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The Omicron Plays Final Fantasy Spoiler Thread

RubberBandMan said:
A lot of JRPG's and anime seem to do the 'supernatural threat makes the political set up basically pointless' thing a lot, as someone who's playing new game + of Persona 5 shows. FFT is perhaps one of the more frustrating versions of this, because the politics is so core and key to the conflicts of the first several chapters, and even after the supernatural threat shows up and starts doing shit, most of the plot is about the political maneuvering.

But it's not conceptually too different from 'someone raises points about politics and society, and then just starts killing people thus undercutting everything they said before', which is also epidemic as a way to see edgy and with it, but not actually have anything to say or a point they're trying to make. It's just that instead of being eclipsed by supernatural forces (that may or may not be thematically connected with the mundane stuff in a story) it's eclipsed by saying 'whoops, it's just status quo vs. literally the evilest people ever'.

There is a good way to end such stories, in which the protagonist team changes their behavior or position, perhaps renouncing the previous structures for something better, but a lot of stories just dodge the issues brought up, instead of sticking with them.
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Apropos of nothing, y'all should play Suikoden V.
 
Egleris said:
That was my impression as well - until I compared the translation, I kept wondering "why people say that Squall is so unlikable", but the reason seems apparent now. Still, I'd like to think that the Italian take is probably a better approach; it's not like his characterization is changed, he's just less abrasive and the character development is more gradual. But that's just my opinion - what's everybody else's take on this?
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Honestly I've forgotten a lot of the later parts of FFVIII, characterization-wise, so I can't be sure whether my memories are accurate. I do recall something along the lines of Squall having his big "I've been a fool to push away people" moment much later, walking along the Fisherman's Horizon bridge carrying an unconscious Rinoa on his back, and it made a huge impression on me.

But I don't know if it would have the same impact if Squall had been portrayed as softer than the English dialogue shows him as.

Having said that, Squall is very abrasive and insufferable early in the game, and I admit I don't know if I would have been able to tolerate him now, when my leisure time is more at a premium and I'm more willing to abandon games. So I'd like a softer Squall as a person, but I don't know if he would be a better character.

A lot of the characterization, at least from reading the Japanese script, is showing Squall being abrasive, and how this is wrong, or at least counter-productive even in a strict utilitarian efficiency sense. So at least some abrasiveness is necessary, and I think the differences between languages is just negotiating how much abrasiveness is present.
 
I can see that; you make a fair point. It's certainly an interesting study in how much a few subtle changes can do to paint a different picture.
 
E.I.G. said:
Is it appropriate to give the answer to the diary location question?
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I'm pretty sure it's come up ingame and in thread before, assuming it's the entries that are shoved in the classroom terminals, so probably fine.

Plus lets be honest, there is like a negative percent chance that Omi figures out of all things he has to go back to school and slap his desk to get access to Selphie's inner thoughts all on his own.
 
McFluffles said:
I'm pretty sure it's come up ingame and in thread before, assuming it's the entries that are shoved in the classroom terminals, so probably fine.

Plus lets be honest, there is like a negative percent chance that Omi figures out of all things he has to go back to school and slap his desk to get access to Selphie's inner thoughts all on his own.
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I'm waiting for the reaction to her posting her diary on a public website.
However, I think someone else has mentioned it while I was unsure about saying anything.
 
Omicron said:

Esthar.

This is a visual pun. Do you get it? Laguna is looking at a lagoon.

I love it. It's a travelogue! Laguna "Anthony Bourdain!" Loire!

I do wonder, though. We haven't seen Laguna in a while, and… Hm.

Basically, I'm wondering if these Timber Maniac logs aren't there as a stand-in for cut content. If we weren't originally meant to actually go on those trips with Laguna in further flashback sequences, watching him visit Esthar and whatnot, but then dev time got too short to implement them and so they defaulted to these to tell us 'btw Laguna went on all these journeys.'

No way to know, for now. But it's nice to know he got to live out his dream.
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Meanwhile, inside the Presidential Office in Esthar, a man sneezes.
 
Omi is ahead of me now, I think. I'd only gotten to the School Festival conclusion before I paused for a while to play other games, and currently my desktop is unavailable - it's at a PC shop getting new parts installed - so I won't be able to catch up this week either.

What was that other sidequest people were talking about regarding the trading card game? I just remember dueling the card kings at school around there.
 
Actually, since Omicron brought up a question about Steal in FF9 earlier, should someone explain the various hidden actions you can do in the prologue to boost Zidane's success rate with that action when we finally reach it sometime in the 2030s?
 
Mizu said:
Omi is ahead of me now, I think. I'd only gotten to the School Festival conclusion before I paused for a while to play other games, and currently my desktop is unavailable - it's at a PC shop getting new parts installed - so I won't be able to catch up this week either.

