Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters Land New Update As Series Passes 200 Million Sales

From what I understand FF6 amounts to about half of the Pixel Remaster sales.
Still impressive as that means each one sold about 830k on average and even if FF6 is half the sales it’s still about 500k per entry between 1 to 5.

I personally prefer 3D Chibi Remake style like FF 3 / 4 NDS for FF 1 - 6 + voice acting rather than Pixel perfect with 2D style.

I got the Japan region import physical Switch copy. Is the English option text in the game identical to the US version?

We need Final Fantasy Mystical Quest to get a re-release!

Sound like a few great patches! The AP Switch in 3 is heaven sent! 😂😄

The float status maintains after switching rooms?!

I've been wanting that for 30 years!😂

I want to get this but I know I will never play them as I got ROMs of them back in the day and played them to death

That's a lot of pixels! I got them, only played through 6 so far because I heard the most good things about that one. It didn't QUITE live up to the hype for me, but it was still a really solid, enjoyable experience.

Should play through more, but those first few ones are really rough around the edges, I dunno if I'll enjoy those. Only one way to find out!

They fixed the mini map togglings, wooo! I hated turning them off every time I switched rooms in FF1, I hope this is what that means. I'm going in fresh to FF2 and FF3 and would hate being tempted/guided by the mini map all the time

So, they be on sale or...?

@JohnnyMind
definitely a lot to look forward to, will be interesting to see the evolution of mechanics and the like, the second game was an oddity in that it was closer to what the SaGa series would become in terms of character progression.

VI is definitely a fan favorite and i can see why though ny far my personal fave of the original 6 games is FFV, it had a job system which also paved the way for the job systems in games like the bravely default and octopath series.

I don't know what those mini-map updates mean exactly, but I couldn't find a way to turn it off. Drove me nuts. I hope this fixes that.

Also, that float status update. Wow.

Well at least they didn't complain how dissapointed they are this time xD

@Yosher The very first Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is a VERY good game, and it's not even a "for its time" thing.

The music's iconic, the gameplay is very much Final Fantasy, and the difficulty is consistent (until the final boss where you might need an additional hour of grinding). Plus it only takes about 10-12 hours on a blind playthrough, probably quicker if you up the xp gain.

I just want them to let me buy the extra content from other versions! These are the definitive versions of the originals, but they've got extra content from many different versions that I would love to see. I need my extra FFV jobs!

Chrono Cross also got an update just yesterday I think, no idea what was included.

I bought FFIV so far, and my brother got FFV. We're looking forward to playing through them!
We had them on Gameboy Advance once upon a time. I had gotten about halfway through FFIV before moving on to other things, so I'm excited to catch back up and polish it off.
Mostly, I just want to play them alongside Final Bar Line lol.

I'm mostly sorta halfway through VI right now (my easy favorite of the NES/SNES era) and am very curious to see this update in action!

@sarcasmasquach Good to know, thank you!

Still not worth it if they didn't fix the stuttering. It's so bad in these versions. Just play the originals any way you can.

i was hoping square-enix would have included the extra elements in other versions.

My patience and lack of tolerance for Square's shenanigans regarding the physical release of the Switch Pixel Remasters paid off and I scored a physical copy for 55$. There's nothing there I don't have on one or more systems, but having all 6 in one place is nice. Considering moving them to next in my queue for a replay.

@IceClimbersMain In that case, I'll see if I can start a game of it soon- hopefully this weekend. Thank you! What would you recommend for classes on a first time play through?

Working my way through the pixel remasters, and finished FFIII just days before they added the JP boost — ah well, still managed to beat it, but that final dungeon... yikes! How did anyone ever manage that back on the NES?

Sells 5 million for games made 30+ years ago and still can't add in the extra GBA content. Or give us the option or charges vs. traditional MP in FFI.

Oh well. At least they're pretty and sound wonderful.

@Yosher I went with the traditional Fighter, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage. Everyone was utilized pretty well in the run, maybe you could swap out the thief for a martial artist if you feel like it, because he was really just an item-user for me.

A bit unrelated but this really puts GTA’s success in to perspective.

FF is a massive franchise spanning decades yet has collectively sold less than just the last GTA. Madness!

This is the minorest of nitpicks, but I really miss the guitar neck-slide sound from the town theme in the PS1 version of FFI, but yeah across the board (well, so far at least — I'm just about to start IV), they look and sound awesome.

