Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]

[SerGregness]

Ah, well. It was just a transition, I guess. Let's check out what's going on with Sabin, it can't possibly be that big a deal.

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Tell me you wrote that after having played through all of it.

Cyan's chief command is !Bushido, which at this stage of the game, has two commands, Fang and Sky, each one a sword move; they must 'build up power' before they are unleashed, and I'm not clear on how that works. Fang is a straightforward damage move, and Sky is a counter; the first time I use Sky it doesn't do anything, but the second time it responds to the Captain's attack with a devastating 660 damage attack, higher than anything I've used so far.

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So, Cyan's Bushido command was on the receiving end of some of the heftiest QOL changes in the whole game for the Pixel Remaster. In the SNES version, you would select Bushido (actually "SwdTech" in that version), and then a bar would pop up with numbers 1-X, with the techniques you hadn't learned yet having the numbers greyed out. You would literally have to sit there waiting for the gauge to fill to the level of the technique you wanted to use, and then confirm to launch it. This means that considering lategame character speeds, and final technique charge times meaning that trying to use his super moves would cost you entire turns with your other characters as your whole group has to sit there while he charges. Now, you select the technique you want, and that bar basically just charges in the background so you can control the rest of your party.

Huge usability buff.

The attack on Castle Doma is repelled, and the day is saved!

I absolutely love this, by the way? "Old supremely skilled swordsman decides to turn the lost battle around by personally walking out and challenging the enemy commander to single combat and winning and it works" is so much my jam I came already pre-sold and am sold even more by actually playing through it.

Great job, everyone, end of scenario.

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It doesn't look like you tried it, but you actually have the option there of trying to fight the soldiers attacking the walls as well by walking up to their sprites instead of going right for the commander. It's not necessary, but it's neat they let you do it if you want. You might be tempted to try grinding a level or getting a feel for Cyan before tackling the captain out of a sense of caution.

On the other hand what the fuck kind of magic poison is that lmao.

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Time is a tyrant best usurped.

 

[Zimmerwald1915]

The poison water is definitely magic, Kefka might be a total phony when he comes to his own power but he definitely trapped a poison elemental or something.

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Consider that Kefka might not be a total phony when it comes to his own power, but spent the last few minutes pumping !Bio spells into the river, which dissolved momentarily but precipitated as they were carried through castle by the river and that the fumes did their work therein (Cyan, being a player character, was more resilient than most).

 

[Cataquack]

Honestly, Cyan surviving this at all is something of a plot hole, and it's never really explained despite the fact everyone else drops dead pretty much at once. Including people he was standing next to. It works for pathos certainly, but it's not something that holds up to scrutiny.

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I kind of have a theory on that, based on that line in his intro saying "he fears not even death", but since it has some spoilers for later on in this arc, I'll hold off on the theory for now. Though it doesn't explain the other survivor.

 

[SerGregness]

If we're entertaining the poison fumes hypothesis, I think you don't actually need to go so far as 'cyan lived because cast member' when that other guard who was right next to him also survived. It was perhaps some kind of heavier-than-air toxin that killed everyone on the walls and in the castle, but Cyan and that last guard on top of the keep might have been high enough to not be exposed.

This is, of course, thinking about this entirely too much.

 

[Alectai]

If we're entertaining the poison fumes hypothesis, I think you don't actually need to go so far as 'cyan lived because cast member' when that other guard who was right next to him also survived. It was perhaps some kind of heavier-than-air toxin that killed everyone on the walls and in the castle, but Cyan and that last guard on top of the keep might have been high enough to not be exposed.

This is, of course, thinking about this entirely too much.

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Isn't that other guy never seen again after this? If he does actually outlive it though, that would be a reasonable explanation of what the fuck happened.

 

[Tempera]

Anyway, fighting on the raft is another thing that really speaks of the game being conceived from a 2D standpoint. I can imagine a 3D port that uses turn-based combat on static backgrounds (like, say, Dragon Quest VIII) would be able to render this section of the game adequately, so if that was the direction a 3D remake went, it might handle it decently. But can anybody think of any way to make a 3D version of the fight on the raft in the middle of the rapids against Ultron work in an action-based 3D fighting style? Because I'm very doubtful that could be made to work properly.

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The Ultros fight is basically a bog-standard fight for 3D action games nowadays.

