DCFFVII Research Thread

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
I agree, but progress with other stuff must be made first. Like me being able to take proper game snapshots using Elgato.:monster:

Fair enough.

Shademp said:
The WRO HQ area is used for Scene 8.

I doubt if it's meant to actually be the WRO HQ. It's probably just that the developers said, "Hey, we've got the field models for this outdoor place already, so let's just reuse them."

Remember, Rosso had never actually been outside Deepground until a few days before she met Vincent. All that outdoor stuff in Deepground is just a hologram.

Shademp said:
This scene was really cool in HD btw.

I bet it was.

Shademp said:
EDIT: I noticed that the recording of Scene 7 is incomplete at one point or possibly just didn't load properly when played in JORG. See 2:17. When I view the cutscene through International, we get a clear POV shot from the dying soldier where Shelke puts her hand over the soldier's eyes.

That's pretty cool. :monster:
 
Last edited:
I doubt if it's meant to actually be the WRO HQ. It's probably just that the developers said, "Hey, we've got the field models for this outdoor place already, so let's just reuse them."

Remember, Rosso had never actually been outside Deepground until a few days before she met Vincent. All that outdoor stuff in Deepground is just a hologram.
Indeed. The inclusion of the area in that scene was probably not intended as a statement to say "this area (of which it is a hologram) existed before it was used by the WRO" but more the developers, as you say, reusing a random stage.


- My scart is not compatible with the Elgato cables. FECK! More research is needed.


- The Event Viewer in International STILL lacks the scene on the Shera that happens after the FMV where Tifa, Barret and Cloud drive towards Midgar. The scene where Yuffie says "While we launch our attack from the air" and the camera then zooms in on Reeve. There is so much I want to improve with Dirge's Event Viewer.


- In the scene where Nero joins with Weiss and they dissolve into the mako pool (to summon an incomplete Omega Weapon) the Protomateria falls from Weiss and into the pool. This part has always been a "blink and you'll miss it" moment. Could be just my imagination, but JORG seems to focus a few extra milliseconds on this. The sound of the materia hitting the ground matches with the close-up on the materia. Post-JORG, the sound comes first and then we get a close-up on the Protomateria (known as the Ancient Materia in the Japanese script). This is another one of those moments that I don't know if it's an actual version difference, or if the game is randomly quicker or slower at loading certain moments.


- In case there was any doubt, International uses the lip animations for the English game, to fit with the English voice acting. The changes in lip/mouth animations JORG versus post-JORG is especially apparent in close-up shots of characters.


- When Chaos Vincent is in the (mako?) tube and Lucrecia yells "Stop!" I always got the impression that the Protomateria just spawned out of nowhere at that moment. But if you read the final Omega Report (which, funny enough, is only found *after* the aforementioned flashback scene) you know the materia was found earlier.
I have determined the materia found by
Dr. Valentine at the fountain of Chaos to be a
type of refined anti-matter formed within the
grotto over the past several millennia.​
This connects with Lucrecia's narration in the flashback where she says "I found it" and then "We found it together".

Poor storytelling, yet again. The first impression is that the Protomateria appears out of nowhere BEACUAUSE PLOT RAISINS, but you have to read an optional in-game report to conclude that the Protomateria was *probably* already laying about in the lab. It was merely activated at that moment in the flashback.


- There are many moments, especially with Lucrecia, where the intended emotional impact fails. She becomes annoying, unsympathetic etc. But the moment when she cries out to get her son back and see him "just once"... Man. I get goosebumps every time, both in the Japanese and English versions. The game wasn't able to mess up something so universal as the sympathy for a mother's emotions.


- According to the game manuals, you can play DC with keyboard and a mouse. ...I should try this sometime.
 
I want to make sweet love to Lex now for helping me get the Elgato working. I was blinded by rage and he took his time to show me the way.

I could now record and upload that segment from Scene 7 which is not present in Grimoire's upload. WARNING: VOLUME MIGHT BE LOUD
- Scene 7 excerpt, see 0:12 -> 0:20

Compare this to 2:17 -> 2:21 in the FFVIIExcavation upload, where all you see is a bright light. If you pause at exactly the right frame at the end, you will catch a glimpse of Shelke's hand. This really looks like two different versions of the same scene. One where Shelke was meant to be seen through a bright light (but becomes completely invisible because of the low video quality) versus the one saved in DC:International where it's merely a fuzzy vision that turns to darkness.


I spent a lot of time right now taking snapshots from various parts of the game. I wish I knew what the "correct" brightness and contrast is supposed to be. These two settings I greatly enhanced to fit personal taste, but I'm not sure if I accidentally lower the quality of certain parts. A "canon" brightness and contrast would be nice to know.


- JORG has one of Vincent's finger claws as a cursor for menus, which moves in a cycle from left to right. Post-JORG this claw is not present. I remember in my first playthrough of DC being annoyed at the lack of a real cursor, heh.

