Topic: FF4PSP - Journey Log

[Deathlike2]

New log starting here regarding the PSP port of FF4... though I will direct new research to the TAY research thread when I even get there.

Kain's Jump does trigger the Mist Dragon's counterattack... that was not there before.

Magic Arrow shockingly looks like magic arrows (it does look a lot like swapped sprites from the Holy spell).

It is possible to fight a random battle BEFORE stepping onto an event tile. I fought random monsters before fighting Octomammoth.

Back row seems to work as expected... though the monsters fight "slower" or "weaker" than I remember.

 
Toads seem to attack with the "Rod" sound, which is odd.

The Secret Waterfall area doesn't have the Elixir... although I forget if that was changed in the GBA port.

Lots of things are relatively faithful... like back rows, Flan evasion (from the WSC/GBA changes), racial modifiers (well, at least with weapons like the IceRod).

[Deathlike2]

I swear there is something going on... where Tellah manages to find a way to hit that spoony bard 100% of the time.

Yang's mini-battle must have a special script for the monsters (it just them to do nothing for this specific battle).

I've never seen monster magic miss on their own kind.. and yet I saw the Needler type monsters missed hitting themselves once...

Also, Salve seems to work under saner principles... it factors in the number of targets... finally.

 
Porom's Cry is probably literally a multitargeted Confuse... which could easily be overpowered early on.

There's something really wrong with the monsters. It's almost as if they are affected by some sort of back row bug or majorly neutered accuracy.
I don't think I've ever seen the power of peninsula monsters miss hitting the twins, but then here we are seeing that occur fairly frequently.
Also, I've seen monsters miss when they target themselves.... HOW THE HELL DOES THAT HAPPEN?
I wonder if the code for the monster spell magic of Needle has changed... it's magical accuracy last I recall is 100%, unless DK Cecil somehow had magic evade (would take forever to achieve that)...

I also wonder if evasion and magic evasion are actually being applied now... but the numbers don't add up as far as I can tell.. monsters really seem to be neutered.

 
I guess it is an improvement when most of the effects that go on is FF6-ish... you see the (monster magic) attack happen, minus the shield to determine if the attack succeeds or not.

Bows+Arrows don't seem to be bugged anymore... a shocker!

 
Had a busy day... arg.

Anyways, I forgot to mention that the "Pig" dancer in Mysidia seems to play a different tune than the original Calcobrena dance...

Also, Aim does critical hits... it did not do them before. Then again, I've noticed Jump do that (though, not in my run, but in other vids.. I'll have to verify/confirm that.

It is possible to dish a critical hit and miss at the same time.

The Cait Sith's Blaster seems to do 100% kills (death status) instead of the 50-50 Paralysis and Death... I wonder if that was modified.

[Deathlike2]

Alright, some interesting stuff...

Since FF4A (GBA), the monster's max MP has be changed to HP/8. This particular change helps out Tellah a lot, especially if you use his magic heavily.

One of the changes in the PSP version that I've noticed is that monsters actually consume MP now. However, that doesn't change the fact that they will continue to cast spells that they don't have the MP for, which has been a feature from the beginning. This info is truly worthy of note.

Also, monsters have been able to cast regular magic spells on each other and actually miss their target. This isn't exactly new, except that magic like the Soul's Fire normally has a 100% hit rate... so there are 3 possible outcomes that are happening...

1) Monster magic evasion has been "added". I doubt this.

2) Charm status must evoke some sort of hit rate neutering. In some games, hitting one's self does less damage or is less effective. However, I've seen damage not applied to other monsters... and get the Soul's Fire keeps healing themselves w/o issue (the Fire never seems to miss at all).

3) Someone really blatantly fucked this up and neutered monsters in general... even more than what the GBA port has done to them...

 
I forgot to mention of the Raise (Life) spell (Phoenix Down probably use the same formula). It seems to operate on a different system now... but I can't quite figure it out. AFAIK, it looks to scale with the character's maxHP or something (perhaps level) with Stamina... rather than a straight Stamina*5 base.

 
Never mind... it's mostly the regular formula, except with some randomization on it.

Out of battle: Stamina * 5
In battle: (Stamina * 4 + 1, Stamina * 5)
Translation: it is always between Stamina * 4 + 1, Stamina * 5
The math isn't actually perfect because of the RNG and whatever is manipulated, but that's how it works out to be.