You can have the boss itself be attackable across the side of the raft while you dodge incoming attacks, or diverge slightly by having him attack with tentacles that you need to attack and damage, causing Ultros' head to slump forwards and become briefly targetable.

At some point, Ultros retreats, and you're forced into a damage race with more limited ranged attacks as he retaliates against your special moves with his own special moves.

This is honestly like extremely standard boss design. You can find examples of all of this in the God of War series, Nier Automata, Guardians of the Galaxy, Genshin Impact, Dragon's Dogma, a huge variety of games. It's been iterated on so much that it would actually be more notable if they completely changed the fight and did something new with it.

 

[Amidatelion]

Honestly, I don't get what's so hard to understand about that scene.

Everyone knows how seriously those Domans take their ritualistic coordinated water-drinking hour.

 

[Connelly]

This is definitely an intriguing morsel of characterization that I'll be thinking about.

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"I could be hitting on men as well... but, you know... why?"

Okay, show of hands, which ones of you were quietly laughing when I did that whole spiel about the comedy of character sprites vs enemy sprites, knowing full well that there was going to be a Kefka battle in which Kefka is using a character sprite.

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*lifts hand while giggling like a dog*

It's not actually a "Everyone drinks the water" bit going on, it's pretty much more of a nerve gas attack by all indications that has him drop some horrifying chemical weapon into the river and its byproducts are giga poison, that Cyan survived because he was just that fucking hard, or presumably had been poisoned in one of his youthful adventures or something and thus developed a tolerance to similar such attacks (Or something).

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Or that.

Owain (Cyan's son)

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FFXIV related fun fact: the names Cyan and Owain are Woolseyisms. Cyan is, in Japanese, called Cayenne. Or, as its spelled in katakana, Kaien. Owain's Japanese name is Shun.

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I find curious how this tragic toddler ended up becoming this (yet another) himbo in FFXIV.

True, sadly, Interceptor is not playable.

on the other hand, holy shit is he a dope support, can block hits for Shadow (works as a flat 50% chance to block physical attacks according to the wiki) and can counter attack for him.

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His name being Interceptor is not for the lulz, lets just say.

Yeah, I would honestly be unsurprised if Gestahl had decided to remove Leo from Doma entirely because it's taking too long, and he knew Kefka would instead immediately go "OH BOY WAR CRIMES" when given command.

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You know, I always thought that was all Kefka and a fake message.

As for the poison. Water courses all through Doma, and it's not hard to think Kefka might have used something that reacted with the water to form colorless and odorless fumes, with the coloring being purely a visual help for the players.

I'd like to say that we're not told how much time has passed, but that falls a bit flat for events happening just immediately after our current stopping point.

 

[pedanterrific]

That attachment from Western designer to preserve the 'exoticism' in the Samurai when translating it from a language where it isn't exotic is just… interesting, to me.

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I guess it's the reverse of naming an attack "Falcon Punch" or "Shining Finger", and the inverse of changing "Tina" to "Terra."

Here I think the crouching sprite is meant to represent him leaning to pour the poison into the river, but just generally speaking that crouching sprite exudes so much malicious energy it's a vital part of Kefka's character.

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The way his big ruffled collar hikes up to hide half his head and his long, brightly-colored cape pools on the dirt... he's truly going goblin mode here, I love it.

 

[GilliamYaeger]

on the other hand, holy shit is he a dope support, can block hits for Shadow (works as a flat 50% chance to block physical attacks according to the wiki) and can counter attack for him.

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Fun fact: Interceptor is actually a status effect. Via shenanigans that I'm almost certain have been patched out in the Pixel Remake you could actually permanently pass him around to other party members because of this.

 

[Zaealix]

OKAY!
I have a good hit of commentary here.
>Cyan sucking because slow and no one else can move while he does his swordtech.
That is not my experience and I think it's down to me selecting the 'wait' style of combat. Not going to comment on the slow part-he probably was slow but I didn't care because he's so cool!(I was like, 6)

But also…I'm noticing what's either numbers fidgety or signs that I did too much grinding as a kid-In my memories and general experience, Banon has a little over a thousand HP at his max when he joins up.

… The Keflavik sprite thing might have crossed my mind but I must not have connected the dots. So no quiet laughter from me.

…That said? You should try playing peacemaker a bit.