Has anyone encountered any screen/input lag when playing these (i'm on Switch)? I and II were okay as I recall, but with III I immediately noticed stuttering whilst sprinting across towns, and some really noticeable lag when inputting commands during battle.

@IceClimbersMain I'll probably use that setup then with the thief. I can name them after the first four FFIX characters that way (my favorite FF game so far), hahah. Thanks much for the tip!!

to bad 1 wasn't update to pixel remaster plus that apple arcade got.

The update also added the classic soundtracks to the mobile versions of the games, and fixed the final achievement not showing up.

@Andee I've only played VI, and no, I haven't.

That Float update is the single best thing here.

@MARl0 It’s weird some people report this; I have yet to experience it myself and I’ve played all of these pixel remasters on both Switch and PC

@Antraxx777 You have experienced it. Not noticing and not experiencing are two very different things.

I need to get back to these. I was attempting a marathon but got side tracked playing other stuff. What is the concensus on the pixel remasters vs original versions? Which is truly better? It seems the remasters should correct everything wrong with the initial releases right?

I got them digital but I'm tempted to get the physical collection provided all games are included on cart. Is that the case?

Why are people excited for the float fix? (lol)

Not being a jerk, just curious.

@datamonkey You had to realize the early years of the Final Fantasy series were mostly exclusive to either Nintendo or Sony's platform. The series didn't went mainstream or multiplat until after the PS2 era. GTA on the otherhand was full mainstream from the get-go.

@Yosher The only one I would say is 'rough' is FF2.
1 and 3 are short and sweet - pretty basic, story is minimal, but don't outstay their welcome. FF4 and 5 have different focus to 6 - the sense of humour is a little wacky at times - but worth trying.

Just don't go to FF2 next. It's definitely the roughest.

That's a significant one for FFIV, considering how often float is needed in some of those dungeons.

But I'll buy these only when they have an option to play the original versions of swap to the original graphics.

What I read:

To mark the occasion (surpassing 200 million copies sold), the studio has released a new patch for all six games in the collection, bringing the Switch editions up to ver. 1.2.0.

What I hear:

SquareEnix will not patch games unless they meet some arbitrary sales goal.

@TheBoilerman My patience didn’t last long enough. Seeing it get that $55 sale price a few short months after finally buying it really sticks in my craw.

@Swifthom Will keep that in mind, thank you!

I did play 4 on the DS, though I never finished it. Maybe I will restart that one sometime or play the pixel remaster anyway.

I need to fit in more games in this series. I've still only played Final Fantasy III/VI - the SNES Classic version - and own both Final Fantasy X/X-2 and Final Fantasy XII on Switch but haven't played them yet. Not sure if I'll finish X-2 or not, but I'll at least try it.

As an aside, is Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion worth playing? After I ever fit in Final Fantasy VII of course.

I bet I bought about 100 of them.

These will never be the optimal versions, because of the homogenization of sounds/menu's/effects removing unique identities, strange balance changes and assets being combined haphazardly. Yet I'm glad they at least put effort into maintaining and updating these remasters.

@MirrorFate2 because having to go into a menu to reapply the effect in every single room isn't exactly fun. I forgot whether this was an issue in the original version. I think it was.

@Truegamer79 I prefer older versions, for all sorts of different reasons. I think this starts to matter more for new players the farther you go into the series. For example, Final Fantasy VI was so hellbent on creating a perfect presentation, it's just hard to remaster/remake.

With FF4, they somehow chose to double Exp. rates, which is really strange to apply to the second easiest game in the series. For FF1, they chose to go with the GBA version's difficulty, rather than the original (the GBA difficulty is based upon the PS1 version's Easy Mode, which pretty much removes any challenge from the game). I care about this, because challenge is about the only thing FF1 really has going for it. Without it, it's rather simplistic.

FF3 is the only one for which I prefer the remaster, simply because it never got a proper 2D remake after the NES version, which I consider too old for my tastes (the three NES games are all a bit buggy, lack run options, stuff like that).

I like the uniqueness of each entry, and that's gone with the remasters since the menu's, sounds and some graphical assets (boss death animations) are all unified. Whether you actually care about all this, is up to you of course. Thanks to a lot of fixes, the remasters don't necessarily feel "bad" (though I remember choppy framerated on PC, but I played these when they had just released). Also, on PC you get mods. FF1 has mods that restore the original difficulty, for example.

Hope this helps!

A proper font should've been there since launch.

