Zuì Zhōng Huàn Xiǎng 7
November 14, 2013 7:16 AM Subscribe
RetroCollect reports: "...in 2005 ShenZhen Nanjing Technology released a run-down port of Final Fantasy VII for Nintendo's 8-bit system in China. Despite lacking a lot of story elements, gameplay aspects and finesse, ROM hacker Lugia2009 saw potential within the game's code and began using it as a basis to recreate the PlayStation 1 adventure in its entirety...
Wow, this is some pretty impressive stuff. Obviously the gameplay has been simplified, but there's a lot more here than I would have expected.
Now all I need is for someone to give the same treatment to the first half of FFVIII (The end of FFVIII is so terrible I can't imagine even internet folk bothering to demake it) and I can die happy.
posted by Proofs and Refutations at 7:50 AM on November 14, 2013
Now all I need is for someone to give the same treatment to the first half of FFVIII (The end of FFVIII is so terrible I can't imagine even internet folk bothering to demake it) and I can die happy.
posted by Proofs and Refutations at 7:50 AM on November 14, 2013
The end of FFVIII is so terrible I can't imagine even internet folk bothering to demake it
I think it was actually better than IX, but, damning with faint praise and all that.
posted by LionIndex at 7:59 AM on November 14, 2013
I think it was actually better than IX, but, damning with faint praise and all that.
posted by LionIndex at 7:59 AM on November 14, 2013
FFVII is when I gave up on the series, so this is kinda perfect for me. A SNES remake would be even better.
posted by ignignokt at 8:40 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ignignokt at 8:40 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
FFVII is when I gave up on the series
For me it's more about the point where I could no longer afford the current generation of consoles. It remains probably the most popular FF game, and one I still have not played. I did manage to get my hands on a used PS2 in Japan and a copy of FFX International, so I did play a later game and quite enjoyed it. Even the blitzball part. but yeah. I'm hoping they can port FFVII to the iPhone or something soon.
posted by Hoopo at 9:15 AM on November 14, 2013
For me it's more about the point where I could no longer afford the current generation of consoles. It remains probably the most popular FF game, and one I still have not played. I did manage to get my hands on a used PS2 in Japan and a copy of FFX International, so I did play a later game and quite enjoyed it. Even the blitzball part. but yeah. I'm hoping they can port FFVII to the iPhone or something soon.
posted by Hoopo at 9:15 AM on November 14, 2013
I'm hoping they can port FFVII to the iPhone or something soon.
Not anytime soon, unfortunately.
posted by griphus at 9:18 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Not anytime soon, unfortunately.
posted by griphus at 9:18 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Although, to be fair, Square Enix come up with a different excuse every time they actually bother addressing the concept of a FFVII remake (or new port), so who the hell knows what the real reason for not doing it is.
posted by griphus at 9:19 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by griphus at 9:19 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
It can't be that they're reluctant to cash in on a well-regarded classic, and it's not like they weren't willing to recode the SNES games from scratch. It's an enigma.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:26 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:26 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
They're still trying to figure out a way to shove Lightning and the Chevy Nova Fantastico world down everybody's throats because they heard nobody likes Lightning or the stainless steel world she lives in.
Anyway, I'd rather see a remake of the Yoshitaka Amano era games because I think playing in a world modeled after his art would be rad as hell.
posted by Redfield at 9:35 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Anyway, I'd rather see a remake of the Yoshitaka Amano era games because I think playing in a world modeled after his art would be rad as hell.
posted by Redfield at 9:35 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
We did get remakes of the Amano era games. They look like this.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:47 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:47 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
I always thought the GBA ports looked rather nice (and the DS ports have a certain charm to them I guess) but a game with Amano's actual art would be so awesome.
posted by griphus at 9:53 AM on November 14, 2013
posted by griphus at 9:53 AM on November 14, 2013
I remember being, like, so mad at FFVII when it came out. Polygons! On a non-Nintendo platform! And, most disappointingly, everyone had normal colored hair! This is not my beautiful franchise! These are not my beautiful chocobos!
I finally got around to playing it about ten years later. I don't actually remember much about it, except Tifa wears "orthopedic underwear" and Cid tried to go to space and swore a shitload, because he could.
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:59 AM on November 14, 2013 [4 favorites]
I finally got around to playing it about ten years later. I don't actually remember much about it, except Tifa wears "orthopedic underwear" and Cid tried to go to space and swore a shitload, because he could.
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:59 AM on November 14, 2013 [4 favorites]
These are not my beautiful chocobos!
"Cloud, what are you doing? We have to save the world from imminent destruction!"
"Wait a second, I'm going to check in on my chocobo racing stable for a couple of hours, then go look for treasure in formerly-inaccessible locations!"
"..."
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:03 AM on November 14, 2013 [6 favorites]
"Cloud, what are you doing? We have to save the world from imminent destruction!"