Event Viewer JORG versus Event Viewer INT (English setting)

Cleared Single Player JORG versus INT

I've also taken snapshots of some easter eggs and taken pictures of all the Omega- and G Reports in JORG, International (English) and the PAL version. I spend a lot of time being annoyed that I'm not as resourceful with Compilation titles as I am with getting stuff from the original FFVII. Now with Elgato much of that frustration can be remedied.

The default/source resolution of DC seems to be 640x480. Compare this to the original FFVII, where the resolution is 320x240. The PAL format stretches the window for PAL reasons, up to 768x576. If the resolution was the same as INT, I could instantly compare the English text of the reports and see if anything at all was changed. That will have to wait for when I one day play through the american release.

Intro Screens:
-
1ItlsQ7.png
-
2Hyz8aP.png
-
EqtxMGp.png

I honestly didn't register until now that JORG and post-JORG "Single Player" was changed into "Game Start".
 
Last edited:

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
I want to make sweet love to Lex now for helping me get the Elgato working.
now i know what i was doing wrong when trying to get laid

i want to get a copy of international now (at long last), if just to see the online scenes on a tv

and i can't believe they took away the claw cursor
 
- Have now ordered two PS2 memory cards so I can keep multiple DC saves where different modes are cleared. One card has the save for when Easy Mode is cleared in JORG + Normal Mode cleared in INT. Another card will have saves for when Normal Mode is cleared in JORG and then another one for when Hard is cleared. Just like I have an extensive FFVII (OG) memory card library, so do I desire to have an extensive DC library. While it's unlikely that I'll retest scenarios and compare depending on difficulty settings, I still want to have these type of saves stored.


- I just noticed that while the PlayOnline scenes in International are consistent with speaker names being in English (subtitles), this is not so with the recordings on FFVIIExcavation. The Tsviets have their names written in Japanese, but all the other characters have their speaker names in English. Not impossible that the scenes in International will change to this when the console setting is changed to Japanese (I have not attempted to force this setting yet).


@hito
There might be a way for me to transfer Memory Card saves to a USB (there are tutorials on this stuff). If I figure this out, do you want me to send you DC:International saves so you don't have to unlock the PlayOnline cutscenes yourself? Then again if you unlock them yourself, we can confirm if your saves will settle on different models for the player and NPCs for the PlayOnline scenes than they did for me :monster:
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
this usb stuff is news to me, that sounds cool (also if i could use that i wouldn't need to get another ps2 memory card because i've run out of space on mine). though i might give it a go myself just to see if the models do change

not that i was going to be buying right now anyways :monster:
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Glad you got that Elgato thing worked out. Keep the awesome coming. :monster:

Shademp said:
The default/source resolution of DC seems to be 640x480. Compare this to the original FFVII, where the resolution is 320x240. The PAL format stretches the window for PAL reasons, up to 768x576. If the resolution was the same as INT, I could instantly compare the English text of the reports and see if anything at all was changed. That will have to wait for when I one day play through the american release.

I would honestly be very surprised if there are any differences between the North American and PAL versions beyond language settings. They were released fairly close together.

As for the Omega and G Reports, I believe those in the official translation matched fan translations of the Japanese pretty closely. Still, it's not unheard of for there to be changes in such things. The Chaos Reports in the first Japanese release of Dissidia were drastically different from those in the international releases, and the Universal Tuning re-release in Japan used the new reports from the international releases (now in Japanese).
 
YES! The region faker worked! I can now play DC:International with Japanese text!


It worked like this...
- Together with my region free PS2 came a Memory Card filled with a number of programs. One of them was uLaunchELF.
- I transferred sp193's region faker into a USB.
- Turn on the PS2, without a game disc.
- Insert the USB.
- Enter uLaunchELF.
- Navigate to the directory called "mass" (your USB) to find the region faker. Don't click on the program yet.
- Insert your game disc. In this case, DC:International.
- Click on the region faker and the game will start with Japanese settings.

The only downside is that the console gives off a lot more "loading noise" (though not extra loading icons in actual gameplay), presumably because it's always getting feedback from the USB.


- In the Japanese setting, Tsviet names were changed from English to Japanese in the PlayOnline cutscenes. The other names remained in English, in line with the FFVIIExcavation JORG recordings.

- The message at the end of the pre-intro FMV ("And so the hound" etc) does NOT change into Japanese. We can conclude DC:International only contains one version of this FMV. For a Japanese version of this message, the original release must be played.

- As expected, voice acting is still in English except for in the PlayOnline scenes.

- More of a general complaint, but I don't like the low quality of the Japanese text. While symbols might be recognizable for what they are, the symbols in the original FFVII were honestly more "crispy" and easy to make out.