Why bother randomizing this?

[Deathlike2]

With regards to Protect/Shell, I don't think those have changed. I've used Protect the same way I did in fighting Yang, so I'm pretty convinced it's the same. However, I have no idea if that is changed in TAY. I'll probably find out at some point.

With regards to Haste/Slow, it works the same way it did in the original. I used the classic Bio + speed spell test... so the numbers add up. I also wonder if it has changed in TAY.
My recommendations at the moment are the same with Haste/Slow... Slow is far more useful than Haste and must be doubled up to get the full effect.

A reminder on how Haste/Slow works for those that read this and don't know:
Sap causes 60 damage when left unchecked.
Haste #1 causes Sap to damage only 48 -> 20% speed boost
Haste #2 causes Sap to damage only 44 -> 25% speed boost
Slow #1 causes Sap to extend damage to 90 -> 50% speed loss
Slow #2 causes Sap to extend damage to 120 -> 100% speed loss

100% speed loss doesn't mean you stop moving... it just means you are 1/2 as fast in the normal state.
50% speed loss means you are only 3/4 as fast as you were normally.

Haste will only speed you up a little (and not that much when you do apply it twice), but Slow will slow you down quite a bit. So... use Slow since it is cheaper to apply.

 
Brace (aka Gird, Yang command that casts Protect) seems to work all the time, I could be wrong. It is not affected by Reflect, which is good.

The Crystal Room in the Lodestone Cavern does change the tune permanently to the regular Crystal Room sound... normally room music is reset to its default when you revisit (event stuff changes the music in the room).

The Succubus (the Vampire Girl) is amusing as a "floating pig"... it's hard to imagine how you would correctly fix the graphics for that....

Strangely, the "magnetic effect" occurs occasionally after a battle... I don't know why or what causes that.

I guess it's nice that a combo attack, such as the Dark Elf's tri-elemental attack does actually wait show the damage and update accordingly before the next spell in the sequence. It does change how the split damage is applied (especially when Tellah, then Cid dies in the sequence).

Headband vs Wizard Hat on Cecil usually is a difficult decision.. but considering Cecil is the backup healer and needs all the defense and magic defense he can get (from the vampire bats especially)... the choice is simple... unless you really need that extra strength to improve his hit rate with the bow (it's not that necessary IMO).

 
I've killed way too many dolls to my liking... and yet I get zero Decoy drops. What the hell is wrong with the drops? Has the drop rate decreased or do they like... not give any items at all? In all the versions prior to the PSP, they were more than happy to give me another Decoy... 300+ doll kills and not one Decoy. Hmmm....

[Deathlike2]

I honestly wonder if the Beastiary is actually connected to the game data... because it doesn't feel like I'm getting a drop worth a damn. I should look into this further but I think the game drops are different from the original and GBA versions. Killed 100+ Evil Dolls... not one Decoy drop.

Tower of Babil floor numbering seems different.. as the underground base starts at Floor B13 instead of Floor 1 from the underground side. I guess that matters if there was an elevator installed.

The treasure chests for the Ice Lance and Icebrand are swapped. The monsters attached to them are the ones you would expect from the treasure though (Icebrand has Chimeras summoned, Ice Lance has Stone Golems summoned).

Why the hell do you need to rename the Blizzard Spear/Lance to the Ice Lance? Is Blizzard too hard a word to comprehend?

 
Same treasure switch with the Ice Shield+Armor...

Dancing Dagger doesn't really feel the same in its look... I'm not a fan of the invisible dagger despite all the "swipes" it seems to make.

The Fire/Ice armor weakness seems to have been reinstated. I don't know why.
This weakness I am talking about is the one where Fire+Ice armor provide resistance to one, and weakness to the other.
If you have followed what I've said about weapon elementals in a different thread, despite the fact that the Protect Ring provides resistance to both Fire and Ice (and Lightning), the character is PHYSICALLY weak to Fire and Ice. When attacked (usually via Charm) with the Icebrand and/or Flame Sword, they will do a lot more damage than usual.

Jump does do critical hits, as noted before.

