So I'm not much of an RPG guy, I'll preface. I've played Pokemon games back in the day, Paper Mario is pretty cool, I've gone through western stuff like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect, but even then it's not my genre of choice. The exception to this is I have played Chrono Trigger to completion on DS, twice. Sometimes the enemy encounters and RPG stuff get on my nerves, but otherwise, I'd call Chrono Trigger a solid 9/10 or 10/10 game. The gameplay is snappy, no random encounters, the plot is interesting, the music is great - it's fun to play.
So I finally got around to picking up a fan-patched cartridge of FFVI for GBA, because I knew it's one of the top recommended Final Fantasy games and came out at a similar time as Chrono Trigger. But I dunno, guys. This doesn't feel comparable. The opening was great, but right away I wasn't feeling the battle system - for the first few hours of the game most fights are a complete breeze, giving no incentive to need any other strategy. I'm realizing a large part of my appreciation of Chrono Trigger probably comes from the DS version's nice UI - attacks are separated into three columns by character on the touch screen with nice sizable buttons, vs. the extremely cramped random list of magic attacks filled with blank spaces. I've started playing with Relm, and it's pretty cool to be able to heal through the "Attack" command, but now I have to be extremely careful I'm not accidentally healing the enemy because the UI barely gives any indication of who's battle menu is currently open, while at the same time pushing me to attack quickly with the active time bars. I don't get it. Does the weird timing of attacks really help the game?
I haven't been experimenting with the different magical abilities because 80% of the time I use some characters weird ability, it misses - so it's just a waste of time. Posioning or blinding enemies or confusing enemies or whatever, it seems arbitrary when it's effective or not and most of the time it's not. Why bother with Gau's weird random list of monster moves, or Relm's "sketch" ability that goes unexplained and usually just misses, or remembering what the "123456789" is in Cyan's move list, or what Sabin's button combos are? It's just a mess of random battle options in a cramped ugly UI. And the status effects, let's hope I remember exactly what every colour code means. And when I want to heal mid-fight, which randomly named item is the cure for the unnamed status. I also have little idea how the Esper system even works to be honest, but it feels like anything more than straight damage dealing will involve following a heavily researched walkthrough and following some recipe to the letter.
Chrono Trigger doesn't have these problems - it's mostly a push & pull of busting out your powerful multi-character techniques balanced with well-timed healing, it's satisfying and straightforward. I feel like the active battle system makes more sense there?
Along with that sort of frustration, I'm not that impressed by the cinematics or plot? Like obviously this stuff is hamstringed by the tech of the day, but I was kind of expecting a lot more going by its reputation... some of the dramatic moments are undercut by the weird art mismatch, where characters are tiny and cartoony and their rival is some lavishly drawn portrait, ie. Sabin vs. his... friend? Or whatever? Kefka, vs. your party? Or the fight between Gestahl and Kefka that happens on a bland background while they both jitter around like puppets.
The game has this problem with ruining some dramatic beats like the opera scene, where suddenly you're fighting Ultros in a jokey fight? And then whisked away to the airship on a dime? Setzer joins your party after almost no real conflict, and then you're dumped on the world map I'm just left sitting here like "...what".
Even the music is kind of bizarre - solemn map music or dramatic scenes, suddenly jolted into excitable fights, with a goofy fanfare and then back to solemn or dramatics. The tone is all over the place.
Now I'm at what I think is the halfway point of the game, where Kefka destroys the world. And that was definitely some spectacle mixed in with awkward sprites dancing around, but again this game really has a problem with spoiling cool moments. Immediately following that, I'm dumped in Cid's house... and have to feed him fish or whatever? And given no further direction. He just keeps spewing the same lines over and over about how he's "not long for this world", and I've brought him fish like 20 times now. I've looked at walkthroughs and apparently I'm supposed to divine the fact that these fish are all subtly different and adjusting his invisible lifebar. Somehow I've kept him perfectly balanced and I guess I'll just be playing Final Fisher VI for the rest of my playthrough. Really nailing it with the dramatics here, game.
I dunno. My memory of Chrono Trigger might be a bit off in regards to the cinematics, I'm sure there's some cheesy tone stuff mixed in there like the Ozzy fights. Maybe it was more fresh because it was my "first real JRPG". But I feel like it conveyed a much stronger sense of a world under threat? When I stepped out into 2300 AD, or the World of Zeal, or saw Lavos in any scene, I knew this game meant business. Not sure I'm getting that from FFVI? It seems to get distracted too often and just isn't very good at dramatics due to its choice of spritework.