- We can state for certain that the scope of Death Penalty is different from JORG to post-JORG. Post-JORG the aim is easier and there is an auto-lock feature present.

The camera was also moved back in (at least) this area at the endgame.
g7tirmR.png
16lWoac.png

WT3GJvp.png
mDZJz1B.png

You can also see above how the magic meter was changed. In the original it was important to show when half your meter was filled, because transforming into Galian Beast took that amount of MP. When the limit break mechanic stopped using magic, there was no point in dividing the meter so it was all changed to blue.


- After taking snapshots of the Omega- and G Reports in DC:International with a Japanese setting, I have now compared the Japanese entries between JORG and (J)INT exactly.
Conclusion: ZERO DIFFERENCE
Not a single symbol was edited. We can rest easy now, knowing that there's no esoteric change in canon to observe here.




Playing through Hard Mode in International. I experimented again with Galian Beast. At the Meteor Monument area, when the snipers appear, you are in a VERY tough spot. Especially beyond the Normal difficulty. Your HP is depleted super-quickly as you are shot from many directions at once. One of the few areas where an actual Game Over is at threat of happening.

So I transformed into Galian Beast and spammed fire balls. It was super effective! Not only is Galian Beast's defense extremely high, but those homing fire balls are faster than you expect. You will clear the area of most snipers, then when you're not overwhelmed by too many snipers you can take out the rest with your gun.
 
- I just noticed that the Event Viewer lacks yet another scene for the Shera: The one where we see the crew working about and spouting techno-nonsense.

So now we have two scenes on the Shera missing from the Event Viewer. This isn't made better by the fact that in order to view the scene where Cait Sith says "Number 6 ready for action" you have to play the game and intentionally fail hard on his mission. The only version you see in the Event Viewer is when he says "Number 5 is alive".

Other scenes not present in the Event Viewer are from when you save civilians and WRO soldiers in Kalm, though with some of these having multiple outcomes I can understand them not being there.


- The Japanese subtitles in DC:International are more extensive than in the original release and sometimes more so than the English counterpart even.

Here are subtitle differences I noticed in part of the intro FMV.
- Subtitles in JORG
- Subtitles in INT, Japanese setting
- Subtitles in INT, English setting

The reporter's lines are never subtitled, as far as I can tell.

Another example is the first scene on the Shera, which I mentioned above is not present in the Event Viewer. In the original Japanese release and the English game (be it the English versions or INT with English setting) there are no subtitles for when the crew are speaking. But in DC:International with Japanese settings...
- See album
It is apparent they went overboard to help for the Japanese players who don't understand the English voice acting.


- On the topic of the Shera, I researched the two WRO NPCs who speak of "ancient" stuff. In English there was no difference, but what about when comparing Japanese subtitles of JORG versus INT?

There was ZERO change for the guy in the engine room who says that the Shera is from a lost civilization. For the guy on the bridge (former Highwind crew) there was no rewrite relevant to the topic of "mysterious ancient power", but an interesting addition was made. Let's zoom back first.

Here is his line in JORG:
ヴィンセントさん、お久しぶりです!
私、ハイウインドのクルーだったんですよ
ハイウインドもいい船でしたが、
このシエラ号もたいしたもんです
なんですも《今は失われた技術》
っていうので動いてるらしいですけど……
でも、一生懸命動かしますので、
安心してでください!​


Here it is in the English game:
Mr. Valentine! It’s me!
Don’t you remember?
I was one of the Highwind crew!
That bird was a beauty,
but this ship’s just as sweet.
And you won’t believe this, but she
runs on some mysterious ancient power.
But you don’t have to worry.
You’ll be safe in my hands.
Wait a minute...
Where did this button come from?
Oh, no, you didn't hear anything.
Approaching destination!

The part marked in italic has no counterpart in the original Japanese release. But for the Japanese DC:International subtitles, this freedom that was taken with the localization is adopted via three more rows of text (not present in JORG).
- See album

Interesting that they took the time to adapt the Japanese subs to fit the English voice acting. I wonder if there are more cases like these where subs were added or if sometimes even changed.

EDIT: A mod can go ahead and re-name this thread "DC Version Research & Miscellaneous" :monster:
 
Last edited:

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
- The Japanese subtitles in DC:International are more extensive than in the original release and sometimes more so than the English counterpart even.

Here are subtitle differences I noticed in part of the intro FMV.
- Subtitles in JORG
- Subtitles in INT, Japanese setting
- Subtitles in INT, English setting

The reporter's lines are never subtitled, as far as I can tell.
They've added subtitles for the on-screen text, so in some cases they've moved dialogue subtitles around and merged lines that were separate into one.

Changes to the subtitles has happened in other International versions in the past (FFX, Kingdom Hearts FM, off the top of my head) to reflect changes from the English script.
 
