Review of Final Fantasy Legacy by Nielz
| A review for Final Fantasy Legacy created by Nielz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A disease has plagued the world! Is the disease a virus that turns people into the heroes of the past, or is it the plague of rips on BYOND? Is this just another one of them?
Originally made by Loud, Final Fantasy Legacy takes Final Fantasy 4 for the Super Nintendo and transforms it into this multiplayer game for BYOND. Originally, the game was fairly well done, but there were a lot of bugs and many things I could complain about. Neilz and the developers before him have taken the game and transformed it into something beautiful. I will be reviewing the game as a whole, including the many improvements that have been made on it through this version.
Gameplay:
Starting Out
You start out the game on a pretty nice looking title screen and are told to press "Center" to enter the game. When you press "Center" (which is 5 on the numpad) You come to a character selection screen. Here you can load or create up to 8 characters.
If you press the right arrow key on that screen, you'll see the other four open character slots. This is a nice plus for me, and almost a necessary one. I'll get to why it's necessary later.
If you click on one of the New Game options, you'll see a list of many characters you can choose from.
Each of the characters have their own unique abilities that make them useful. I'll go over each of them.
1. Dark Knight- Dark Knights are your basic knight in shining (dark) armor. In the game, this guy was the main character, but also stained with evil. They can use Dark Wave which damages all enemies, but also hurts themselves, or they can use Cover to guard other party members.
2. Paladin- Paladins are basically Dark Knights without the dark part. They don't have Dark Wave, but they can use white magic (healing magic) and Cover as well.
3. Dragoon- Dragoons are rather overpowered in this game. They are natural tanks. I feel that their jump is so much of an advantage that it's almost not fair. They can use a Jump attack, and also a regular Attack. Since Jump is basically an overpowered regular attack, there's hardly any point to attacking normally in the first place.
4. White Mage- White mages use, who would have guessed, white magic. They also have a prayer ability which heals all party members, and also an Aim ability for their attacks.
5. Young Caller- Young callers have both white and black magic abilities (neither are very potent for them) and can also "Call" summonings to do an attack on the enemies during battle.
6. Mature Caller- The mature caller has only black magic, but it is more potent than the Young Caller's. The Mature Caller can also use Summon.
7. Black Twin- The Black twin uses Black Magic and also has a Strengthen ability to increase a party member's Magic Attack momentarily.
8. White Twin- The White twin uses White Magic and also has a FakeTears ability to lower enemy defence.
The Twins are very useful for multikeying (if you don't or can't party with anyone) because at a certain level they can work together to summon powerful magics with their Twin ability.
9. Lunarian- Lunarians are good magic users. They have both White and Black magic. They have poor defence though. They also have a SpiritWave ability to cast Regen on the entire party which will gradually heal your HP.
10. Sage- Sages also have both White and Black magic, but their magic is much more potent. Consequently, they have less MP to use than the other classes that use magic. Sages also have a Remember ability which will allow you to hurt the enemies with some "Remembered" magic. It doesn't tell you what's happening really. You just hurt the enemy.
11. Ninja- Ninjas can duel weild their weapons. They have a Ninjutsu ability which allows them to use certain abilities they learn in there. They also have a Dart ability to throw weapons or shurikans at the enemies.
12. Monk- Monks have a kick ability to basically jump kick all the enemies in front of you. Monks also have a Build up and Endure ability to improve their Attack or Defence momentarily.
13. Bard- Bards have a sing ability to use their music to cause various things, such as status effects, to happen to your enemies. They also have a Medicine ability to heal party members without the cost of MP.
14. Engineer- Engineers are one of my personal favorite classes. Though their attacks are not animated yet, they are powerful. Engineers first off have a Peep ability to look at your enemy's health and other stats. Engineers also have a Bomb ability to use various bomb attacks on enemies. Those attacks get very powerful as you progress through the game. They also don't use magic for them.
Along with all of these classes there is also a section which gives you New Game++ characters. These characters can only be unlocked by beating the game. Each character you beat the game with gets you a different New Game++ character. If you beat the game you can also change your icon if your icon fits the specifications.
