So as we've seen with the earlier ports of FFs, SE loves to add optional dungeons to their games. So what do you suppose the optional dungeons would look like if they added one to entries that didn't get one like most of the PlayStation entries?
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So as we've seen with the earlier ports of FFs, SE loves to add optional dungeons to their games. So what do you suppose the optional dungeons would look like if they added one to entries that didn't get one like most of the PlayStation entries?
For IX I think they might actually do more with Hades, or sonething related to Hades at least, considering he was meant to be the final boss. Perhaps after beating Hades you unlock a new dungeon that aside from interesting dungeon design gives you a bit more backstory on him and how it relates to Necron, and then you fight a beefed up version oh him at the end.
For FFVIII, I’d definitely love to see a dungeon that explores sorceresses more, with various other sorceresses gathered from all over time and space as bosses, with the final boss being none other than Hyne.
VII’s is the trickiest one to figure out as we had the world expanded already with the Compilation. But going with scrapped content, I guess we could have a dungeon leading up to a restored Sapphire Weapon?
I think for VIII I would love an optional dungeon to be on the moon where all the monsters are from. I've always been curious to what the moon must be like to spawn monsters like that.
For IX, I think a cool optional dungeon would be to find a chunk of Terra on Gaia, where you can actually face off with the spirits of Terra as an optional fight.
I'm still trying to think of something more original for VII that doesn't rely on the Compilation.
Guess I'm not sure what you mean by optional dungeons, because in my book most of the PSX FFs had them. FFVIII at least had the Deep Sea Research Lab,which is certainly extensive enough to count in my books, and I would also say Centra Ruins is an optional dungeon.
FFVII had the Ancient Forest and Gelnika. Gelnika was maybe a bit small to call an optional dungeon, but the Ancient Forest we a bit bigger. I think it counts.
I can't really remember if FFIX had any, but kind of surprised if FFIX of all games didn't.
As WK said in his original post, this thread is about extra dungeons added in rereleases, a la Soul of Chaos in I, Sealed Cave in V, etc. It’s not implying the PSX entries don’t have optional dungeons to explore at allQuote:
Originally Posted by Lord Golbez
Pretty much what Fynn said, this is about SE sweetening the pot of a re-release by adding in an extra optional dungeon.
In that case, I don't know. I've only played one FF port with an added optional dungeon that I can recall, FFIV. In that case, the extra dungeon was just an excuse for some new ultimate weapons. It wasn't particularly interesting and I suspect that optional dungeons added to later games might be similar.
What would be a good optional dungeon for the games? Well, for FFVII probably something extra in Midgar or Junon. Maybe to raid for some special Shinra weapons to help defeat Sephiroth (in other words an excuse for new ultimate weapons, I guess) or maybe a secret hidden dungeon in the City if Ancients. I always felt like there should have been something more there when you return in disc 2.
For, FFVIII, I think it would be interesting if they could work in an optional dungeon for Laguna somehow, but the logistics of writing an opportunity for that into the plot might be complicated. The moon idea also seems pretty good to me. Possibly also some additional time travel associated with the time kompression could be worked in. Like traveling to the time of Hyne or something (I'm not 100% on liking this idea,because I kind of also like the idea that Hyne may be a purely mythological explanation for sorceresses and not an actual figure in FF8's history).
For FFIX, I think maybe more exploration of Terra could be warranted and there could be an extra dungeon there or something.
Honestly, I consider the Lunar Trials to be the weakest of the new optional content from the GBA titles. While I can't speak for the ones in FFI-III, I can say the ones in V and VI are excellent. V has you go into an abyss world that is basically the final dungeon on steroids with the final confrontation being against Enuo, the warlock that summoned the Void in the first place. There is even a floor where you can fight multiple Omega Weapons before tackling a souped up version of it.
VI has the Dragon's Den, which is a multi-party three team dungeon where the party can go head to head with very well thought out super versions of the Eight Dragons. These fights are hard and make having spells like Quick, ReRaise, and Ultima absolutely necessary for victory. You get to fight the Kaiser Dragon at the end, who was a super boss that can be found in the original game's code, but was never finished. In fact the DD seems to be the team finally finishing some of the ideas for the Eight Dragons side quest because the code detailed there was suppose to be more to them.
