AtmaWeapon wrote:From what I remember of FFI on the NES, that game can spank you pretty hard if you aren't devoted to your leveling. I should probably pick it up as a good way to kill some time.FFIII I've never seen, so it's probably worth a shot. I'd love to see FFVI on the GBA, but I think it would take a lot to get it there. For one, it was a huge game. In addition, the graphics were a little dark and extremely detailed; it would be hard to scale them down.
Dawn of Souls is pretty dissappointing, actually. FF1 is one of my favorites on the old NES, mainly because of the difficulty and time required to progress in the game. The GBA version has been made too easy, partly from how quickly you go up in level and stats, partly from things like being able to just mindlessly hold down the A button whenever a random enemy encounter appears.
They did give the player 4 new difficult dungeons to play through, but they're annoying, the random enemies aren't at all difficult past level 30, and the floors appear in random order. The only thing really challenging about them is the bosses, which will kick your ass unless you do what I used to do in the original FF and level up super fast killing evil eyes in the Ice Cave. Around 45 to 50 is when those bosses become beatable; since the game allows you level beyond 50(as opposed to the original), a little time spent bogged in the endless mindless enemy encounters in those new dungeons will have you well prepared for the boss fights.
I can't really blame square though, the game is on a portable system, it has to be made more playable. Not all of us spend most of our GBA playing time in our damn homes. So there are people who will appreciate the game. I don't.
FF3 will undoubtedly come with various enhancements over the original that will alter the game experience. First off, in the original, there were no save points in dungeons, and the final dungeon, being how large it is, took you quite a while to even get to the first boss fight. In fact, I highly doubt that most people playing the game in english could've finished the game without save states(a tool available to emu users that I avoid entirely; I had to use them in FF3). Once you make it to the second part of the final dungeon, you can't go back, so you can't save. The path to the final boss is fairly short, but if you decide to fight that boss immediately, you'll lose. So instead you have to fight 4 bosses, 4 of the most intensely cheap and aggravating required boss fights in any of the games I've played(which is all 11). And after each fight, you have to move on to the next, you can't save, if you die on the second, or third, or the fourth fight, YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. And then you still have the final boss to fight, who isn't very easy, despite the reputation of final bosses in the FF series. This is why you need save states. This would probably reveal why the game never made it to the US in its NES form.
So clearly, FF3 is going to have that addressed, and that will be a good thing. However its a portable, they'll need to rebalance the difficulty for players who get actual use out of their portables.
The neat thing about FF3 was that it was still a challenge throughout the game but had an extensive job system that made things interesting whereas in future games, similar character building systems made the game too easy. If they take the challenge away, it probably won't be worth more than the fact it'll be the first time the game was ever released in the US.