Not necessarily; MAG is certainly a factor in deciding the summon's power, but not the only factor.
This won't be relevant for a while since monsters who drop them are hard to find, but the attack power of Eidolons is dependent on the number of gems you have in your inventory - Ramuh's magic power (in the longcast version) is equal to 32 + the number of Peridot (the gem) in your inventory, whereas Thundara's magic power is fixed at 29, and Bio is fixed at 42. The fact that the power of most Eidolons is variable (the shortcast form doesn't count the gems and is only 2/3 the power of the longcasts) is a possible mechanical explanation for the difference in performance.
Of note, aside from one who has fixed damage, Odin is the only exception to this rule, where the magic power of his attack is 145 - the numbers of Ore in your inventory, but the chance of the attack inflicting Instant Death (if the target is susceptible to it) is equal to your numbers of Ore. So... the amount of jewels still matters, but as typical for Odin, is a bit more convoluted than most other Eidolons.
So... it's not out of bounds that Brahne was just carrying a ton of a particular type of gems on her person; she does seems like the type, doesn't she?
That happens, I just feel bad about being unable to help dispel the confusion, but that's impossible to do without a clearer explanation of what, exactly, you are finding confusing. Hopefully things will get clearer for you as the game continues.
Could also have something to do with the difference between a standard summoner casting from their own magical power, and drawing out the summon entirely like Brahne has done and possibly hooking it up to some sort of Magic Battery for maximum power output.
Or of course it could just be ye ol' gameplay/story segregation, where they're giving the player summons but not making them nearly as devastating in gameplay as they are in the plot... not to mention Brahne so far has used a pair of presumably high-end summons. Atomos is a first-time summon but was still a massive wall of a boss in its one prior experience, but Odin is usually a late-game acquisition and one of the strongest summons around just short of things like Bahamut, after all.
Also, the way Brahne summons the eidolon seems to be a one-and-done deal. We see her using the Dark Matter in the FMV to summon Odin, but it's disappeared in the following shots.
Dagger meanwhile can summon them as much as her MP allows.
Seconded. Keep getting them in the forest until Mene tells you that you've found them all, dig all those you can (this will require crossing Gizamaluke's grotto, but that's fine since you can then deliver a Kupo Nut and, if you REALLY want Dagger to catch up in level, you can always go to the plateau and try your hand against the enemies there now that you're a bit more powerful), and then once you've dug out all those you can, head back to the forest and double-check to make sure you didn't unlock any new ones. There's tons of treasure you can get.
i hope you're already to wait an extra two weeks for the next update because i found one chocograph in a full one-hour session so at this rate we're not moving on to the next plot beat until mid-april
Well, at the same time... has there really been any reason for it to come up in the narrative? Even if Dagger knows about her summoning powers, summons themselves and said powers never came up until around when Odin went to do some Tree Trimming + Dagger gets captured by Zorn and Thorn, and at that point she's been swiftly knocked unconscious for a chunk of the plot or been busy escaping the castle right up until now.
Not saying it couldn't have come up, but I don't think it would be likely to do so unless it was some solo scene of Dagger musing to herself.
As for why it was never brought up... I think it's because it just doesn't seem relevant to Garnet, at least until the moment Zorn and Thorn suddenly show up and go "we figured out how to extract the summons and use them without Garnet's consent." The black mages and telepods alone are enough to give Brahne the confidence to conquer the known world. The magic of summoning itself seems to be basically forgotten, given how vague the description in the library of the magical jewel that was split into three is and how Garnet only identifies Odin as a creature from a myth.
Sure, in-character Dagger wouldn't have brought it up to Zidane unprompted. But that's why writers create scenarios when something needs to be explained?
No. If your character 1) has a unique magic power that is rare and special in the setting, 2) knows she has this power, 3) is afraid of using it, then your two possibilities are "this is treated later as a shocking reveal when she tells us she has this power," or the reader needs to know this information.
FF9's problem is that it makes the reader aware of 1, but not of 2 or 3. We know Dagger is a potential summoner, but nobody brings it up until after the eidolons have been drawn, so all we know is 2 and 3. We're left to infer an answer as to why she isn't summoning and why no one is talking about it.
