Sphere Grid was added in the International edition of the game. Uh oh! Danger Will Robinson!
I had no idea this remaster was based on the International edition of the game. I know that edition had that terrible ending that sets up the sequel FF X-2, and that it added a ton of really hard enemies to the game. I know this from reading massive text files on Gamefaqs back in the day. And apparently the expert sphere grid is another addition of the International edition. So now I’m kind of nervous and I might owe some of you an apology.
I don’t know what thread it was, but people were complaining that the game was too hard, and I was doling out advice based on my multiple playthroughs of the PS2 game, but I had no idea that the remaster was the international edition, which is supposed to be much harder. So I apologize! For all I know, this edition is indeed too hard.
I selected the Standard Sphere Grid, and I’ll try to tackle the game the same way I did the original (fleeing most random encounters, and sticking only to the main story) which made the difficulty perfect originally. But who knows, I might run into a difficulty spike introduced by changes in the International edition. We shall see.
I like this deadline of March May 15th. It means I’ll be done with this game by that date, no matter what. No option to buy, no option to continue. I’ll be done.
Expert Sphere Grid is great, opens up a lot more options for the party while also increasing difficulty past “entirely trivial” all the way up to “mostly trivial” until you get to various postgame bits.
Seymour on Gagazet remains the difficulty peak ;)
Is that March 15th of 2023?
March May 15, 2022!
There’s no way I’ll finish. But I still like the deadline.
Last night I managed to get Yuna out of the village and set forth on a sea voyage.
The new “arranged” music of the Remaster is very interesting. Every wonderful tune in the game is still recognizable, but not quite the same with the new instruments. I really enjoy it, though I would still recommend people listen to the original soundtrack first if they think they might play the games multiple times like I have. If you’re only going to play it once, I suppose the new arranged music soundtrack is probably better on the whole.
Playing through this game again, I’m kind of reminded of just how lush and wonderful it looks. It kind of blew my mind back in 2001 in terms of just the sheer lavishness. In a way, this felt like the very first true triple A game. I mean, just compare the visuals of this game to Final Fantasy 9, for instance, it’s such a gigantic difference. Looking at the models and textures now in 2022, even though some of it is due to the improvements of the Remaster, but even then, just looking at how much detail they were able to get out of pretty low polygon models is amazing.
The awkwardness of the sound recordings continues to irk me greatly though. It’s as if each sound file has a pause before and after the voice actor speaks, and it creates this artificialness that’s so stark compared to game audio today.
It’s May already.
I believe he’s saying he’s only going to give this 10 more days before he wraps it up one way or the other, because then it’s coming off Game Pass and he will lose access to it.
Kolbex was helpfully pointing out I put the wrong date everywhere. Which I have now corrected!
Also, not only will it not be on Game Pass, you can’t buy it anymore either (on Win10). So it will be gone, gone.
Even on Steam?
You can buy it on steam, but that’s not where I’m playing it. You can also buy it on PS4 and Xbox, but I’m not playing that version currently either. I actually chose to start the version that will be gone! :)
Well, it’s half-off on Steam for $15 until the 11th, so if you find yourself getting more and more into it as the time goes on and you want to grab it and keep playing it, I suspect the save game can be moved to the Steam install without issue and you could wrap it up at your own pace as an option if you like. It’s about a 50 or so hour game, and not one that’s better served by rushing through it, either. Good luck on your experiment, of sorts!
I will buy this damn game again if they release a version that lets you autocomplete the stupid celestial weapon minigames. I’m way the fuck too old for lightning dodging, much less chocobo racing, you kidding me?
Wow, that looks really useful. It even lets you switch between Standard and Expert sphere grids.
Hah, excellent. I have this on PS4 tho :/
e: The googz suggest it’s possible to hack your PS4 saves as well. Hmm!
I mean, you said you’d buy it again…