Yay! Thanks so much!
So the hack has been out for a few weeks now and I've gotten lots of reactions! Time for my reaction to the reaction:
- Edward: I think the most surprising thing I've found is the sheer amount of feedback (all positive) with regards to Edward. I didn't think it was anything special in relation to what I did with the rest of the cast, but everyone seems to love my version of him for some reason.
- Float: I was not at all expecting this to be a thing whatsoever. The thought that people would have problems with my leaving the damage floors completely alone never even entered my mind.
- Eblan: And I guess, to a certain degree, the Floater. When people played the original FF4, did they get frustrated trying to figure out what to do with the magma key? I knew it wasn't totally obvious where to go, but I didn't think it would be as hard to find as it turned out to be. Have we just all been spoiled by games handholding us and walkthroughs being so readily available on the internet that we've lost our patience for exploration?
- Difficulty: I remember getting feedback from FF -1 being too easy. Perhaps I overcompensated? Perhaps the FF4 playerbase is less interested in increased challenge? Perhaps it just comes down to lack of availability of information on what the different equipment does? Anyway I knew f.ex. Ciriatto would be hard but I didn't expect the degree of backlash that I got. Likewise for Scarmiglione. I knew I ramped him up but I guess I thought since he was such a chump originally that the change would be welcome. And honestly, I thought Malacoda and/or the 8-fiend battle would generate more complaints than those.
- Santos: I was wary of including this whole thing entirely; I thought people would find the idea of what is essentially Santa Claus being a serious character in a Final Fantasy game corny/lame enough to be worth mentioning. Apparently (thankfully!) I was wrong! No one has mentioned him so far so I guess they either like him or are fine with him. Likewise for the other meta references (wonder twins, captain planet, etc.); I was afraid I might get some negative comments, but so far I've had the odd positive comment, but no negative ones on that so far.
- The last line: At the very end of the ending, there's a line (I won't quote it here since I don't think Grimoire LD has seen it yet) which I'm surprised no one has made a comment on either way. You'll see what I mean when you see it.
Anyway, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and most of the complaints are minor and/or fixable. I'm glad so many people were able to enjoy my creation. And you guys deserve at least some of the credit too! It would not have been possible without your help.
Edward is Amazing probably one of the best party member choices due to his songs, his weapons, and his equipment pool not to mention what he has when he returns makes him a reliable healer.
Float was always going to be an issue I'd imagine. Float is learned at Level 40 in the normal game, but by then you're pretty much that level anyhow. The issue with it I find is that the characters you have when you go in there have about half the HP of a normal run. Especially a basic Palom and Porom with only 450 HP each they can only take 7 steps before they're down to 1 HP. It does admittedly get monotonous to continue to heal them every few steps and as mentioned it makes fighting battles in those areas less than desirable.
The difference here is that the original game has hints on where to go if they took a tour around the world before and talked to Agart's citizens it was pretty clear that they were intended to point out the location of the Ancient Well. There's nothing like that in Unprecedented Crisis, the party in FFIV is purposely confused when it came to the Magma Stone. The party in Unprecedented Crisis just shrugs their shoulders after you get the Earth Crystal and don't provide any meaningful backdrop to the next location. The Floater is a case where I think the Elder could say something constructive, hinting about FFI, maybe something like "In an older legend the Floater was close to a volcano near a crescent moon. I'm sorry I don't recall anything more." Also to change the Dwarf's text so they mention that Santos has a gift would also help. (Unless that was already done)
I think once people know what armors will do, the difficulty will be a complaint of the past. It did feel a little cheap to not know what some armor did though. Sure the original FFIV didn't tell us, but that didn't mean it was good design, heh. The difficulty of Unprecedented Crisis I find to be just perfect. It's not crazy difficult, nor is it a cakewalk. The only issue as I've said is the amount of mandatory damage taken through the Feymarch and Sylph's Cave.
Secret of Mana literally has Santa Claus so the reference that another Square RPG has Santa Claus is probably welcomed as it tugs at nostalgia.
I will comment on the last line when I get to it, hehe.
We have EVEN MORE themes now, but some old ones are gone...