All of these different character choices and the distinct differences between all of the characters is a huge plus for me.
Battling Enemies
If you've played Final Fantasy Four (or many of the other Final Fantasys) you'll be quite at home with the turn-based battle system used here. You walk around the Overworld map and randomly enter into a battle mode.
Once in battle mode you can choose from one of the various options there. If you choose to attack, you'll see a small hand appear on one of the enemies. You move the hand around to choose your target (this is the system for choosing any target). If you choose magic, you see all of your available magics of that type and how much MP they cost.
The battle system is well done and user friendly. Almost an exact replica of the original Final Fantasy 4 battle interface.
Controls:
The controls in this game are simple. All main actions are done with the "Center" key (5 on the num pad). You also use 7 and 9 on the numpad to enter/exit the menu screen. From there you can choose from the various options to equip things, use magic, use items, save your game, etc.
The controls are one thing that annoy me personally a little. I never like using the numpad, and I also feel that it's foolish to make players use that since laptops don't come with numpads. I don't use a laptop, but I usually end up making macros for the options anyways just out of personal preference.
Exploration:
Exploration is a huge part of this game. When you're first starting out it can be a little annoying. If you want to go back to a town you've visited in the past, you need to use the warps which are located in the towns. Those can get fairly pricey though. And I mean -pricey-.
One of my favorite things about this game is the vehicles you can use throughout it. I've never seen this so much in a BYOND game. It's also one of the major improvments that Nielz made upon it.
Chocobo- The Chocobo is a big bird that you can ride around freely without the fear of random enemy encounters. When you are done with the chocobo, you need to find the chocobo forest again and hop on it again because it runs away after you dismount from it.
Hovercraft- The Hovercraft is useful a good few times during the game as you need it in order to ride over shallow rocky waters in order to reach areas out of your normal walking reach. You can't ride these where ever you want to. You automatically appear in the hovercraft if you step over rocky water or rivers.
Black Chocobos- Black Chocobos aren't like Chocobos. They can fly, and they also can't go over land! They act basically as Hovercrafts do, they automatically make you into it if you walk over the Ocean. Once you hit land, you go back to your normal human look.
Airships- Airships are one of my favorite parts about this game. I can't get over how much I love them. I had never seen a BYOND Final Fantasy game with Airships that players can fly and land at will until I saw this version of Final Fantasy Legacy. After a certain quest is completed, you can receive an airship.
Lunar Whale- Though the fact that it is the Lunar Whale from Final Fantasy 4 isn't specified in the game, this is your ticket to get to the moon in order to complete the game. You can't actually board it until you're a high enough level, but once you do you can walk around the inside and ride it to the moon. The Lunar Whale simply sits on the same spot the entire time. If you have an airship or even a black chocobo, you can get to it.
OVERALL GAMEPLAY RATING:8/10
Presentation:
Graphics:
The graphics from this game are from Final Fantasy 4 for the Super Nintendo. I have seen no errors in the ripping of the tiles either or even the double sizing of them (which I have a -huge- problem with in Final Fantasy The Hunting Grounds). What impresses me more is that they took the time to recreate the entire world map, including the underground world map and all of the towns and even some dungeons were replicated perfectly through nothing but tiles.
Another very impressive thing that I've seen is that many of the magics in this game, even some of the summons, are animated. A Bolt spell will actually show the lightning bolt coming down, etc. I've never seen it so well done to this extent in a Final Fantasy game on BYOND. The best part is that they are still making more.
Sound:
Sound is fairly straightforward. I assume that they used only mids for the music. All of the music is excellent in the game. I couldn't have picked better songs. They all sound very close to the originals.
Another huge plus with sounds is that there are sound effects for just about everything that's animated. Magic, attacking, moving a cursor, opening the menu, it all has sound. That's a good thing to see (actually, hear).
OVERALL PRESENTATION RATING:9/10
Originality:
This game doesn't have much originality for some good reasons.
1. Nielz didn't make this game to start with. He continued it from the many others that worked on it after Loud.
2. It's completely based off of a real game. Every aspect is based off of it. You can have fan games, but this game is basically a replica.
