Masochism: The Final Fantasy Ladder

[Jercurpac]

If some of you have a decent memory for the threads that have come and gone you might recall that I have a fairly abysmal record of completing Final Fantasy games despite being a fairly avid fan of RPGs, JRPGs, and the Final Fantasy series in general. Well, it's been nearly a year later and a half and despite admirable runs on FFV and XII I've yet to crack that magical number one.

Despite this saddening fact (or perhaps in spite of it) I've devised a diabolical challenge for myself and anyone else who'd like to play along. I'm going to attempt to beat every numbered Final Fantasy game from the very first to the most recent (perhaps skipping along to XIII when it comes out and definitely skipping over XI). This means I'll be playing through the storyless grinding of FFI the bizarre leveling system of FFII, the frustrating drawing/junctioning system of VIII, and the love it or hate it real time battle of XII. Hell, maybe if I'm up for it I'll toss some Chocobo cart racing in there for shits and giggle.

Now I know some of you can probably list some more enjoyable series to play through over Final Fantasy and I might be hard pressed to disagree, but purely from the perspective of a challenge the series works the best because it has a wide range of games that are all lengthy and challenging that range from fucking terrible to fantastic.

I will be posting occasional updates on my progress and I welcome anyone who's willing to play along with me. Now if you'll excuse me I've got some Final Fantasy to play.

[Auz]

Good luck with that. I remember in all of the first three Final Fantasy's I was incredibly uninterested after about an hour of playing and gave up.

Also, you can easily bypass the whole drawing system in FF8 by using your GF's right. Just have them learn the abilities to turn magic into items and you won't have to draw much.

[Jercurpac]

At 10/3/09 12:48 PM, Auz wrote: Also, you can easily bypass the whole drawing system in FF8 by using your GF's right. Just have them learn the abilities to turn magic into items and you won't have to draw much.

I remember learning about stuff like that long after I gave up on the game. Unless you're a JRPG veteran it's pretty hard to figure out the way to efficiently utilize the system in FFVIII. It's an example where depth gets turned into inscrutability.

So yeah, FFI is currently underway. My team of gaudy jewel obsessed vagrants wanders into a castle unannounced. Apparently the king there is none too bright as he see's their shiny crystals (apparently they refuse to store them safely store them away opting to wander around showing them off to everyone and just begging to get mugged) and instantly declares my group the saviors of the world. Apparently the chancellor is used to this kind of bullshit from the king and suggest that it might not be a great idea to put the fate of the world into the hands of four people he's known for less than a minute. The king agrees and decides to test this group by having them SAVE HIS FUCKING DAUGHTER.

Seriously? you can't do any better than four lightly equipped vagabonds who just wandered into town? How about you send your whole fucking army after this douche? Whatever, all we have to do is knock off one asshole and we'll obviously be swimming in untold riches once I rescue her so I venture forth. Soon the whole kingdom will know of the heroic deeds of Assfuk, Fisty, Dyke, and The Gimp.

[scetch00]

Meh I've finished FF1-4 on my PSP and DS.

FF7-FF12 on PS1 / PS2 / PC.

Soon to be FF13 / Versus 13 / 14 on PS3.

[The-Omnipresence]

You planning on doing any of the spin offs, like Crystal Chronicles and such?

[Jercurpac]

At 10/3/09 01:34 PM, The-Omnipresence wrote: You planning on doing any of the spin offs, like Crystal Chronicles and such?

Not as part of the challenge. You could spend a lifetime delving through all the shit that bears the Final Fantasy monkier so I'm just going to stick with the numbered titles. If I do play any of them it will be for my own pure enjoyment. Oh, and in case anyone cares I'm playing the Dawn of Souls GBA remake of FF I+II which, if I recall correctly are based on the less grindtastic American versions and not the more challenging Japanese originals. Feel free to mock me if it's really a big deal to you.

[Jercurpac]

Alright, I get it now. That king is one crafty motherfucker. Here's how it goes this fucking chump Garland actually manages to do something right and kidnaps the King's daughter. Check out the weak-ass plan Garland is trying to pull here. He expects the king to give Garland his kingdom in exchange for his daughter. Keep in mind that Garland is only one guy, has no army of his own, and therefore he has absolutely no way to back this power even if he got it. The king could easily agree to the terms, get his daughter, then just sic his army on this guy, but he has a better plan that won't cost him a fucking dime.