What was that other sidequest people were talking about regarding the trading card game? I just remember dueling the card kings at school around there.
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The Card Queen. She moves between towns after you lose to her and then leave the screen, if you lose specific cards to her and she's (already in/moving to) Dollet she drops them with her dad, who creates a new card Somewhere Else and gives the original to her son.
 
wetodet said:
Actually, since Omicron brought up a question about Steal in FF9 earlier, should someone explain the various hidden actions you can do in the prologue to boost Zidane's success rate with that action when we finally reach it sometime in the 2030s?
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After looking it up, as far as I can tell there aren't any kind of hidden actions or anything that boost Zidane's Steal rates. It's just two rolls of the dice whenever you try to steal, one for accuracy/if the steal actually connects, and one for which "slot" in the enemy inventory you manage to steal from. There are two abilities that you can get which remove the first accuracy check and increase the rare item steal chance eventually, though.
 
McFluffles said:
After looking it up, as far as I can tell there aren't any kind of hidden actions or anything that boost Zidane's Steal rates. It's just two rolls of the dice whenever you try to steal, one for accuracy/if the steal actually connects, and one for which "slot" in the enemy inventory you manage to steal from. There are two abilities that you can get which remove the first accuracy check and increase the rare item steal chance eventually, though.
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Huh, I'd heard there was a thing where having one of the temporary party members use Steal would boost Zidane's rates later. Must have been one of those video game myths.
 
wetodet said:
Huh, I'd heard there was a thing where having one of the temporary party members use Steal would boost Zidane's rates later. Must have been one of those video game myths.
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Successful Steals boost up Thievery, no matter who stole. Marcus, Cinna and Blank all ahve the Steal command, so you can use them to increase Thievery damage when Zidane isn't in the party (or steal with Zidane and Blank in the 5 minutes when you have them both in the party).
TBH it's better to use every opportunity to Steal, at 30 Speed Thievery gains around 15 damage for every successful Steal. Increasing Speed works, but for that amount of grinding you can max out Thievery.
 
So, to bring up FF Tactics for a minute...

Does anyone else feel that the Delita and 'Game of Thrones-lite' plot was more interesting than the stuff with the Lucavi?

I kind of brought it up because the idea of "FF moving away from Fantasy" just got brought up and IIRC someone way earlier mentioned how there was definitely a period where the games had 'mundane' plots that were then overtaken by the Greater World-Ending Evil so I just thought of it again.
 
RogueIce said:
So, to bring up FF Tactics for a minute...

Does anyone else feel that the Delita and 'Game of Thrones-lite' plot was more interesting than the stuff with the Lucavi?

I kind of brought it up because the idea of "FF moving away from Fantasy" just got brought up and IIRC someone way earlier mentioned how there was definitely a period where the games had 'mundane' plots that were then overtaken by the Greater World-Ending Evil so I just thought of it again.
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No, you're completely right and I wish that more games stuck to the politics angle instead of shoving it to the side for magical ancient evils. It happened in Tactics, it happened in 16, and it sorta happened in 12 and it was lame every time. I think Heavensward's the only time where it *didn't* happen in a politics-heavy Final Fantasy story, probably because the ancient evil (that being Nidhogg) was intimately entwined with the major political issues from the very start.

If we're stretching outside of Final Fantasy to related works, Tactics Ogre is another game where it doesn't happen.
 
RogueIce said:
So, to bring up FF Tactics for a minute...

Does anyone else feel that the Delita and 'Game of Thrones-lite' plot was more interesting than the stuff with the Lucavi?

I kind of brought it up because the idea of "FF moving away from Fantasy" just got brought up and IIRC someone way earlier mentioned how there was definitely a period where the games had 'mundane' plots that were then overtaken by the Greater World-Ending Evil so I just thought of it again.
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Oh no absolutely, I definitely enjoy tactics, but when I think back to the parts that stuck with me it was the political aspect that I remember. With the Lucavi and all it's like "oh yeah and then the game did That Thing again."

Which definitely explains why I glommed onto Tactics Ogre as hard as I did once I got around to playing it.
 
GilliamYaeger said:
No, you're completely right and I wish that more games stuck to the politics angle instead of shoving it to the side for magical ancient evils. It happened in Tactics, it happened in 16, and it sorta happened in 12 and it was lame every time. I think Heavensward's the only time where it *didn't* happen in a politics-heavy Final Fantasy story, probably because the ancient evil (that being Nidhogg) was intimately entwined with the major political issues from the very start.

If we're stretching outside of Final Fantasy to related works, Tactics Ogre is another game where it doesn't happen.
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I personally liked how it was handled in 16, with the Mothercrystals, Eikons, and even humanity itself being part of Ultima's at minimum centuries long plan to remake the world how it wanted.
 
I love how the last bit of Tactics Ogre LUCT is the stupidest Dark Knights trying their best to ditch the politics angle in favor of the magical ancient evil stuff while their boss (who has a whole game's experience as protagonist whose life was ruined having to deal with sealed evil bullshit) goes "fuck this" and just leaves when the politics is over, escaping the incoming protagonist via Exit Stage Left. The Dark Knights who stay wind up unsealing the magical evil, clearly expecting a power up, and then...nada. They even complain about it, right before you catch up to them and put them down;

Martym: Is that all? I had expected something... more.
Barbas: ...Indeed.