It is interesting that maxHP based damage attack's like the Flamebeast's Fire or whatever and the Chimera's Ice or whatever is now a combo of the original game and the GBA ports.
The original game allowed those attacks to miss, as it factored the Spell Multiplier (based on the monster's Magic stat) against the Magic Evasion Multiplier.
The GBA port forced those attacks to work, but more importantly reworked the Absorb property's healing.

The PSP port allows for the attacks to miss, but also retain the absorb damage property. TBH, I think the damage absorption has been reworked in the sense that it doesn't factor in magic evasion as I've explained in earlier posts that I've seen confused Spirits/Souls miss hitting zombies with Fire (haven't seen it vs skeletons, but I'm sure it would happen just the same), never seem to miss vs themselves. It's worth some exploration. Magic evasion is the reason why the Cursed Ring was made to cripple it (the Hero Shield kinda does the opposite to some degree).

I'm starting to find the real bug with the system is simply the drop probability, unless there's truly something wrong with the drop slots themselves.

Note: It's fine if people want to contribute to this thread, as long as it is related to the info gathering being done.

 
Dr. Lugae and his robot give EXP after battle.. which didn't happen originally. The EXP gain was normally limited to his weird form battle.

The platform that Rubicante uses to warp, doesn't seem to allow for further progression upwards... not that there were supposed to be anything worth looking at back there.

I swear it's either the emulator or US version ISO I'm using that refuses to play the Calcobrena music when the game calls for it... comparing to the Youtube vids of the game. I wonder...

 
Finally good to see Edge and the back row bit working... finally. The Boomerang allows whatever secondary weapon he equips to ignore row. Good stuff.

Dwarf Axe is back row compatible, which is a little known fact. Then again, the fact that it is thrown should be the dead giveaway... Surprisingly, it is not classified as a Wind elemental based weapon like Spears/Lances and Bow+Arrow attacks.

Strange related fact (I should test this for this version). Most lances/spears for Kain are wind elemental... the exceptions are Abel's Lance and the Blood Lance. One would think that is some sort of oversight, given how data was classified in the original...

Putting Charm/Confuse status on the Calco part of the dolls is useless, just like putting it on the Baron Generals on the storming of Fabul. There is literally no Charm script to be run, thus they continue to do what they normally do.

Maybe there is a bug in the game related to my settings. I use an Active ATB+Battle Speed of 1 (leaving message speed at the default of 3). Outside of known drops, I don't think I've really gotten any randomized drops... ever.

[Deathlike2]

I swear, the drop rate is more like .5% or .05% instead of 5%.

I love how the in-game beastiary is a lie. The Alraune (Tarantula) monster is known and listed to be weak vs "Throw" (or Wind) elemental.
The problem is, it isn't in this port. Go figure.

Also, I would like to be clear on the monster attacks... the burning Blaze attack and the icy Cold Blast attacks are what I was referencing.

Some related thoughts... when grinding and using the Poison on Summoner type monster trick, you will realize as the faster you are (through natural levels), the faster the poison is. It shouldn't surprise you that the poison dishes damage at longer intervals while you are slower than the monster... and conversely it is usually harder to kill the monster at lower levels. Eventually you will grind at a slower pace when using Poison.... (of course, the EXP to the next level increases, but the EXP gains start to decrease, making these grinding trips longer).

I find the coloring scheme for status effects in this game to be... bad. Stop is easily visible (and obviously more powerful) than Sleep or Paralysis (both happen to be inferior by comparison). I liked FF6's glowing to "just work" by comparison (FF5's primitive blinking version is... not optimal).

Finally, the PSP brings out the unused sound that was hidden in the original game. Great, if only the pron was legible for us.

 
If you ever get to see Rubicante's mini-speech before he dies (I forget the condition, he has to have like either under 100HP or 1000HP left to trigger), he hints he'll be back (of course, he does... and again for no reason).

At this point, I've kinda conceded that the programmers of the port will fix the fact that despite him being the Element of Fire (in Edge's lone battle), the "Cloak of Flames" must be neutralizing his Fire Absorb for the Ice Absorb. It's kinda retarded when you think of it.

I don't know why Edge's Flame Ninjutsu is crap vs Rubicante. It's the weakest of all the versions AFAIK... especially since the lone Rubicante battle has him absorbing it. Then again, it doesn't explain why Tellah's Bio vs Golbez has a 2x spell multiplier, yet his -aga spells are only 1x.