Despite those reasons, I'll point out some of the original things I found in here.
First off, a very nice thing you find here is clans. This isn't just your average guilds either. The clans actually have in-game clan "bases" I guess you would call them. You'd be best off joining a clan than making one though! Clans cost a lot of money to make.
The other fairly original things (as far as BYOND is concerned) are the vehicles that I talked about earlier in the gameplay section. You just don't see vehicles anywhere else in BYOND Final Fantasy games like you see them here. The animations of the spells still look extremely nice to me as well. You don't see things like that in BYOND games. These people worked very hard on what they did. Nonetheless, the game isn't all too original.
OVERALL ORIGINALITY RATING:5/10
Overall:
This game is very well done, and a lot of fun to play. Though it may be a rip of Loud's original game, it's been transformed and fixed up and molded to be a great game on BYOND. The best part is that it's hosted often and also still being updated continually.
The community is friendly and the GMs are all willing to help you. You are bound to have a good time any way you look at this game. It's one of the only rips on BYOND that I'm recommending you play.
OVERALL RATING:7/10
Originally made by Loud, Final Fantasy Legacy takes Final Fantasy 4 for the Super Nintendo and transforms it into this multiplayer game for BYOND. Originally, the game was fairly well done, but there were a lot of bugs and many things I could complain about. Neilz and the developers before him have taken the game and transformed it into something beautiful. I will be reviewing the game as a whole, including the many improvements that have been made on it through this version.
Gameplay:
Starting Out
You start out the game on a pretty nice looking title screen and are told to press "Center" to enter the game. When you press "Center" (which is 5 on the numpad) You come to a character selection screen. Here you can load or create up to 8 characters.
If you press the right arrow key on that screen, you'll see the other four open character slots. This is a nice plus for me, and almost a necessary one. I'll get to why it's necessary later.
If you click on one of the New Game options, you'll see a list of many characters you can choose from.
Each of the characters have their own unique abilities that make them useful. I'll go over each of them.
1. Dark Knight- Dark Knights are your basic knight in shining (dark) armor. In the game, this guy was the main character, but also stained with evil. They can use Dark Wave which damages all enemies, but also hurts themselves, or they can use Cover to guard other party members.
2. Paladin- Paladins are basically Dark Knights without the dark part. They don't have Dark Wave, but they can use white magic (healing magic) and Cover as well.
3. Dragoon- Dragoons are rather overpowered in this game. They are natural tanks. I feel that their jump is so much of an advantage that it's almost not fair. They can use a Jump attack, and also a regular Attack. Since Jump is basically an overpowered regular attack, there's hardly any point to attacking normally in the first place.
4. White Mage- White mages use, who would have guessed, white magic. They also have a prayer ability which heals all party members, and also an Aim ability for their attacks.
5. Young Caller- Young callers have both white and black magic abilities (neither are very potent for them) and can also "Call" summonings to do an attack on the enemies during battle.
6. Mature Caller- The mature caller has only black magic, but it is more potent than the Young Caller's. The Mature Caller can also use Summon.
7. Black Twin- The Black twin uses Black Magic and also has a Strengthen ability to increase a party member's Magic Attack momentarily.
8. White Twin- The White twin uses White Magic and also has a FakeTears ability to lower enemy defence.
The Twins are very useful for multikeying (if you don't or can't party with anyone) because at a certain level they can work together to summon powerful magics with their Twin ability.
9. Lunarian- Lunarians are good magic users. They have both White and Black magic. They have poor defence though. They also have a SpiritWave ability to cast Regen on the entire party which will gradually heal your HP.
10. Sage- Sages also have both White and Black magic, but their magic is much more potent. Consequently, they have less MP to use than the other classes that use magic. Sages also have a Remember ability which will allow you to hurt the enemies with some "Remembered" magic. It doesn't tell you what's happening really. You just hurt the enemy.
11. Ninja- Ninjas can duel weild their weapons. They have a Ninjutsu ability which allows them to use certain abilities they learn in there. They also have a Dart ability to throw weapons or shurikans at the enemies.