If this is a dilemma Dagger is facing, we need to know before she resolves it. We can't learn that she knew about the summons but was afraid of using them in the same breath as her getting over it. That's not how writing works!! If there is no in-character reason for Dagger to disclose this information, then you have a hundred solutions to this issue, ranging from "flashbacks" to "inner monologue" to "contrive a scenario in which she brings it up" to "one of the antagonists gloats about it to Zidane."
I don't care if there was never a situation in which it would have come up until it was too late because the result is bad plotting. It was the writer's job to ensure a reason would present itself so we could have the information that's relevant to us, or, failing that, actually make it a twist. Like, you could have just have Dagger say "I... knew all along I had that power inside me... Even though I never talked about it to anyone..." and then everyone acts shocked, least of which because they went through multiple boss fights where that might be relevant and because it suddenly explains why all these Black Waltzes were so gung-ho on getting her back.
But no! This is not treated as a surprise to anyone. Dagger talks about the summon power as if the characters knew this entire time she had it and no one is bothered in the least.
It does feel like, that nobody was really aware of how strong the eidelons were either? Like, i guess Kuju would know through mysterious villain background stuff, but everyone else seems to mostly be working on a "Yeah, ancient lore says that summons are pretty strong, but that could mean anything from taking on Beatrix to takin-what do you mean they nuked an entire city like it was nothing"
This is definitely true and in no small part because, like.
Even the player wasn't aware of how strong the eidolons were.
The last times a summon has caused this level of wanton destruction were IV, where the much more low-fi graphics kinda obscured the scale of it, and VI, where it was the entire youth of the espers acting together that did this much damage. We've never seen Odin or Atomos visit such massive destruction anywhere before. It's completely new to the franchises.
It's the first game to say "the bad guy gets to use summons, and it's terrifying," and I kind of love it for that. It's very obvious that Odin and Atomos won't be quite so apocalyptic when we get our turn to use them, but that's easily justifiable with "Dagger only has her own mana and doesn't want to cause a localized apocalypse while Brahne was tapping into some Kuja-provided source."
IMO this is one of the more striking and interesting ideas in a game that has a lot of them.
ngl, having some flashbacks to Queen Brahne being an actual loving mother would genuinely help this game's so much. Right now her former goodness is a purely informed quality and she is one of the most comically over-the-top villains we've had in the whole franchise, with about as much depth as Exdeath. It would also really help having scenes of Brahne in which she's a serious/loving/tragic character instead of a continuous fat joke.
To be fair, it could also be that Garnet, for whatever reason, is instinctively doubtful of the idea that there could be any sort of advanced civilization on the Outer Continent at all? But if that was intended we could have definitely used more elaboration about that, because we still don't know anything more about the Outer Continent other than that it's spooky and mysterious.
I give it even odds between racist caricatures of tribal natives (of which Kuja is an exception, having found a magitech spaceship or something) and hyperadvanced civilization looking at the kingdoms of the Mist Continent with contempt.
making a wild gamble on this: the Outer Continent is post-apocalyptic after this game's version of the Ancients blew themselves up and Kuja is the last surviving Ancient with a cache of superweapons he retrieved from some ruined city
In addition to the problems you just described, don't forget that we've only been away from this worm for a little more than the duration of a timed sequence! Unless there was a very large gap during the fade to black after Garnet is captured, it must have moulted and metamorphed in the last... half hour, or so?
every time i am reminded of the game's internal timeline i black out and wake up with a hole in my memory until the next time someone draws it to my attention again
it is one of the most absurdly fast-paced games i have ever played in terms of "in-character timeline of events"
I agree with you, and we'll be seeing even more Tarzan stuff as the game goes along. Still, it's a quick turnaround time from Square, if we're right. Maybe they were inspired by early trailers or behind the scenes stuff, especially since one of the Tarzan influences later in the game is in a pre-rendered CG, and those took forever to make.