Of course, we know Edge is supposed to lose the lone Rubicante battle, but why does the "the party has fallen" message come up? This is a scripted loss after all... lame QA oversight.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Tower of Babil floor numbering seems different.. as the underground base starts at Floor B13 instead of Floor 1 from the underground side. I guess that matters if there was an elevator installed.

The original numbering didn't really make much sense. I can see starting at F1 in the underworld, but the overworld tower floors being labeled "BFx" always bothered me, even though you were descending the tower.

Why the hell do you need to rename the Blizzard Spear/Lance to the Ice Lance? Is Blizzard too hard a word to comprehend?

Didn't the GBA version do this too? It's a more accurate translation. Whether or not that's a good thing is a matter of opinion, but you can't really fault them for it. (PSP uses the DS translation for things' names, but they were too lazy to adapt the script, which is the only part of the DS version that was worth anything.)

---

What I'm gathering from this thread is that there's still no definitive version of this game. Every single port/remake has to break something. It's not like the SNES original was stellar or anything, just don't break what did work in it and fix what didn't. (This version could never be definitive with those hideous visuals anyway.)

[Deathlike2]

Tower of Babil floor numbering seems different.. as the underground base starts at Floor B13 instead of Floor 1 from the underground side. I guess that matters if there was an elevator installed.

The original numbering didn't really make much sense. I can see starting at F1 in the underworld, but the overworld tower floors being labeled "BFx" always bothered me, even though you were descending the tower.

Well, it did kinda make sense to me. It doesn't matter. It makes more sense to start the very basement as Floor 1, and the top passage being Floor 13. At least then, it makes sense to me...

Why the hell do you need to rename the Blizzard Spear/Lance to the Ice Lance? Is Blizzard too hard a word to comprehend?

Didn't the GBA version do this too? It's a more accurate translation. Whether or not that's a good thing is a matter of opinion, but you can't really fault them for it. (PSP uses the DS translation for things' names, but they were too lazy to adapt the script, which is the only part of the DS version that was worth anything.)

I had forgotten about it and checked. Oh well. Accurate translation vs "it isn't that much different" is a matter of "FF" consistancy. IIRC, FF5 had the Flametongue and Icebrand... so I don't see why the "ice" version of the spear can't be Blizzard. Although no Thunder-based spear was in the original, we recognize FF5's Trident to be Lightning based (and strangely Water based in FF6, due to balance/weakness vs the Magitek Factory).

What I'm gathering from this thread is that there's still no definitive version of this game. Every single port/remake has to break something. It's not like the SNES original was stellar or anything, just don't break what did work in it and fix what didn't. (This version could never be definitive with those hideous visuals anyway.)

I hate to disagree, but the visuals are inconsistent at worst with certain strangeness, but I like the graphics updates for the most part. Some stuff we could obviously do away with, but there are some little things that are very appreciable that have been noted (like the maxHP attacks missing, and Brace not being reflectable).

Some notes:

I don't know why the hell the Sylph's Cave uses the empty castle music (Eblan and Damacyan).

The floor of the Sylph's house can fight monsters now... it wasn't in the original or the GBA version, not that is affects me too much.

Malboros used to be hell.... but considering the info we have these days, they are more tame than a pussycat.

They seemed to have swapped the Avenger and Moonring (Fullmoon) treasures... not that it affected me too much there.

 
I love how they keep the "Killer Bow" marketing. Yea... good luck with that.

I need to double check this, but the non-summoned Arachne does not seem to have the Wind elemental weakness. I have no idea why that is...

 
There has to be some botched code with regards to drops or an concerted effort to eliminate drops from summoned monsters..

I realized Asura is more of a pushover than I originally thought. If you bought the Aegis Shields and kept the Rune Armlets (the Diamond Armlet is good for Edge if you ONLY need lightning protection from those evil Thunder Dragons), you are already ahead of the game. Then again, the Magemasher is epic.

If anyone remembers what I wrote about flying summoned monsters that don't have Quake immunity... well, it has resurfaced in this port. Surprisingly the summoned Arachne retains its weakness to Wind elemental... it still gets hurt by Quake. DID ANYONE AT SQUARE (and their port makers) EVEN READ THE NOTES I WRITE??? I think not.