So I finally figured out why the Elgato wasn't working for me the way it should have. I had to change my console setting from "RGB" Component Output to "Y Cb/Pb Cr/Pr".

What this means is that Elgato now upscales the game graphics even better than before. Some test snapshots look better than what I've shown previously in this thread. Testing out the recording feature now as well. The improvement is marginal, but still there. Then again these things are relative; just because something is upscaled doesn't mean it's "better".

Managed to find this old thread from when Cloud_S ripped and upscaled DC FMVs. Not sure if normal scenes can be ripped just like FMVs. If they can, I will definitely be uploading those for some upscaled PlayOnline Cutscene goodness. Currently, this channel has the highest quality uploads of these cutscenes. They are the same ones that Grimoire used as a basis for his subtitled videos, so they are still from JORG.

One way or another, the DC:International versions of these cutscenes will be uploaded neatly into a playlist. It would be incomplete if they were not available for all to view. Let me know if I simply missed that somebody already uploaded the International edition cutscenes.


- Cleared "Cait Versus The World" today, on DC:International. That was sweaty.
- Was reminded that Hard Mode rewards you with WAY more gil when completing the "Defeat 100 Enemies" challenge, compared to Normal Mode. Makes me extra happy I bothered to play through that mode. Now I'm way more prepared for EX Hard mode (thanks to having the gil to update guns an' stuff).
 
Apologies for the spam, but.... I don't care what people say: Missile Breaker is way harder than Cait Versus the World. In fact I rarely understood the complaints people have about CVtW.

*nerves shaking with frustration after losing over and over in Missile Breaker*
 
- I have now replaced the previous "high quality Japanese FMVs" link on the DoC Content Index Page with a link to the playlist by Cloud_S. His uploads are clearly of a better quality and doesn't change the image ratio, so it's more true to what's intended.

If anyone is going to transcribe the message on Vincent's phone, then using frames from the upload by Cloud_S is the best reference we'll get.
gHSKGp5.png

- Also added a link to binnsennto's playlist of the original PlayOnline recordings, because of their higher quality and lack of English subtitles.


21 out of 46 Extra Missions completed in DC:International. Once I got past Missile Breaker, the missions turned fun. My first time around, when I completed these on the PAL version, I was mostly clueless. Didn't figure out until waaaay late that Vincent's equipment was the same as the one from my last completed playthrough. Thanks to the knowledge I gained from that run, I made sure to finish Hard Mode with Ultima Weapon in my arsenal. A load of missions become way easier thanks to this gun. SO THANKFUL FOR IT.

Many of my sentiments about the Extra Missions remain the same.
- The game should tell you when a mission's capsule has been found/destroyed. In the case of Secret Missions, the player should be made aware that these missions have no capsules. The lack of a visible record is unfair.
- Speaking of records, the main "Extra Missions" menu should should include hundredths of a second in its time records. If you are to compare completion times exactly with somebody else's, you are forced to have recordings of your mission playthroughs and freeze frame on when the game timer disappears.
- It should be possible to access the weapon/equipment customization menu before an actual mission starts. The way it's now, you always begin with the same equipment setup that your last playthrough ended with. That's cumbersome if you are aiming for a time record and need to start with the exact right equipment in the first millisecond.
- The Extra Missions reflect a generally more wise/healthy design philosophy, where each mission has its own identity and are different enough to not feel too repetitious. Crisis Core should have taken cues from Dirge of Cerberus when it comes to missions.

A pity we'll never see an HD version of DC. Then again that simply means less work on my end when it comes to a Version Guide. :monster:
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
yay i can be useful



Wed. 14:36:365:00:00:00:36
Fr: リーブ
Sb: カームで会いましょう

カームの街にて復興祭が行われます。
3年前のメテオによる被害からやっと復興を遂げたこと祝う祭りです。
そこで詳しい話をしましょう。
宿は、こちらで用意しますので少し祭りを楽しんでください

Fr: Reeve
Sb: Let's meet up in Kalm

There is a reconstruction festival being held in the city of Kalm.
It's a festival to celebrate that they have finally recovered from the damages caused by Meteor 3 years ago.
Let's talk in more detail there.
I've arranged an inn for you, so please enjoy the festivities a bit.
 
41 Extra Missions completed. Nearing end sections in DC:International on Ex Hard Mode. I'll probably complete these things later today and then I can finally leave DC:International behind me. Will take snapshots of the mission names in Japanese to compare with English names.


Nothing to report, as expected, in terms of version differences. The experience of playing Ex Hard here is the same as it was on PAL.

- The WORST section of the game in Ex Hard is when you enter the Shinra building. Way too many snipers, way too many other enemies. Just like I remember from my PAL playthrough, this section is the most likely in the entire game to kill you even if you are prepared. I actually did get a Game Over there, today. Ouch. Honestly I can't think of a good strategy for this part. The designers probably expect you to be super-fast and to learn the exact precise order in which to shoot your enemies. That, or they added a ton of enemies without proper play-testing afterwards.

