Other stuff that needs to be "saved"

Does anyone have any other things they're adamant about keeping in a certain way? You might say I'm a bit of a fundamentalist as far as stories go (unless they really, really sucked)...

When I was growing up, the original Super NES version of "Final Fantasy VI" set a precedent of quality, innovation and style that I've yet to see matched by today's RPGs. Its Playstation port had a few flaws (slowdown and choppy music, mostly), but overall it was the same, and I appreciated that; it proved that this game was so good that it needed no changes.

However, I cannot call this GBA remake anything short of a crime against its original version. It has been changed in all the wrong places, and the new material is a pitiable attempt at compensation.

My problems with it are as follows:

-Only one save slot. Enough said. (RETRACTION: There are three... though it isn't obvious.)

-The character scripts have been unnecessarily rewritten in some places, and their dialogue now is far too blunt and wordy (a problem with many RPGs these days). They lose some of their colorful personalities because of this.

-The names of some characters, Espers, items, weapons and even monsters have been changed completely to resemble the names from newer "Final Fantasy" titles ("Pug" is now "Tonberry" and "Cactrot" is now "Cactuar," to name a few). This was as unnecessary as it is insulting to the gamers who grew up with it. What's wrong with giving some enemies silly names?

-Numerous tricks were removed, making the game's battles less fun and more frustrating. Most notably, the game's bosses are no longer susceptible to the popular "Vanish/Doom" combo... and neither are the enemies in popular level-building locations of the past (such as Intangir and Tyranosaurus). Leveling up isn't half as fun when it's only half as fast.

-Some enemies' stats have been altered, which messes up the vintage gamers (for example, all Mount Zozo enemies now dodge your attacks easily).

-Facial art is added in for when your characters speak... but it's the artwork made by Yoshitaka Amano, whose work I personally have never liked. I much prefer envisioning the characters as their sprites show them, but this makes it that much more difficult.

So that's me. I say that games are a form of literature too, and if nobody rewrites Shakespeare, nobody should rewrite these... or get rid of the fun glitches.

You know, I'm not a Final Fantasy fan but I know what you're saying. Most of the GBA remakes of games from past consoles aren't as good. I know I have a couple remakes like Donkey Kong Kountry and I don't care for them as much as the original SNES games.

If only the GBA could emulate the music as well... but my main beef is with the unnecessary changes.

That's strange. The GBA is perfectly capable of emulating SNES music and sound effects. In fact, the GBA Donkey Kong Country games have superior quality sound and music compared to the SNES. The only GBA port I have seen that has poor quality music and sound would be Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis, a horrible, HORRIBLE remake of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. If you see it, do not buy it. It sucks really bad.

Well, I'm not really saying it was terrible, however I'd rather play the original SNES version. For some reason it even seemed that it was harder for the GBA, I mean not including the bosses or anything but just the gameplay itself seemed harder.

Well, if it was harder, I could only imagine that it's either because of the resolution adjustment or the changed controls. I never played the GBA version, and I didn't really like the SNES version anyways, I only know this because I did a little research.

I have played the fan translation of FFVI that was done by the emulation translation group, RPGOne, on an emulator and it is the best translation available. Terra's original Japanese name was Tina, for example. Also, the fan translation of FFV is the best translation available, according to Gamespot.

Ben

The Donkey Kong Country games had better music on the SNES. :/

To be honest, I think the third game did the best job with music though. Instead of having decreased quality, they just rescored the entire game. This gave us even more work from David Wise...

...even though it phailed in comparison to his old work.

What I'm saying is while I prefer the old music in DKC3, that's what I have my SNES game for. I'm all up for some new music to listen to, as long as it's tasteful. I think new music is better than old music with decreased quality.

The only SNES to GBA conversions that had music that was close to the originals were Final Fantasy IV-VI Advance and Super Mario World GBA. Square Enix and Nintendo did a good job converting the music on those.

Ben

Ben_darkpikachu02 wrote:

The only SNES to GBA conversions that had music that was close to the originals were Final Fantasy IV-VI Advance and Super Mario World GBA. Square Enix and Nintendo did a good job converting the music on those.

Ben

Err... I disagree on the FF6 one. It's choppy and doesn't sound half as good as it did before. That's partly what I opened this thread complaining about. If you heard the SNES tracks, then listened to the GBA ones, you'd hear what I mean.

There was a 3D version of Tales Of Phantasia for the PSOne that I have a translation patch for and it isn't that bad. It is based off of the Tales of Destiny programming engine.

Ben