Testing this some more.. I think it's more of a different "behavior" of sorts (could be classified as a bug). All monster that have the "flying" property seem to have Quake immunity (tested against the Summoned Hellflapper - it's still immune). However, the Arachne is well known to be weak vs Wind and a property of that is having Quake immunity. This particular behavior has changed for some reason in terms of consistency. The dead giveaway was when I charmed/confused the Arachne, its own Quake-like attack hurt itself.

A lesser well known monster like the Electric Fish (Baron Underground Passage) has the normal Beastiary property of being weak vs Wind. However, if you go scan and actually test out the monster, you will see that it is not Quake immune (or weak vs Wind, as described by Libra). Same goes for the lone Arachne. Someone really royally goofed. I bet Scamaglione (Mt. Ordeals Undead version) is not immune to Quake (which I will test in a moment).

Someone probably made the mistake that floating = Quake immune... and that's just not right.

It's funny to see an Arachne hit you, in response to a charmed Arachne using Quake on the team. They are coded to attack you when magic is used, but apparently enemy magic is included it in (you would never see this happen normally because of the earlier described "natural" Quake immunity).

 
Scarmaglione can indeed be hit by Quake... despite not being possible in prior ports. He's probably missing the weakness vs Wind property too.

[Deathlike2]

Killing TrapDoors with the Avenger is pie (equipped on Kain because he would be faster and stronger than Cecil). Let the Avenger do its work. At least now I know there's 15 doors...

The Wall is a joke... despite my usual overleveling, it's still a pushover.

Killing Bahamut effectively requires Rydia+Rosa @ level 55 (Flare and Holy) and FuSoYa is most effective if you didn't sell off the Faerie Rod from the Sylph's Cave. Why even waste time with Reflect? The Plague does train you to be brutally efficient.

There's one really annoying change made... using the Mist Dragon to attack the Behemoth got me a Maelstrom. WHY??? The only time this is normally triggered is when a Holy elemental spell is used. The problem with it is that Holy elemental doesn't seem to be there, as my math recalls that elemental weakness in addition to maxHP based attacks should double damage... and it's not there for some reason. I don't know who's dumb idea this was to punish users from using the Mist Dragon. This isn't TAY where it is known that the summon has changed. Someone really fucked this up.

Note: To test my summon theory, I casted Chocobo to see if the Behemoth would counter with Maelstrom. It didn't... so someone clearly has fucked this up.

Believe it or not, I spent some time reorganizing my spell lists for both Black and White magic to improve spell selection efficiency while using Active ATB+Battle Speed of 1.


 
It's nice to have FuSoYa not locked up when he uses the Spirit command...

I guess it is a nice change to see the CPU and others are finally floating... as I tried to use the Float trick and that didn't work... apparently using Float on already floating monsters don't work. At least the Boomerang makes the damage more palatable vs the CPU...

Having reorganized the spells... I've put Death at the back of the spell list. Considering how Tornado is generally more useful (and Break vs multiple targets), you'd think Death would be in Tellah's spell list instead of Tornado (then again, Tellah's spell power sucks). Death has a higher success rate (in terms of accuracy), but then again, death resistance does exist in many monsters...

Also, the drop rate for the Centaurian looks normal (it's actually very high - 25%)... relative to the drop rates from every other monster. So, clearly the default drop rate is completely broken (less than 5%).

I'm strongly wondering if I should do the Advance part of the game (the Trials and Ruins), but I'm sure I'd be very disappointed as usual. I kinda want to do the Interlude...

 
Finished the normal game with the normal characters @ around level 70.

I may have forgotten to mention this, but usually monsters in chests don't cause different battle start results (Preemptive/Surprise/Back Attack)... now they do. Although, the Lunar Subterrane don't seem to follow that, then again, those monsters never really generate back attacks and stuff.

Big Bang doesn't cause Sap/HP leak, which is disappointing in that change.

Black Hole seems to work like the original (targets all characters/enemy) plus Sap removal.

The Lunarsaur is finally immune to Bad Breath... shocker.

I could swear that the Dark Bahamut, Ogopogo... and most certainly the Deathmask was harder. Of course unblockable Reflect was part of the FF4A Euro/Jap 1.1 changes.