He sees these four rubes wander into town. He grabs them, takes them to the castle and calls them the heroes foretold in an ancient prophesy. Now these four dumb fuckers buy this bullshit completely and go to the rescue. Garland, being a useless fuck even by useless fuck standards, gets his face curb-stomped. So you'd expect the king would at least grant these four guys who did him a huge fucking favor a little land at least. Make Fisty a kick-ass duke or something. No, he pulls this four heroes bullshit again and sends them off on an adventure.

Oh, they do get a lute as a reward. Because when I think of a proper reward for risking my life I think of a lute.

[ZJ]

So, this will take at least like, two years, right? How do you define "Completing" one of the games? Seeing the credits or getting 100% completion?

[The-Omnipresence]

At 10/3/09 02:30 PM, Jercurpac wrote: Oh, they do get a lute as a reward. Because when I think of a proper reward for risking my life I think of a lute.

Man if you're getting pissed off at the Lute, imagine how angry you're going to be when you see the ending.

[Jercurpac]

At 10/3/09 02:32 PM, puddinN64 wrote: How do you define "Completing" one of the games? Seeing the credits or getting 100% completion?

Oh god no, just getting to the end is satisfactory for me. I wouldn't try to 100% any one Final Fantasy game, much less every single one.

At 10/3/09 03:03 PM, The-Omnipresence wrote: Man if you're getting pissed off at the Lute, imagine how angry you're going to be when you see the ending.

Well I just hope this wandering around a big world doing random good deeds for random people that have little to no effect on the overarching story or characterization beyond allowing you to move on to the next area doesn't become too commonplace in the future games.

[ZJ]

So, how are you doing this? All original games? Are you going to bust out an NES for Number 1 or are you going to play one of it's remakes?

[Jercurpac]

At 10/4/09 12:17 AM, puddinN64 wrote: So, how are you doing this? All original games? Are you going to bust out an NES for Number 1 or are you going to play one of it's remakes?

Whatever I can get my hands on. I'm not super strict so any port or remake is fine for me. Like I've already said, FF I+II are from the Dawn of Souls Compilation. III and IV will probably be the DS remakes. I already own the PS ports of V and VI. The rest will obviously be for their respective consoles of origin.

[Auz]

At 10/3/09 01:31 PM, Jercurpac wrote:

At 10/3/09 12:48 PM, Auz wrote: Also, you can easily bypass the whole drawing system in FF8 by using your GF's right. Just have them learn the abilities to turn magic into items and you won't have to draw much.

I remember learning about stuff like that long after I gave up on the game. Unless you're a JRPG veteran it's pretty hard to figure out the way to efficiently utilize the system in FFVIII. It's an example where depth gets turned into inscrutability.

That is true. It takes some time to figure out the best way to use the system. What I also didn´t like about it is that it made magic completely useless. You don´t wanna use any of the good spells because you wanna junction them, but the weaker spells hardly do as much damage as normal attacks.

At 10/3/09 02:32 PM, puddinN64 wrote: So, this will take at least like, two years, right?

Some guys have done it in 7 days (only completing the main story).

[HollowGrave]

At 10/3/09 02:30 PM, Jercurpac wrote: Alright, I get it now. That king is one crafty motherfucker. Here's how it goes this fucking chump Garland actually manages to do something right and kidnaps the King's daughter. Check out the weak-ass plan Garland is trying to pull here. He expects the king to give Garland his kingdom in exchange for his daughter. Keep in mind that Garland is only one guy, has no army of his own, and therefore he has absolutely no way to back this power even if he got it. The king could easily agree to the terms, get his daughter, then just sic his army on this guy, but he has a better plan that won't cost him a fucking dime.

He sees these four rubes wander into town. He grabs them, takes them to the castle and calls them the heroes foretold in an ancient prophesy. Now these four dumb fuckers buy this bullshit completely and go to the rescue. Garland, being a useless fuck even by useless fuck standards, gets his face curb-stomped. So you'd expect the king would at least grant these four guys who did him a huge fucking favor a little land at least. Make Fisty a kick-ass duke or something. No, he pulls this four heroes bullshit again and sends them off on an adventure.

Oh, they do get a lute as a reward. Because when I think of a proper reward for risking my life I think of a lute.

Trust me man you'd be surprised how Garland plays a much deeper impactful role in the game. I beat it ages ago on the NES, haven't tried it on the PSP yet then again I might sometime soon. It's a great game trust me you'll seriously get mind fucked at the end and if you think the heroes are underappreciated now then your gonna go nuts when you see the ending. You might need two White Mages though or atleast one White Mage and a Red Mage otherwise your going to get owned badly as the game progresses.

