Good game almost ruined by awful combat

[Multihog]

It's slow, unimaginative (maybe on purpose as a homage to old FF) and in general just unimpressive. But most of all I hate the slowness. The characters seem to just stand around for a few seconds before executing each command. This quickly adds up to a long time.

They somehow managed to screw up the pace, unlike FFVII and VIII where it felt very slick and well paced. Trance is a joke compared to limit breaks, as well: it always triggers when you least need it.

I can forgive the combat being worse than X because X came after this. But being worse than FFVII and VIII? Such a step back. It's a shame because most other aspects of the game are pretty good.

The one good thing about it is that you actually have mages and melees, not everyone is able to perform every role.

Anyone actually consider the combat in this better than 7, 8 and 10?

[Mike]

i too upon revisiting these older FF games, am finding the combat to be a complete and utter pile of wank. trawling through 99/100 battles just hitting 'attack' and always winning, just to get to that one interesting battle is so, SO not worth it.

bring on the FF7 remake and whatever its new combat system may be, because ATB is dead : )

[Taka]

Originally posted by Mike:

i too upon revisiting these older FF games, am finding the combat to be a complete and utter pile of wank. trawling through 99/100 battles just hitting 'attack' and always winning, just to get to that one interesting battle is so, SO not worth it.

bring on the FF7 remake and whatever its new combat system may be, because ATB is dead : )

Can't want to see your tears of disappointment.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Oᑎᕮ ᔕᕼOT, Oᑎᕮ KIᒪL:

Originally posted by Mike:

i too upon revisiting these older FF games, am finding the combat to be a complete and utter pile of wank. trawling through 99/100 battles just hitting 'attack' and always winning, just to get to that one interesting battle is so, SO not worth it.

bring on the FF7 remake and whatever its new combat system may be, because ATB is dead : )

Can't want to see your tears of disappointment.

why would i cry? we know they're remaking it and that the combats gonna be different. sounds like a win win situation to me : )

[Taka]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by Oᑎᕮ ᔕᕼOT, Oᑎᕮ KIᒪL:

Can't want to see your tears of disappointment.

why would i cry? we know they're remaking it and that the combats gonna be different. sounds like a win win situation to me : )

Let me know how that goes.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Mike:

i too upon revisiting these older FF games, am finding the combat to be a complete and utter pile of wank. trawling through 99/100 battles just hitting 'attack' and always winning, just to get to that one interesting battle is so, SO not worth it.

bring on the FF7 remake and whatever its new combat system may be, because ATB is dead : )

I agree. ATB is ♥♥♥♥. Even the most basic one: purely turn based without time units of any kind is much better.

FFX combat is still good because it's fluid and fast with no ATB (and the battle transition screen is non existent). Chrono series combat is fast enough to be enjoyable, because the ATB is super fast in trigger, and in Chrono Cross there is no ATB. Also, in Chrono Trigger there is no battle transition screen.

I think it's the slowness in combination with the fact that the trash mob fights serve no real purpose that kills it. If the fights are fast enough, it's okay. If they're slow, it starts to test my patience.

Bosses are OK either way, because there's an actual risk of death.

[PureRok]

I think FFIX is too fast. I set it to the slowest speed and Wait mode. I wish it were turn based, but that's as close as I can get.

[old Charlie]

I don´t think the battles are worse than FF7 or 8. Especially 8. 8 was terrible - draw magic, junction until you are literally invincible - profit. FF9 is kind of slow however, but thankfully there is that F1-Button so you can speed up those boring parts. Oh but the battles in FFX were extremely slow as well - especially if you wanted to level up all you chars and had to switch everybody in, in every fight.

Tbh the only bad thing about the battles in FF9 is the stealing. I get that they made it highrisk-highreward but stealing certain items is just tedious.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Bowerick Wowbagger:

I don´t think the battles are worse than FF7 or 8. Especially 8. 8 was terrible - draw magic, junction until you are literally invincible - profit. FF9 is kind of slow however, but thankfully there is that F1-Button so you can speed up those boring parts. Oh but the battles in FFX were extremely slow as well - especially if you wanted to level up all you chars and had to switch everybody in, in every fight.

Tbh the only bad thing about the battles in FF9 is the stealing. I get that they made it highrisk-highreward but stealing certain items is just tedious.

I'd suggest you play FFX again. Your memory of it is clearly wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMB-Sit8FjI&t=1m30s

Look at this video at 1:30. Is that slow to you?

First of all, the transition from field to battle is basically non existent. Secondly, the animations are super fast, and the game starts the next character's turn even before the previous one (or the camera) has returned to his position from attacking. Also, character switching is nearly instant.

This is pretty much as fluid as it gets. This guy talking all the time and stopping for no reason, of course, slows it down.

