I am not sure, it was quite a time ago. I only remember that I took my time playing, I wasn't in a hurry.
Marcus/Eiko, numerous perma-stat losses on wrong level ups, etc. would like a word with you. As well as FF 9's ATB which made Speed stat totally useless, Regen/Summon exploit, totally useless Trance, etc.
FF Mystic Quest was easy enough, and last boss was exploitable by Cure. FF 4 was also made much easier than Japanese version, and it also had some sick exploits (like skipping Demon Wall part altogether, which was like the only somewhat difficult fight in the game).
I see nothing wrong with that. FF7 - 3 cds, FF8 and 9 - 4 cd each. Dragon Warrior VII - 2 cds, Lunar 2 - 3 cds. FF 7 had enough playtime to make up for 3 cds. Did you see Koudelka? 4 cds, and game could be completed in 6 hours. On other hand, it would be interesting to see the size of game world, if game was on 3 cds, but had graphical engine from FF 5 on SNES without any FMVs.
Which is the case in FF 4-10. In terms of difficulty it was decreasing all the way from 4 to 10. 12 brought the difficulty a bit back up, one of the reasons why some people dislike it...
Well, for me unplayable is everything which doesn't provide necessary dlls to play the game, and then has a high chance to crash anytime, especially in combat. i didn't manage to complete PC version, because disk 2 had a long section without single save point, my patience ended after crash #XXX before I reached it.
Well, getting Gold Chocobo requires quite a time investment in not really attractive mini-games and such. Similar analogy - you can reach Lv.99 in most of RPGs right at the start, so you can call those games unbalanced as well. Also third disk isn't that big, it only features 1 dungeon storywise.

Then why bother adding a whole extra disk for just one dungeon?
Using Cure to damage the final boss of FFMQ is clearly a bug. In fact, it only sometimes damages, and (at a reasonable level) equipping the claw to raise your Magic by 5 can cause it to heal.

Also, FFMQ is definitely harder than later FF games; on a playthrough, there is usually some boss fight where my party wipes (and sometimes I get unlucky in a random encounter). In addition, it is quite possible to lose the very first fight while playing rationally (which, in this case, means doing nothing but attack because there are no other options). In modern FF, it is quite feasible to get through the entire game without a party wipe. (Note that I do consider FF6 to be modern, although it provides some difficulty early.)

Also, Demon Wall isn't the only hard battle in FF4; Bahamut will kill you if you don't use either of the two tricks, and Zeromus is also not exactly easy. Furthermore, if you are going to talk about skipping Demon Wall, you need to also talk about using the stairs glitch to skip the entire late game, allowing FuSoYa to use Reaction against the final boss.

Because it and the ending movie didn't fit on the other two disks. Same thing is with FF 8's last disk which basically featured only Ultimecia's Castle, and with FF 9 which also featured just 1 last dungeon.

Another good RPG-ish game for the PS1 is Digimon World, even if it is a bit rough around the edges.

I do; it's a massive waste of space for an amount of content that could be reasonably fit in a cartridge. (Incidentally, this is also an issue with PC games; why do even smaller games have sizes in the hundreds of megabytes?)

Also, the switch to CD based media caused consoles to lose the main advantage they had (at the time) over computers; the lack of load times.

(One other thing: A massive game world isn't necessarily a good thing, as one can't realistically generate enough interesting content to make the world interesting to explore. See Daggerfall.)


Then they should have adapted things to fit. Not everything needs to be space-wasting FMV.

I bet that, if the FMV were removed and replaced with in-game cutscenes, the games could have fit on one disk each. I note that Final Fantasy Origins managed to fit *two* games on one disk.

(For that matter, a different company was able to fit *three* Wizardry games on a single PlayStation disk, and actually did it twice.)

It depends on how the game was made. I don't really remember loading times in many PSX games, including FF 7. However, same FF5 port had enormous loading times on every occasion.
Or see MMOs (which are by large the reason why there aren't much elaborated single-player RPGs on PC). They have large worlds and elaborated game systems. Of course most of them grew in time via expansions, but nothing stops single-player games from having expansions as well. Also, FF 12 is quite interesting in that - it fits on one DVD and it has quite a large world. You visit only part of it during main storyline. It also has some quite convoluted dungeons.
Origins also retained same graphics as on SNES, more or less. 3 Wizardries also weren't really large games, and they had minimum animations and non-elaborated tilesets. I am sure that if FF 7-9 had same graphics as SNES games, they would fit altogether on one disk, but what would be the point of having new gen console by then? They could as well be released as SNES games. Cut some more, sacrifice some sound and colors, and you get a NES game. Funny enough, there are 2 such unofficial "demakes" of FF7 already.

WOW. I honestly wasn't expecting this many recommendations. This will keep my Vita busy for awhile.
Thank you to everyone who responded.

So far the play list is:

Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel Part 1 (Playing now)
Final Fantasy X and X-2
Final Fantasy Tactics (PS One Version)

Has anyone played the original Final Fantasy Tactics on the Vita? I'm just curious if the emulation is smooth.

If the the emulation is bad I'll go with the Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions remake.

valkyria chronicles 2 and 3

The PSP War of the Lions remake has long load times on original hardware anyway, so the original Tactics is probably a better choice.

Thank you for the feedback. The original Final Fantasy Tactics it is.

I would strongly advise against that because you get much more bangs for your money if you buy the PSP "Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles" as you get the "Rondo Of Blood" remake, the original one (ported from the PC Engine) and of course the classic "Symphony Of The Night" (from the PS1 thus). So that makes 3 games instead of one.

Yes, but the Dracula X Chronicles Symphony of the Night doesn't have the epically-cheesy voice acting. :P
It's also kinda crappy that you have to unlock the games first by finding them while playing Dracula X Chronicles instead of them being readily available.

Counter-Attack! :o)

"Yes, but" the extra games are unlockables quite easily (no need to complete the game) and more importantly, you can get a good taste of two generations of gameplay in the series: the metroidvania one and the old-school one on the same disc. This makes it a version for the true fans. Period :o)

And also, you get some good re-recordings of classic tracks in the remake ^o^
https://youtu.be/km-c1lYak6c?list=PLKCvZRY9KuhNmMzfKlIxEHb4He3OTRKDB

Chrono Cross is the best.

I.Q.
Intelligent Cube.
Made for humans, designed by Satan him/herself. Play it and expect heads-a-rollin'/mental illness ;D