[kinggila]

Funny you mention this now since I know someone who's going through all the FF games in the main series with the exception of XI. This is something I would like to do myself sometime. However, I hate FFII with a passion and never want to play it again so the idea of going through every FF game chronologically won't ever happen for me. Also, it doesn't really help when if I ever did such a thing, I would be dreading FFVIII the whole time, most especially the last disc. However, I wish you the best of luck going through these games.

[HollowGrave]

You guys need to keep a open mind and patience I swear. If I could find FFIV then i'd be done beating all of them (the numerical ones and excluding FFXI since it's a MMO and that's self-explainitory). Their all pretty good. Sure they each have their own flaws, but it's not going to literally make your eyes bleed or anything. Granted FFVIII stumped me big time when I first got it with it's whole junction/summon system, the fact you can't simply buy and equip gear like the others, and how you don't get money from fights but by a rank-based SeeD system that pays you after a couple fights or a hour or so if your just standing around doing nothing but if you look passed all that it's a pretty good game. I especially loved the card game in that one.

[Thegluestickman]

At 10/4/09 12:27 AM, Jercurpac wrote: III and IV will probably be the DS remakes.

III for the DS sucks. You can have mine if I can find it.

[Jercurpac]

At 10/4/09 07:56 AM, Auz wrote:

At 10/3/09 02:32 PM, puddinN64 wrote: So, this will take at least like, two years, right?

Some guys have done it in 7 days (only completing the main story).

I remember that, I can't claim to have even the slightest mastery of any Final Fantasy so this will take a long, long time for me. Even if I had the same knowledge of shortcuts available to me it wouldn't be close to a week start to finish. This is a completely guide-free run so one to two years sounds about right depending on how dedicated I remain.

At 10/4/09 09:19 AM, Thegluestickman wrote: III for the DS sucks. You can have mine if I can find it.

It can't be any worse than the original NES version, right? I thought they were essentially the same game only with the addition of excruciatingly adorable character designs on the DS. It's not entirely necessary to send anything out, but it would still be appreciated. I'd definitely toss something your way through paypal.

--------

Learned a very important life lesson from FF I today. Saving a king's daughter might get you jack-shit, but taking the violent route through a problem and beating the everloving fuck out of a group of pirates earns you a goddamn pirate ship. Apparently violence is the superior answer to all of life's problems.

[ChaosProdigy]

At 10/4/09 10:57 AM, Jercurpac wrote: Apparently violence is the superior answer to all of life's problems.

If you get a pirate ship after using curb-stomping a guy in real life, then violence would be popular and global warming would not exist.

On the actual FF ladder though, I can't wait until you play FFIX, considering that it's a pretty nice, refreshing FF game compared to the similar-styled games before it.

[HollowGrave]

At 10/4/09 10:57 AM, Jercurpac wrote: Learned a very important life lesson from FF I today. Saving a king's daughter might get you jack-shit, but taking the violent route through a problem and beating the everloving fuck out of a group of pirates earns you a goddamn pirate ship. Apparently violence is the superior answer to all of life's problems.

You get a airship from dwarves when your half way through it and have defeated two of the Four Fiends.

[Thegluestickman]

At 10/4/09 10:57 AM, Jercurpac wrote:

At 10/4/09 09:19 AM, Thegluestickman wrote: III for the DS sucks. You can have mine if I can find it.

It can't be any worse than the original NES version, right? I thought they were essentially the same game only with the addition of excruciatingly adorable character designs on the DS.

Never played the NES one. But I wouldn't doubt it's too far off, no save feature and when you die back to the start.

It's not entirely necessary to send anything out, but it would still be appreciated. I'd definitely toss something your way through paypal.

Well I figure that you'd get more use out of it than me. If you could pm me your address I'd definitively have it shipped within the week.

[Gustavos]

I have Final Fantasy 1-4, but I haven't been arsed to finish any of them. Never tried any of the other FF games. I'll get FF7 for 10$ eventually. I've heard enough that it should be a DECENT RPG. But the first 4 just couldn't keep my attention. 1,2, and 3 have no real story (not even 3's DS remake), and 4 had a very compelling story that got stale when all the dead characters came back for NO GODDAMN REASON. But I got to the last temple of FF4, and stopped when I realised that I will never get through it no matter how much I grind.

[Samuraikyo]

At 10/4/09 04:23 PM, Blaze-Heatnix wrote: TL;DR are you playing the re-releases or originals?

