In FF vs FFv3R who wins? You Decide!

[Torch]

I am fairly new here, and this may have been discussed to death already, but I am curious what the general consensus is regarding the original  compared to 

Of course there is no replacing the 'original' because it paved the way.  What I am looking for is an objective discussion on which you like better based on the merits of the game as it is.  For example:  graphics, animations, colors, lighting, effects, gameplay, choices, cutscenes, dialogue etc.

I am not as concerned with the story as in 'which story was better' but more with which engine you prefer and why.  If you would also like to discuss story though that is cool too.

[DrMike2000]

The energy system in original FF was WAY better, and allowed for more tense tactical play. This is the biggest difference to me.

I prefer the overall art direction of the original. The generic city textures etc are better, and I also prefer the selection of maps available in the original game. Pan's Island, The Empire State building, the Timemaster levels, they were all grist to my mill.

I also prefer the original FF cutscene and dialog layout - the plain black letterbox and square talking head frame, over the rounded outline and circular frame.

FFvTTR had some better script interfaces, and allowed me to do some things easier (such as shapeshifting).
Some of the new powers were neat, but mostly kind of gimmicky, and a good few of them were already in FF1 thanks to yours truly.

The FF1 level editor was a bit easier to use - you could select objects with no physics in the map. But then again the leveledit programme doesnt run on XP, so its not better anymore.

But ultimately, I find FF1 a far superior game engine.

[wickerman]

^^^^  yeah... what he said!

[lugaru]

Also one thing that most people neglect to mention (and this is coming from somebody that prefers FFVT3R) is that they tried to rebalance the game for multiplayer and in the process broke a lot of things. For example they removed inertia from thrown objects, so if you get hit by a flying car it will not send you flying. This broke some of the immersion and in their attempt to make it less of an uber weapon they turned it into something highly unrealistic. Another exmaple is max range... I guess they feared that there would be snipers in multiplayer who would rain destruction on their foes before they can even get close enough to land a punch. In turn they made the max target range so short that unless you script a new attack your sniper rifle can barely shoot at somebody a block away and giant characters can barely target foes near their feet.

Also yeah, the levels in  you had a nice balance of dungeon crawls and big brawls while  is more about the brawls. Lastly some characters got badly nerfed, Manbot for example just feels weak and innacurate.

So yes, great graphics improvement, level design improvement and stability improvement... but ugh, terrible limiations for a multiplayer that only a hand full of people ever used.

[donovan5]

Much prefered the original, blackjack aside the characters were better and the plot was a lot better.
The storyline for the 2nd game seemed rushed to me and was too short plus the game itself was a lot easier I breezed through it and have only ever had the desire to replay it once.

on a different note some of the mods for the original are fantastic as well,better than FFv3R actual game.I just wish Alex had done that JSA one he planned.

[USAgent]

The original game was was a better game campaign wise, but if your one who likes danger room battles, FFV3R is hands down far superior to FF.  In FF danger room your opponents are extremly limited to what they can do and how they act (this is refering to using custom characters and hero files).  Flyers will always fly away from a melee battle which is frustrating when your controlling a character with no ranged attacks against a flyer, also they wont use any specials (teleport, sprint, speeding bullet, cloak of shadows, ect) they wont use any active defences, wont throw object, ect,ect.  In FFV3R your rumble room opponents will use every tactic available (with M25's AI) So if your Superman and your fighting against the Hulk and try and fly away, the Hulk will pick something up and hurl it at you.  But in FF1 the Hulk would just stand there with no ranged attacks.  Plus the character use all the tactics wisely and you can easily customize how your charaters act in the Rumble room.   Stuff you can't do in the FF1 Danger room.    A watch mode fight in FF1 is pretty boring and limited with flyer just hovering around and no action, IN FFv3R its all out brawl with everybody using ALL their abilities to the fullest!

So for me, the only reason I would play FF1 ever again is to play a mod.

[B A D]

Also yeah, the levels in  you had a nice balance of dungeon crawls and big brawls while  is more about the brawls. Lastly some characters got badly nerfed, Manbot for example just feels weak and innacurate.

Dude, someday all that beer had to catch up to me.

[BentonGrey]

Haha.  Yeah, I'm still bitter about having to make the switch.  FF1 will always have a special place in my heart.   Something people often don't mention is that the changes in the resistances has a negative impact on gameplay.  In FF1 flesh had two weaknesses (which made sense), to acid and radiation, so the bulk of your characters automatically had something to be worried about.  In FF2, the bulk of the characters don't actually HAVE a weakness.