I thought I would not see this ever... but I saw the Mist Dragon manage to miss hitting monsters. I don't know why that happens... it must be part of the maxHP/currentHP spell attack changes. That's not good... and it doesn't help Odin any.

Sylph is great vs Zeromus.. if you are occasionally able to absorb a Flare attack. The common Bio backlash is harmless in the grand scheme of things.

 
Blue Dragon is not listed as Resistant or "Leeches" Throw (or Wind elemental specifically), which is still the case.

I love the Flan Princess visual of the hidden "Dance" attack. Then again, I love the Piggy trick (to avoid Berserk status).... which got me to notice their arms and legs... which use same colors as the normal sprite would use. Nothing beats a Jumping Pig.

[Deathlike2]

Currently, I'm on the Interlude run.

I find myself grinding a little for the money.. though I am very selective on the items I buy. On the other hand, the money drops are pitiful, to the point of wishing I had something like those Marions available..

Item drops seem to work normally in this version... for what reason, I have no idea.

I forgot to mention earlier that I've never seen magic, or specifically monster magic dealing 0 damage... like Pollen. Then again, the Sap status annoys me like fuck, when primarily exposed to it like in the Lodestone Cavern...

Anyways, the game effectively reminds me why I buy virtually NOTHING from Mythril. The Hammer and the Gloves (both for Cid) are the only things worth buying.

Cecil's initial Flame Mail screams for the Ice Shield... as that combo is worth obtaining (yes, 10k is worth it, for the extra racial resistance).

I want to cry at the existence of the monks. It is a fucking terrible idea to stack two of the same elemental claws together. My guide already explains why... so why do these morons test my patience?

I've reached the Underground portion of the Interlude, and although there are many options, I kinda disappointed to having the available selection of armors. It's not too hard to get a combo you would like... like Grand Helm+Ice Shield+Flame Armor or Fire/Ice Shield+Luminous Robe... At least the idea of a hand-me down idea still works good... the Gold Hairband for Porom (which isn't so useful magic wise) will give Palom a free Sage's Mitre (for Undead protection)... the options are nice... but can blow up one's mind.

 
I understand the Interlude is supposed to tie loose ends up, but some of it is unimaginative. For instance, the monster formations are tweaks to already perfectly known ones.

Putting one "specific" monster to justify the existence of the Mythril equipment (and I had a thread about it in the first place) tells me that someone was listening/reading this.

[Deathlike2]

Hmmm... outside of the fact that the item list is full and keeps getting moved around... the Beastiary part is the downfall... since I focused on killing the damned TrapDoors... If the "summoned" monsters were available in other areas... it would've made life easier...

Juggling elemental resistances was tough but fun. Too bad it costs an arm and a leg to get to that point.

Too much dungeon reuse bothered me. The extensions to Mt. Hobs was alright, but nothing to write home about.

I don't know what else to mention at this moment, other than exposure to so many shitty equipment that you thought sucked, still sucks.

"Holy" Flan sword is a misnomer... especially when the sword isn't even Holy elemental.

Double Meteor beats your Meteor....

For a while, you can put Cid in the back row... which isn't a bad thing when you abuse the lesser known the Dwarf Axe's ignore row bit.

 
A few confusing bits. Understandably the creature that poses as Rydia was meant to be able to control the summons... as part of the future plot. I don't how that creature gains ANY summons through a boss battle. I guess you can get the essence of a summon, but how would that give you full reign over it like that unless it's not a clone copy of it?

Since when was Cecil the name dropper? I thought that was Edge's forte.

Building an anonymous monk based on Yang's stats, outside of HP, is still pretty lame.

Also, having a spell multiplier of 1 does not get you compelling magic damage, ever.

[Deathlike2]

I've been replaying the Interlude on the Euro version... the item drops seems to be normal, but I'm not exactly confirming that since I haven't done major monster grinding to come to that conclusion.

Note: There's some odd increase in drops when there are multiple monsters involved in a fixed treasure drop.. like the treasures in the Sylph's Cave (or the Cache that they named the room).

[Deathlike2]

I'll start on TAY sometime tonight and certainly after Sunday.