- I love the reward of getting Manaheart, which you then upgrade into Manamind and Manasoul. :D

- Apparently the S/M/L Adjuster items are dropped randomly by DG soldiers. (I've experienced two spots where the L Adjuster was dropped, plus read a FAQ where the author had it dropped on a third spot, in contrast to my playthrough where I find the S Adjuster there instead. Sometimes these are dropped, sometimes they are not.) This explains why I often only find one of the adjusters in a playthrough. For the sake of having a complete collection, I'm hoping so hard right now to get the M Adjuster, which is the only one I'm missing right now. Of course I'll never equip it. I just want a full set.


As far as playthrough research goes, after completing DC:International what I have left is to complete Normal and Hard in JORG. As far as I know, the original release does not have Ex Hard mode. Can't say for sure if I'm gonna take a long break from Dirge after I'm done with International though.
 
Last edited:
DC:International has now been cleared 100%. Ex Hard cleared, all Extra Missions completed and all bonus content unlocked.

Oofz9IS.png



I was going to take pictures of the Japanese names for the Extra Missions but a technical difficulty prevents me from doing this right now. Turns out that transferring uLaunchELF from one memory card to another is not a simple task. Ergo, I can't use the region faker on the memory card which has my 100%'d INT save. I will wait until I have more memory cards before I do further testing, because I don't want to risk deleting or corrupting my current saves.


About recordings and snapshots with Elgato:
- Without headphones on high volume you probably won't hear, but there's a ringing "brrrrrrr" noise in the background in the elgato recordings. Wish I knew how to remove it. THEORY: Maybe it's the microphone expecting an input, because I have microphone activated in the Elgato software but I don't have an actual mic plugged in. WILL TEST THIS!

- Snapshots output 640x480 pictures. Video recordings stretch the window and give 720x480. There are some mysteries here, but I doubt the native resolution of DC is 720x480. The FMV resolution, ripped by Cloud_S, was 640x448. When I take snapshots of FMVs, the resolution is 640x480. Do those extra 32 pixels simply account for black bars?
In short, I'm not sure what the native resolution of DC is across the board or if it differs between FMV and normal gameplay. But according to online sources, native resolution differs from game to game on the PS2.

Either way, I have found no setting to make videos anything else than 720x480. =/


TRIVIA! Viewing old trailers for DC, you can naturally spot some differences with the final product. Here are two of them, from the DC Presentation Trailer (2005) which can be unlocked in post-JORG DC. Frames taken from video recordings, ergo why the output is 720x480.

J4wH975.png
FINED
UNKNOWN ALIVE 01​
I don't know what the first Japanese symbol is. 住? 汪? 狂? Some such. The image quality isn't high enough for me to make it out.

EDIT:
hito said:
生, since that would make 生存者 (survivor).

Thanks Hito. That was actually the symbol I was looking for first, but I couldn't find it in JWPce.


hQp0IgH.png

After FMV Tifa beats up a Deepground soldiers, she swings her hair back in the trailer. In the final game this part was removed...THANKFULLY. It was just way too cheesy.

EV6Oko3.png



-------------

More gameplay reactions:

- ...and now I just found out some missions have TWO capsules! >___< I had completely forgotten about this. Outrageous! There's no pattern either, like what I speculated at first that maybe missions where you destroy a white capsule to unlock a secret mission has an extra capsule. NOPE. That situation only happens once.

The missions with two capsules were Wastelings, Missilebreaker Melee, Rains of Gehenna and Shinra Manor Prime. (The last one was a bitch because first I used a guide that was outright wrong)


- I...LOVE...the mission "Two-Handed". There are so many satisfying elements to this mission once you know how to complete it in a decent time. Multiple Cait Siths! Shelke is there to help you! True, Shelke barely does shit but just having her there as an ally is awesome, plus there's something emotional about bringing her to Shalua, even though their only exchange is them staring at one another for a second. Running at super-speed across the plains is so liberating! Calling an aircraft that rains missiles upon the ground which will defeat enemies but not harm you at all...SQUEE. :D

When you enter this mission with Ultima Weapon and Manasoul already in your arsenal, you're going to have a great time. Despite my first bout with this mission (way back) took over 90 minutes, I have great memories from it. The stage gives you Ultima Weapon and Manasoul (Shelke gives the latter to you after she is reunited with Shalua), which in my first playthrough I had never seen before this mission.


- While I don't have suggestions for a better reward, the "Congratulations" screen after completing all the missions is very anti-climactic. Even a PS3-type Trophy would feel better, because you can always check out your trophy.
 
Last edited:

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i would say the first character on the trailer image is &#29983;, since that would make &#29983;&#23384;&#32773; (survivor).
 
