Vissarion wrote:

ydrt wrote:

Two points:

1. Square's project for the past 10-odd years has been to say "FUCK YOU" to Nintendo, so it's not too surprising that we haven't seen ports to GBA yet. Square's first game for a Nintendo system in a long time is some title called Final Fantasy Chronicles, and too be honest since I don't have a Gamecube I haven't looked into it a whole lot. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see GBA ports down the line, and those would more than likely make it to the US. It doesn't help things that the Wonderswan is pretty successful in the land of tentacle rape and schoolgirl panties. And why not port them to PSX? It's basically free money for Square.

I think that Square's "NINTENDO EATS A DICK HAHA" phase may be coming to an end. Apart from the Gamecube FF you mentioned, they have a new FF Tactics game and a port of Secret of Mana 1 coming out this year for GBA.

ydrt wrote:

2. As for it being disappointing, neither I nor Square claimed that it had a lot of new content. I did say that "I play FFI like it was Solitaire, which isn't too far off considering there's virtually no plot and the game is pretty much a time waster." For titles made in 1985-86 or so, I don't think they're too bad and with the ability to make your little dude run on the map screen and auto-retargeting the game moves a lot faster.

It is a good conversion, but it doesn't really have any legs on a stationary console. If I want to play a "solitaire time-waster" on my PS2 I'll do a couple of dungeon levels in Dark Cloud 2. If I only had a PS1 I'd play... well I'd play this, but I have a PS2.

These two games were designed for a handheld. That "memo save" feature was so that you could save when the bus gets to your stop. There's a non-FF precedent for this kind of thing too. Dragon Warrior 3 for Game Boy Color was a perfect translation of an NES fossil, and it was great to just pick it up for 5-20 minute stretches to kill slimes and then memo save when you thought of something better to do.