Spoiler: Just gonna spoiler this

This is very minor but I remember something about Shadow sleeping in beds to unlock cutscenes, but you have to get some now and some later, and Castle Doma is one of those beds?

 

[McFluffles]

You know, I always thought that was all Kefka and a fake message.

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True, considering Kefka being Kefka this is also entirely possible.

Fun fact: Interceptor is actually a status effect. Via shenanigans that I'm almost certain have been patched out in the Pixel Remake you could actually permanently pass him around to other party members because of this.

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You could even transfer Interceptor to your enemies with said shenanigans, if you wanted to.

I mean, then you lose him permanently when said enemy dies, but still, programming jank with how they get certain things to work is always funny.

>Cyan sucking because slow and no one else can move while he does his swordtech.
That is not my experience and I think it's down to me selecting the 'wait' style of combat. Not going to comment on the slow part-he probably was slow but I didn't care because he's so cool!(I was like, 6)

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I could have sworn part of the problem is that even in Wait mode, Cyan's charge times don't count as being "in a menu" so enemies still get turns while you're charging. But yes, Cyan is still totally cool, I like the guy... he's just mechanically a bit lackluster compared to many of your other options. Heck, Sabin is right there in the current scenario with his Blitzes, popping out cool attacks without the long charge time, and Edgar gets a similar thing with Tools. !Bushido is a cool idea, and the remaster making it so you don't have to wait in Cyan's menus during the charge time does help a lot, though time will tell if that helps with his later attacks that have longer charge times as I continue to play through.

At the least, I hope to give every character a fair shake, even the ones like Cyan and a few others I've regularly shafted in previous playthroughs of FFVI.

 

[SerGregness]

I'll have to defend Cyan's honor later on when I won't have to do it behind a wall of spoiler text.

Safe to say, he was a powerhouse for me during my playthrough last year.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

I realize that Kefka may be hiding his power level from his fellow generals, but like. I have met this dude twice, and it's already clear that he's the fucking Joker. He has zero sense of morality and delights in suffering. There is no way Leo failed to recognize this unless he's completely oblivious, or, like… Blinded by his own implicit trust in his fellow man? So loyal to the Empire that he doesn't realize that it is not, in fact, an organization which fosters righteous behavior, but instead rewards rampant sociopathic behavior? Maybe that's the tragedy of Leo, that he was incapable of seeing the true evil in the hearts of the men standing by his side? But there is something comical to him saying 'Try not to forget our enemies' humanity' to the literal evil clown who laughs while burning people alive and putting slave crowns on people then testing them with live fire against his own soldiers.

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Honestly, besides comical levels of faith in Kefka, I think it shows comical levels of faith in the Emperor, the guy who keeps Kefka around. Because the timing of this recall makes me think this is deliberate, with the Emperor wanting Kefka to do what Leon will not.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

 

[SirKaid]

Leo being the "one good Imperial general" has about as much weight for me, personally, as Rommel being the "one good Nazi general". At the end of the day, he's still a fascist.

Though I do find it sort of interesting that the one black dude in the game is presented as this noble figure, especially when contrasted with how black men are often just presented as token angry buff guys.

 

[Frumple]

I'll have to defend Cyan's honor later on when I won't have to do it behind a wall of spoiler text.

Safe to say, he was a powerhouse for me during my playthrough last year.

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Eh... I used him a fair amount in the old days, but his sword tech (or at least the higher levels of it) was always kinda' poo. Execution was genuinely too damn slow for everything but the first few levels of it, for all some of stronger stuff was pretty fancy and/or hard hitting. Someone (sometimes the enemy) could wipe the screen three times with AoE tech by the time poor Cyan could do it once, and worse, unlike with Blitzes, Cyan's input was boring (you just wait) and time consuming. It was like the downgraded middle ground between Edgar's ease of use and Sabin's fighting game shenanigans.

Any case, kudos to remaster for the QoL change. It's the first thing I've noticed so far that really stands out as a major improvement from the FF3 version, heh.

... anyway, I remember totally loving the general design of that base camp, back in the day. The little details and the mecha strewn around and the loot and whatnot was just great. Does kinda' feel like Omi blitzed (heh) through it while skipping a lot, though, unless the remaster cut some stuff or I'm forgetting how the order of things went... maybe that stuff'll be the next update? Could have sworn you needed to do it prior to chasing down Kefka.