(of course then the evil gate opens and lets out the last boss, but he's basically disconnected from the plot besides his role in the backstory and so you smack him back in the pit and move on to the epilogues)
 
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Derek58 said:
I personally liked how it was handled in 16, with the Mothercrystals, Eikons, and even humanity itself being part of Ultima's at minimum centuries long plan to remake the world how it wanted.
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I, on the other hand, really didn't care for Ultima and Barnabas as antagonists (at least until the literal end of the game where Ultima shows his true colors as a spiteful, petty bitch as he basically spits "YOU DIDN'T WIN" at Clive with his dying breath, which was amazing). They really fell flat for me compared to the more "mundane" antagonists like Hugo and Anabella, especially since the focus of the story drifted firmly away from difficult, heavy issues like slavery and institutional racism in favor of stopping the big stupid evil guy from enacting his big stupid evil plan. No need to tackle the long, difficult road of changing society, just punch this dude in the face and it's all fixed! Lame.

Barnabas was especially bad since he's super under-developed because of how late he walks into the main plot and how little time there is between Clive meeting him and killing him. He should have appeared way earlier and more often, because as things stand you basically go from being completely helpless against him to matching him in combat to beating him in the span of an hour! You don't even have time to pretend that Clive got meaningfully stronger between that first fight and the last! It's absolutely insane!

And like, they could have done an awful lot more with the magical slavery thing! The people of that world were so ridiculously over-reliant on magical slaves that they were literally helpless without them! They didn't even know how to CREATE FUCKING FIRE without forcing a Branded to start one with magic! That's both horrifying and really interesting! I'm way more interested in that shit than I am in Clive's creepy alien stalker.

Shinji117 said:
I love how the last bit of Tactics Ogre LUCT is the stupidest Dark Knights trying their best to ditch the politics angle in favor of the magical ancient evil stuff while their boss (who has a whole game's experience as protagonist whose life was ruining having to deal with sealed evil bullshit) goes "fuck this" and just leaves when the politics is over, escaping the incoming protagonist via Exit Stage Left. The Dark Knights who stay wind up unsealing the magical evil, clearly expecting a power up, and then...nada. They even complain about it, right before you catch up to them and put them down;

Martym: Is that all? I had expected something... more.
Barbas: ...Indeed.

(of course then the evil gate opens and lets out the last boss, but he's basically disconnected from the plot besides his role in the backstory and so you smack him back in the pit and move on to the epilogues)
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It's so fucking good holy shit. A 10/10 finale for a 10/10 story.
 
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GilliamYaeger said:
Barnabas was especially bad since he's super under-developed because of how late he walks into the main plot and how little time there is between Clive meeting him and killing him. He should have appeared way earlier and more often, because as things stand you basically go from being completely helpless against him to matching him in combat to beating him in the span of an hour! You don't even have time to pretend that Clive got meaningfully stronger between that first fight and the last! It's absolutely insane!
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I completely agree with you here. Barnabas showing up and effortlessly beating Clive, and then Shiva without even becoming Odin was an awful way to have him first directly interact with the player. Especially because it's in a cutscene where Clive fights far worse than the player would at this point.

Having him show up much earlier in the game like you said, and the player have a hopeless boss fight against him, maybe with only one or two Eikon powers, like the second (first actual)fight would've been much better.

It also didn't help that Barnabas was a thoroughly awful character ontop of the above. All he fucking does is go on and on and on about how free will is a mistake and Clive should just give up and let Ultima control him. I got so sick of it that i just muted my TV whenever he spoke :sour:
 
GilliamYaeger said:
No, you're completely right and I wish that more games stuck to the politics angle instead of shoving it to the side for magical ancient evils. It happened in Tactics, it happened in 16, and it sorta happened in 12 and it was lame every time. I think Heavensward's the only time where it *didn't* happen in a politics-heavy Final Fantasy story, probably because the ancient evil (that being Nidhogg) was intimately entwined with the major political issues from the very start.
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Do note that the games that shove politics aside for the ancient evil space flea are also console games that required a definitive ending or at least end point. Unless you want the Hamlet type ending that Tactics went with, politics doesn't really end, or resolve in a satisfactory way so ending with your character in a kind of limbo while nations proceed with talks and agreements and compromises which are on going because it's all complicated and messy and there's no real solution to politics.
 
I'm also gonna go against the grain and say while Vayne himself is great, his entire political plot stuff is easily the worst part of XII's narrative and for once I would say Mystical god Things Manipulating Things is the more interesting thing in an Ivalice game just because of how wtf the Occuria are. It doesn't help that for like 90% of the game the cast barely has any involvement in any of said political shenanigans. An entire resistance army is being brokered and gathered in the background and you have NOTHING to do with it!
 
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