Tales of the Rays is really good. Great story and graphics and despite being FTP it feels like a premium game in its execution. The story is great as well. This is one i can see myself playing a while
I started FF2 with the standard group, rage quit, then started over with just Firion. And it is so much better. Thanks for the tip Rhess.
It did not. It did go better than any recent run, but even with having played VI,V,IV, and III, even with the new challenge, I got frustrated and quit. I've beat II before, so I think that this'll be it. No more attempts to play this frustrating game. I beat Final Fantasy I during the initial RPG replay, so I think I'm setting aside Final Fantasy for now. Dragon Quest III here I come!
Decided to replay Final Fantasy Tactics. There's a strong chance it'll leave with ios11 and it's my favorite rpg. Grinding some prior to dortimer slums.
Maybe you missed the story we had on the front page, but Square has made it official that they're updating FFT in September!
I've been insanely grinding on FFT. I'm level 30, Ramza has all the Arithmetic commands, and I have four battles left in chapter one. Crazy I know. I'm probably going to don 1-2 last grind sessions to master white and black magic.
Congrats on the anniversary !! that's pretty incredible! I remember from beginning, didn't realise it was actually three years! Well done Shaun, you deserve it!!
Hurrah for the Reload! Can't claim to have been in on it all the way back at the beginning, but I've certainly read a good load of the early ones. Not 100% sure, but it might have been stumbling across the King of Dragon Pass one that got me truly invested in Touch Arcade. And I still see that game as one of the best on iOS. What about the rest of you guys? When did you get on board with the Reloads? Were you all there on day one?
I only got on this forum two years ago, when I started recommending games, but I was reading the posts from day one. My brother was a staffer at the late, great GIA, and he (and his colleagues) were who I looked up to as the masters of RPG lore: people like Andrew Vestal and Nich Maragos. Shaun, I dob't what you were doing around the turn of the millenium, but you would've fit riiiiight in there. Your knowledge has both stunning breadth and incredible depth, and we're very lucky to be on its receiving end! Thanks also to this community, where serious people discuss serious games in an educated way. I love the play-by-plays of various games here, the insights and impressions. Keep up the good work, everyone, and here's to the next three years!
Totally fortunate enough to be there from the beginning. I have no friends in my life to really share my love of RPGs with, so I've had to turn here for the community. And every reload has felt like a cool club newsletter for all my friends from my friend. I hope it's going for years to come, and we'll eventually get to read about the history of FFXV PE. Haha.
Wow, really!? Actually, that DOES kinda make sense... I know he was/is living in Japan, so, yeah! My brother's Arpad Korossy, who really was only on staff for about a year, around 1999-2000. He did a bunch of retrospectives, which is one of the reasons I find the Reloads to be so cool. That was such a different era! The first version of it was Vestal's personal Squaresoft fansite which eventually received official approval, and which became RPGamer -- that's another saga. Later on, of course, the relationship soured when Vestal (I believe it was him?) smuggled a camera into a closed-door Square press conference and shot shaky footage through a hole in his pants of trailers for FFIX, X, and XI. THAT got a cease-and-desist pretty darn fast. And then when the site was struggling financially, Amano himself did a sketch to be given out as a reward for donors. Yeah, the GIA was top-notch. It took me forever to find anyplace that took games so seriously: really only Nich's work on 1UP (until that went under), then JC and Eric on TinyCartridge, and finally here. So when I say "here's to the next X years!" -- I mean it!
Congrats to the reload. I've been on the TA board a long time, though I rarely post. I think I've read all the reloads and commented on some of them. So, I have a question for you all: Any theories on why Final Fantasy VIII hasn't gotten a mobile port? It's damned weird to look at the App Store and see FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI, FFVII, and then FFIX. On top of that, is there a reason Dragon Quest VII isn't on the store either?
I seriously wonder this too. I'm ready to buy both. I was assuming Nintendo may have had a say in the exclusivity of VII before it releases on iOS due to them helping with the translation. But I can only spout stuff I've read.
I've generally just assumed it was due to simple benefit-cost projections on the part of SE regarding the various titles. They balance the ease of the port against how much money it will produce. Thus, the games already ported to mobile (I and II) came first, followed by the ones that had been recently ported to DS (III and IV). V and VI required much more work, but were already a priority for Steam release. Having exhausted their existing library of ports (and 2D titles simultaneously), they turned to new conversions. VII was the obvious cash cow there, so that's where they began. I believe that VIII actually outsold IX in the US, but I'm sure a big part of that was that it rode VII's coattails. Although I certainly prefer VIII to IX, I understand that I'm in the minority (even Shaun disagrees with me), so they figured IX was the more lucrative title. Naturally, of course, that means VIII should be getting a release soon!
I just revamped my entire website, moving it to Wordpress, and during this process I checked out the AppStore link for every RPG I've ever listed. It was an incredibly sad process, finding out how so many great games no longer exist. Many of their official websites are 404s/site not found. Also saddening was the amount of games that appear to be in the US iTunes store still, but not Australia. I have no idea why that is (I would love an explanation). For the benefit of global gamers, I'm not bothering to list any game that isn't in the Australian store: I can't access them, and I assume if they're not in the Aus store, they're likely missing from many other worldwide stores as well. It was heartening to see some really old games still being updated (some this year, even). But judging by the last-update dates of most games, we're set to see a huge number of titles disappear forever when it comes to OS 11. This is a real shame in particular for fans of retro games. The new iPhones and iPads have the capacity to do amazing things, but there comes a time when you want to play a sweet little game like Yipe 5 (fortunately still there for now). The focus these days seems to be on high end graphics and games bedevilled with IAP.
Finished my Final Fantasy Tactics run tonight. I wanted a run where I tried Ramza as a wizard as I'd heard it was a pretty neat direction to take him. It most certainly was. Ramza became a master of Arithmetic after mastering White, Black, and Time magic. He could frequently one shot armies on his own. The fact Ramza can get to 97 Faith with no risk he will leave the party makes him a near broken mage. Next up for me is Transistor, then a long promised run through the Dragon Quest games.