[DEATH]

I have to say that the difference in Energy between the two games, as well as thrown objects having no inertia both really bothered me.  I seem to remember, perhaps a year ago, someone was thinking of trying to hex-edit the game's executable to see if inertia could be restored to thrown attacks; anyone know if anything ever came of that?

As far as which game I like better, I think  would still win out, mainly due to all of the customization options available that simply don't exist for the original.  Things like M25's amazing AI and EZScript, certain power types actually built into the game as opposed to being FFX only (don't get me wrong, it's an amazing mod), the extended capabilities of FFX, and Dr. Mike's Freeroam campaign.  All that stuff makes up for any deficiencies I feel exist in the new engine.

DEATH

[wickerman]

gotta agree with that one BG.  I HATE the no weaknesses for flesh thing.  I know they were looking to make it the baseline, but it was actually better the other way.


Hell, If I had all the current FFX stuff plus the AI ability of FFVTTR in FF, I'd prolly never play FFVTTR again...

[DEATH]

Yeah, I have to agree...I think M25 AI and EZScript capability in would swing the balance back the other way for me...but it would still be close.  I'm guessing that those of us who rate these things highly are also people who spend far more time in the rumble room than not.

DEATH

[Figure Fan]

I think I like better, just because the energy system was better, the look and feel was more fitting for various decades of characters, and I did like the material types for characters much better. The campaign was a bit more far-reaching, too, which made for some fun boss fights.

[The Nemesis]

If only could use half blocks of power, that would improve things a lot for me.

It would have been great to set a power requirement one and  a half, or just half, etc
1, 2, or 3 really over simplified the system.

I still prefer though cause it excels in so many other areas.

[steamteck]

The original game was was a better game campaign wise, but if your one who likes danger room battles, FFV3R is hands down far superior to FF.  In FF danger room your opponents are extremly limited to what they can do and how they act (this is refering to using custom characters and hero files).  Flyers will always fly away from a melee battle which is frustrating when your controlling a character with no ranged attacks against a flyer, also they wont use any specials (teleport, sprint, speeding bullet, cloak of shadows, ect) they wont use any active defences, wont throw object, ect,ect.  In FFV3R your rumble room opponents will use every tactic available (with M25's AI) So if your Superman and your fighting against the Hulk and try and fly away, the Hulk will pick something up and hurl it at you.  But in FF1 the Hulk would just stand there with no ranged attacks.  Plus the character use all the tactics wisely and you can easily customize how your charaters act in the Rumble room.   Stuff you can't do in the FF1 Danger room.    A watch mode fight in FF1 is pretty boring and limited with flyer just hovering around and no action, IN FFv3R its all out brawl with everybody using ALL their abilities to the fullest!

So for me, the only reason I would play FF1 ever again is to play a mod.

AS a rumble room user I gotta agree with you but I really really wish hurled objects did knockback. That turned me off for a long time. The new AIs with the old games other features would be ideal.

[Torch]

Thanks for responses.  I agree the energy system does appear over simplified.  And it looks like you can't "super charge" your energy attacks anymore.  I like the way they simplified Heroic Revival, which simply gives full health, full energy, and restores conditions.  Especially since most characters only have one medal anyway.

I don't like flesh being resistant to acid and radiation, since you could always purchase armor/powers/protection if you felt a flesh character should have it.

If they would have made 'inertia' toggle-able (if possible) that would have been better.  Otherwise, I'd say it should be in the game since it makes more sense that way.

I like the color and lighting better in  .  There seem to be more nighttime environments and dimly lit environments than I recall in    Though Deja Vu's level on the University campus and ray machine was a cool feature in 

[DrMike2000]

I thought that giving flesh vulnerability to Acid and Radiation was kind of stupid in the original - that was one of the improvements they made in FFvTTR.

There is no absolute scale of 1 unit of radiation vs 1 unit of heat or smashing, things should be balanced around the default material type for most characters. Otherwise you end up with the situation where to min-max you always take Radiation or Acid attacks.

Still isnt enough to make me prefer FFvTTR though

[Outcast]

I think Stumpy mentioned a way to incorporate the energy settings for FF1 into FFVT3R. Also, I believe TaskmasterX found a way to make the forcefields in FFVT3R work like they did in FF1.
If you guys were able to do that, then maybe it's possible to fix the problems some of you guys have for FFVT3R like the maximum range of attacks, inertia of thrown objects, being able to maximize or minimize power magnitudes, or flesh material being vulnerable to acid and radiation again, etc, etc.

