The Decline Of Armor...

[SuperPac]

Basically, Square's taken out one of the best part about any RPG, and that's getting the best weapons/armor. It's now become games to get the weapons, though in FFX, the "best weapon" is a relative term, because it may not be your prefered weapon.

But my main problem is that, with the exception of 9, they've lost armor almost completely. 7 was close, but still you only had two things. But that was okay, since Materia more than made up for it. But in 8 you had no armor, but the GFs and magic. 9 was good, as I said. And then 10 screwed up again! This was the worst, though, cause the best armor and the worst amor could be practically the same, since you might spend more of your slots on HP, MP, and statuses, so armor wouldn't factor in at all.

I just hope they brink back the multiple armor/shields/accessory in FFXII...

[TheAbominatrix]

Yeah, I miss armor, too. I remember how fun it was getting the complete sets of armor... it was difficult, because of all the money it took to buy armor for everyone in your party, but in games like VIII it was way harder just to get better weapons! I would have much rather gone out and bought them at every new town rather than to have to get all that crap to make new stuff. I think one of the reason they're doing this, though, is they want the graphics to represent what's really equipped. With sprites, nothing changed when you change your equipment. Physically of course. They still had the same clothes on. In newer games, since you're usually only changing the weapon, you can see the difference. A mixed blessing at best.

[SuperPac]

Yeah, okay, so give us the best of both worlds! Perhaps weapons with preset stats that you can then customize further! Like perhaps having a sword with +10 attack, and maybe defense, but then being able to customize the status effects and attack attributes, such as fire and whatnot. That way the games could be much more enjoyable, enabling both aspects of the games to be loved at the same time!

[Blackmage]

Ya see, in FFVIII and FFX, they're soooooo strong and powerful they don't have a need for such petty armor.

...

Err, anyways, yeah, I kinda miss the whole armor thing. It's always strange to see Squall, wearing his leather jacket, take a measly few hundred points of damage from Omega Weapon, whereas Steiner can be decked out in tin armor and other metal equipment and still take a lot of damage... Strange, and confusing...

Yeah, okay, so give us the best of both worlds! Perhaps weapons with preset stats that you can then customize further! Like perhaps having a sword with +10 attack, and maybe defense, but then being able to customize the status effects and attack attributes, such as fire and whatnot. That way the games could be much more enjoyable, enabling both aspects of the games to be loved at the same time!
Eh, then you're basically looking at FFX's stuff again. Except, in FFX, Player X's strength is the base power of the weapon, which, in a way, is most "believable".

[SuperPac]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but it's a little different. For instance, buy a weapon just like any other final fantasy, then have slots not to increase strength (I didn't like that part), but add the stats. Yes, it would be most like FFX, but have the characters strength not raise so much! I want the weapons to directly influence their attack power, not the characters themselves! And screw believeable, I want fun! I mean, who really believes you can summon monsters to do your bidding, and that monsters can be born out of mere mist? Ya, I didn't think so.

[Reine]

I agree. I like being able to have a whole set of Genji Armour (Helm, armour, gauntlets and shield as well as an accessory or two for added effects.

It would be cool if you could level up weapons and armour and upgrade the attributes of them. Sort of like upgrading guns in Wild Arms.

For example: Increase Flame Sabres Fire elemental attack power as well as the attack power and stat bonuses. Cursed weapons could decrese the amount that stats were lowered by. E.G: -5 Str to -3 Str. Levelling up spells would also be nice.

[SuperPac]

Exactly! Man, we should work for Square...

[eestlinc]

It was annoying in ff4 to have to get all the pieces of an armor set for kain or cecil, but otherwise more armor is more fun.

[Lexy]

Yes, armor is good. :cry:
I especially like it in all the oldies of course, and then tactics had cool armor.

[SuperPac]

Yeah, I liked Tactics. And sure, it may have gotten annoying in FF4, but it added more strategy and challenge to the games. This is one reason I can't wait for FFTA, and one reason I love my Final Fantasy Origins... Square needs to concider making new 2-D RPGs ala Final Fantasy for the GBA... those would rock!

[Spatvark]

What I don't miss about armour is them falling to pieces in the game. THat always pissed me off...

[m4tt]

Originally posted by Spatvark
What I don't miss about armour is them falling to pieces in the game. THat always pissed me off...

What game did that happen in?

They should just make it so when you buy a new weapon, you can see it, and when you buy new armor you should be able to see it in battle. Kinda like Diablo 2. That would be pretty darn neat.

Of course, with all the pretty boy characters Final Fantasy games are having lately, they probably wouldn't want to do that because a Full Helm would cover their pretty faces.

[Lexy]

Yeah, I have always thought how cool it would be to be able to see the armor on once you equip it! Sadly, I have never played a game where that happened. :cry:

[Tgunz262]

I haven't gotten much into the NES/SNES FF's but, Final Fantasy Legend 3 (Game boy), in fact all the Game boy psudo FF's, had tons of extra slots for armor. FFL3 had one for weapon, shield, helmet, body, gloves, and shoes as well as two extra slots for bonus accessories.

