LEAPFROG'S PROFILE

The game works a lot better on my actual phone, but the Ranger class tempted me, so I've been neglecting Record Keeper for the addictiveness that is FF5. Played the mobile version up to the Lonka Ruins, got sick of the touch controls and new sprites (although I like the crispness of their battle animations) and started over on the GBA version. Doing a concurrent Four Job Fiesta practice run alongside my main save, which may be premature considering I haven't actually finished the game before.

So that's where I stand on Record Keeper right now.

author=Sated
The roofs of your houses should probably be larger. They should be at least as high as a building is tall. If you don't do that then it makes the buildings look really thin, which looks weird.

This a good example of what makes sprite work difficult. You would expect two-tile tall roofs to work because the idea is that it's sloping up, then down again on the other side, but from the overhead angle it really does make the whole building look thin.

2D pixel art, especially low resolution stuff, is much more about shorthand suggestion than it is about accurate representation. I've recently started on both pixel art and tile mapping and it's been a difficult lesson to learn. Trying to use the shadow tool has been particularly frustrating because putting them where you think they should go often just makes a weird mess.

That's not to say maps and sprites shouldn't be accurate, of course. It's just there's a fuzzy shorthand that can be difficult to get down. And I guess that's why this topic is a good idea! I'm sure I'll be making use of it myself.

author=Deltree
The performance is pretty bad all around. I play on a Galaxy Note 4, and the menu for choosing a realm is barely functional.

That's disappointing. It seems a little irresponsible of them to make a game so dolled up that it can barely run. I had assumed it was an issue related to trying to emulate Android in Windows, but I guess it'd be the same if I switched over.

Character abilities are divided into types and ratings, rather than specific spells. So, Thunder is a Black Magic skill, which is a category that Cloud can't use. Don't worry; he doesn't need the help - he can use Spellblade abilities, which are elemental attacks based off of physical instead of magical stats.

Here's a big old list of who has levels in what: http://ffrk.kongbakpao.com/character-usable-abilities/

Typically, characters fall into a role in FFRK, even if they were more or less "open" in their respective games. The game is a bit inconsistent in how well or poorly certain characters were adapted (Rinoa is one of the best black mages, for instance, while oddball "jack of all trades" characters like Kimahri suffer greatly from the lack of specialization). For all but the highest-difficulty content, though, you're pretty safe in using whichever characters you like the most. The rest of us in this thread are just crazy min-maxers.

Thank you for the information! I was confused, because it told me what the White Mage and Black Mage could use, but I had no idea how to locate that information for my other characters. There are probably other places where I'll disagree with their interpretation of a character, but I can get past it. I'll probably be min-maxing alongside everyone else, soon enough!

author=Craze
If you long-press over anybody in almost any menu (including the party menu where they don't look like a button), you can press "Usable" to see everything they can do.

I get excellent performance on my Nexus 9 tablet, but it's also a large tablet.

Cloud is one of the top 3 characters in the game, and like Deltree said he gets Thundara Strike. He is very capable =P

I figured I was probably just looking in the wrong place, and that they wouldn't be so silly as to not include that information. And I'm glad I have some potential recourse for the performance.. there is a tablet I could make use of, but I'm not so sure of its stats at the moment. Thanks!

I wouldn't call them integral to my experience, but I can see where key items can feel satisfying if they're given enough of a presence and not just "key to dungeon", "key to attic" ad nauseam.

On the other hand, I'm an adventure gamer at heart, so when item-based progression is given a strong focus I find it pretty enjoyable. It was probably a big part of why I liked Resident Evil, although that's not an RPG.

I'll think of my own example when I'm not procrastinating on work, but along the lines of key items, I'm a sucker for character or plot-relevant equipment, especially if it's visually or mechanically unique. Brotherhood from FFX comes to mind, at least for the part of the game where you get it. And the ever-fabled Master Sword, at least when it was still a pretty cool and unique thing, and not a stale inevitability.

Kingdom Hearts II. I was incredibly mad at that game for years and I'm still not entirely over it.

First of all, I found the introductory area to be interminably long. It's not like it was all exposition and no gameplay, but I still felt like I was waiting far too long for the game to get started. It didn't have the relaxed, exploratory feel that Destiny Islands had in the first game, but maybe that was the weight of my expectation causing that.

That's not the real problem I had with the game, just an introductory gripe. No, my real problem was the way the game pitted me against several hours' worth of final boss content without a save point when I was trying to finish it on a weeknight.

It just kept dragging on, and then it cheesed me to death with a really stupid timed section. It had already employed obnoxious mid-battle game over timers earlier in the game, as anyone who's played it will attest, but to do it after several hours of story and fighting with no chance to save, simultaneously introducing a new mechanic, and then allowing the boss to stunlock me so I couldn't win? Rage. Absolute rage. I haven't touched the game since.

So that's what killed the game for me. Pacing and general cheap boss bullshit that has a complete disregard for the player's time.

It also just wasn't as good as the first game, generally. Every new mechanic and story element it introduced just felt like it overcomplicated what had previously been a winning formula. Like, not that I object to them building upon a formula, but it felt like it was starting in an obnoxious direction in its attempts to one-up itself.