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Author Topic: Final Fantasy IV The After Years  (Read 15599 times)

Phoenix

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #15 on: June 04, 2009, 04:49:50 PM »
Heh, same thing here. I had a sequel planned for some time now, I first got the idea back after FF4 Advance was released as a bit of add-on content for another project of mine that never really got off the ground. Later, around the time FF4 DS was announced I refined that earlier plan, and have had the idea of actually making it for some time now, but not the means until recently. I was going to utilize the engine from the release version of Pandora's Box (release version because I don't want to have to merge new code into it, and to stop me from getting distracted by yet another project) to create FF4's world about three years after the end of the game. Something we decided a while back was to allow hacks to be made on top of Pandora's Box, eliminating some of the hypocrisy of the ROM hacking scene while allowing future hacks to utilize our features if their creators don't mind working around the existing framework. My FF4 sequel would've been a sort of "guide" to how to make a new game using the engine's features, sort of like those sample games that come with the RPG Maker programs.

I would still like to see that some time, since it would really help in hacking FF6 whenever I get around to it.

I suppose there's nothing stopping either of us from going through with our own sequel ideas, but somehow I doubt they'll have the same impact now that there's an official sequel (especially since several of my ideas already directly conflict with a few things in The After Years, and who knows how many more will in the future tales). The funny thing is that several ideas I came up with are actually in The After Years, particularly the beginning of Rydia's tale.

That's strange . . . you must be on a good wavelength then.  :happy:  I, too, wanted to hack FF6 to be a sequel a number of years after FF4. My idea came from the fact that so many of the FF4 and FF6 characters look similar (e.g. Rydia and Terra, Yang and Cyan, Rosa and Celes) or match up (one boy in both: Palom and Gau, one girl in both: Porom and Relm, one ninja in both: Edge and Shadow). Anyway, it would have been a long time in coming, since I have to finish my current FF4 hack first. Perhaps by then I'll have played The After Years, and can make it a sequel to that.
 :hmm:

xlom3000

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #16 on: June 04, 2009, 07:57:03 PM »
Best thing I've seen in this game so far :D
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Not really a spoiler image, but just in case.

xlom3000

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #17 on: June 05, 2009, 08:41:31 PM »
For those who have no wii, I was reading that there MAY be a method of loading wiiware games through the Dolphin wii/gc emulator.

I'm about to test it out now, will report back when I get a chance.

-*edit*-

Well, it runs it, and while it's not quite full speed, it runs well enough to be playable. Not sure how to get it to load the DLC content tho

-*edit the second*-

Ok so I can get it to run at either full speed x 2 or half speed it seems. If you disable the audio throttler, it'll run at about 120fps, if you enable it, at least on my machine, it runs around 30fps. The target for full speed is 60. I'ma tinker with it more and see what I can get.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2009, 09:52:17 PM by xlom3000 »

JCE3000GT

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #18 on: June 06, 2009, 06:06:18 PM »
For those who have no wii, I was reading that there MAY be a method of loading wiiware games through the Dolphin wii/gc emulator.

I'm about to test it out now, will report back when I get a chance.

-*edit*-

Well, it runs it, and while it's not quite full speed, it runs well enough to be playable. Not sure how to get it to load the DLC content tho

-*edit the second*-

Ok so I can get it to run at either full speed x 2 or half speed it seems. If you disable the audio throttler, it'll run at about 120fps, if you enable it, at least on my machine, it runs around 30fps. The target for full speed is 60. I'ma tinker with it more and see what I can get.

Err, what is this dolphin wii gc emulator thing?

xlom3000

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #19 on: June 06, 2009, 11:26:13 PM »
google search the first

http://www.dolphin-emu.com/news.php

enjoy :D

I ended up getting the game to run at 60fps, but the music running at what seemed to be about 5 times speed. But at least playable right? Now to figure out how to play the dlc. maybe if I copy my dlc save from my wii to the save folder in dolphin. I'm on the final chapter of the game now and it is amazing

xlom3000

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #20 on: June 07, 2009, 08:27:39 PM »
This game gets REALLY fucking ridiculous in the final chapters. Story and difficulty wise. My advice? If you are waiting for new chapters to come out, power level in the challenge dungeons at the end of each. get to at least 40.

The story gets ridiculous in a good way at least.