- Tested to see if the microphone settings were to blame for the "brrrrrrrrr" sound in the background. But after a dozen settings I have not been able to remove this background noise. If you don't know what I mean, listen for it here during the loading screen here when it's the most audible.

Listening to binnsennto's PlayOnline uploads again, there is a similar sound there too, but less audible (most definitely a less sharp/annoying sound). You'll have a real hard time hearing it without headphones.

I'm afraid that when an upload of the PlayOnline scenes are made, we are forced to deal with that "brrrr" sound. Perfection evades me. On that topic, the mystery of native resolution versus video output still has to be solved before I can feel safe about uploading DC videos.

- Noticed that the game is actually really good at remembering your subtitle settings. Entered a segment of the game, set the subtitles to off, and then even the Event Viewer remembered this setting. It even stayed after the console was reset. I was afraid that the setting could only be changed everywhere if I beat the end boss with that setting.

I mention this because I would like to have two PlayOnline playlists: One where the scenes have Japanese subtitles (+English Tsviet names) and one without any in-game subtitles.

Really wish Crisis Core had the option to deactivate subtitles.

- In case anyone was wondering, this is the screen that appears if you click on the "PlayOnline" option in JORG.

CIpuS7j.png


You are stuck on this screen until you reset the console.
 

Kashkabald

eu fiz cocó no teu tabuleiro
I can actually help with that:

The PSBBN was pretty much the predecessor of today's PSN, except Japan-only. The service was planned to be released in the west but was canned when HDLoader showed up, which also prompted Sony to release the slimline PS2 because there just weren't many games that used the HD, and the most popular was pretty much only played on consoles in Japan (FFXI)

My guess is that the screen is telling you that your PS2 needs to be configured for PSBBN and needs to have 1408MB free to do whatever it wants to do. As https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0lTkGyr-jU proves you can actually install it to this day! It's a really pretty frontend, and aside from it, there's actually a PS1 emulator (as in, using the console's PS2 mode instead of the PS1 mode) built in, which has been somewhat recently been hacked to work with games that aren't Bishi Bashi Special 3. You need to have a fat PS2 and a HD, obviously.

Also, installing uLaunchELF on another memory card is pretty easy, along with copying saves from a memory card to a USB stick and back in. All you need is the file browser, really.
 
Started up JORG again to resume Normal Mode play, but my tempsave was lost. Had to start at the beginning of the second section in the first chapter (so fortunately I did not have to start from the *very* beginning). Maybe tempsaves get lost after a certain amount of time?

Some repeats here in the observations, but the suckiness of JORG is felt sooooo much stronger now that I've enjoyed the post-JORG version to its fullest.


- JORG has a scope that was removed and turned into a default ability of all the guns post-JORG. I don't remember now if the playthrough begins with this scope equipped or if you equip it yourself.

rkLSL41.png

Very precise aiming required from the player. I should actually try playing without the scope, to see if there are untold advantages.

nQcPnLu.png

nWcITZy.png

q8WEECs.png
The auto-aim wide-range scope we all know and love.



- There are a few boxes at the start (Kalm) you can't jump onto, but you can do so even with a single jump post-JORG. I think in this case it has more to do with those boxes lacking proper platform data, since you can jump onto other such boxes.


- Vincent moving so fucking slow makes me feel like I'm watching the world in slow-motion now. LE UGH.


- The needlessly long time between firing shots srsly makes it NOT YOUR FAULT when Deepground soldiers hit you with their shots. The game is just annoying.


- The gun, even with the long barrel, has an awfully short range. The Dragonfly boss in Kalm takes much longer to take down because of this. Plus Vincent can't run when he's aiming and wielding the long barrel. VINCENT DOESN'T LIFT


- In Normal Mode, still no "M" path for gun upgrades. Only P (Power) and S (bigger rounds/clips).


- Aiming at the guard hounds at the beginning of Chapter 2 is actually easier in JORG thanks to the camera being closer to Vincent. The guard hounds appear bigger and are thusly much easier to target. How funny.


- In the final battle against the guard hounds at their leader, I received no Thunder Materia despite trying my best to get one.


- After protecting the boy and getting the keycard, you are teleported almost straight to where the laser walls are. Post-JORG, you are right outside the door to the stairway where you found the keycard, which is also where you'll find the Model Gun (that can be upgraded into Ultima Weapon). This way you don't have to run as far back to get the Model Gun.


- In a spot where I expected there to be enemies, there were none. They only appeared after I destroyed a box. Need to re-test this area some day.


- Maybe it's just me but I think the snipers detect you from a longer distance easier in JORG.


- If I'm seeing this right, JORG has an accessory (red type) that increases your shooting rate but adds weight and decreases power. You gain it on the second floor of the WRO HQ.