 

[crankers]

Oh yeah; one more thing. The main map around Doma Castle has an enemy called the Stray Cat. If you haven't yet, you're going to want to fight at least one.

Fun fact: Interceptor is actually a status effect. Via shenanigans that I'm almost certain have been patched out in the Pixel Remake you could actually permanently pass him around to other party members because of this.

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Yeah, but some enemies can do the exact same thing to get him themselves. And if you kill one while they have Interceptor, he's gone forever.

 

[FunkyEntropy]

@Omicron the next town you reach will have a bedridden dude. The game is really bad about telling you what to do here so we're agreed that this is an instance where it's ok to fill you in a bit. Just talk to the guy, do what the game tells you, EXIT TOWN (talking to a vendor might be enough, but exiting town definitely works), reenter, rinse and repeat. You will do this like five times before the game indirectly tells you you're done.

 

[Saint_007]

​

This is definitely an intriguing morsel of characterization that I'll be thinking about.

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Funny how Edgar is the opposite of Frederick the Great regarding men and women.

but that he "may decide to leave him at any time…"

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I'm gonna warn you now, save. Shadow wasn't lying when he said he can leave your party at any time. After every battle until an event where he's stuck with you, he has a chance of just leavening.

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Yeah, that's the biggest pain about picking up Shadow early-game.

Cyan's chief command is !Bushido, which at this stage of the game, has two commands, Fang and Sky, each one a sword move; they must 'build up power' before they are unleashed, and I'm not clear on how that works. Fang is a straightforward damage move, and Sky is a counter; the first time I use Sky it doesn't do anything, but the second time it responds to the Captain's attack with a devastating 660 damage attack, higher than anything I've used so far.

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Back in the old Woolsey translation, "Fang" was called "Dispatch", and "Sky" was "Retort", which explains its job better.

Anyway, as far combat goes, I'm not even sure Kefka can fight. I didn't bother waiting for him to move, and on the first attack he receives, a cutscene immediately plays out; Sabin says "Kefka, wait!" and braces for a Blitz attack, and Kefka understandably refuses to play along and escapes:

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Weirdly, in one of my runs on emulator, I used cheats to get everyone to lvl 99, and Sabin just flattens him with a Blitz, only for Kefka to get right back up like nothing happened and make the joke.

On the other hand what the fuck kind of magic poison is that lmao.

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Plot Poison. The DM isn't going to wait a few days for everyone to die, since Sabin needs to reach Narshe ASAP

Oh, man, you bet I was waiting for this to come up, because the workaround that the creators used is actually incredibly cool. See, during this scene, you have two characters in your party, right? Three, max, once Cyan joins up. But there's a fourth slot left over. So who's the fourth?

Kefka. Kefka is the fourth person in your party. Kefka, within the game's code, has an entire playable-character slot. The game adds him to the party, not displaying his name or anything else about him, not placing him under the player's command, and then drops him out the moment the scene ends. This means that during these scenes, which are heavily scripted, Kefka can use the same elaborate sprites and motions that a party member can.

Indeed, several other pseudo-battle cutscenes will happen over the course of the game, and they use the same method: add an NPC into the party without displaying them to be in the party, and then have them do the things that only a member of the party can do.

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Huh, that's an actually neat workaround.

Watch the SNES version of Cyan's first fight here to get an idea of his pre-2014 gameplay:

View: https://youtu.be/iGNskqYu2_0?t=12721

In the old version, you just had to sit there and wait for the number of your preferred tech, and none of the other player characters could act at the same time. It was awful.

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So !Bushido... in older versions of the game, the building up power was a literal second atb bar where you had to wait for it to charge to each level of attack before using it. Fang would be near instant, but Sky would be longer, and so on. And key to this? Nobody else cluld take turns while waiting for Cyan to charge.

Pixel Remaster just lets you select one then slaps invisible charge times on instead, which is frankly a much-needed buff to someone often seen as one of the worst characters in the game... but we'll get there with the analysis.

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Huge usability buff.

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It was a real goddamn pain to wait for the thing to charge, especially since nobody else could act, which is why Cyan ended up being on the lower rungs of character favorites polls. He can do some great damage, but waiting so long for good damage was frustrating, especially since none of your other heavy hitters or any healers can do anything in the meantime while you sit there and charge Cyan's attack. Changing it in the Pixel Remaster is definitely a giant step up.