Dragonsbrethren

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #21 on: June 14, 2009, 11:27:56 AM »
Do the characters in the main game cap at a certain level? I know you can't exceed 40 in Rydia's tale, but I've got two characters up to 45 in the main game and they're still getting exp; I don't want to over level them and have them outclass everyone else in the final chapter. I can pretty much kill everything in the challenge dungeon with no problem now unless they all gang up on one character.

I started a new game in the main game, but I've changed my mind, I'm going to wait for the rest of the tales to come out to play through again.

xlom3000

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #22 on: June 14, 2009, 03:44:55 PM »
I could've sworn I had rydia up to 41 in her tale. I could be wrong. Yang's challenge dungeon was the last one I bothered with soI had a buncha level 20-25ish characters, and then people from the main chapter and rydia's chapter at 35-40. But I would completely recommend getting everyone to 40 or your group could get outclassed. I think I completed the game with a group around the 55-65 level.
spoiler tag for those who want to be surprised how the final 3 chapters in the last DLC pan out.
Chapter 1
[spoiler]The first has you in a world that reminded me so much of the beginning of the world of ruin in ff6. It was amazing. If you played all the other chapters you were given the option of loading in your finished saves and getting your levels and all the items they had. You flew around collecting all all your characters and  eidolons. You can only use Rydia, Edge, Luca, and the man in black at this point.[/spoiler]

Chapter 2
[spoiler]On the moon this time. Decent into the moon. interesting end. Fight FF4 bosses on the way down. Make sure to save before the final battle here. You'll see.[/spoiler]

Chapter 3
[spoiler]Only two things to say about this one. Bosses from ff1-6 found here and MIND FUCK. I will elaborate on that to anyone who wants me to but I don't feel it appropriate to even explain in spoiler tags.[/spoiler]

All and all, it was an amazing chapter with some really REALLY cool band attacks. I don't even think I've come close to finding them all. But it really does show that SE can still make'em a bit like they used to. This is the first rpg in awhile I've considered replaying right after having finished it. Oh, also, NPC's that tell you about rare monsters, I believe those rare monsters can also drop colored tails. I was never able to defeat any of them, but I also faught them before I learned of how god tier the Stop spell and bronze hourglass are in this game.

Dragonsbrethren

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #23 on: June 14, 2009, 03:54:40 PM »
Unfortunately, Stop doesn't seem to work on those monsters (at least the ones I've encountered so far).

 :edit:

As I said above, I started a new game and discovered a few minor equipment-related things. I'll spoiler tag this, though it's not really much of a spoiler:

[spoiler]First off, you don't need to buy Ceodore any equipment in the beginning, just steal the things he's missing from Biggs and Wedge, they won't miss it. They can even hold their own with no equipment at all; I removed it before the attack on the airship, and just used Biggs's Fira spell to kill off the belphegors.

Likewise, though a bit more challenging, Ceodore can use the lustrous shield and helm, knight's armor, gauntlets, sage's miter, and sage's surplice from Cecil and Rosa. He can't use the Kingsword, so don't bother stealing that, and the mages can also make use of Rosa's equipment (including the healing staff and rune armlet) once you get them. Cid's iron stuff isn't really worth taking, since the paladin gear outclasses it, but he'll be fine without it if you must have it. Make use of Cecil and Cid's band to take out the Ahriman and strato avis quickly.

You can swipe Kain's equipment before fighting his dark side on Mt. Ordeals. Ceodore can make good use of the wind spear, and you get another set of mythril equipment.[/spoiler]

Yeah, that's it, like I said it's not much of a spoiler, but I figured most of you will want to play through without knowing this the first time (I know I wanted to).
« Last Edit: June 14, 2009, 06:13:53 PM by Dragonsbrethren »

xlom3000

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #24 on: June 15, 2009, 12:28:03 AM »
New version of dolphin up that seems to correct the frame limiter problem. game is running at normal speed for graphics and music now for me

Dragonsbrethren

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2009, 01:07:36 PM »
Characters in the main game cap at level 50.

 :edit:

[spoiler=Rare monsters/status effects]I was mistaken, Stop does work on the green dragon, for some reason I was thinking that it didn't. It doesn't work on the gray coeurl, no status effecting magic seems to, so you'll just have to tough that one out. Once you get your party maxed out, Blaster is really only a threat to Cid; everyone else's magic evasion is high enough that it hardly ever works.