I've effectively played the Interlude 3 times, and have come to the conclusion:

It is effectively closest to a newbie mod for the game. I'm sure there was some "creativity" in using different equipment, and lesser known monsters to complete a beastiary, but it's nothing to write home about. If anything, it's giving some new guys a chance to be able to get experience while polishing some aspects of this game. I can't say it's bad, but it isn't great by any means.

Storywise, it is kind of weak, but leaves some stuff unanswered (I'm sure playing TAY will address this, but that's not the point).

I will say a few things that I've seen from Youtube vids and character art...

The reuse of the FF1 GBA (or even WSC?) port of the Paladin was self evident. No need to do too much work right? Then again, FF5 had Butz using Kain's look as a Dragoon... at least there's some coolness to that.

However, why did they use any resemblance to FF5 Cara's Monk look for Ursula? Did we suddenly get unimaginative? There is something to be said for reuse, and then just not being creative and/or lazy. There is no right or wrong answer for their decisions, but.... some of these ideas should have been fleshed out better.

[Dragonsbrethren]

The After Years team probably had next to no budget to work with, which explains the resource reuse in the versions that use the original graphics. (In addition to FF5 and FF6, there are some Romancing SaGa edits in there, too. And in addition to graphics, entire chunks of the game scenario are copied from the original...) It's not until the last couple chapters that you actually start seeing new art for monsters and backgrounds. The sad thing is I did a more convincing job "FF6izing" the FF4 characters for the Halloween sprites, and those are intended to look like FF6 characters dressed as FF4 characters.

While I'm impressed with the monster sprites for the most part, the PSP graphics have this RPG Maker XP look to them that I can't stand. Maybe that's just what happens when you increase the resolution of these old games, but stylistically it just feels so off compared to the original.

[Deathlike2]

Considering the original source (phone port), that probably shouldn't shock anyone. It's not a bad attempt, just not a great attempt.

Completed Ceodore's chapter. I've see many of such equipment before (FF5/FF6/FF1A), so I guess that's an upgrade.

 
I swear it could be the emulation, but the drop rate is far "generous" that I ever recall it. The drop rate seems normal, but the rare drops are far more common than ever. I got 3 Goblin summons, 1 Giant's Glove, and a Cursed Ring (but lost it because I died before I could save the Cursed Ring).

 
Also, the monsters have some really huge habit of attacking the middle character... for whatever the reason. Once in a blue moon, they will attack other characters randomly (outside of multi-targeted spells). I figure it's some emulation issue.

Row does affect bands, only if the attack is physical (like the Wedge+Biggs band).

Calca's Jive attacks resemble a list of special monster magic. I figure it's some sort of list and randomization probabilities. If what I've read about the dolls are correct, these will change/scale  depending on level. Think of it like FF5's !Terrain/!Gaia command. I'm sure there is something similar going on with Brena's Dance command.

The Calcabrena (Band) scares me... the doll is scary. I wonder if the band scales with stronger attacks through the levels. There are only 4 attacks. 3 elemental spells (Fire, Ice, Lightning) and one non-elemental but single attack (it's like a noggin nudge).

I've seen the Calcabrena Band trigger a "physical" attack response from the Gatelinger monsters (the rats with the needles on them) when the command didn't kill them. On the other hand, the attacks themselves are generally magical.. since it seemed to hurt the Flan based monsters w/o issue. Interesting...

The band with Ceodore and Kain/Hooded Man seems to dish the combined damage between the two characters and doubles it. Pretty simple and effective, but also affected by row.

The Moon phases seem to affect each ability by 1/4 of their normal behavior. So it's a boost or loss of 25%. I'm sure that's well documented.

 
Playing Rydia's Tale as it should be somewhat obvious from my comments. Heal Dance seems to heal HP on some maxHP based scheme instead of the classic Cure scheme. Of course the moon sequence certainly affects this.

A lot of the monster attacks from Calca's Jive does seem to rely on his Intelligence, which isn't surprising. What can be annoying is the unwanted status attacks and some of the very limited monster attacks that can limit the damage potential. There are certainly more devastating ones I've seen (like Maelstrom) that I haven't seen... surely that would change with level.

I've also had difficulty killing the TrapDoor outright, outside of the fact that they have adjusted the HP. The high magic defense makes them a difficult target...