SQ6MpDk.png

w75ruOl.png

Translation, plx? Btw this accessory barely helped SHIT.


- Just like I remembered, JORG still has no laser thingy-majigg right before Reeve's office. You are not forced to clear all the enemies on your way up. Remaining enemies can be dealt with on the way back.


- Let me just say that with a slow Vincent who can't dodge worth a f*ck, Shelke is actually a tough boss who will demand that you use recovery items in order to survive.


- Thunder materia was gained in the Sewer level, where the Blizzard materia is found post-JORG.


- Still have not managed to get past the first guard in the Cait Sith segment in JORG. Yet another segment where I don't know if something was tweaked or if the enemy's detection area is just hard to predict in all versions.
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
SQ6MpDk.png

w75ruOl.png

&#12521;&#12500;&#12483;&#12489;&#12501;&#12449;&#12452;&#12450;
&#37507;&#12398;&#36895;&#23556;&#24615;&#33021;&#12434;&#19968;&#23450;&#12398;&#21106;&#21512;&#12391;&#19978;&#26119;&#12373;&#12379;&#12427;&#12458;&#12503;&#12471;&#12519;&#12531;&#12497;&#12540;&#12484;&#12290;

Rapid Fire
An optional component which raises the gun's rapid fire performance by a set percentage.
 
There it happens again, with the Japanese text. Is anybody else seeing this?

i6beiW4.png

It's all fine when I mark and copy though.

---------------

- You won't believe how slow the Griffin is when it starts out. One shot per second. Only *slightly* faster than Cerberus. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! Add that because it is weaker than Cerberus, the initial point when the designers want you to use it against a group of DG soldiers will end in disaster because you'll be too slow to save the WRO soldiers.

- Redid the Solid Cait section to fail as hard as possible, to make sure the "Number 6 ready for action" scene is triggered on the Shera; for completion's sake so the scene is available to me at any time. I did try to hide from the first guard though, but mysteriously failed yet again. As soon as the soldiers turns around, he finds me standing behind the box. Something MUST have been tweaked post-JORG. Need to check if a certain soldier on the ground floor was removed post-JORG...

- The game certainly makes you rely more on kill chains, in order to get those one-shot kills so the time between shots isn't a problem anymore.

- Battling the robot in Shinra manor sure is annoying. You roll, but then you stay in crouch mode and have to either jump or press the square button to get back up again. Annoying when fast response is required.

- Blizzard materia gained in first Midgar level, shortly after escorting the WRO squad. You know what would be cool? If you could freeze exploding barrels with blizzard. That way, I might actually be able to save certain soldiers on my way to the central complex.

- Misremembered earlier about a certain Deepground commander not having a lifebar in JORG. Actually it's even present in a trailer for the game.

- Magic is definitely less overpowered in JORG. Even with Lv3 Thunder, enemies require two or three hits from it to die, if even that'll be enough. I get a strong impression though that magic depletes less MP than post-JORG. Even bloody sentry bots (those small spinning things) require two hits from Lv3 Thunder in order to die! With magic being this weak, I have no idea how to defeat the two suicide robots on my way to the central complex.

I really shouldn't have bothered with upgrading the Materia Floater. In JORG, thunder is good for stunning enemies, but you're probably better off upgrading other equipment. Will keep that in mind for when I'm playing Hard mode. So far, Normal mode in JORG feels more like an unfair version of Hard mode post-JORG. Even when wielding the Powered Cerberus, even the most basic enemies don't die in one shot.

- A hallway that usually has a stack of boxes and bazooka guys behind them...had no boxes. The bazooka guys came wandering from afar. Sentry bots were spread out more and appeared further down the hallway. This is right before you face Rosso.

- Items dropped by enemies *might* be fading away faster than post-JORG.

- Like before, there are certain hot spots for gaining the "L/M/S Adjuster" items. However in this JORG playthrough, I gained three copies of the same (presumably) "Adjuster" item. There is no lettering, so maybe there is only one Adjuster accessory in JORG?
XKcVxsZ.png
 
Playing JORG really feels like playing a beta version of the game, especially after experiencing the post-JORG versions. It truly feels unfinished/unpolished.


- Misremembered what the "S" path means for the gun upgrades. Naturally it stands for "Speed". The M path stands for "Magazine". So far no M path in JORG.

- On your way to Azul, there is a room with loads of exploding barrels. Post-JORG, an item case with 3000 gil (or some such high number) is floating above one barrel. No such item here in JORG. NOTE: In all versions, if you explode all the barrels before entering the room, soldiers from above will not appear at all (Easy & Normal) or in simply very few numbers (Hard & Ex Hard).

