I'm and old time gamer who grew up with an NES, but aside from Mystic Quest on the SNES (which many people claim isn't a true Final Fantasy game), I've never actually played any Final Fantasy game up until recently when I decided to play this OG game in an emulator to find out what I have been missing out on all this time.I didn't know it at first but I came to find out while playing this that this game is bugged and a lot of the spells and stuff don't work properly. Back in those days games didn't get patched, so if a cartridge shipped with a game that was in a buggy broken state then it remained that way forever. I'm sure lots of players found this out the hard way back in the day, and yet despite that, this was still a very revolutionary and well loved game that launched a highly successful franchise.So after I finished this game the next logical one to play is Final Fantasy II, right? Here's where things get complicated. The real II and III on the NES only came out in Japan. The ones called that on the SNES were actually later games. It wasn't until years later that those games the west missed out on got ported to other platforms and can actually be played now.In addition to that, there are also unofficial rom hacks which translate the Japanese game to make it playable.So long story short, I don't know how I should proceed from here. Should I play a rom hack of the real Final Fantasy II, or should I go to the SNES "Final Fantasy II" to get that authentic but wrong experience that western gamers got back in the day? Or should I play one of official ports of II on some other platform? I just don't know what to do. I think I also made a mistake playing the broken NES original first instead of a more polished version which fixes the bugs, but what's done is done. At least now I have some understanding of what I missed out on back in the day.
These were the Call of Duties of their day, and there's no reason to play the old ones. Play CT, Xenogears and Chrono Cross
>>12622427Lmao
>>12622425Play Xevious or Gradius or something
>>12622427what's with the first post on every thread being some low effort bait lately
>>12622431>>Lmao
>>12622437Let's pretend FF isn't the COD of its eraWhat do you get playing FF2 when you could be playing FF6?
Just play the games, its really not that complicated
>>12622443This. Ignore the jeets
>famously "buggy" game>it's all shit that nobody even noticed back in the day (not even the developers)
>>12622438>wojakposting in 2026You're getting old, zoomerg
>>12622425Get the pixel remasters, or emulate if you're a broke bitch
>>12622452The internet facilitating information to midwits resulted in the current hyperbole demeanor
>>12622452Because the games are too braindead to notice spells not working (which is a problem but FF1 and 2 NES nuthuggers pretend is okay because uuuuuuuh)
>>12622425There's a pc port of ff1 that fixes the bugs while preserving the look and feel of the nes version. It also has a mode where there's a bunch more classes to play, but there's a classic mode that is just nes + bug fixes. Everything works as intended. There's also a bunch of other official versions that are all varying degrees of "fine" but I personally like the nes one. There's something timeless about it to me. Draws me in. It's also the most challenging version, but challenge I'm a jarpig is relative because they're all pretty easy.
>>12622425Final fantasy only became great with FF7 and became shit after 10So i recommend in priority FF7-8-9 and 10, skip entirely post FF10 games and if you're a fan you can then try the first 6 (their ok games)
>>12622425play them in the order6,5,2,7,1,8,4,3,9,10 for optimal variety
>>12622475>It's also the most challenging versionI can't speak to the other games which I haven't played yet, but for the original one on the NES I didn't have much issue with the challenge, but I did have the advantage which gamers back then most likely didn't have in that I knew which sort of spells were broken so I knew to avoid that. As some others have said, the issue of these spells being broken flew under the radar of the devs when they shipped the game and maybe players themselves didn't even know it back then. There was no internet back then, so unless a magazine like Nintendo Power or some strategy guide explicitly told you about the bugs, then odds are you probably wouldn't know. You might just assume you have really shitty luck when a spell never works like it should and not realize that its never going to work, but you waste your turn trying and waste your upgrade by "investing" into that spell which never works.I think that's probably the reason this game has a reputation for being so challenging. It is challenging because its broken and players don't realize it. That's different than being challenging by design. But then again, if you know what doesn't work and you play around that, then its really not challenging at all. Or you could play the later ports which fixed the bugs and then things work correctly.I'm not sure yet but I'm going to assume that Square learned from experience with that first game, and made more effort to do proper Quality Assurance before releasing every future FF thereafter. Its kinda weird they didn't notice the issues before release, but based on what I read they were in dire straits at that time and the reason why the game was called "Final Fantasy" is partly because it was a sort of Hail Mary that would either make or break their company. As luck would have it, the game made them, but it nonetheless released in a somewhat broken state. But obviously fans still loved it enough despite that.
>>12622425In the event you're being genuine:>In addition to that, there are also unofficial rom hacks which translate the Japanese game to make it playable.If you want the "NES" experience, play an old translation romhack with no additional changes. Same with 3. The more you pile on shit like QoL and bugfixes, the more it strays from what people played when it came out, which was the original experience. If you need to play fixed versions, there are like a dozen pots that fix various degrees of issues, but the warts are part of the experience and can change how things play out quite a bit. Also don't exploit anything you read about online, and save any fixes/patches/upgrades/whatever for subsequent playthroughs.Old games were broken as shit (though so are new ones) and sometimes X not working correctly made Y more viable than it would have been otherwise, downtime and lack of saving increases tension and delayed gratification, even drawing your own maps with graph paper gives more depths to the experience. Anything less and you're not trying to have the original experience, so why bother pretending its what you want?
