I bounced off of FFTA, and I don’t think it was just because of the kiddy aesthetic. It’s also just mechanically different in a lot of ways that some folks don’t enjoy. Also after going back to it a few weeks ago, I’m not a fan of the interface.

Wow, Final Fantasy II (actually IV) is also on Game Boy for $29.99! They really did their research there. Presumably they’re conflating it with Final Fantasy Legends II, which is actually a SaGa game.

Actually, no. Apparently Tandemaus can evolve into Maushold when you’re not looking, skipping the animation. Presumably an Everstone will prevent this, but I haven’t tested it.

I do miss Dungeon.

Playing and enjoying video games has always been expensive. But this already pricey hobby is becoming even more expensive as we enter the era of $70 games. For many, $60 was already too much to stomach. Now games cost even more, and that’s not even factoring in taxes, potential DLC, or skins.

That logjam is temporary, and is obscuring wider trends that the pandemic only exasperated.

This is what we all wanted from Final Fantasy, right? Everybody’s on board here?

I’m not into disparaging journalists generally, but this confuses me. I guess I don’t know who John Walker “is”. I’m only familiar with his work here on Kotaku, which has been—in my opinion—not great. Lots of really hot takes and very little research backing it up. I could be wrong, though! Relatively small sample…

Yeah, the performance issues are relevant right from the word go. Even walking around the character’s room at the start of the game is choppy.

I think this is a reasonable take, but also I think such an adjustment could only get you so far. I’m having trouble even imagining Mario voicing serious lines of dialogue in anything close to his usual high-pitched squeak. And if it deviates much from that pitch, well, why do you need Charles Martinet to voice him?

It’s definitely not the only way to play, but it is the default way, and it’s very strange that the article doesn’t mention it once. Imagine a headline titled “Bananas banned” because a very vocal cult decided to put bananas in their ears and didn’t enjoy the experience. The article has no mention of eating bananas or…

Beyond this, it simply says that, “Other select bug fixes have been made.” Given the patch is only 1GB, it can’t be an enormous number.

It’s not that they haven’t balanced singles (though I mean, they’re not great at balancing anything). It’s that they assume 3v3 singles, not 6v6.

Or, and this is just an idea, you could play the intended 3v3 game rather than Smogon’s custom 6v6 ruleset they’ve been dragging along for 30 years.

Wow this is an uninformed article. Treating Smogon as the de facto rules adjudicators of Pokémon just exacerbates the impression that they know what they’re doing and should get to be in charge of what is “banned”. Not that GameFreak has a perfect record of balancing the game. Far from it. But at least they know what…

“Really good” is in the eye of the beholder as well. I mean I haven’t gotten that far in it, but I’m not in love with it so far. The lack of polish goes so far beyond just poor graphics and performance. The whole thing is just so slipshod.

Wow, this article title is awful. From assuming we didn’t already know this code to stating that playing without it is playing the game “wrong”, it’s just a total dumpster fire.

Whoa. I had no idea FF6 Pixel Remaster had that many changes. Are those mods or just baked into that version?

I’m waiting for the FF Pixel Remasters to come to Switch and/or get their GBA content before taking that plunge. Some people are down on the new content the GBA games added but for the most part I absolutely love it. I would especially love a definitive version of FF6 with all the GBA content but without its…

I hadn’t considered the idea that the huge influx of Square-Enix ports and remakes this year was somehow indicative of the company’s decline. I mean I guess that’s possible. Maybe they’re just pushing out a lot of things delayed by the pandemic though? Man, what have I bought from Square-Enix this year? Let’s see.