"Wait a second, I'm going to check in on my chocobo racing stable for a couple of hours, then go look for treasure in formerly-inaccessible locations!"
"..."
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:03 AM on November 14, 2013 [6 favorites]
This is really cool - Final Fantasy for the NES was really the first RPG I ever played, and I've been a huge fan of the franchise ever since. But while it's a really ambitious project, I'm not sure I'd want to play this - it's just missing too many of the core elements of FFVII. Limited materia, no limit breaks, no mini-games (which I kinda hated but whatever). Definitely the kind of thing I'd love if I were *really* into FFVII in particular - I'd especially like to see how scenes and backgrounds are set up in this version versus the Playstation.
posted by antonymous at 10:24 AM on November 14, 2013
posted by antonymous at 10:24 AM on November 14, 2013
Look, I know the Reapers are about to destroy the galaxy, but I'm Commander Fucking Shepard and I will get my awkward dance on at this club!
posted by kmz at 10:25 AM on November 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by kmz at 10:25 AM on November 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
Maybe they've resisted remaking it because they understand what most other gamers haven't: it's a game that really hasn't stood the test of time, at all. It was revolutionary for what it was at the time, but going back and replaying it ends up being kind of a chore. And Barrett's character is kind of embarrassing and racist? I still absolutely love the soundtrack, though. Something about those awful basic MIDI strings just gets to me...
posted by naju at 10:26 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by naju at 10:26 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Wait a second, I'm going to check in on my chocobo racing stable for a couple of hours, then go look for treasure in formerly-inaccessible locations!"
Pretty sure FF7 wasn't the first game in the series to have side stuff you could waste time on. It certainly did have an explosion of weird minigames, though. Off the top of my head: CPR, crunches, snowboarding, chocobo stuff, the RTS minigame, sneaking past guards, Mastermind, various activities in the Golden Saucer...
I wonder how much of that made it into the demake.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:29 AM on November 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
Pretty sure FF7 wasn't the first game in the series to have side stuff you could waste time on. It certainly did have an explosion of weird minigames, though. Off the top of my head: CPR, crunches, snowboarding, chocobo stuff, the RTS minigame, sneaking past guards, Mastermind, various activities in the Golden Saucer...
I wonder how much of that made it into the demake.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:29 AM on November 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
Your left out "trying to resurrect Aeris." I suspect that's the big problem they're working on.
posted by griphus at 10:42 AM on November 14, 2013
posted by griphus at 10:42 AM on November 14, 2013
Wasn't Barret basically just Mr. T?
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 10:48 AM on November 14, 2013
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 10:48 AM on November 14, 2013
....and?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:00 AM on November 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:00 AM on November 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
Off course!
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 11:16 AM on November 14, 2013
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 11:16 AM on November 14, 2013
Griphus
I was trying to resurrect General Leo when Aeris was no more than a twinkle in Tetsuya Nomura's eye.
posted by The Confessor at 11:26 AM on November 14, 2013 [9 favorites]
I was trying to resurrect General Leo when Aeris was no more than a twinkle in Tetsuya Nomura's eye.
posted by The Confessor at 11:26 AM on November 14, 2013 [9 favorites]
After Leo died I thought "This world is really lost...." and then the cataclysm...
damn...ff6 was really depressing. Must be why it is my fav.
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 11:38 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
damn...ff6 was really depressing. Must be why it is my fav.
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 11:38 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also, if someone can do a 8- or 16- bit remake of Blitzball, I'd play the crap out of it. Just typing the word Blitzball gets the music stuck in my head, and I may have just looked in my address bar for the flashing words "Techcopy!"
posted by antonymous at 11:39 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by antonymous at 11:39 AM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
When General Leo died, I thought, aw man, I was hoping he'd be in the party.
Then: I wonder if I can have his sword.
posted by ignignokt at 11:58 AM on November 14, 2013
Then: I wonder if I can have his sword.
posted by ignignokt at 11:58 AM on November 14, 2013
I want a true sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics first. And what was wrong with the ending of FFIX? FFVIII was just a little too weird (that whole game was weird), but FFIX was fairly straightforward FF end boss battlin' IIRC. ALSO, lets get a true sequel to Xenogear and Legend of Dragoon. None of this remake foolishness.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:22 PM on November 14, 2013
posted by Brocktoon at 12:22 PM on November 14, 2013
Shit, I'll take a remake of Xenogears, and pay dearly for it, as long as they actually finish the second half this time.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:26 PM on November 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:26 PM on November 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
really hasn't stood the test of time, at all
I haven't played it so I can't comment on the veracity of this, but I have played through multiple remakes of older ff games on my iPhone. Even the first one. So aging well or not there's probably a market for it
posted by Hoopo at 1:18 PM on November 14, 2013
I haven't played it so I can't comment on the veracity of this, but I have played through multiple remakes of older ff games on my iPhone. Even the first one. So aging well or not there's probably a market for it
posted by Hoopo at 1:18 PM on November 14, 2013
FF7 is on Steam just in case folks didn't know. I'm replaying it now. It also includes a "Character Booster" function which sets your parties HP / MP / Gil to maximum. No change to dmg output or anything, but for me this is the reason I got it. I beat FF7 when it came out 6-7 times and loved the game but it felt like a chore replaying it at age 30. The HP / MP / Gil max-out means I can just focus on enjoying the nostalgia and gameplay.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:25 PM on November 14, 2013
posted by lazaruslong at 1:25 PM on November 14, 2013
Whoa, that's...bizarre. I can't imagine who would still be playing 8-bit Famicom games in China in 2005, let alone buying new ones. I was there in 2006 and people who played video games generally went to internet cafes to play Counterstrike 1.6, DOTA, or various MMORPGs.