It's a little strange, thinking about the devastating attack on Lindblum and the use of another summon on a huge scale there. Because we saw Odin destroy Cleyra and eradicate all the survivors in an immense and horrific display of power. And that was such a tremendous event (genuinely a shocking move to leave Freya in such despair and make even your efforts to bring just a few characters to safety amount to nothing), it kind of tricked me into a false sense of security, assuming that Odin exploding another city/giant tree wouldn't be happening again so soon. But it has been established that multiple eidolons were extracted from Dagger, and it's perfectly logical that Brahne would use them again. So it's still a sobering thing to witness Atomos let loose on Lindblum like this.
Now that you have made this very astute point, YOLF, I invite you to go back into the update and hunt for which summons, exactly, are in Dagger's summon list at the start of the game.
The HD remaster is making the green guy look especially weird. From dreadlocks to what looks like a bizarre rocket pompadour? And what is going on with his neck?
This is an unintentionally funny dialogue box, entirely because the game wants the player to know this person is a Badass, but doesn't quite trust the player's ability to understand that.
The Japanese label for this character's dialogue box is 焔色の髪の男 "homura-iro no kami no otoko", ie "man with hair the colour of flames". Which is a suitably badass descriptor, but the game goes out of its way to specify the reading of 焔, with the game font's approximation of furigana. I suspect this might be because 焔色 could be seen as a fancy variant of 炎色 "enshoku", which does mean "flame-coloured" in the sense of "bright scarlet" or possibly "bright reddish orange".
The net effect is the dialogue box label going "guys, listen, this guy's hair is not flame-coloured, it's the colour of flames. That's an important difference."
Later dialogue box labels for this character omits the furigana, possibly because the point has been made.
...I actually know exactly how you'd render that in English.
You'd use French.
Not necessarily, like, actual French; but those French loanwords used as archaic or especially fancy in English.
I don't have an example for "the colour of flames" off the top of my head, but for instance, if you had a silver-haired man and you wanted the same effect, you might call him the argent-haired man.
It finally happened after 8 full games and hundreds of updates, we arrive here: the update parts got split by page break and messed up my notifications. Genuinely, I don't think that happened before?
i have literally been so worried about this happening that in the past i've contrived to have people post or make posts myself to nudge the page count to the point where i wouldn't get a split update, and just as i let my guard down it happens
...I actually know exactly how you'd render that in English.
You'd use French.
Not necessarily, like, actual French; but those French loanwords used as archaic or especially fancy in English.
I don't have an example for "the colour of flames" off the top of my head, but for instance, if you had a silver-haired man and you wanted the same effect, you might call him the argent-haired man.
Not to mention Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books, where the characters from our world speak in perfectly ordinary, straightforward English but everyone else and the descriptions of the world are done with the most overwrought thesaurus referencing imaginable, at least in the earlier books. (Lord Foul's Bane was Donaldson's very first novel and his writing skill increased as time went on.)
i hope you're already to wait an extra two weeks for the next update because i found one chocograph in a full one-hour session so at this rate we're not moving on to the next plot beat until mid-april
If I remember right, there's six at most, so it's going to be about a week, assuming one Chocograph per hour and one hour per day, plus one further day for anything other than Chocobo Hot&Cold you want to fit into the update.
Still, just to make sure, you are abusing the Save States to get eight treasures per attempt, right? It's the primary benefit to being playing the emulated version of the game, you should really take advantage of them to the maximum extent possible.
If I remember right, there's six at most, so it's going to be about a week, assuming one Chocograph per hour and one hour per day, plus one further day for anything other than Chocobo Hot&Cold you want to fit into the update.
Still, just to make sure, you are abusing the Save States to get eight treasures per attempt, right? It's the primary benefit to being playing the emulated version of the game, you should really take advantage of them to the maximum extent possible.
…now, this would raise the question of "why doesn't Vivi change his outfit," but that would require acknowledging the possibility that Vivi might even do that and answer the question "what does he look like if we take off his hat," and that's something the game does not want to do, so no one in the cast is allowed to acknowledge it. And I honestly am not bothered, it's just a necessary conceit for the fiction of Vivi to work; it's how Season 1 of The Mandalorian asks you not to think too hard about the logistics of Mando never taking his helmet off, and answering these questions in later seasons doesn't necessarily improve the story because it draws attention to these fine points of details. It's a story; nobody can take off Vivi's hat because we are not supposed to see what's under it because that's how Black Mages look. Don't think about it too hard.