I was just about the ask the same thing also.

As a hardcore FF gamer, (own all of them except XI) I recommend playing Final Fantasy I on the playstation Origins game, or handheld Dawn of Souls. My first completion of FFI ever, was on the GBA port. It honestly makes the game a lot more playable. If you're playing the NES original, you will start to get aggrivated from the whole everything takes forever in battle.

This question will go for all of the other re-releases. Most noticeably, will you play the "Sprite" Final Fantasy IV or the new DS version remake?

[ZJ]

At 10/4/09 07:56 AM, Auz wrote:

Some guys have done it in 7 days (only completing the main story).

And some guys have had their testicles surgically removed.

[ZJ]

Also: The original game is on the Virtual Consolenow. You gunna play it on there?

[Jercurpac]

At 10/5/09 06:49 PM, Mendou wrote: Wow, talk about torture, because the early ones are incredibly boring.

The GBA remake of the original hasn't been too bad at this point, mostly because it's incredibly easy. I'm not that deep in the game, but every boss has gone down within two rounds. People who don't dig JRPGs probably won't get it, but when it's not too overwhelming there's almost a calming catharsis that goes with wandering around and grinding. Leveling has remained super-speedy so it hasn't gotten tedious. I'm still getting to the bosses and discovering new area before everything gets too samey.

I am a little wary of III and IV as I've heard the DS remakes retain every bit of their old school brutality.

-------

As an update I just helped some filthy little gnome blast the fuck out of the continent. I'm sure he just killed thousands of innocent animals with his disgusting desires to constantly dig and destroy the orderly beauty of nature, but that's what you get from a horrible creature like a gnome. Now I got some mother fuckers asking me to kill a vampire for them. What the fuck genre am I in here? I was just fighting some troll king and now I'm apparently on to fucking Nosferatu.

[ZJ]

At 10/5/09 06:49 PM, Mendou wrote: Wow, talk about torture, because the early ones are incredibly boring.

But at least they're easier and shorter.

[Gustavos]

At 10/5/09 10:01 PM, Jercurpac wrote: The GBA remake of the original hasn't been too bad at this point, mostly because it's incredibly easy.

I have the PS1 remake. It keeps the difficulty of the original. The GBA remake has a proper MP system, and I've heard it has faster leveling. I would definitely trade Origins for Dawn of Souls.

I am a little wary of III and IV as I've heard the DS remakes retain every bit of their old school brutality.

It would definitely explain the last temple of FF4. Where leveling up at that point doesn't help at all.

-------

As an update I just helped some filthy little gnome blast the fuck out of the continent. I'm sure he just killed thousands of innocent animals with his disgusting desires to constantly dig and destroy the orderly beauty of nature, but that's what you get from a horrible creature like a gnome. Now I got some mother fuckers asking me to kill a vampire for them. What the fuck genre am I in here? I was just fighting some troll king and now I'm apparently on to fucking Nosferatu.

Hahaha! My thoughts exactly at that point.

[Jercurpac]

Alright moving along again, got a little lost because a complete lack of direction given to me by the game. I plowed my way through the caverns, beat the shit out of Dracula, spelunked the rest of the way down and finally took out the Lich quite handily. At this point I'm shown a little scene of the way being cleared in the Earthgift shrine. Now, I thought this was where I was supposed go next, seems logical, no character has said otherwise. Plus the enemies there weren't that tough. Even easier than the previous dungeon. Get to the end though and you're faced with four bosses that are just real motherfuckers. If you play smart you can last a little bit against them, but at this point it's clear that there's no way to beat any of them. Apparently instead of going to that dungeon I was supposed to sail around until I found a random port that lead me to a new town.

So apparently the dungeon the game took great pains to show you was now accessible isn't where you should go and a town no one has mentioned was my next destination. I'm fairly certain this bullshit was intentionally included to just fuck with the player. I've noticed several things like this. In the cavern that leads you to Dracula and eventually the Lich I was wandering along when all of a sudden I walked into an area I've come to call The Corridor of Go Fuck Youself. For reasons unknown the encounter rate in this small section goes to 100%. Every fucking step you have to fight the same tough enemies. I struggled through this because I thought such a frustrating endeavor might lead to some valuable treasure. No, it just loops you back to an area you've already been.

[Samuraikyo]

Haha, seems like you got yourself into the Hall of Giants/Gigas. That part really aggrivated me the first time I tried to navigate the Earth Cavern.