This article has a pretty detailed review of the original Chinese cartridge and apparently it's pretty complete as-is. Amazing to think that a knockoff games company would go to that much effort to make a port. Maybe it was just a labor of love from some lone FF7-loving developer?
posted by pravit at 4:08 PM on November 14, 2013
This article has a pretty detailed review of the original Chinese cartridge and apparently it's pretty complete as-is. Amazing to think that a knockoff games company would go to that much effort to make a port. Maybe it was just a labor of love from some lone FF7-loving developer?
posted by pravit at 4:08 PM on November 14, 2013
FFVII is when I gave up on the series, so this is kinda perfect for me.
Okay, we just got out of Midgar for the first time. Hey wow, and there's a whole world outside of it! Okay, let's sta-BZZT BZZT!
(30 seconds of disk access)
(bullshit fight against shmuck enemies)
Okay, now we can BZZT BZZT!
(30 seconds of disk access, etc.)
Okay NOW w BZZT BZZT!
I tried to get through it twice, and both times gave up shortly after the party left Midgar. To this day I don't see how anyone could play that damn game. The N64 might not have had the ability to have much in the way of full video cutscenes, but it also had no load times. Nintendo bet on people preferring that to the ability to include video and, well, I guess FFVII showed the industry what people preferred, damn them.
posted by JHarris at 5:08 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Okay, we just got out of Midgar for the first time. Hey wow, and there's a whole world outside of it! Okay, let's sta-BZZT BZZT!
(30 seconds of disk access)
(bullshit fight against shmuck enemies)
Okay, now we can BZZT BZZT!
(30 seconds of disk access, etc.)
Okay NOW w BZZT BZZT!
I tried to get through it twice, and both times gave up shortly after the party left Midgar. To this day I don't see how anyone could play that damn game. The N64 might not have had the ability to have much in the way of full video cutscenes, but it also had no load times. Nintendo bet on people preferring that to the ability to include video and, well, I guess FFVII showed the industry what people preferred, damn them.
posted by JHarris at 5:08 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Load times? Have you not played < insert Bioware RPG title here >?
posted by Brocktoon at 6:09 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Brocktoon at 6:09 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
If not, good.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:53 PM on November 14, 2013
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:53 PM on November 14, 2013
What made me tap out were crazy long spell animations that were practically cut scenes themselves!
Load times? Have you not played < insert Bioware RPG title here >?
Oh, man, accidentally leaving an area: Excruciating. Still, once an area was loaded, there was plenty of reasonably-responsive gameplay to be had.
posted by ignignokt at 7:42 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Load times? Have you not played < insert Bioware RPG title here >?
Oh, man, accidentally leaving an area: Excruciating. Still, once an area was loaded, there was plenty of reasonably-responsive gameplay to be had.
posted by ignignokt at 7:42 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
BioWare RPGs load when you change areas. Final Fantasy VII load times come randomly, take a long time just to break up the flow of what you're doing and demand you fight for your life against schmucks, then when the battle is over and it's time to get back to exploring, it gave you just enough time to get back into the exploratory mindset and remember what you were doing when BZZT BZZT time to wait a half-minute in order to focus on shmucks again! It seemed designed to infuriate.
posted by JHarris at 8:30 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 8:30 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
If not, good.
If you are an RPG fan and haven't played Jade Empire, it is a tragedy.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:07 PM on November 15, 2013
If you are an RPG fan and haven't played Jade Empire, it is a tragedy.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:07 PM on November 15, 2013
That reminds me of a little metagaming trick from Skies of Arcadia for Dreamcast: The disc drive would spin up right before a random encounter to load the enemy data, so if you stopped walking right when the drive spun up, you'd skip that random encounter. This wouldn't work all the time though; the Dreamcast would just save that information for the next random encounter, so there would be no disc drive spin-up to warn you about the next one. But if you did it every time, you could cut the number of random fights in half.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 1:52 AM on November 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Elementary Penguin at 1:52 AM on November 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
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posted by naju at 7:40 AM on November 14, 2013