- When thinking about the game today, I realized the solution for some sections might be to make use of kill chains. The "kill chain" mechanic is always one that I easily forget, because usually you'll do fine without it. There are two areas, before reaching Rosso, where a robot will charge you quickly and just mow down the WRO troops. Post-JORG, my strategy has always been to spam Thunder Lv3 on it. However, this takes too long and the WRO soldiers usually fall to their deaths under the rain of bullets from the robot. In JORG, I couldn't stop the first robot and the second robot was stopped way late (but not entirely late). In both these situations, there are boxes around. I think I'm meant to destroy the boxes to round up kill chains, THEN shoot the robot.

- When an enemy is within your scope, a red circle will show that the object can be shot. When the object is gone/defeated post-JORG, no red circle will appear. In JORG, the red circle will still appear even after an enemy is defeated, making you think the enemy is still alive. At the very least this has happened in a few cases and the "red circle" object detection only goes away when the defeated enemy fades away. More and more JORG vs post-JORG differences just keep popping up.


- Where you find the first "Top Secret File", there is no Mako Point where you face the sentry bots, in JORG. Post-JORG there is a Mako Point here.


- Heh, for the Azul battle Vincent's HP was restored. Never noticed this before. In fact I also noticed three transitions in the final areas of the game where your HP is restored automatically. May depend on difficulty mode and version, I honestly don't know.


- You thought Arch Azul was tedious in DC 1.1? Well try 1.0. Just like it was in Easy Mode, magic depletes very little HP compared to post-JORG. Going by numbers, in JORG Normal mode my magic was 1/5 of the strength on Easy Mode...and that was already a tedious fight!

Turning desperate, I attempted Galian Beast vs Arch Azul. His ground combo did some decent damage, but Arch Azul's tail swing depleted almost all of Vincent's HP. It *might* be possible to use Galian Beast and to avoid the tail swing, but I decided not to take that risk now. A strategy just like when you battle Arch Azul with Cait Sith in that one Extra Mission would be called for. The fire balls from the Galian Beast did measly 1 HP damage each. Le sigh.

- The fucker stole my money! If you've played DC, you know the one. Not even three hits from my Lv3 Thunder took him down. What am I supposed to do?! I can't rely on kill chains here.


- In the area where you find the keycard in a box (among many other boxes) there are platforms where enemies will respawn one time, when you're backtracking to use the keycard. This doesn't happen post-JORG, according to my memory.

- Places that have the Limit Breaker item post-JORG either have a different item, nothing at all or a mako spot in JORG.
Here is one spot where you get a Mako Point/Spot in JORG, but it was turned into a Limit Breaker item later on.

On this small bridge there are three Mako Points in JORG (not confirmed yet in Hard Mode). All Mako Points removed post-JORG and replaced with a Limit Breaker.

In the section where you collect ten or so keycards in order to get four items, post-JORG you get an Elixor and a Limit Breaker (and two other items). In JORG, you get two Elixors. In case anybody wonders what the item's name and description is in Japanese, here's a snapshot.


- To my surprise, STILL no exploding barrels to shoot down to reveal a cactuar (or anything else for that matter). If they are not present in Hard Mode, then this part of the game is post-JORG exclusive.


- Barely got out of "Defeat 100 Enemies" alive. My chances of surviving this challenge in Hard Mode are pretty low. Like I said before, this feels like Hard Mode in post-JORG plus a little more unfair. Ammo almost ran out, because of aiming range being shorter and enemies being tougher in both attack and defense.

- Mako Reactor 0, area with enemies around pillar: No items, like a Phoenix Down, to pick up where sentry bots spawn. JORG clearly lacks some items that were added post-JORG to decrease difficulty.

- Still no floating, mysterious Item case in JORG.

- To truly unlock the power of Ultima Weapon, where the numbers just keep rounding up with each shot with great speed, I had to equip Rapid Fire. Still effective without the accessory, but much better with it. Thanks to Ultima Weapon being so light, equipping Rapid Fire did not turn Vincent into a slowpoke while aiming. Upgrading Rapid Fire doubles the weight of that accessory, so I did not take the risk of making that upgrade in case it would have slowed Vincent down.

- Like I concluded earlier, the scope of Death Penalty is smaller in JORG. Because of this, you consciously have to aim high when fighting Omega Weapon, or else you won't hit both the head and the main body at the same time.


- I...don't get this. Did I skip a loading screen too fast? This image still marks "Easy Mode" as the one I cleared. The penultimate image lists Normal Mode. Dammit, I want the link to the Event Viewer to reflect the difficulty mode I just cleared! :rage:


If I'm ever to play Hard Mode, I need to know the perfect strategy or else I'll be toast in some crucial places. The jump between Easy Mode and Normal Mode in JORG is just ridiculous: The former would barely let you lose even if you tried, the latter is way too hard in places. Enemies don't need to be this strong and magic doesn't have to be this weak. I just hope the jump between Normal and Hard isn't that big.
 
Top Bottom