This Week at the Nintendo Shop: the First of the Final Fantasies

[Doctor Setebos]

I think I've finally figured out how this all works. It appears as though every month, Nintendo releases at least one game that everyone wants. And the rest of the time, they release a bunch of crap. This month, our one good release is Final Fantasy for the NES. I suppose we'll see you again in November. Part of me is really hoping that this is just the first in a long line of Final Fantasy-related Virtual Console releases, but there's a small, quiet voice in the back of my head that is laughing uncontrollably at that notion.

Full links and descriptions below.


Virtual Console

FINAL FANTASY (http://www.nintendolife.com/games/nes/final_fantasy)
Original platform: NES
Publisher: SQUARE ENIX
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) - Mild Fantasy Violence
Price: 500 Wii Points™
Description: The world lies shrouded in darkness. The winds die. The sea rages. The earth decays. But the people believe in a prophecy, patiently awaiting its fulfillment. "When darkness veils the earth, four Warriors of Light shall come...." After a long journey, four young travelers did at last appear, and in the hand of each was clutched a crystal.

DSiWare

Thorium Wars (http://www.nintendolife.com/games/dsiware/thorium_wars)
Publisher: Big John Games
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) - Fantasy Violence
Price: 1,000 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: In Thorium Wars, you must stop the Thorions, a super species of Thorium-based machines, from destroying mankind. Blast through waves of Thorions by controlling an arsenal of tanks, skyfighters, hovercrafts, gunboats and starfighters with either the standard or touch-screen controls. In 12 exciting missions, navigate through a variety of combat environments while viewing 360 degrees of the battlefield, fully rendered in 3-D. Toggle between first- and third-person views to destroy the terrifying army of Thorium beasts, from swarms of Redeye Drones to the bone-crushing Manticore Walker. This man-versus-machine battle proves to be the ultimate test for the survival of the fittest.

WiiWare

Word Searcher (http://www.nintendolife.com/games/wiiware/word_searcher)
Publisher: Digital Leisure Inc.
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: You'll need a sharp eye and a quick mind to complete 100 themed word-search puzzles. Word Searcher contains fun words from multiple categories including anatomy, world cities and U.S. presidents. With a huge assortment of subjects to choose from, there's sure to be a puzzle for everyone to enjoy. Help improve your vocabulary, memory and problem-solving skills with these engaging puzzles. Track and try to beat your own play-through times again and again—words are scrambled every time you play.

Enjoy!

[Panthera]

Ah hah, fantastic. Hopefully this will introduce some people to the balance of the original - the remakes, short of the PSX one, have all be badly watered down. Final Fantasy was practically the only game in the series where your money really meant something, and the world was not just a cakewalk to the boss. Great stuff.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Ah hah, fantastic. Hopefully this will introduce some people to the balance of the original - the remakes, short of the PSX one, have all be badly watered down. Final Fantasy was practically the only game in the series where your money really meant something, and the world was not just a cakewalk to the boss. Great stuff.

You mean that you have to grind constantly before doing anything interesting. I'm not certain how it makes the game better that I have to spend 2 hours doing something I do not want to do before moving on.

Also, I'm amazed. I was certain they were never going to release any of these on VC, as they cannot charge $40.

[Gorvi]

You mean that you have to grind constantly before doing anything interesting. I'm not certain how it makes the game better that I have to spend 2 hours doing something I do not want to do before moving on.

Also, I'm amazed. I was certain they were never going to release any of these on VC, as they cannot charge $40.
They've put I, II, VII, and VIII on the PSN, so it's not really that surprising. The NES version of FF1 is easily the least forgiving, and not in a good way. I'd still buy it for nostalgia value if I didn't already have the game in 2 other forms.

[Panthera]

You mean that you have to grind constantly before doing anything interesting. I'm not certain how it makes the game better that I have to spend 2 hours doing something I do not want to do before moving on.

And here's the fundamental misunderstanding about the classic dungeon crawling RPG spelled right out.

That's what the game is. If you don't enjoy the combat, why play it? If you don't enjoy exploring a deadly world that keeps you on your toes with serious challenges and forces you to spend what money you manage to find carefully and really consider your use of spells and equipment, why play?

That's not a grind. That's a game. A grind is where it doesn't matter what you do, and where you have no decisions to be made, and where the fights have no challenge. You want a grind? The MMO genre at its worst is where you'll find one.

[TheFlyingOrc]

That's what the game is. If you don't enjoy the combat, why play it? If you don't enjoy exploring a deadly world that keeps you on your toes with serious challenges and forces you to spend what money you manage to find carefully and really consider your use of spells and equipment, why play?