How wrong am I? Am I at least missing some dynamic of the battle system that makes it more... natural? An option I should've obviously turned on or makes the blank space in the Magic menus make sense?
So I finally got around to picking up a fan-patched cartridge of FFVI for GBA, because I knew it's one of the top recommended Final Fantasy games and came out at a similar time as Chrono Trigger. But I dunno, guys. This doesn't feel comparable. The opening was great, but right away I wasn't feeling the battle system - for the first few hours of the game most fights are a complete breeze, giving no incentive to need any other strategy. I'm realizing a large part of my appreciation of Chrono Trigger probably comes from the DS version's nice UI - attacks are separated into three columns by character on the touch screen with nice sizable buttons, vs. the extremely cramped random list of magic attacks filled with blank spaces. I've started playing with Relm, and it's pretty cool to be able to heal through the "Attack" command, but now I have to be extremely careful I'm not accidentally healing the enemy because the UI barely gives any indication of who's battle menu is currently open, while at the same time pushing me to attack quickly with the active time bars. I don't get it. Does the weird timing of attacks really help the game?
I haven't been experimenting with the different magical abilities because 80% of the time I use some characters weird ability, it misses - so it's just a waste of time. Posioning or blinding enemies or confusing enemies or whatever, it seems arbitrary when it's effective or not and most of the time it's not. Why bother with Gau's weird random list of monster moves, or Relm's "sketch" ability that goes unexplained and usually just misses, or remembering what the "123456789" is in Cyan's move list, or what Sabin's button combos are? It's just a mess of random battle options in a cramped ugly UI. And the status effects, let's hope I remember exactly what every colour code means. And when I want to heal mid-fight, which randomly named item is the cure for the unnamed status. I also have little idea how the Esper system even works to be honest, but it feels like anything more than straight damage dealing will involve following a heavily researched walkthrough and following some recipe to the letter.
Chrono Trigger doesn't have these problems - it's mostly a push & pull of busting out your powerful multi-character techniques balanced with well-timed healing, it's satisfying and straightforward. I feel like the active battle system makes more sense there?
Along with that sort of frustration, I'm not that impressed by the cinematics or plot? Like obviously this stuff is hamstringed by the tech of the day, but I was kind of expecting a lot more going by its reputation... some of the dramatic moments are undercut by the weird art mismatch, where characters are tiny and cartoony and their rival is some lavishly drawn portrait, ie. Sabin vs. his... friend? Or whatever? Kefka, vs. your party? Or the fight between Gestahl and Kefka that happens on a bland background while they both jitter around like puppets.
The game has this problem with ruining some dramatic beats like the opera scene, where suddenly you're fighting Ultros in a jokey fight? And then whisked away to the airship on a dime? Setzer joins your party after almost no real conflict, and then you're dumped on the world map I'm just left sitting here like "...what".
Even the music is kind of bizarre - solemn map music or dramatic scenes, suddenly jolted into excitable fights, with a goofy fanfare and then back to solemn or dramatics. The tone is all over the place.
Now I'm at what I think is the halfway point of the game, where Kefka destroys the world. And that was definitely some spectacle mixed in with awkward sprites dancing around, but again this game really has a problem with spoiling cool moments. Immediately following that, I'm dumped in Cid's house... and have to feed him fish or whatever? And given no further direction. He just keeps spewing the same lines over and over about how he's "not long for this world", and I've brought him fish like 20 times now. I've looked at walkthroughs and apparently I'm supposed to divine the fact that these fish are all subtly different and adjusting his invisible lifebar. Somehow I've kept him perfectly balanced and I guess I'll just be playing Final Fisher VI for the rest of my playthrough. Really nailing it with the dramatics here, game.
I dunno. My memory of Chrono Trigger might be a bit off in regards to the cinematics, I'm sure there's some cheesy tone stuff mixed in there like the Ozzy fights. Maybe it was more fresh because it was my "first real JRPG". But I feel like it conveyed a much stronger sense of a world under threat? When I stepped out into 2300 AD, or the World of Zeal, or saw Lavos in any scene, I knew this game meant business. Not sure I'm getting that from FFVI? It seems to get distracted too often and just isn't very good at dramatics due to its choice of spritework.
How wrong am I? Am I at least missing some dynamic of the battle system that makes it more... natural? An option I should've obviously turned on or makes the blank space in the Magic menus make sense?
