Final Fantasy Origins is an impressive little collection that bundles the Wonderswan remakes of Final Fantasy I & II for the PlayStation, with a slew of quality-of-life improvements that make Final Fantasy's earliest entries more accessible to new audiences without cheapening their "old school" difficulty. About the only impressive thing Final Fantasy Chronicles does is introduce intrusive load times and slowdown to Super Nintendo games in the year 2001 and with the full space of dedicated CDs at Square's disposal. Astonishing.
I'm sure there's worse ways to play these games. I know my ears wouldn't be able to tolerate a full playthrough of Final Fantasy IV for the Game Boy Advance, at least, but Chronicles is still less than ideal. I didn't tear into the technical aspects of the game in my review of FFIV, but the amount of slowdown here is agonizing. Scroll through your inventory mid-battle and watch it tick by like molasses slowly pouring from the tap. I also encountered a somewhat frequent bug where Rydia's summons would appear for a couple of frames and then vanish, taking any ensuing effects or damage along with them. Granted, I have no (contemporary) frame of reference to say whether these problems are unique to Chronicles or simply part of the FFIV experience, but it definitely hampers the experience of playing this release regardless.
Chrono Trigger is a game I don't currently have the motivation to sit down and fully replay, but I did mess around in it for a while just to get a sense of what the Chronicles edition was like. Bad, it turns out! The load times are so disruptive to the pace of the game that I can't see myself bearing it for a full play in the same way I can FFIV. You do at least get a nicely animated FMV intro, but hear me out: you can just watch that on YouTube before starting an ill-gotten SNES ROM up in your emulator of choice.
Final Fantasy IV also gets an FMV intro, but uhh... uhhhhhh.... Square was respected for the quality of their CGI cutscenes during the PlayStation era, so what happened here? Was all their money tied up with Spirits Within?
There are simply better ways to play these games, and the only real value I see in Chronicles today is if you're trying to fill out a PlayStation 1 collection and are still in the "I don't want to spend a lot on old games" phase of what is sure to be a mounting problem that will ultimately lead you to financial ruin, like it has me. It starts with this and then the next thing you know you're eyeballing copies of Ehrgeiz and Xenogears and contemplating taking out a loan. I'm writing this review on a Chromebook from the back of my 2003 Toyota Avalon, which I live out of now because i bought too many video games, please donate to my patreon i need to eat i promise i won't spend it on Suikoden II thats not who i am anymore i've changed!!
I'm sure there's worse ways to play these games. I know my ears wouldn't be able to tolerate a full playthrough of Final Fantasy IV for the Game Boy Advance, at least, but Chronicles is still less than ideal. I didn't tear into the technical aspects of the game in my review of FFIV, but the amount of slowdown here is agonizing. Scroll through your inventory mid-battle and watch it tick by like molasses slowly pouring from the tap. I also encountered a somewhat frequent bug where Rydia's summons would appear for a couple of frames and then vanish, taking any ensuing effects or damage along with them. Granted, I have no (contemporary) frame of reference to say whether these problems are unique to Chronicles or simply part of the FFIV experience, but it definitely hampers the experience of playing this release regardless.
Chrono Trigger is a game I don't currently have the motivation to sit down and fully replay, but I did mess around in it for a while just to get a sense of what the Chronicles edition was like. Bad, it turns out! The load times are so disruptive to the pace of the game that I can't see myself bearing it for a full play in the same way I can FFIV. You do at least get a nicely animated FMV intro, but hear me out: you can just watch that on YouTube before starting an ill-gotten SNES ROM up in your emulator of choice.
Final Fantasy IV also gets an FMV intro, but uhh... uhhhhhh.... Square was respected for the quality of their CGI cutscenes during the PlayStation era, so what happened here? Was all their money tied up with Spirits Within?
There are simply better ways to play these games, and the only real value I see in Chronicles today is if you're trying to fill out a PlayStation 1 collection and are still in the "I don't want to spend a lot on old games" phase of what is sure to be a mounting problem that will ultimately lead you to financial ruin, like it has me. It starts with this and then the next thing you know you're eyeballing copies of Ehrgeiz and Xenogears and contemplating taking out a loan. I'm writing this review on a Chromebook from the back of my 2003 Toyota Avalon, which I live out of now because i bought too many video games, please donate to my patreon i need to eat i promise i won't spend it on Suikoden II thats not who i am anymore i've changed!!
6 Comments
Forgot to mention (since I banged this review out very quickly) that I'd still take this version of Final Fantasy IV over the pixel remaster. Look at how bad they messed up the background effect on Zeromus, this is some real "they mascaraed my boy" shit.
is this the one with spoony bard
This version of FF4 is mostly fun for the horrible but in different ways than the original FF2US translation, it's a damn shame though because FF1 and 2 Origins are arguably the best way to play those games even now.
FF4 is an unfortunately cursed game that has no real ideal way to play it, the PSP version is neat but it's also very ugly (imo), GBA has a lot of slowdown and sounds like shit, SNES has you dealing with fan translations of varying qualities, DS is great but very different from the original, Pixel Remaster is uhhh.. Pixel Remaster! It's a damn shame compared to most other FF games which have a p easy answer to "what version should I play". But it's definetly not this one lol
AFAIK The Rydia Summon Bug is exclusive to this version, I've actually never seen that though so that's kinda odd. I wonder why that happens, maybe some weird fuckiness with ATB turn order.
FF4 is an unfortunately cursed game that has no real ideal way to play it, the PSP version is neat but it's also very ugly (imo), GBA has a lot of slowdown and sounds like shit, SNES has you dealing with fan translations of varying qualities, DS is great but very different from the original, Pixel Remaster is uhhh.. Pixel Remaster! It's a damn shame compared to most other FF games which have a p easy answer to "what version should I play". But it's definetly not this one lol
AFAIK The Rydia Summon Bug is exclusive to this version, I've actually never seen that though so that's kinda odd. I wonder why that happens, maybe some weird fuckiness with ATB turn order.
@RedTheFunnyLad I had considered bringing that up but wasn't familiar enough with every version to feel too strongly about it. But I agree, I'm not a fan of how the PSP one looks, the DS version seems like a bit more of a departure...
And yeah I think it's ATB related, something about the way the game is prioritizing actions and animations. It wouldn't surprise me if I was just mashing out the next character's action too quickly and the game was somehow tripping up and cancelling out of her summons because of it. It was a little inconvenient, but god knows there's worse glitches in this era of Final Fantasy.
And yeah I think it's ATB related, something about the way the game is prioritizing actions and animations. It wouldn't surprise me if I was just mashing out the next character's action too quickly and the game was somehow tripping up and cancelling out of her summons because of it. It was a little inconvenient, but god knows there's worse glitches in this era of Final Fantasy.
BlazingWaters
20 days ago