I like the graphics in both games but i do miss some of the features that were taken out from the first game like being able to minimize/maximize your power.

I think i would have preferred the first game if it were not for some unstability issues it has like with regards to alpha meshes/skins?

I also prefer the character tool for the second game.

[Previsionary]

super charging and under-powering attacks "were" done by Ian at one point. The code was just lost in a crash and no one ever reposted it.

[DrMike2000]

In FFX3.0 I had an option that set everyones maxEnergyPoints to 101 instead of 100 - this meant that the game would allow you to attempt a 3 bar attack if you only had two bars, and had a chance of stunning you.
And yeah, I remember someone else came out with a system to go into overpower or underpower mode.

Either way, it was never really as neat and tactical as the Underpower, Normal, Overpower, Double Overpower available off the menu per attack in FF1.

Apparently the guys at Irrational were worried that the complexity of the energy system would confuse new players. Pity they didnt realise it was entirely optional, and you could play the entire game without ever overpowering if you wanted to. Grumble grumble...

A Forcefield fix could be done via script, although now you mention it, I thought FFvTTR's active defences were better.
Changing vulnerabilities via script is totally impossible, only material types changed. In FF1 you could replace all Flesh with Energy to remove the acid/rad vulnerbaility of flesh I guess.

Inertia of thrown objects would be very hard to emulate via script.

[Outcast]

Maybe it could work as an attribute. Power control, i mean. So that only a few characters like for example Havok or Cyclops would have the ability to control the damage they do. As opposed to Hawkeye and his trick arrows which have a fixed damage.

[Lunarman]

I actually prefer FFVTTR. Having played it for so long going back to FF now feels wrong, it's old, clunkier and although the energy system is nice the AI is dated and so is the smoothness of it all.

The campaign in FF though is vastly superior, the plot is better, feels more like an original, has more villains and is in episodes (so it feels more like a comic book). FFVTTR and characters just don't feel right.

[Volsung]

I'd vote for FFVTTR only for ambiguous graphicals motives... But FF1 plot was better... I miss the inertia thingie as well^^

(Where can I find CUSTOM FORCE for FFVTTR and FF1 Campain transposed in FFVTTR aswell?)

[steamteck]

I'd vote for FFVTTR only for ambiguous graphicals motives... But FF1 plot was better... I miss the inertia thingie as well^^

(Where can I find CUSTOM FORCE for FFVTTR and FF1 Campain transposed in FFVTTR aswell?)

The FF1 campaign transferred to FFVTTR has a beta version at Alex's freedom fortress

http://www.alexff.com/goodies.php

[TaskMasterX]

I prefer , but of course will always hold a special place in my heart . I do have the original FF background music playing in as it's much better. I also agree with alot of the others with the issues/changes has. The KB thing being the biggest thing. We've tried to bring some of the original things back through scripting, like the FF Active Defense and, as mentioned by Prev, SouperIan who came up with a way to under/overpower attacks. I might have the code, I'd have to look around. Also, there was an issue with area melee attacks having a long range and Stumpy fixed that issue. As for the energy cost system, I think if you import your hero files, the energy costs remain the same. You could even edit hero files in a Hero File Editor, like Mr. Brdo's, and change the energy costs to FF levels and the game will use those energy costs correctly.
I was reluctant to move to at first, but the better graphics, new powers, and especially FFX 3 and M25'sAI won me over.

[Previsionary]

I'd vote for FFVTTR only for ambiguous graphicals motives... But FF1 plot was better... I miss the inertia thingie as well^^

(Where can I find CUSTOM FORCE for FFVTTR and FF1 Campain transposed in FFVTTR aswell?)

Custom Force

[UnkoMan]

Okay, so FF's got the better engine. Big deal. Better plot? Well, okay, but only by a bit, in my opinion.

FFvsTR's got the best, most game breakingist, easy to win character ever! TOMBSTONE!!! Seriously, if you just always take Tombstone you can beat ANYTHING. Just possess the toughest guy and let him kill the minions while you wail on him. Man, Tombstone is awesome. Plus, his backstory, character, and design are all super sweet... (I also like Black Jack but admit he is way less useful, unless fighting somebody who is vulnerable to acid)

[Lunarman]

Actually, Unko has a point,Tombstone is really fun!