Sleep is also a very powerful status in this game. The spell pretty much carried me through the last parts of Rydia's tale, and you can cast it in the main game using the sleep blade (something I stupidly didn't think of until the challenge dungeon lost most of its challenge).[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: June 17, 2009, 01:36:56 PM by Dragonsbrethren »

Dragonsbrethren

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #26 on: August 02, 2009, 05:43:05 PM »
Looks like I forgot to update this topic with information about last month's tales.

[spoiler=Character Info - Yang's Tale]
Yang: It's Yang, and he really needs to trim his mustache. He no longer has the gird/brace command, instead he now has cover counter. This works like Cecil's cover command, but Yang will counterattack after taking the hit. He does not auto-cover like Cecil, and won't counter if you tell him to cover himself (good catch there, if this was FF4 Advance I'm sure he would).

Sheila: Yang's wife has a name now. She's not playable, I just figured I'd point that out.

Ursula: Yang's daughter, who is basically a clone of him, like all of the monks. She lacks the focus and cover counter commands, but has the Chakra command from FF5. She also gains the Tenketsu command later in the game which hits an enemy's weak point for massive damage (yes, that's what the description says...).

Monk A, B, C: Yay, more pointless unnamed characters. I believe these are the weakest monks in Final Fantasy history. They all have the kick command, in addition to the standard attack and items commands. Expect to be picking them up off the ground a lot.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Character Info - Palom's Tale]
Palom: Palom's assholishness has certainly increased since the original... Anyway, he's the same as always, but without the twincast command since Porom's not around for his tale. His bluff command seems to do something to the enemies, since it occasionally makes them turn blue during its animation, but I have no idea what it's actually doing.

Leonora: Leonora is the girl Palom was talking to by the lake in FF4's ending. Yeah, retcons are to be expected, but it still seems really forced. Anyway, she's basically a white mage, who learns a bit of black magic from Palom (and learns a bit on her own through leveling). Overall an uninteresting character in terms of abilities.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Character Info - Edge's Tale]
Edge: I'll say one thing, Edge's ninja buddies actually make him seem like a strong character. They just suck all around, I guess to balance out the fact that you have a five character party for the second half of this tale. Anyway, the only change made to Edge is that he's lost his steal command and gained smash and grab. This is the same as Plunder in FF4 Advance.

Gekkou: Gekkou looks more like a samurai than a ninja, based on his armor. He equips katanas, axes, and hammers, but can only carry one weapon. I'm not sure if he can use shields or not; I haven't found a single shield in this tale. In addition to ninjutsu, he has a shuriken command, which is like throw but only works with shurikens. He learns what is probably the most (only?) useful offensive ninjutsu in the game: payback wave. This is like ???? in the other games, it does damage based on how much HP Gekkou has lost.

Izayoi: Outside of Edge, Izayoi is definitely the best character in this tale. She equips katanas, whips, and (most importantly) bows, so she works well as a back row fighter. She's also strong enough to hold her own in the front row, more so than worthless Zangetsu. She has the most useful assortment on ninjutsu in the game, including a Cura and Raise clones (heal salve and smelling salts), plus stealth kill, an instant death technique. She has an illusions command; it makes her dance and confuse a single enemy, which is extremely useful. All in all, a good character; she's definitely weaker than Edge but her skills more than make up for it.

Tsukinowa: An Edge clone, who has the ability to run across the ocean from Mysidia to Eblan. That automatically makes him awesome. He can equip katanas, including some the other characters except for Edge can't, and boomeranges. I gave him two boomerangs and stuck him in the back, but I'm sure he could hold his own in the front. He has Edge's lost steal command (and does a happy dance after stealing successfully), but nothing else that makes him special. He's the only other ambidextrous ninja.

Zangetsu: Zangetsu in one word: worthless. He's trying to be Kain, he equips spears in addition to katanas, and has a human kite command which is a clone of jump. Flying around on a gigantic kite to divebomb enemies should just make him awesome by default, but his poor performance in battle quickly proves how worthless he is. I had to place Zangetsu in the back row so he would stop dying every battle, and it took him until his late 30's to catch up with Izayoi enough to replace her in the front row.[/spoiler]

Dragonsbrethren

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #27 on: August 05, 2009, 07:32:11 AM »
[spoiler=Character Info - Porom's Tale]Child Porom: You play as her in a flashback that makes up about a third/half of the tale. She's pretty much the same as before, except she lacks her Cry command, and Twincast is now a band instead of a command. I didn't try the Twincast band but I imagine it's the same as always.

