[General Discussion] This port tastes terrible

Final Fantasy V and VI and Chrono Trigger for the PS1. Mangle the music from the originals, add insane load times and slowdown and you've got all the more reason to buy the originals or download the ROMs instead. Just the fact that Chrono Trigger was included in a package called "Final Fantasy Chronicles" should tell you how much thought went into these ports.

I violently reject FFIV Advance as well for its' way of handling the battle system. No reason I should be clearing battles without getting so much as nicked. Also, the sound effects and music were bad even for a GBA port.

I somehow managed to clear 99 levels in Galaga for Atari 7800 when I was 6 or 7. I rock...But I can't get past level 34 in the "real" version even nowadays. HMMM....

Lastly...X-Men vs Street Fighter for PS1 was the game that made me buy a Saturn, RAM cart and the game for the system. A PS1 version should never have been brought up for discussion at a board meeting, much less attempted. I would have loved to have seen Capcom attempt Marvel vs Capcom 2 on PS1.

Although...I actually liked Pac Man for the 2600. Not a GREAT "port", but I liked it because the maze was different from the original. 2600's Ms Pac Man is still my favorite version of that game.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by JasonTerminator

Um, Chrono Trigger's port was released alone in Japan. Square, I'm sure, didn't want to release it based on the Chrono Trigger name here when they could shove it into a Final Fantasy-themed release (You know, for Sales ++).

I'm well aware of all of that. If I had something as lucrative as the FF license, I'd whore it out that way as well. Ethically, I have an issue with taking a fine stand-alone game and including it in such a misleading title. Shows either $$$ was more important or they really didn't care. Looking forward to Bahamut Lagoon, Seiken 3 and Rudra no Hihou (with FF Mystic Quest)coming over as "Final Fantasy Smorgasboard".

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The only reason you guys have a problem with the damn port is because it has similar load times to EVERY OTHER PS1 RPG whenever you get into a battle. I didn't hear any music issues when I played it, and I actually played through the port quite a bit in my attempts to get more endings. And you've gotta admit those anime cutscenes are pretty hot.

Chrono Trigger's music actually came out decently...They rerecorded the audio through the PS1 sound chip. There's differences (you can hear them between the 1-disc PS1 Chrono Trigger soundtrack and the 3-Disc SNES OST), but it's nowhere near as poorly done as FFV and FFVI. And FFIV came out fine, IIRC as well. The loading times for CT though are unacceptable when you consider:

1. It's a 32 bit system doing a 16 bit game.
2. The originals were fast.
3. You can play the original cart or ROM and not deal with the hassle.
4. With proper programming, they could've done much better.
5. It actually costs money for such a shockingly unprofessional effort.

And actually, yes, I find the majority of PS1 RPG's to have atrocious loading times, Square being the worst offender. Loading for FF6 and Chrono Trigger shouldn't be comparable (or even worse) to late-era PS1 games like FF9 and Chrono Cross. They probably could've used the Valkyrie Profile programmers, who managed to load four characters, plus enemies, plus music, plus voices (and let's not forget we're talking sprites, which PS1 has huge issues with) constantly lightning-quick.

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And let's not forget that Final Fantasy IV in that collection was a retranslated version, that's much harder and more faithful to the original Japanese version. It also has fewer technical issues than Trigger, if you're more inclined to that.

I haven't "forgotten"...Notice I said nothing about FFIV being a shoddy port (at least...not the Chronicles version). I can live with a couple Mode 7 and load screen issues, which were about the extent of its' problems. The updated translation was reason enough for me to rent it. That was also where I almost died laughing seeing what they did to poor Chrono Trigger.

Qwarky: I'm wondering why you're so intent on defending the PS1 ports, while making PC emulated versions out to be horrible (the PS1 games are running on emulators on the PS1 hardware, so that's why they differ very little from their counterparts, performance issues aside). My computer is hardly on the high-end side of things (new, but definitely not high end) and I can run all of the games in question with no noticable differences (and I'm well familiar with the originals...at least for FFVI and CT). FFVI for the PS1 is completely riddled with slowdown and load times (to be fair, I didn't remember slowdown being an issue with FFV and I didn't play CT long enough to see)...And I find the music aspect completely unacceptable, just based on what came out of the TV. I don't even want to see how Dancing Mad or the Ending for FFVI came out. I had to play FFV with the music completely off. No need to worry about keyboards if you plug a cheap controller in the USB port.