Can Vivi change his outfit in the first place? Is he even wearing clothes? IIRC Black Mages are animated dolls, so it could be that Vivi's clothing is more like his flesh (in that it's what's keeping his innards inside) and if you pulled off his shirt there'd only be stuffing underneath.
Can Vivi change his outfit in the first place? Is he even wearing clothes? IIRC Black Mages are animated dolls, so it could be that Vivi's clothing is more like his flesh (in that it's what's keeping his innards inside) and if you pulled off his shirt there'd only be stuffing underneath.
That's entirely possible, but no one has made any remark to that effect in the game, so it's purely theoretical.
Like, it would be as easy as someone trying to take off Vivi's hat and then going "It's stuck!" while Vivi dangles underneath; you could convey "Vivi is a construct whose clothes are part of him and can't be taken off" very easily if you wanted to, but the game doesn't. It wants you to not think about it.
Can Vivi change his outfit in the first place? Is he even wearing clothes? IIRC Black Mages are animated dolls, so it could be that Vivi's clothing is more like his flesh (in that it's what's keeping his innards inside) and if you pulled off his shirt there'd only be stuffing underneath.
I did this on the original PS1, but I can't imagine that getting 8 treasures is something you can commonly do at Omi's point.
And even if you did, the things you lose are time, and gil (of which you don't really lose it since you find gil). The difference between 'redo a minute from a save state' and 'just play another round' is pretty minimal, and at least redoing a round will slowly tick up your beak level, point total, and minor item stocks.
If I remember right, there's six at most, so it's going to be about a week, assuming one Chocograph per hour and one hour per day, plus one further day for anything other than Chocobo Hot&Cold you want to fit into the update.
Still, just to make sure, you are abusing the Save States to get eight treasures per attempt, right? It's the primary benefit to being playing the emulated version of the game, you should really take advantage of them to the maximum extent possible.
Two things
1 there are 10 Chocobographs
2 it should not take that long it only took me a little over an hour to get all of them but I was also using save scum tricks which I recommend Omicron use
I didn't have save-scum tricks for Chocobo Hot And Cold, but I did have the fast-forward cheat, thus giving me more time per treasure. Probably works out to be the same advantage.
Anyway, FFXIV Dawntrail patch 7.2 has released, and we got two new remixes of FFIX tracks along with it. One of them is a song we've technically already heard, but I think it's better when we hear the other variation of the song in FFIX in the future.
The other is "Find The Princess". The FFIX version plays in the prologue when Zidane is looking for Princess Garnet, and Garnet for her part is looking for a way to escape the castle.
The FFXIV version is the BGM for the patch dungeon, and very different. For example, the opening harpsichord melody in the FFIX version is now placed at around 2:33 in the FFXIV version. The overall sound is also much more somber and melancholy.
Okay, I have to ask, is literally anything the chocographs yield actually worth spending multiple entire hours of your life grinding for? By all appearances the game already isn't hard, so unless the loot has like, lore implications, I really don't think it's that important.
Okay, I have to ask, is literally anything the chocographs yield actually worth spending multiple entire hours of your life grinding for? By all appearances the game already isn't hard, so unless the loot has like, lore implications, I really don't think it's that important.
There's a light story sequence locked behind getting some chocographs, yes.
People could manage it without the aid of savestates back in the day (been there, done that) and it's even easier now with save states. You just just need to use them to zero in on the dig locations because IIR the odds of finding good stuff goes up the more items you've found in a run. Granted it's not the most engaging thing in the world but its not terrible.
It's not really, because, as @FunkyEntropy mentioned, the positioning of treasures is determined at the start of the dig.
So, to clarify how using save states works here, you want to take the first peck at the starting position, and immediately save state.
See, the moment you take the first peck, the game doesn't just tells you that there's nothing in the spot you are, it randomly assigns the spot for where the item is hidden. Then, you play as normal, pecking to see where the treasure is located. Once you find it though, you must look at where the feet of Choco are (it's the position of the feet, not the head, that determines what the peck yields), then load the save states and immediately dart there; do it right, and you can get a treasure within 5 seconds of the timer.
