Does anyone else overuse the Fast Forward function in emulators?

[Calavera]

When I emulate nowadays I find myself really hammering the Fast Forward button a lot. Not so much during gameplay but during little non-gameplay parts even if they are only a couple of seconds. For example I'm playing Skies of Arcadia and during many of the battles I use the crap out of the Fast Forward button. Not during boss battles but during random battles I'll FF the crap out of them. And if I'm flying to somewhere I've already been through I might FF to get there quicker. In Super Mario World if I'm traveling to a level kind of far away on the map I'll FF. And I always FF through loading screens but I think everyone would do that.

Does anyone here also do this or is it just me? I could see some people saying that using FF too much ruins the game. I get that, if it is the first time you are playing the game you probably shouldn't use it that much. But seeing how I've beat SOA several times I don't feel too bad about fast forwarding through some of the random encounters.

[melancholy]

There are some games that are just unbearable without FF. Biggest offender IMO? Final Fantasy VIII. That game has no respect for your time. Drawing 300 of a spell is annoying in its own right, but when there’s a hard cap of 9 per draw and the good spells only draw 1-3, it’s offensive. Grinding for materials for weapons and spells is also absurd. That game is simply unplayable without FF (though some would argue it’s unplayable even with them).

[Calavera]

There are some games that are just unbearable without FF. Biggest offender IMO? Final Fantasy VIII. That game has no respect for your time. Drawing 300 of a spell is annoying in its own right, but when there’s a hard cap of 9 per draw and the good spells only draw 1-3, it’s offensive. Grinding for materials for weapons and spells is also absurd. That game is simply unplayable without FF (though some would argue it’s unplayable even with them).

I haven't played FF VIII in probably over 20 years. I remember it having some weird card system or something that I didn't care for so I just ignored it and was still able to play the game. I never finished it, I think I made it to the beginning of Disc 3 and then stopped playing for awhile. When I tried to come back to it it had been too long and I didn't remember what was going on so I just abandoned it.

But anyways FF makes grinding in older RPGs so much better. I'd say it's best use is in RPGs because like you said it helps improve some games that would be otherwise unplayable. It is also good for games that have unskippable cutscenes when you either have already seen it and want to move on or just don't care about it in general and want to get on to the gameplay. There is just so many little time wastes that can be skipped through with FF that it is now as important to me to have in an emulator as save states.

[Skynet]

I do but only on SNES games for some weird reason and I dont know why. Maybe because I don't emulate much these days

[pixel]

Biggest offender IMO? Final Fantasy VIII.

That was the first game I thought of too. I love that Square added fast forwarding, no damage, and all the other "cheats" to the Switch version. Makes it much easier to replay.

In Super Mario World if I'm traveling to a level kind of far away on the map I'll FF.

And that's number two for me. I used to FF all the time when I had to go from Chocolate Island to the Donut Plains Secret for fresh power-ups and a Yoshi.

I should remap fast forward in Retroarch. That's the only reason I don't use it more, it isn't on by default.

[Calavera]

I should remap fast forward in Retroarch. That's the only reason I don't use it more, it isn't on by default.

In most emulators it seems you either have to set the hotkeys (FF,Save,Load) to either the keyboard or controller. You can't have a mix of the two. So I just use Joy2Key so I can the FF button on my controller but keep the Save and Load state on the keyboard.

I use FF a lot on DC,GC,Wii and PS2 games. Most of the time it is just to skip through loading screens. Also save states save so much time. For example I was playing Burnout and instead of having to restart an event at the end if I didn't get gold I would just save at the beginning so then I could instantly retry.

I do but only on SNES games for some weird reason and I dont know why. Maybe because I don't emulate much these days

I also do on SNES games. The one I used it the most on would have to be Earthbound.

[2dr]

Definitely. It’s a staple of my gameplay.

[Calavera]

Definitely. It’s a staple of my gameplay.

I like it and I hate it. Sometimes I use it so much it makes me question why I'm even playing the game. I do the same thing with Youtube, I watch so many videos at an increased speed.

[2dr]

Some vids I watch in slo mo.

[Calavera]

Some vids I watch in slo mo.

That little winky face make me think you mean pron but I'm not sure why you'd watch those in slow-mo lol.

[Skynet]

Some vids I watch in slo mo.

That little winky face make me think you mean pron but I'm not sure why you'd watch those in slow-mo lol.

Oh man, you saying you don't watch slow motion gaping videos?

[2dr]