And still no hard mode

@MirrorFate2 One more clarification on the explanation you got - in addition to the use case of avoiding certain enemy attacks, in ffiv there exist dungeons with paths that damage you if you walk over them, and it's practically necessary to have your party floating to make it through. So everyone who plays the game runs into this map- transition float re-apply problem.

I am a veteran of FF III/VI since launch in 1994, and I am grateful the game does have a presence on modern platforms. But things still rub me the wrong way in this release. One of my biggest gripes, the appearance of the mini-map in every screen you enter, is now addressed. Turn it off in one screen, and it remains off moving forward. But this leads into my over all gripe: so much hand-holding for the player. I dislike the insistence of hints that take away from challenge and learning. Besides the previous insistence of mini-maps on every screen, another example is the hint screen for Sabin's/Bash's blitz attacks. I know how to do them from experience or re-learning from the Abilities screen, but now I feel stressed to match the screen detail.

Also, this is a superficial thing, but I hate that the menu screens are locked to the very plain blue style when original FFIII gave us the option to pick a theme for windows and also to adjust color ranges. I love and miss my marble-esque theme.

Finally, and being wishful, I'd love if the original releases were included with their respective remasters to allow people to experience the good and the bad of those releases. FFIII/VI is the most impactful RPG of my gaming life. I just love going back to what was achieved 30 years ago and would love to do it again on the Switch.

@Serpenterror yes you’re right. Also in the early NES/Snes days there were a lot less gamers.

The main bug that needs fixing is the ridiculous price points.

@MARl0 I'm with you on this one. The stuttery camera movement makes these by far the worst versions of these games. Amazing to me that they released them this way and then have never fixed it.

@Andee I think they all have judder. John from Digital Foundry talked about it in one of their videos. He predicted they'd never fix it. Seems like they won't.
I've played 2 of these Pixel remasters and they both look horrible to me. I'd never be able to enjoy playing these, especially when basically every other version runs with perfect frame pacing, 60fps, and no camera positioning or whatever problem programmers seem to have with Unity (I think these are done in Unity).

Whopping 200M+ sales? That's spread out over two dozen unique titles, spin-offs and sequels included, as well as re-releases of any sort.

@Thirteen1355 you can modify the exp yield and other settings in these remasters, you can even make it so battles give out no exp at all.

@480frames-please That's a real shame — is that on the Switch then or across all platforms? If it's only the former, then hopefully the Switch 2 will have a better time running it

@Swifthom @IceClimbersMain Per both your suggestions I started a playthrough of the original FF (through the pixel remaster version), and I have been quite enjoying it so far! I'm close to the end (I think, having saved all four crystals), and while it is a bit frustrating sometimes to figure out where to go, it's still a pretty good experience. So thank you both for convincing me to give it a go anyway!

@Yosher Yeah there are some times where you really feel like using a guide, but the game's so short it really doesn't drag out too long...

Now Final Fantasy II? Go ahead and pull up IGN for that one lol

@IceClimbersMain I did admittedly pull up a guide for a few things because I had absolutely no idea where to go lol. Will probably do the same for FF2 when I get there.

Also is it normal that FF1 bosses die so quickly? I feel like they're so weak, I'm used to them being HP sponges! I barely got time to do much in the fight, barely set anything up, and oh they're down lol.

I do admit I did grind a small bit in the beginning, but after that I just went wherever I needed to (or tried to find my way), fought almost every encounter I got (having fled maybe only a handful of times), and that's kept my party able to withstand most things without too much issue, even against the bosses.

@Yosher Before you start complaining about boss difficulty just let me know when you beat Chaos, one of the only real complaints I had was how easy every boss was up until the last lol. You'll see what I mean unless you're doing a ton of grinding.

@IceClimbersMain Well I just beat Chaos. He was harder, but still not that hard. I'm used to Final Fantasy bosses tossing every status effect on the book my way but all this guy managed to do was kill two of my party members before I beat him. He went down pretty fast too. Was still a fun experience regardless!

@Andee I don't know about other systems, but I've heard there are mods for the Steam version. Perhaps those clean up the camera movement. Also, this kind of thing doesn't seem like something the Switch 2 would fix. I've tried overclocking my Switch but no dice, still looks juddery and stutters. I think John from Digital Foundry said these games are running locked at 60fps, the problem is something about the way the camera or movement is programmed, so it has to be fixed by software not brute force or a faster proccessor.