Because it's pretend-hard. There's no strategy to it, you can beat the game simply by sinking large numbers of hours into it. Any moron could beat the original Final Fantasy if they plugged away at it long enough. Beating the game is nothing to be proud of - congratulations, you sunk a lot of hours in front of a screen.

Honestly, what "strategy" are you employing in a turn-based RPG? Attack when you can, heal when someones HP gets low, don't waste my big spells unless I'm fighting a boss?

[Panthera]

Because it's pretend-hard. There's no strategy to it, you can beat the game simply by sinking large numbers of hours into it. Any moron could beat the original Final Fantasy if they plugged away at it long enough. Beating the game is nothing to be proud of - congratulations, you sunk a lot of hours in front of a screen.

Any idiot could run circles around town for hours on end and safely grind. But why would you do that? This argument makes as much sense as saying that any idiot can beat an FPS just by loading when they die. The game rewards intelligent play.

Honestly, what "strategy" are you employing in a turn-based RPG? Attack when you can, heal when someones HP gets low, don't waste my big spells unless I'm fighting a boss?

See, that's how you describe a latter-day Final Fantasy, where the real difficulty (not pretend difficulty) was ripped out to put the emphasis on character and plot. When I'm talking about strategy, I mean two things:

1) Party and money management. Weapons and spells are expensive. You have to buy all your spells. You really have to make a serious decision on which spells you want and which to skip. Weapons are pricey enough that having a Thief is worthwhile just to use cheaper equipment at first and the Fighter's hand-me-downs later.

2) Resource management. In the typical Final Fantasy game, you might as well just auto-attack everything on the way to the boss. In this and other dungeon crawling RPGs of the same vein, the emphasis is not on the boss and you have to make careful use of your available resources (items and spells) to defeat your enemies. Returning to town is not a trivial manner, so the farther you go the more you're pushing your luck and need to make your resources last. Furthermore, you have to choose the entire party's attacks at once, which means you have to carefully distribute damage caused to not waste attacks.

This isn't artificial difficulty, this is real gameplay. The GBA and PSP remakes basically took all of that away, which leaves behind... not very much, really.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Any idiot could run circles around town for hours on end and safely grind. But why would you do that? This argument makes as much sense as saying that any idiot can beat an FPS just by loading when they die. The game rewards intelligent play.

You're speaking to someone who argued just yesterday that you shouldn't have save anywhere in FPS's because of the infinitely sliced moments, leading to perfection without talent. Yes, it makes as much sense as something else I also believe.



1) Party and money management. Weapons and spells are expensive. You have to buy all your spells. You really have to make a serious decision on which spells you want and which to skip. Weapons are pricey enough that having a Thief is worthwhile just to use cheaper equipment at first and the Fighter's hand-me-downs later.

Ah, so I have to do JUST THE CORRECT AMOUNT of grinding. People who do more than you are playing wrong, people who do less fail. I get it. Why can I not say that you are playing it wrong because the real players beat it by grinding less than you?

Everyone who plays the game grinds as much as they can to beat it.

[Panthera]

You're speaking to someone who argued just yesterday that you shouldn't have save anywhere in FPS's because of the infinitely sliced moments, leading to perfection without talent. Yes, it makes as much sense as something else I also believe.

And guess what? I was referring to checkpoint saves.

Ah, so I have to do JUST THE CORRECT AMOUNT of grinding. People who do more than you are playing wrong, people who do less fail. I get it. Why can I not say that you are playing it wrong because the real players beat it by grinding less than you?

Everyone who plays the game grinds as much as they can to beat it.

If ANY combat is grinding, then that kinda sorta makes sense.

Except it isn't. So it doesn't.

[JayVe]

I think I've finally figured out how this all works. It appears as though every month, Nintendo releases at least one game that everyone wants. And the rest of the time, they release a bunch of crap.

I found the flaw in your theory. I don't want Final Fantasy this month, and actually LIKE a lot of the stuff released on WiiWare (http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/reviews/2009/09/contra_rebirth)/DSiWare (http://dsiware.nintendolife.com/reviews/2009/09/dragon_quest_wars_dsiware). May buy Thorium Wars (http://www.nintendolife.com/games/dsiware/thorium_wars) right now. Looks badass.

JEfs3j2NVyk

[Doctor Setebos]

I found the flaw in your theory.There are no flaws in my theory. Only flaws in your perception. ;)

And Thorium Wars does indeed look pretty cool.