True, sadly, Interceptor is not playable.

on the other hand, holy shit is he a dope support, can block hits for Shadow (works as a flat 50% chance to block physical attacks according to the wiki) and can counter attack for him.

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And that is why he truly is a good dog.

And now, new character analysis time!

Shadow is a suprisingly physically strong character for a ninja archetype, having both the second highest speed in the game behind Locke and good physical stats. In fact, even his magic isn't that bad, if you line up every single character he doesn't have anything that could be considered a straight dump stat. Add in that the !Throw command is plenty versatile between cheap shurikens, more scrolls than FFV which only had the elemental ones (Invisible in particular is a neat status effect, dropping your magic evasion to zero but automatically dodging all physical attacks until hit by magic), and of course the mentioned Interceptor bits above, and he's a top tier party member.

Only problem is, as he says Shadow comes and goes like the wind. At this point in the game, he has something like a 1/16 chance after every single fight to go "Alright see you later" and just leave the party, taking any equipment he has (including relics) with him, so be wary of that.

As for Cyan, well... he has a reputation as being one of the worst characters in the game, sadly. He does have some very solid physical stats, but those are somewhat offset by his bad magical stats and his absolutely abysmal speed. Seriously, I have him the Hermes Sandals for this scenario and that was still often barely enough to keep up with Shadow's normal ATB speed. And then !Bushido... on the surface, it isn't bad, and it's usually fine this early on. However, the stronger Bushido abilities he learns, the longer they take to charge. It's not quite as devastating as it was in older versions where you flat out had to wait for his second ATB bar to charge (as shown in the video Compellor linked above) since now you just fire and forget, but it still isn't the greatest. Plus, being restricted to a single weapon type in Katanas means he'll occasionally run into that wall of "I haven't found a new weapon for Cyan in the last 4 hours". Low natural speed + needs even more time to charge just... makes a character who has issues. He's still perfectly playable, but it's issues to keep in mind.

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That pretty much sums it up about our new characters.

Oh yeah; one more thing. The main map around Doma Castle has an enemy called the Stray Cat. If you haven't yet, you're going to want to fight at least one.

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Oh right. Let's just say it's important for the next step, even if the usefulness doesn't appear for a bit.

 

[illhousen]

Cyan is the only character so far who benefits from being in the front row, clearly marking him as unworthy of the Rear Gang.

 

[Adloquium]

Cyan is the only character so far who benefits from being in the front row, clearly marking him as unworthy of the Rear Gang.

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As far as I can tell, Bushido ignores row, so Cyan gets to join the cool kids in the back.

 

[Saint_007]

Cyan is the only character so far who benefits from being in the front row, clearly marking him as unworthy of the Rear Gang.

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Cyan is rather beefy, and can pack a punch. He's front row fodder, but a pretty decent tank.

As far as I can tell, Bushido ignores row, so Cyan gets to join the cool kids in the back.

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Huh, didn't know that.

 

[BLARGHER]

You could even transfer Interceptor to your enemies with said shenanigans, if you wanted to.

I mean, then you lose him permanently when said enemy dies, but still, programming jank with how they get certain things to work is always funny.

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Or if you're unlucky, even if you don't want to. This definitely didn't happen to me during my first playthrough, not at all.

 

[illhousen]

As far as I can tell, Bushido ignores row, so Cyan gets to join the cool kids in the back.

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Ah, so he's a backdoor man himself after all. Good to know.

 

[SerGregness]

It was a real goddamn pain to wait for the thing to charge, especially since nobody else could act, which is why Cyan ended up being on the lower rungs of character favorites polls. He can do some great damage, but waiting so long for good damage was frustrating, especially since none of your other heavy hitters or any healers can do anything in the meantime while you sit there and charge Cyan's attack. Changing it in the Pixel Remaster is definitely a giant step up.

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The way I handled this as a kid was just taking advantage of ATB and being quick at cycling through my other characters to give them orders, then while everyone else takes their turn, Cyan charges up a c-c-combo. Or you just tap the command twice to launch a Fang with almost no delay if the party synch is particularly bad. Firing off a Fang with the old input system was actually faster than Sabin's blitzes, and even though Fang only hits one enemy, it ignores defense so it's still pretty useful even into the late game.