Final Fantasy IV through VI seem pretty good on this front thanks to the Advance versions. Dunno if they really need any extra content. I do kinda wish the Sealed Temple was a bit more varied I suppose, as it is it's a maze with tons of random encounters that struggle to be a challenge as much as a chore, but well, better than nothing. FFVI's dungeon also seemed a bit too easy for how ridiculously powerful you can get in that game but at least it's there.
Final Fantasy VII could use an extra dungeon for sure. The Northern Crater is the hardest dungeon in the game which is always a bit disappointing looking back. Having actual small dungeon parts to the four chocobo materia caves with boss fights matching their materia would've been neat (Famed Mimic Gogo rematch for Mime materia!). The compilation did add a lot of lore to Shinra/Midgar experiments but I do think the original FF7 would be fit better by having an optional dungeon be some kind of ancient cetra materia lifestream place instead.
Final Fantasy VIII does have the Deep Sea Research Center which is a really cool optional dungeon, although I'm not sure what possessed the creators to make the bulk of it inaccessible on your first visit (all you need to do to unlock the rest is going into the cockpit of the Ragnarok). But I do think it could've used one more dungeon, maybe something like a time vortex that becomes unlocked after time compression on Disc 4 that has fixed Level 100 enemies (maybe Ultimecia's guardians as regular encounters) and actually leads into Omega Weapon as a boss at the end of it instead of just kinda being there in Ultimecia's Castle.
Final Fantasy IX I'm not sure if there's any particular location I'd like to see expanded, maybe make optional dungeons out of the four elemental shrines in Disc 4, similar to the FF1 remakes? Could be fun.
Final Fantasy X does have the Omega Ruins but with how much the game just lets you keep stacking power beyond 9999 damage I did always feel like it should've had one more dungeon that really let loose on enemy levels and actually expected you to come in with Break Damage Limit and high stats and the like. FFX-2 did expand on potential locales a bit and maybe the Farplane would be a solid place to have an optional dungeon of this nature. It's a bit cliché perhaps, but I would like to see a bit of an expansion on the Farplane in Spira lore as well. One thing though; I don't think it'd be good to extend monster capturing to a dungeon beyond the Omega Ruins. Whatever new enemies are in there should be uncapturable.
Final Fantasy X-2 does not need any extra optional dungeons.
Final Fantasy XII doesn't either. Especially if you consider the Trial Mode from the Zodiac versions as an extra challenge to begin with. I do kinda wish the game had at least one holy-themed optional dungeon instead of tons of dungeons with primarily undead and dark enemies. Especially the Great Crystal which houses the goddamn Holy esper and yet is still full of undeads.
Final Fantasy XIII I dunno. The game is so built around single threatening encounters and it does have a lot of those already. Even if it had a proper dungeon you'd still be able to retry every single battle and ultimately just have it be a series of individual fights rather than a greater whole. The game isn't really made for that kind of challenge.
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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Honestly, that sounds pretty similar to the Lunar Trials to me. Basically just an excuse to face harder versions of what you've already fought before. It's not something I would be looking forward to in a port or even likely to play. I did some of the Lunar Trials, but not most of them and it was mostly just so I could have good weapons for party members I wanted to try in the last battle. I don't see any reason I'd want to play a harder version of Omega Weapon when the original was hard enough that I basically only won on a crapshoot depending on the initial conditions of the battle.
Yes but the entire point of an optional dungeon is challenge. I just feel the ones from V and VI work better because they don't feel out of place like the Lunar Trials, which asked you to do some gameplay stuff not seen in the original. VI's stuff was seamless, and V's gave you an excuse to finally use the extra classes and go further with party building.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Golbez
Well, I don't have a problem with a challenging dungeon per se (though tbh I don't care one way or the other), but I'd prefer any added dungeon to be more original than just fighting multiple of the hardest boss in the original or harder/palette swapped versions of bosses from the original.