>>12622527Yeah, it's not a hard game per se, it's just that the later ports are made even easier in various ways.
>>12622475That's dope, I just played it. Very fun. Lot's of QOL options but keeps things original.
>>12622425I played the pixel remaster without any of the boost and I have to say this game is soooo goodDon't get the thief though cvuz he legit just uselessGrind like a mofo cuz shit gets expensive later in the gamenuke and life 2 are a must for the last boss
>>12622425>I'm sure lots of players found this out the hard way back in the day,No you're not, because no they didn't. You are being a lazy parrot.>should I go to the SNES "Final Fantasy II" to get that authentic but wrong experience that western gamers got back in the day? You can't get that experience. Very many American players back then surely didn't even know that any sequels had been skipped. You would go in knowing it. And you'd also probably read a few things here and there about the games beforehand, coloring your expectations in anachronistic ways, like you did with the bugs in FF1, most if not all of which you never would have noticed on your own. Just play whatever you like.>I think I also made a mistake playing the broken NES original first instead of a more polished version which fixes the bugs, No you didn't. The biggest problem with that game by far is that it's a normal JRPG. It has the same extreme lack of difficulty of almost any JRPG, thanks to the experience-leveling system that lets you trivially trade time for in-game power. It has the same horrible balance of character types and abilities, and the same drab design of enemy groups that only very rarely requires you to actually struggle to puzzle out what strategy might work in a particular fight. Fixing all the bugs will still leave a mentally competent adult player needing to basically create an artificial challenge run to stay interested in the game, as is completely standard in this genre. It wouldn't significant change anything. The way the bugs harmed you is by motivating random nerds to eagerly tell you about them, so that you would end up feeling anxious that you had played the wrong way by failing to patch them out.>>12622527>I think that's probably the reason this game has a reputation for being so challenging. It is challenging because its broken and players don't realize it.Plausible-sounding, but false. You're just theorycrafting.
What versions to play: the oldest ones possible in all cases, with the following exceptions.1) when you don't understand the language and need a localization, obviously2) when there is actually a MAJOR bug (this happens with FF6, but probably any ROM you'd find would be the officially fixed version)3) when an official major revision happens to be better - I think some people say this happens with FF12? I dunno I haven't played that oneIf you are playing an old game, you're playing it because you want history, not because you want modern polish. If you want modern polish then play a modern game. Remakes are primarily for kids who just play whatever's handy and who wouldn't get hold of the games at all, or even know they existed, without a rerelease. You have search engines and emulators and you know the games exist. So play the original game and if it's too ugly or broken then don't switch to a remake - just move on to another game entirely.
>>12622936>If you are playing an old game, you're playing it because you want history, not because you want modern polishBased. Never expect retro games to be good, it will only end in disappointment.
>>12622425>I think I also made a mistake playing the broken NES original first instead of a more polished version which fixes the bugs, but what's done is done.Play through it again? You only used 4 of the jobs, use 2 you didn't use and make a whole new team. That's a big part of the fun of FF1 is playing through it with a different set up. Which, I recommend over play FF2.
>>12625174Nta but is it correct to assume FF1 is that "special interest" game for you?
>>12622425Some series are best played in order to gain an appreciation of how they develop, but Final Fantasy isn't. The series is very intentionally made such that you can play it in almost any order and enjoy it.The biggest single reason I would not recommend playing the series in order is Final Fantasy II (1988). It is by far the least popular and most hated mainline title in the franchise probably still to this day.This is not to say that there are not people who enjoy it or that those people are wrong to enjoy it, but a lot of people who play it end up REALLY hating it. The game is filled to the brim with trap options and is ridiculously beginner unfriendly in general. If you go in blind, don't be surprised if your party dies to random encounters seemingly through no fault of your own, over and over again.I would not recommend anyone except extremely dedicated Final Fantasy fans to play FF2, and even then that they go in with a very open mind and very low expectations.That being said, there are some merits to playing the series in order, and if you're dedicated enough to try, the PSX version is easy to emulate, and unlike later remakes, does not censor or change the original script to my knowledge. It makes some small gameplay changes from the original, but I think all of them are extremely good, uncontroversial changes that make the game significantly better. If you'd prefer something more purist, a translation romhack of the original Famicom game would be the way to go.My actual recommendation however would be to simply play whatever Final Fantasy game you are the most interested in, or if nothing in particular sicks out to you, FF4, which as you mentioned would still be an "authentic play order" in a certain sense. The American Final Fantasy II (1991) is significantly easier and less complex than the original, so if you like challenging RPGs you may want to get a romhack which restores the original difficulty.