I think that including a shield might be useless though, unless you had one and two handed weapons for each character so they could use a shield, but that's getting a bit too much like Diablo.

I sure liked collecting full sets even though there was no extra effect if you did so. I think you could almost make collecting special sets or parts of sets optional side quests. With all the work you put into sets though, you should gain some special ability with each set. Like if you had one character with all Holy armor they would be immune from instant death attacks, or someone with Dark armor could absorb dark spells (duh). Even ultimate magics like Ultima or Flare Star or Doomsday could be taught to magic users who have the appropriate complete sets.

You could also do weapon sets. Like a long sword and a matching short sword or dagger. Maybe.

I think changing the in game look of the characters would be cool but too complicated and a bitch to program. All the extra surfaces would have to change every time, ugh. Of course you would not want change the appearance of the characters head because that's how you recognize people. Even if the bodies are different and you had the ability to see the armor change so everyone had, say, silver/gray armor on, then all you have is a bunch of silver/gray blobs.

To summarize that last paragraph: Imagine all your characters looking like the Knights of Pluto (FF9), how are you going to tell the difference?

[m4tt]

Originally posted by Tgunz262
To summarize that last paragraph: Imagine all your characters looking like the Knights of Pluto (FF9), how are you going to tell the difference?

Maybe each character has a different color? :P

[Tgunz262]

<h5>Originally posted by Gau</h5>Maybe each character has a different color? :P

What do you mean? That each character have a color that their armor automatically turns to? ex: whenever you put armor on Bob, Bob's armor turns blue and whenever you put armor on Joe it turns red? I think that certain full armor sets should have predetermined colors like white for Holy and black for Dark. ( Sorry for not mentioning this previously ) So if you put armor on a character and it turns into the color for that character, then how do you easily tell what type of armor the character has on, especially if a character's armor display color is NOT one of the colors of an armor ( i.e. a char. color may be pink but there would be no pink armor ).

I think to easily show who the characters were you would omit any type of face obscuring headwear.

Actually I thought of a better idea. Each character could have a symbol like a coat of arms that was on their armor so you could see who was who.

Anyway, back to armor design. If characters had inherent colors/elements (a la Chrono Cross) then a certain color armor could power up that color character better than the others, I suppose though that would make it their "Ultimate Armor". All the more reason to put armor parts or entire sets in sub quests. However, you could have lower power type/element sets earlier in the game.

[SuperPac]

I don't much like the element idea. Well, not for final Fantasy, anway. It's a great idea, but not for these games.

I'm thinking, though, that if you wanted colors for the armor, it would work a little different. For instance, if you put on a piece of armor, there would be red stripes at the joints for Bob, while blue at the joints (or something like that) for Joe. Still, though, that would get confusing. So... don't cover the heads! Or wait! Think FF9. Since they each have equipment that is solely for them, it would work great. Think about it! Steiner gets a new helmet and equips it. Even if you can't see his face, you know it's him, because he's the only one that would wear that. Well, okay, so maybe Freya would wear it, but Freya might wear different armor. So things would be similar, but you could also tell by their weapon.

Another thing I was thinking about along the same lines as inherent elements is that certain characters should have certain magic only they could know. For instance, everyone would know fire, blizzard, thunder, etc. But then only one character could know holy, only one ultima, and so and so forth. It would be actually pretty cool, and you would have more strategy and unit choosing.

Hmm... and what about monsters? The ones in FFX weren't varied enough; they were mostly just replicas of one another. Yeah, okay, there were quite a few species, but I want more like the old days where there's several new species in each dungeon. I miss the good old days...

[m4tt]

Originally posted by Tgunz262
Actually I thought of a better idea. Each character could have a symbol like a coat of arms that was on their armor so you could see who was who.


That is an awesome idea.

But it's not like face covering helmets would be so bad, all the characters probably have different body types. So you would be able to tell who is who by the size/shape of the person.

[Reine]

I just bought Legend of Legaia, and when I equipped Hunting Clothes and so on, when I got into a battle, his clothes were different. Very cool, considering thats the only non-Diablo game that I've seen it in.

One of the things in armour that annoyed me was in FF3. All of the earlier jobs cant equip any good armour. When Square re-releases FF3 (I think it comes with FFMQ) it would be good if the made some new weapons and armour for the earlier jobs.

E.G.

Artemis Bow/Arrows for Hunter
Crystal Set available for all armour-wearing jobs.
Robe of Lords for Robe wearing classes.
Rune Claw for Karateka.
Ultima, Aero and Bio books.
More Bells, Harps and Nunchuks.
Some more Red Mage Swords.
More Rods and Staves.
Classes being able to equip all of their primary classes equipment. e.g. Fighter equip all swords, knight armour sets.
Some ultimate armour for the Monk and Karateka.

Customizable commands would be good too.
Put in some secret bosses!!!