Compare this to FFIX, where your characters just stand around for a couple of seconds before starting their EXTREMELY slow attack animation. Then add to that the waiting around caused by ATB. It's no surprise the battles are ♥♥♥♥. Then there's the unnecessarily long battle screen transition, which is even slower on the world map due to the 20FPS limitation. (yes, that swirl is slowed down by the FPS)

[old Charlie]

in this video you play with only 5 characters (Auron and Rikuu are missing) and this early in the game most enemies are onehits. I finished FFX about 2 months ago (again) and the battles take forever. You are right about the transitions, though. But those are only a mere 1-2 seconds - no biggie. Check out some videos in FFX toward mount gagazet - especially if you steal with multiple characters, level them all up at once AND try to capture certain enemies. Oh and there are alot more random battles too!

And if you use the F1-Booster in this FFIX version your whole argument is invalid because you can practically skip the slow parts.

Oh and I do like the skill-system. Its kind of oldschool but its motivating to use different equipment and you have many tactical options. In FF7 you steamroll the whole game, in FF8 you basically shouldn´t be fighting at all and FFX has good tactical battles but its so slow and even small encounters take long.

[Multihog]

Obviously, it will take longer if you are grinding and/or stealing. That's not even a proper argument. The same applies to FF IX where the stealing is even worse.

Using fast forward is not a valid argument either because that's not how the game was originally supposed to be played. You could boot up FFX in an emulator and turn off the frame limiter to accomplish the same thing.

The random battles are way faster if you just play normally and that's what matters, everything else is optional.

[old Charlie]

Originally posted by Multihog:

Obviously it will take longer if you are grinding and/or stealing. That's not even a proper argument. The same applies to FF IX where the stealing is even worse.

In FF9 stealing from normal monsters is pretty pointless though, so you don´t do it nearly as often as in FFX - sure, stealing in FF9 sucks but you only do it in those rather rare bossbattles. in FFX you also have to capture monsters, so you can add that as well. So in almost every batle, you have to use 7 characters and steal at least two times (otherwise you would win the battle before everyone got its turn). Sure, the animations are faster but the whole switching in, switching out, casting a pointless spell only to have done something, so you get exp etc. is just way more tedious than FF9 - especially if you use F1.

Originally posted by Multihog:

Using fast forward is not a valid argument either, because that's not how the game was originally supposed to be played. You could boot up FFX in an emulator and turn off the frame limiter to accomplish the same thing.

Well, I don´t like the overlong battles of FFX but they are part of the game for me. I am not really troubled by them. And my argument is totally valid: You point out, that the battles in the game are so slow, it almost ruined the game for you. If that is so, use this great feature they added to the game, specifically for people like you, who dislike easy battles that take more than a minute or two. Why is it important to you how the game was shipped in the year 2000?

Originally posted by Multihog:

The random battles are way faster if you just play normally and that's what matters, everything else is optional.

If you don´t steal or level up your whole team in FFX, the battles tend to take more time because you won´t be able to take them out as fast. Certain characters will be weak, because you won´t use them in most battles (yuna, Rikku, Kimahri) and your equipment will be 3rd-rate because you can´t really craft without stealing.

[EDIT] Oh and might I add the recent observation, that there are ALOT more random battles in FFX than in FFIX.

[Multihog]

Most of your arguments are only relevant to your own playstyle. No one forces you to level up the entire party; I never did. No one forces you to steal at all, either. Your points are really only relevant if you're "minmaxing" and/or doing a 100% run of the game. That applies to every FF entry, btw.

And I don't like fast forwarding because that essentially means that I'm cutting a part of the game out. If there's an incentive to completely skip some parts (normal battles), then there must be some serious design or execution problems.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Bowerick Wowbagger:

And if you use the F1-Booster in this FFIX version your whole argument is invalid because you can practically skip the slow parts.

Really? lol


That's like saying the original Final Fantasy wasn't slow because you can speed up emulators. It doesn't change the core design of the game, FF9 battles are slow. If you have to speed them up, it should tell you something.

[old Charlie]

Originally posted by Multihog:

Most of your arguments are only relevant to your own playstyle. No one forces you to level up the entire party; I never did. No one forces you to steal at all, either. Your points are really only relevant if you're "minmaxing" and/or doing a 100% run of the game. That applies to every FF entry, btw.

And I don't like fast forwarding because that essentially means that I'm cutting a part of the game out. If there's an incentive to completely skip some parts (normal battles), then there must be some serious design or execution problems.

Well, I guess you can file that under "your opinion". As I said, I played FFX recently and I am playing FF9 right now. FFX has way more tedious random-battles IMO. My playstile might be part of that problem but I promise you, that once you go back to FFX and climb Mt. Gagazet, you gonna curse that opinion of yours.

Personally I wouldn´t play any one of the Final Fantasy games (again) without a "speed-up". All the FF-games are rather slow and therefore all of them would have design and execution problems according to you.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Dr. Raven:

Originally posted by Bowerick Wowbagger:

And if you use the F1-Booster in this FFIX version your whole argument is invalid because you can practically skip the slow parts.

Really? lol


That's like saying the original Final Fantasy wasn't slow because you can speed up emulators. It doesn't change the core design of the game, FF9 battles are slow. If you have to speed them up, it should tell you something.

Yeah, this is what I've been saying. :D