12. Monk- Monks have a kick ability to basically jump kick all the enemies in front of you. Monks also have a Build up and Endure ability to improve their Attack or Defence momentarily.
13. Bard- Bards have a sing ability to use their music to cause various things, such as status effects, to happen to your enemies. They also have a Medicine ability to heal party members without the cost of MP.
14. Engineer- Engineers are one of my personal favorite classes. Though their attacks are not animated yet, they are powerful. Engineers first off have a Peep ability to look at your enemy's health and other stats. Engineers also have a Bomb ability to use various bomb attacks on enemies. Those attacks get very powerful as you progress through the game. They also don't use magic for them.
Along with all of these classes there is also a section which gives you New Game++ characters. These characters can only be unlocked by beating the game. Each character you beat the game with gets you a different New Game++ character. If you beat the game you can also change your icon if your icon fits the specifications.
All of these different character choices and the distinct differences between all of the characters is a huge plus for me.
Battling Enemies
If you've played Final Fantasy Four (or many of the other Final Fantasys) you'll be quite at home with the turn-based battle system used here. You walk around the Overworld map and randomly enter into a battle mode.
Once in battle mode you can choose from one of the various options there. If you choose to attack, you'll see a small hand appear on one of the enemies. You move the hand around to choose your target (this is the system for choosing any target). If you choose magic, you see all of your available magics of that type and how much MP they cost.
The battle system is well done and user friendly. Almost an exact replica of the original Final Fantasy 4 battle interface.
Controls:
The controls in this game are simple. All main actions are done with the "Center" key (5 on the num pad). You also use 7 and 9 on the numpad to enter/exit the menu screen. From there you can choose from the various options to equip things, use magic, use items, save your game, etc.
The controls are one thing that annoy me personally a little. I never like using the numpad, and I also feel that it's foolish to make players use that since laptops don't come with numpads. I don't use a laptop, but I usually end up making macros for the options anyways just out of personal preference.
Exploration:
Exploration is a huge part of this game. When you're first starting out it can be a little annoying. If you want to go back to a town you've visited in the past, you need to use the warps which are located in the towns. Those can get fairly pricey though. And I mean -pricey-.
One of my favorite things about this game is the vehicles you can use throughout it. I've never seen this so much in a BYOND game. It's also one of the major improvments that Nielz made upon it.
Chocobo- The Chocobo is a big bird that you can ride around freely without the fear of random enemy encounters. When you are done with the chocobo, you need to find the chocobo forest again and hop on it again because it runs away after you dismount from it.
Hovercraft- The Hovercraft is useful a good few times during the game as you need it in order to ride over shallow rocky waters in order to reach areas out of your normal walking reach. You can't ride these where ever you want to. You automatically appear in the hovercraft if you step over rocky water or rivers.
Black Chocobos- Black Chocobos aren't like Chocobos. They can fly, and they also can't go over land! They act basically as Hovercrafts do, they automatically make you into it if you walk over the Ocean. Once you hit land, you go back to your normal human look.
Airships- Airships are one of my favorite parts about this game. I can't get over how much I love them. I had never seen a BYOND Final Fantasy game with Airships that players can fly and land at will until I saw this version of Final Fantasy Legacy. After a certain quest is completed, you can receive an airship.
Lunar Whale- Though the fact that it is the Lunar Whale from Final Fantasy 4 isn't specified in the game, this is your ticket to get to the moon in order to complete the game. You can't actually board it until you're a high enough level, but once you do you can walk around the inside and ride it to the moon. The Lunar Whale simply sits on the same spot the entire time. If you have an airship or even a black chocobo, you can get to it.
OVERALL GAMEPLAY RATING:8/10
Presentation:
Graphics:
The graphics from this game are from Final Fantasy 4 for the Super Nintendo. I have seen no errors in the ripping of the tiles either or even the double sizing of them (which I have a -huge- problem with in Final Fantasy The Hunting Grounds). What impresses me more is that they took the time to recreate the entire world map, including the underground world map and all of the towns and even some dungeons were replicated perfectly through nothing but tiles.