After the treasure is acquired, you immediately peck right where you are, so that you can then save state the newly assigned position; once again, you look for the treasure, identify the position, load the save state and go for the dig directly. Repeat.
As was mentioned, the more items you've dug in a round, the more likely you are to get a better item; also, if you can dig eight item in a round, Mene will stop the round before the 60 seconds are up, meaning that some of the time you lost using save states is regained by shortening the round itself.
I'm also pretty sure that you can save-state the treasures themselves, that is, move to the location the treasure is, save state before you start digging, and then, if the item you dig isn't to your liking, you can load the save state and get something better, because the treasure is determined the moment you start to dig for it, but I'm not 100% sure. Even if that's the case though, you're not likely to easily find a Chocograph that way; it's easier to build up to 8 items each time, as the probabilities are skewed such that the more items you've retrieved in a round, the more likely the latter item is to be of greater value.
Plus, if you make 8 items each time, that's a lot of points you can accrue; not really important right now, but worth knowing.
Aside from the fact that it's fun, there's some things that can only be obtained through chocographs; also, some locations can only be accessed by getting the sidequest's ultimate reward, although most of that is stuff that'll only matter in late Disk 3.
It's nothing indispensable, but it is all nifty to have.
It is fun, it's just not quick. If you're a teenager with hours to waste, spending them playing the minigame is enjoyable.
If you're an adult with limited gaming time who wants to show off everything the game has to offer for a let's play, then using save states speeds up the process.
Different people, different situations, different ways to go about enjoying something.
To add a bit more perspective, Chocobo Hot And Cold using save states is less tedious and more engaging than using save states to manipulate Steal RNG. It is less chill and more fiddly than running in circles grinding AP for abilities.
In terms of rewards and consequence, it is about as consequential as "who won the Festival Of The Hunt"; you'd get rewards much earlier than you would otherwise, and for side lore I would say it has more to offer. The Festival Of The Hunt wins out for being just the one instance, and involving the same gaming skills the player has been using for the past several hours, while Chocobo Hot And Cold is a brand new mechanic.
Chocobo Hot And Cold is less tedious and less reliant on overall RNG than Tetra Master. (In the sense of Tetra Master requiring RNG to get cards.) I admit I don't know if save states would help speed up Tetra Master.
In other words, if the player is manipulating RNG using save states anyway for Steal success, Chocobo Hot And Cold should be at most the same level of effort.
Without save states, Chocobo Hot And Cold is clearly superior to Steal.
Of course, none of this matters if the player likes the gameplay of Steal, but doesn't like the gameplay of Chocobo Hot And Cold. In that case, it's entirely ignorable, like Ragtime Mouse/Mouth or Quina catching frogs or Tetra Master. (Or, in prior entries, Chocobo Breeding or winning Triple Triad character cards.)
I mean, you say that, but I'm pretty sure I fiddled around with it a little and didn't put in nearly the effort to get all the prizes before I got bored when I was young.
How many kingdoms are left (that we know of) on the Mist Continent? I mean, Alexandria just wiped out two and smashed a third in order to form its massive empire.
I mean, I'm offering my opinion; you're of course free to have your own, and we can disagree. I find boring plenty of things that people tell me are fun, it's hardly surprising that the opposite would be true as well. Different tastes.
So... it's not out of bounds that Brahne was just carrying a ton of a particular type of gems on her person; she does seems like the type, doesn't she?
...Actually, we've only seen her use them from her ship, right? If it's her ship and she's casting from the deck of it, would a cargo hold full of gems count as being in her inventory?
SolipsistSerpent said:
I mean, you say that, but I'm pretty sure I fiddled around with it a little and didn't put in nearly the effort to get all the prizes before I got bored when I was young.
I don't recall whether I used it for this specifically, but for a lot of more grindy gaming things when I was younger IIRC I'd just put an audiobook on the living room stereo. It even had a three-disc CD changer, meaning longer between manual swaps.
