so does anyone else think rosa's outfit is pretty ridiculous?  cid doesn't seem to mind that his daughter runs around in a bikini. 

It is pretty ridiculous, but oh well. A lot of Final women run around in bikinis or other skimpy outfits. Fran, anyone?

To be fair, they kept to Amano's original design but Rydia's outfit is weird.  She was stuck in a world that isn't exactly populated with humans yet somehow she made herself this weird half-leotard half-bathing suite with frilly belly dancer arm things and a half-skirt or something.  Did Asura make that for her or what?

Isn't it funny that people will point out little details like that as if it's weird BUT MAGIC IS TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE.

Isn't it funny that people will point out little details like that as if it's weird BUT MAGIC IS TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE.

it's a suspension of disbelief thing.  shooting fireballs and summoning monsters is perfectly understandable in fantasy land but there's no skill or ability that leads me to believe that a 7 year old girl would think to herself "y'know there's all this rare silk material and green dye lying around i think i'll spin myself a dancer's costume with a mini-skirt and frilly thingies"

Marcus you obviously haven't unlocked the Dresschanga and Dresschangaraja spells I am disappointed in your FF skills.

I've been playing this in little 20 minute bursts the last few days, but holy fuck is Edward useless when you first get him. I don't remember him being this weak in the original!

You can slow down pretty much every boss in the game, and it's one of the first things you should do in each boss battle! Well, that and casting Protect+Shell on your whole party.

I've been playing this in little 20 minute bursts the last few days, but holy fuck is Edward useless when you first get him. I don't remember him being this weak in the original!

Edward was always highly pointless early on. He was too weak to ever be of any use in fights and THEN you had a mini-boss with only HIM in the party.

Oh what a game..

Though I don't know how WORSE this has become in the DS version..

Man, the fight against Bahamut in this version is probably the coolest thing that has ever happened to me in a remake of a game.

I'll admit, this is a pretty decent version of the game. it was always one of my favourites, and the retranslation, new graphic engine and better cutscenes is a treat. But the difficulty is a little uhh... STUPID to put it bluntly. I'm not having an indordinate amount of trouble but I just got to the tower of Babil (first visit) and the Flamehounds are pissing me the fuck off. Scorch or w/e is simply cheap. They almost always get the first attack and Scorch two shots most of my party. There is simply no defense against it until you get some of the Ice equipment later in the tower, and even then it's mostly just for Kain and Cecil. It's just lame. To add insult to injury, Flamehounds come in packs of three sometimes. Three Scorches and everyone is dead except for Cecil and I have to blow through MP and items to get my party back up.

Mostly I have put up with the challenge to this point because there has been a certain amount of strategy behind it all but there isn't here. You just have to hope the Flamehounds don't all cast Scorch. Prior to this, I had only died once and that was against Golbez because I went into that fight with Cecil almost dead and I neglected to Slow Golbez while Rosa was still up.

At least the Icehounds in the Tower of Zot seemed rare. I run into Flamehounds in every damn encounter in Babil.

I beat Dr Lugae (cheaply, lol Elixir spam) and now I go to get Edge, I hear Rubicante is gonna be fun to battle!

If TENSE AS HELL is what you mean then I agree with you.

Well I mean that the reflect trick doesn't work and if you try it you will die.

So I'm on the final dungeon right now and I've gotten extremely disinterested in the game. I don't feel like going through floor upon floor of RANDOM ENCOUNTERS and that Namingway quest just seems long and tedious. Also I'm sick of having to use a walkthrough for every boss battle.

I am in the exact same situation and I don't know why I feel that way either.  I do have the Safe Travel augment though (and yes the namingway quest was tedious but it's easy to sit through boring shit in a video game when you are playing on the can) so I think I'll just quickly run through to the end.  I think the game is super awesome but the drive just sort of died once I went inside the moon.  The encounter rate is way too high in the final dungeon and the fights are really hard. 

Mostly I have put up with the challenge to this point because there has been a certain amount of strategy behind it all but there isn't here. You just have to hope the Flamehounds don't all cast Scorch. Prior to this, I had only died once and that was against Golbez because I went into that fight with Cecil almost dead and I neglected to Slow Golbez while Rosa was still up.

There are certain enemy configurations that are simply safer to run away from until you level up than stay and fight them.  If you just hold the retreat button and spam defend with everyone you should be able to get away.