If the PS1 ports were given away (say, as preorder bonuses), I wouldn't have an issue with them. The fact that they were "professionally" made (compared to PC emulation, which is a fan hobby and superior in every way), represent some of the best games of their time (and in some people's cases, some of the best games ever) and charged good money for gives me every reason to loathe them and think less of the people that allowed them on the market. If you want to suffer through it, be my guest. But please don't come out and tell those of us used to the originals (or near-perfectly emulated versions) that these ports even approach "good". More like "last resort if the better versions aren't available".

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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You must understand I am not defending the PS1 ports because I think they are the pinnacle of game production. I am defending them whenever this issue comes up because there are people calling them awful products which they clearly aren't. Either these people are flaunting their "expert" knowledge on the original title or they have their SNES pads rammed high up their asses. Besides the pad, they are, in effect, full of shit.

To tell someone interested in the titles "no, don't buy that, it's an awful port" would require the port to be a completely hideous attrocity, something so bad it ruins and warps the original experience, be it drastic alterations to content, gameplay or game flow, not just "slightly longer loading times and IN MY OPINION inferior emulated SNES era chiptune music (1120kbs instead of 1130 like the original)".

Well, sorry you're offended by my own disliking of Square's shoddy products. I don't believe I said anything to the effect that people shouldn't play them...I was expressing my own displeasure with them. If you want to play them and minimize how bad the ports are in favor of the overall game, be my guest. You would do well to be aware of the view some of us hold these things in and why, because I don't appreciate being told I have an SNES pad rammed up my ass for being offended by what I consider to be lazily-made "official" ports of some of my favorite games. If I had said, "LOL, UR a fucking newb for playing the PS1 versions", then you have every right to get offended. I don't think I said anything that warranted the follow-up "people have an SNES pad shoved up their ass" posts.

I bought FF Anthology for FFV. I finished it, but it was more to get to the end than because I was having any kind of fun with it. The music was completely off (I turned it off after the first encounter with Gilgamesh) and I just used an FAQ to blow through it, because the load times were beyond the point of being annoying. I would sooner shoot myself in the head than deal with the mangling that poor game went through again.

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I am not attacking emulation either, god knows general, non-specific title emulation only works well enough on the PC. But I've played enough emulation (on my relatively high end PC) to know it's not perfect and anyone trying to claim it is is merely fooling themselves.

So how can you have no real issues with the PS1 ports, then criticize the minor imperfections of the PC emulations? That's outright hypocritical. No one's saying they are perfect, but they're damn close and much moreso than the PS1 versions. And also, one is an "official" version, the other is all fan-made...And the fan-made one is easily the better of the two. I think that counts for a lot.

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I bring up the issue because these same people then say that instead of playing a decent enough port (for someone who, again, does not have access to the originals at ridiculous ebay prices), they should instead play them on their PC, not in front of the TV, but in front of their monitor, not on their joypad, but on their keyboard, and somehow manage to convince themselves that this is a far better option than "slightly longer loading times and IN MY OPINION inferior emulated SNES era chiptune music (1120kbs instead of 1130 like the original)".

I can sympathize with that...I HATE playing games on a PC because of the set-up. But...I never said anything of that nature and I'm not going to pretend I'm happy with the version of FFV I got saddled with and I honestly would've been happier if they hadn't released it (or at least taken more time to make it more palatable).

If you're going to flip and take offense everytime someone mentions their displeasure with the ports, be prepared to do it a lot. But don't try to pass it off as people being elitist about it either. It's pretty ignorant and I get more than a little annoyed reading how I have an SNES pad rammed up my ass or how minor my complaints are because I have an issue with an (IMO) shitfest of a product Square put out.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.