The Authoritative Final Fantasy & Bravely Default thread

is FFXII IZJS something you have to emulate?

I kind of... want to give this game another shot, but it was by far my least favorite of the series lol

FF12 is a great game which stops half way through for both the plot and battle system, so then all it's flaws of uninteresting bad guy and unclear main character start eating away at your perception of the game. It was deservedly the worst until fucking FF13. No amount of battle system tweaks can make up for the boring ending, was this the first Final Fantasy game without either a plot to cause the apocalypse or being set after it?


I realised this the other day:
NES: 3 Games
SNES: 3 Games
PS1: 3 Games
PS2: 2 Games
PS3: 1 Game

Sad.

You need FFXII (NTSC) and FFXII IZJS (NTSC-J) isos, then you run apatchthat combines the two into a single all-English iso. IZJS has English voices throughout, and the patch takes all the English text from the US version and replaces the Japanese text with it. From that point you can load the iso in PCSX2 or burn it to a DVD and play it on a modded PS2 (or use SwapMagic, Action Replay, etc.).

PCSX2 is by far the best way to play it though. It's not a difficult game to emulate (unlike, say, FFX-2, which is still a bitch even on extremely powerful CPUs); I play the game supersampled at 6x native resolution with texture filtering and 4xMSAA and it never dips below 60fps. Plus, like pretty much all PS2 games, the 16:9 widescreen wasn't implemented perfectly, so there are widescreen hacks you can load in PCSX2 that fix it up.

And it's the best, you goddamn heathens.

Chris_sl said:

FF12 is a great game which stops half way through for both the plot and battle system, so then all it's flaws of uninteresting bad guy and unclear main character start eating away at your perception of the game. It was deservedly the worst until fucking FF13. No amount of battle system tweaks can make up for the boring ending, was this the first Final Fantasy game without either a plot to cause the apocalypse or being set after it?


I realised this the other day:
NES: 3 Games
SNES: 3 Games
PS1: 3 Games
PS2: 2 Games
PS3: 1 Game

Sad.

Click to expand...

Technically wasn't there 3 for PS3? FF13, FF13-2, FF13-3?

Noodleface_sl said:

Technically wasn't there 3 for PS3? FF13, FF13-2, FF13-3?

Click to expand...

Yes, and 3 for the PS2 as well (X, X-2, XII).

XI was far and away designed as a PS2 game as well, for what it's worth.

And 12 was fantastic. I've still not gotten around to going back and playing IZJS, but I fucking loved the original game. I no-lifed it for a good couple weeks after it came out - played it every free moment I had until the only thing I had left to do was kill Yiazmat. Yes, parts of the story and cast were godawful, but I loved the setting, and most of the game's systems. I also loved the AI scripting for the team-mates - I'd kill for a modern Secret of Mana-esque game with that kind of companion control.

Arkk_sl said:

XI was far and away designed as a PS2 game as well, for what it's worth.

And 12 was fantastic. I've still not gotten around to going back and playing IZJS, but I fucking loved the original game. I no-lifed it for a good couple weeks after it came out - played it every free moment I had until the only thing I had left to do was kill Yiazmat. Yes, parts of the story and cast were godawful, but I loved the setting, and most of the game's systems. I also loved the AI scripting for the team-mates - I'd kill for a modern Secret of Mana-esque game with that kind of companion control.

Click to expand...

Secret of Mana was so good.. one of those games I just one day bought for no reason and was blown away by how awesome it was.

XI was clearly a PS2 game ported to PC.. it was locked at 30FPS too.

I never beat 9, 10 or 12 and never felt right about it. Is 12 available on PSN for PS3 by any chance? I feel like beating them all.

fairly sure it isn't, but you can just DL PCSX2 and emulate it quite easily heh

Noodleface_sl said:

Is 12 available on PSN for PS3 by any chance? I feel like beating them all.

Click to expand...

It isn't. And you'd be doing yourself a grave disservice by playing the plain old English version anyway.

With any luck, S-E will move the team that did the X/X-2 International remakes over to working on XII for PS3/4/Vita as soon as they ship. At least that way people unwilling/unable to emulate can finally get to play it.

I have a PS2 and the regular old shitty english version.. but I didn't want to hook it up and put it in lol.

I'd be willing to try IZJS, but is there a way to play it on my unmodded PS2? Link to steps?

Possible/cheap to mod my PS2?

Steps would be:

1. Download FFXII English ISO, or you can rip your own copy, which is what I did.
2. Download FFXII IZJS ISO. I got it from Demonoid many years ago, so ... yeah. Try Emuparadise.me or just google it.
3. Download the patch I linked above and follow the instructions to make an IZJS English ISO, unless you happened to find a ISO already patched while looking for steps 1 and 2.
4. Burn it to DVD-R (not +R or RW). Thankfully, it will fit on a DVD5 so you don't have to deal with dual layer bullshit.

At that point you will need a modded PS2, or a Swap Magic DVD and slide tool (varies depending on which model PS2 you have). No idea if anyone still mods PS2s, and it was always a pain in the ass compared to just using a Swap Magic, which is about $20. Looks like 3rd party sellers still have them on Amazon.

I'd still suggest emulating if at all possible though. It doesn't take much CPU power to emu the PS2 these days, especially for games like FFXII that have very high compatibility with PCSX2.

Damn, thanks. I will probably just emu it

The Aeons (Espers) in XII were great. I'm pretty sure the final fight I did in that game was beating the 12th Esper. I could be wrong, but it was after the credits deep in a cave. I remember beating it at least, and it was a real motherfucker of a fight.

Noodleface_sl said:

Secret of Mana was so good.. one of those games I just one day bought for no reason and was blown away by how awesome it was.

Click to expand...

I replay this game on emulator almost every year.

There has not been a final fantasy game since 7, maybe i'll give you 8.

After I finish DQ8 i'm gonna fire up FFXII IZJS and see if its bearable. On paper it sounds infinitely better, which is kind of exciting to want to actually play it.
PCSX2 is godlike, I wish i looked into it earlier lol

IGN has some commentary with like 20min or so of game play for FF13-3. Watched it all, and still not interested, just glad its almost over and they can get to work on 15.

Lightning Returns (Japanese Import) Commentary 1 - IGN Plays - IGN Video

Needless_sl said:

After I finish DQ8 i'm gonna fire up FFXII IZJS and see if its bearable. On paper it sounds infinitely better, which is kind of exciting to want to actually play it.
PCSX2 is godlike, I wish i looked into it earlier lol

Click to expand...

It's basically the same game except each character is limited to a role and the high end farming is a bit easier. If you didn't like it the first time I don't think it will magically change.

General Antony_sl said:

It's basically the same game except each character is limited to a role and the high end farming is a bit easier. If you didn't like it the first time I don't think it will magically change.

Click to expand...

I pretty much figured that but its worth trying again i'd say, since the first and only time i did was when it first came out.. 7... years ago?