Child Palom: Same as always, except for the Twincast band mention above.

Adult Porom: Not all that different from herself as a child, she now has Pray, which works like it did in the original, rather than restoring HP and MP like the DS version. There's really not much else to say...she dyed her hair pink; I guess that qualifies.

Rydia, White Mage, Black Mage, Kain: Same as in the other tales. Kain is his dark side.

Elder: The Mysidian Elder, who aspire showed was likely intended to be more playable than he is at one point. You play as him in one battle, where he promptly gets his ass kicked. He knows most of the white magic spells, and seems to use standard mage gear.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Character Info - Edward's Tale]Edward: Edward is actually a competent fighter now, or his partners are just as bad as him, making him seem good. His Bardsong command works sort of like the original sing, except you can manually choose its target, and it uses healing/defensive spells when targeting allies. I thought that was a really cool change, but I never really bothered with it on enemies since it's just as useless as before. His Salve command is the same as the DS version, you chose the item to split, and it gets used on every character in the party. I'm fairly certain the DS version only used one item though, this subtracts one for each character. It's still a lot more useful than it was in the original. His Hide command was changed to Escape, but does the exact same thing, unless you count being able to see him hiding at the edge of the screen to be a difference.

Guard A, B, C: This is just getting ridiculous... These are three identical soldiers, they use the same portrait as Wedge and Biggs, and equip heavy armor and swords. Worthless, unnamed characters like this are the one thing I do not like about this game. Lower the strength of the enemies so the party can handle them on their own, like the original game. Don't give the player useless "support" that they'll never see again.

Harley: Edward's secretary. A woman with blue hair, she's supposed to be a scholar, but doesn't have any of the traditional scholar abilities. She uses whips instead of beating her enemies to death with books like the scholars in FF3. She has two commands; Piercing Sight, which uses dispels animation and is supposed to work like dispel, plus set a weakness. Not one enemy cast protective magic on themselves, and there is no way of seeing what weakness was set in this tale, so I can't say if it does what it says or not. She also has Gil Toss, which isn't nearly as powerful as it was in FF5, but an NPC says it gets stronger at higher levels.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Character Info - The Lunarians' Tale]Goblez: Remember the half-naked "man in black" I mentioned way back in Rydia's tale? Yeah, that's Golbez. The character redesign isn't nearly as bad as Luca, but I'm still not a fan of it. Anyway, Golbez is surprisingly proficient at physical violence despite never using a non-magical attack in the original game. He can equip swords and staves, plus heavy armor and mage gear; he starts with an ancient sword as his weapon. There isn't enough equipment in this tale to know for sure, but I wouldn't doubt it if he has the same or a very similar equipment selection as paladin Cecil. He knows black magic as expected, but only purely offensive spells, he didn't learn a single status effecting spell as far as I leveled him. Speaking of levels, he starts at 30, and can go beyond the level 40 cap the other characters had in their tales. He has two unique commands as well: Pressure, which sets paralysis on a single enemy, uses the same animation as binding cold, and has an abysmal success rate. Taunt draws all attacks to him, which is useful for keeping the mop alive, but can't be unset.

Interestingly, you also get to play as Golbez in a few flashback battles to the original game, where he only has access to black magic and physical attacks (using an ebony blade - a weak sword that can be unequipped and used in the present). They drew new, FF6-style battle sprites for him in the flashbacks, unlike every other character that uses their original battle sprites. The FF6 sprite sucks compared to my costume for Cyan: :cybez:

Fusoya: The mop is still Tellah 2.0, unfortunately; he's capped at 190 MP. He starts at level 30 like Golbez, but still has access to every spell in the game. His Bless command has been upgraded, it restores a small percentage of HP and MP, unlike the original that did a fixed 10 HP, or the DS version that did a percentage of MP. I believe he uses the exact same portrait that he did in FF4 Advance, unlike every other character. He probably died at the end of the tale.[/spoiler]

JCE3000GT

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #28 on: January 30, 2010, 11:27:08 PM »
Finally bought the first episode and I like it so far.  Hoorah for bumping an old topic!

bond697

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Re: Final Fantasy IV The After Years
« Reply #29 on: January 30, 2010, 11:57:31 PM »
i've been playing this for the last few hours in dolphinx64 and really enjoying it.  frame skipping and save states make this so much more enjoyable to play.
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