The Gamer's Quarter

[friedchicken]

Okay so I finally started the thread that I threatened to about Final Fantasy V Advance. I say Advance-specific because that the version I'm playing, not the SFC or PS1 versions, and I understand there are some differences.

That's a place where we could start, actually. Anybody care to talk about differences between the versions? I hear a lot about people exploiting the 'step counter' to avoid certain random encounters, but I get the idea that's been removed or overhauled in the GBA version of the game.

Also, something I'm curious about relates to the job system. I've been developing my characters with pretty even job levels. In other words, I'm at level 1 or 2 on most jobs with all of the characters, plus I've developed a few more up past that to level 4 or 5 for some particularly useful jobs, i. e. Ninja, Black/White Mage, etc. I get the feeling from reading around online that I'm pretty unusual in this respect, and that most folks develop one or two jobs up to super high levels while leaving the rest pretty low or not developed at all. How has everyone here approached job leveling?

Oh, and I'm about ten hours in, and I'm just about to go into the shifting sands after King Tycoon. Just in case that spoils anything for anyone.

[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

I'm about 15 hours in right now and I'm mostly digging it, but I ran into a really stupid "puzzle" that basically amounts to a whole lot of trial and error with no hints about what I should be doing. It's the type of bad game design that has been mostly moved away from, and unfortunately the FAQ I checked to get me through the area was helpful in telling me approximately what I need to be doing next, but unhelpful in telling me how to do it.

It's frustrating because in some of the other story parts leading up to this I've run into a surprisingly high number of "story puzzles" that basically amount to standing around until a timer runs down and triggers the next event. I'm hoping I'm just at a lull in the game, because this type of design is really frustrating.

Yesterday I got to this part where a forest burns down. I mention this because the GBA slowed down to a screeching halt with so many animated fires breaking out all over the place and the screen shaking. I'm not sure if this was in the original, but it looks like a result of the porting problems. It doesn't get in the way of anything, and it only really lasts for 10 seconds or so, but it did stand out.

I've been building up around two classes on each character and I can't really see the benefit of spreading them out. I guess it doesn't break the game to do this since you're given the full range of abilities on your primary class, but you also lose any higher-level benefits of your secondary class by spreading your AP so thin.

-Wes
_________________

[friedchicken]

I should clarify that I don't really ever play RPGs, so that might be why my approach is a little different. One of the reasons I've spread out my AP across jobs is that I have enjoyed playing as most of the classes, so I want to see what I can do in each of them. I guess you could make the point that eventually I should just decide which ones I'm really going to stick with, but every time that comes close to happening I get a few more jobs that I especially like and the whole things starts over again. Maybe I'll try locking things down from here on out. After all, I can always go back and concentrate on some of the other classes.

By the way, I love that you don't have to pay for arrows like in FFIII. They just come with the bow.

As for slowdown and in-fight pauses, I guess I haven't really been bothered by them. Not that I haven't noticed them-- I use Beastmasters and 'control' fairly often, and there's quite a delay when using a controlled monster's attacks. There's also a really bad delay while fighting the 'Page' set of monsters as they switch between the one thats actively attacking you. But they don't really break the game for me. I can see why they would be a problem in FFVI with Sabin's Blitz attacks, for example, but not here.

And Shaper, I haven't been using guides at all, just going where I can. It's not tough to make the right call as to where you need to go when there's only one real choice. Later on, when you get the... thing that lets you visit most of the world, you'll have a lot of choices, but they're like quick subquests. So far I haven't felt at all like I needed a guide to play FFV-- it's pretty straightforward. My question about footcounters was more just curiosity about how it had been changed since the SFC.

[Shapermc]

Well, I mean, you can still see most of the jobs/rates if you just limit your characters to a couple. I mean, not everyone needs to be an awesome Jester.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Swimmy]

I played the hell out of it when I got it and quit close to the end. This happens to me a lot: I'll get to something overly difficult but completely optional and it will bother me so much that I quit. In FFV, it's stealing from Odin before the timer runs out. In SMRPG, it's doing 100 jumps. The rewards are good but probably not worth it. Yet for some reason it makes me lose complete interest when I can't do it.

Anyway. I already played the game on emulator years ago, so I knew the good classes. Diversifying from the start is a bad idea but it won't kill you. The game is horribly broken in that you can just change jobs to deal with the weakness of any boss fight; if you don't want to do that all the time you'll need to master some classes, if only to be able to cast high-level spells. Also the best abilities (Rapidfire, Dualcast, and Giltoss especially) take a lot of investment. Some of the classes aren't worth a single ABP unless you're going for complete mastery.

I guess you can just do whatever you want until you find a cheap ABP goldmine and grind for a while, but at some point you'll need some masters.
_________________

"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[friedchicken]

Thanks everyone, for the input. I see the point about leveling, and I think I'll probably pick a few jobs and stick with them. It's still fairly early, so I don't think I've done any real damage to my ability to beat the game, but I also think it was good to try stuff out-- I've enjoyed a lot of the classes I didn't think I would, like Time Mage and Ranger, for instance, so I don't regret noodling around a little.

[Swimmy]

Time Mages are ridiculously powerful, especially late in the game. Rangers are mostly terrible except for having that ooooone little (huge) ability Rapidfire. Red Mages are excellent early on, then drop off as they can't cast upper level spells, then are good again when you get Dualcast, so they're worth sticking with for a few hours.

Aside from that, most of the system is clever mixing and matching. You know, what happens when I combine X and X ability? It's all pretty obvious but it makes you feel clever.
_________________

"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Lockeownzj00]

wherein i return unexpectedly!

I'll submit to this thread that you're going to want to have a ninja at some point. Throwing your old, deprecated weapons at boss monsters, I found, was key. There's also something satisfying about throwing 'Excalipur' or what have you.

[friedchicken]

[Swimmy]

Gone forever. And FFV does have a lot of trick or useless weapons, so.
_________________

"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Fred]

I loaded up my old save file, out of nostalgia, and oh my, the ninja is quite handy. If you can get a physical character to master that and archer, well, you have someone what can hit eight times per turn. Which is good. I had two of those by the time I got to Exdeath, I guess, and he didn't put up much of a fight.

I also had a lot of fun with blue magic, which makes the beastmaster class worthwhile, to aid in collecting all the different spells. Really all of the classes can be useful in the right combinations, which I think is what made the game so much fun for me. Just play around with it, I guess, and try not to mind the prosaic plot too much.

[Lockeownzj00]

[JasonMoses]

I'm a little over 5 hours in and almost out of the first world. I'm using two Mystic Knights (two-handed), a summoner/white mage and a black/time mage. The only time I've had to intentionally level my characters was when everyone hit level 15 at the same time in the Ancient Library and got Level 5 Death'd. That sucked.

[Shapermc]