Another very impressive thing that I've seen is that many of the magics in this game, even some of the summons, are animated. A Bolt spell will actually show the lightning bolt coming down, etc. I've never seen it so well done to this extent in a Final Fantasy game on BYOND. The best part is that they are still making more.
Sound:
Sound is fairly straightforward. I assume that they used only mids for the music. All of the music is excellent in the game. I couldn't have picked better songs. They all sound very close to the originals.
Another huge plus with sounds is that there are sound effects for just about everything that's animated. Magic, attacking, moving a cursor, opening the menu, it all has sound. That's a good thing to see (actually, hear).
OVERALL PRESENTATION RATING:9/10
Originality:
This game doesn't have much originality for some good reasons.
1. Nielz didn't make this game to start with. He continued it from the many others that worked on it after Loud.
2. It's completely based off of a real game. Every aspect is based off of it. You can have fan games, but this game is basically a replica.
Despite those reasons, I'll point out some of the original things I found in here.
First off, a very nice thing you find here is clans. This isn't just your average guilds either. The clans actually have in-game clan "bases" I guess you would call them. You'd be best off joining a clan than making one though! Clans cost a lot of money to make.
The other fairly original things (as far as BYOND is concerned) are the vehicles that I talked about earlier in the gameplay section. You just don't see vehicles anywhere else in BYOND Final Fantasy games like you see them here. The animations of the spells still look extremely nice to me as well. You don't see things like that in BYOND games. These people worked very hard on what they did. Nonetheless, the game isn't all too original.
OVERALL ORIGINALITY RATING:5/10
Overall:
This game is very well done, and a lot of fun to play. Though it may be a rip of Loud's original game, it's been transformed and fixed up and molded to be a great game on BYOND. The best part is that it's hosted often and also still being updated continually.
The community is friendly and the GMs are all willing to help you. You are bound to have a good time any way you look at this game. It's one of the only rips on BYOND that I'm recommending you play.
OVERALL RATING:7/10
Posted by Fugsnarf (Dungeon Master) on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 06:27PM
- 9 comments
(link)
/
Keywords:
fantasy,
review,
legacy,
final
(Edited on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 04:47AM)
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#9 Tiberath:
Fugsnarf wrote:
> Sounds interesting. I'll just go with editing this review once you do that though. I'm excited to see what the improvments in vehicles are. You know how much I like vehicles :)
Actually, writing a second review would allow people to see how the game improved based on the feedback from the original review.
It shows more activity both in the guild, and active development, which is like gold to the users of this guild.
Sunday, November 01, 2009 07:24PM
#8 Nielz:
In which way are you planning to improve vehicles, Drew?
Thursday, October 29, 2009 04:58AM
#7 Abba:
Heh, I can't make any promises. It'll be interesting to say the least from my point of view to see what we can actualy manage out of our big list of things to do.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 02:51PM
#6 Fugsnarf:
If you tell me that the Lunar Whale will be drivable, my pants will probably fall off from excitement.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 02:41PM
#5 Fugsnarf:
Sounds interesting. I'll just go with editing this review once you do that though. I'm excited to see what the improvments in vehicles are. You know how much I like vehicles :)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 02:40PM
#4 Abba:
It'll be alot more original, as in, vehicles will be improved, new ways of playing the game which gives a boost on the replayability factor (You know, play it again but a different way.) It will have alot more content for throughout the game instead of just a particular line that everyone seems to follow constantly, and you wont be able to do it all in the first go either, because we all know that is no fun.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 02:34PM
#3 Fugsnarf:
Will it really be that different?
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 01:10PM
#2 Abba:
@Katoma: Player bases are being looked into as a possbility when we the eventualy release the Z8 project. Which should be very interesting. They wont be as customizable as staff guilds but if I know what I'm doing from past experiences then I think it can be done pretty well.
@The review: You may reconsider re-reviewing the game in a couple months time. Seeing as we've a mass of updates and etc planned.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 09:52AM
#1 Latoma:
Minor inconsistencies:
TwinMagic Works without the 2nd twin. I have seen a Wtwn Type (a lil hint there) use Twin without the other (BlackTwin).
Only Staff-made Guilds get bases.
Other than that, great job Fug on the review.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 04:58AM