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Exhuminator wrote:

Kuruwin wrote:Bummer. Well even if it doesn't get better again it was still worth to play it for those first 4-5 hour's.

FFIX was only good while it was under the direct influence of Sakaguchi. He left its development around 40% of the way in, and you can tell.

You sure? This one annoying guy I know claims it's his masterpiece.

I'd wager Sakaguchi would say that about FF10 instead. I'm not really sure I recall much of his influences in FF9.

I find it hard to really track down his specifics thesedays, since we have so many more details on directors and all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hironobu_Sakaguchi

So he's actually barely directed much after FF5, but... 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, Lost Odyssey, all have a lot of common themes to me revolving around death and loss (I think he lost his mother somewhere in here and probably had an influence on his work). That's kind of what I look for when I try to catch the Sakaguchi melodrama and influences. Maybe he was the brains behind the characters and relationships concepts.

FF is dead without him. At this rate I think only him and Uematsu can save the series for me.

Xeogred wrote:I'm not really sure I recall much of his influences in FF9.

Officially he was listed as the producer.

Toshiyuki Itahana said Sakaguchi was the scenario writer for FFIX ( http://www.webcitation.org/5w0HKvoEj?ur ... %26id%3D35 ) and this is further backed up by him still having the raw writing memos ( https://www.destructoid.com/sakaguchi-p ... 8608.phtml ).

In the beginning of FFIX's development, Sakaguchi clearly stated he was the director:

"As the development team increased in size, my role shifted to director and producer." ( http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/04/06/ ... -sakaguchi )

So to recap, Sakaguchi was the producer, writer, and initial director of FFIX. It was clearly evident to me when he stopped being the director however. I think he had to step away from directing FFIX, due to how involved he was with The Spirits Within.

Does this explain NECRON?

Xeogred wrote:Does this explain NECRON?

There is no explanation for Necron.

Xeogred wrote:So he's actually barely directed much after FF5, but... 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, Lost Odyssey, all have a lot of common themes to me revolving around death and loss (I think he lost his mother somewhere in here and probably had an influence on his work). That's kind of what I look for when I try to catch the Sakaguchi melodrama and influences. Maybe he was the brains behind the characters and relationships concepts.

If I remember correctly, he lost his Mother during or before VII after a long battle. And if you look at VII in that context, it really shows.

I didn't realize I was in the minority in liking FFIX. Granted, I'm a self-proclaimed Fan Boy and like any Final Fantasy game that was before FFXIII.

For FFIX, I always loved the call backs to previous games. VII and VIII were such a departure from the first 6, that IX feels like a retro throwback to the original games. I love the more simplistic game play. The story is VERY depressing, but I love the optimism that it brings in Zidane. Vivi is one of the greatest characters of all time. It has depth and can be played for DAYS without unlocking everything.

For me, it goes FFX, FFVI, FFXII and then FFIX. I think it's the best FF on the PS1 and well worth a play through.

Final Fantasy XV and Xenoblade Chronicles

Jumped into Tales of Eternia / Destiny 2 (US) today, this will be the fifth Tales attempt! My issues with them has been expressed plenty before. Basically the really basic stories can only pull so much before I get a little bored and in some cases, the cooking systems can be ridiculously taxing (Graces F). The franchise is huge though and I'm always curious to continue checking more out. Eternia apparently goes for like $200 now... so I better give this one a chance!





Game is downright gorgeous and doesn't have the insanely weird overworld map that Destiny had. I'm starting to really dig Motoi Sakuraba's work too and he's so easy to pick out with his music. So the vibes are great.

Has some interesting design choices for a PSX game. I think you can save anywhere, though in dungeons there's these crystal things that are the "load points". Otherwise I'm not sure if you load up exactly where you save in towns and on the overworld, but I'll find out.

On the overworld you can "camp" and restore your HP... the weird thing here is that I've done it a few times and it doesn't seem to be consuming any items or anything to use. So that seems like an easy handicap or something.

There is voice overs for all dialogue it seems, which is also a bit different from the norm back then. Thankfully, you can turn them off though, which I did after the intro. Couldn't handle that voice acting haha. I left the battle voices on, since those are always humorous.

Combat seems awesome as usual and the cooking and skills system seems fine. Nothing about it seems like it will be a micromanagement nightmare like Graces F was.

I'm cracking up how Meredy basically seems to be Sophie from Graces F...

So far so good and the story/characters seem cool. Let's see if this one holds my interest.

I've told this before, but there was one day that my brother and I bought Suikoden II. We were budget-constrained because we'd already bought one game that day, but he busted out his "but we might never see it again" line and we got it.

That other game was Tales of Destiny II.

Wait, are you saying you guys had to choose between the two?

I frankly can't even remember when I bought this. Must have ordered it several years ago online probably only for $40 at most or so. I usually hesitate at $50 and up.

There's a few PSX JRPG's I still want to round up sometime before they get too rare:
Legend Of Legaia
Thousand Arms
Lunar 2 (played most of it from a friend, I own the first)
Koudelka (currently at $67...)

Cheap:
The Granstream Saga
Shadow Madness

Might be few others here and there. Not sure if any of these are on the PSN store.

It really bugs me that I own Legend of Mana, Vagrant Story, and Breath of Fire 4 all incomplete though. I have the manual for Vagrant Story, but only the discs for the two others. I think I rebought these three on the PSN store anyways, lol. But the OCD pain is real!

I enjoyed what I played of Tales of Etneria, it's just that it being entirely in Japanese was a bit too intimidating for a game that I had to sit down and play dedicatedly. I'm just not at that level of comfort with it yet (plus its older so its a lot less forgiving with misreading or not understanding certain words with its directions and puzzles). I thought Melody was okay (I refuse to call her by that awful American localization), but no matter how much I play Eternia, I doubt she will ever replace Sophie for me, who is like one of my favorite characters in my favorite Tales game.

Also, don't stress the cooking! It never (really) matters