The Last Remnant isn't exactly a masterpiece, but I appreciate it letting me throw 25 guys at my enemies simultaneously.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
They absolutely fell into that trap in the later games, but Dragon Age Origins, specifically, had ten party members and all of them had legitimately distinct characterization.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You can have distinct characterisation and still be a bit character. It's easier, even! Hell, Gau has distinct characterisation and I'm not sure FFVI even remembers he exists most of the time. One- or two- dimensional characters are easy to characterise; 'honourable' or 'wild boy' or 'gambler' are all characterisations that you can establish in a line or two.
Bioware games definitely all fall into the 'big pile of secondary-to-bit characters' category, due to how they work and how they need a big and diverse party to allow the PC to field the team they need. And much as I love him, Dog is not a significant character, and nor are most of your companions.
Final Fantasy VI, Part 13: The Esper Rollercoaster
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So!
Last time on Final Fantasy VI, we met Strago and Relm, and learned about a magical mountain range in the west where the espers are likely to be drawn to. Let's investigate!
This is mostly using the same environmental assets as Mount Kols. So far so familiar; move between various openings between the inside and the outside of the mountain, walk on drop floors to land somewhere in the corridor below, the works. There's just one twist, though. Every so often, from behind the group, we can see someone emerge and then just as quickly flee out of sight…
…yeah, no prize for guessing Relm didn't care about any order she was given and wanted to come with us anyway. Nor does the group spot her trailing them (terrible form, guys; this is why you need Shadow).
At the heart of the mountain, there is an… interesting room. On a raised dais, with a light well pouring sunlight on them, three gold statues have been erected, and the sight of them shocks Strago - and brings up a name we've heard before.
The 'Warring Triad.' That's the mysterious group which Kefka is planning to resurrect with the power of espers, isn't it?
Neither Locke nor Terra know anything about this Triad, and so it falls on Strago to explain it. The Warring Triad are gods of legend who created magic. Which means they also created the espers, who worshipped them in return. They are called the 'Warring Triad' because they were in eternal conflict, until eventually they grew tired and turned themselves to stone - a pretty radical action which seems to suggest the Triad didn't have a choice in their endless warring, they were in some way compelled to it by their nature. Now their petrified selves rest beyond the Sealed Gate, in the esper world.
In fact, examining the statues reveals even more details, some of them quite revelatory. The statues were erected in reverence to the Triad, but also as a warning that they should never be woken up again. They also go into more details regarding the full origins of espers:
Espers were once humans, who were caught among the Triad's fighting, transformed into magical beings and forced to fight endlessly as slaves to the gods, until the gods realized their fighting would never end and agreed to seal themselves away, returning the espers' free will with the last of their strength.
Their last words: "Never must we be woken."
Oooookay.
Okay so the militarization of espers is baked into their entire history. The Empire isn't just repeating the specific mistake of the War of the Magi which turned a peaceful civilization to war - the espers have always been caught in the cycle of violence and warfare, used as tools and weapons against their will, from the very start, from their very creation.
And they're humans, not a unique species of greater metaphysical nature - people, transformed by the warping effects of divine magic. Like the magi, only transformed even more profoundly. No wonder Maduin and Madeline could have a child, they're the same species, a history apart.
Not just people, though. Victims. Victims first of the Triads, turning them into weapons of war. Then of the magi. Then of the Empire.
…
I keep holding back on going on long tangents because I want to see what the game actually does with the whole esper/human cohabitation/history thing, because I don't want to project stuff I feel about other media onto the game before it's actually guilty of it. But, for instance, I have very complicated feelings regarding the 'persecuted magical minority' trope, especially when it's as plain as 'a category of people have special magical power which no one else has and does not affect them negatively in any way, and humanity decides to persecute these people because they're afraid,' but it's like two sentences in Strago's exposition, so I'm not going to go on a whole rant about it, I guess?
But now that we're delving more deeply into the history of the espers and how they have been constantly weaponized by others throughout history, hmmm. I'll have to see more and think about it.
Anyway, everyone agrees this sacred place to the espers is most likely where they would be drawn to and gather after sacking Vector, so on we goooo-
ULTROS, YOU UPSTART CALAMARI, HAVEN'T I KICKED YOUR ASS ENOUGH FOR A LIFETIME?
Ultros is here for the golden statues which, he declares, will 'finally get him some respect from Siegfried,' which-
Ultros, man. I'm sorry. I've met Siegrief. The fact that you are looking for respect from him is just - it's the most pathetic thing I've heard all week. I'm sorry, man. We're cool. Just take the statues and leave. It's fine. I hope you find a better life for yourself somewhere.
Okay, never mind, we have to fight him.
"I've got more lives than I do arms!"It's genuinely kind of impressive how even when he is trying to sound cool he just end up owning himself by accident.
This is more of a narrative beat than it is a real fight, we just have to shake him a few times with Thundara before Relm drops in.
Kid's got ego, I'll give her that. She asks Ultros his name, and Ultros gets offended that she would even dare to ask.
In a move that really shows the game's theatrical inspirations, Locke then leaves the party order and turns to the camera to address the audience, Greek Chorus like: "A pintsize virtuoso and an egotistical octopus… Do I even want to know what's next?"
Well, what's next is that Relm asks Ultros to pose for a portrait and the octopus refuses rather rudely, leading Relm to turn around and threaten to jump off a bridge to her death.
This is such a wildly over-the-top escalation it's legitimately hilarious, especially because everyone else's reaction is to bully Ultros into accepting to have his portrait drawn.
Ultros, threatened with a crying child, grudgingly agrees to have his picture painted, calling himself 'Uncle Ulty'. Then the group falls back into combat order and battle resumes, with Strago literally telling Relm to 'get over here,' as in in the standard Final Fantasy battle row, which is a very funny meta touch.
Then battle resumes with Relm added to the roster and us having access to her !Sketch command, but this is no longer a real boss fight. Although Ultros follows the reopening of hostility by casting a bunch of buffs on himself and then fake-apologizing for the cheap move, all we have to do is use Sketch, and…
Realm conjures up a perfect copy of Ultros, which uses his own Tentacle attack against him, but that's not what matters. What matters is that Ultros looks at his own picture, realizes he is just a 'washed-up old octopus,' and then immediately gets so depressed he runs away.
Peak comedy.
God that kid is such a brat.
Anyway, Strago gives up and allows Relm to stay with the group, as we always knew she would.
So.
Sketch.
It's the third Blue Magic in this game. When used on an opponent, it either misses or succeeds, in which case it randomly uses one of two abilities allocated to that opponent against them. And… that's it, I guess. It has the benefit of simplicity and of not requiring grinding, but it's another of those 'either you know what all the Sketches do and which enemies give one or you essentially have a randomizer that outputs unpredictable attacks each turn'.
Final Fantasy VI iterates a lot, I can certainly give it that. Each character has their own custom mechanic - more than one, when you consider that several characters can have their ability changed by the right Relic. It's definitely a game that's willing to push the boundary, and connecting each character's unique ability to their personality and history while still giving everybody access to the same Magicite and Magic system is a really interesting compromise between FFIV's character-driven approach that had some severe limitations when the mechanics pushed against the boundaries of what could be done with a character that was interesting (see Cecil spending the late game just spamming Attack and Kain just using Jump forever) and FFV's flexibility and customization.
…I think I prefer FFV's job system, though. It was… cleaner.
It makes a certain sense, for a game aimed primarily at children who'd either replay it over and over, slowly discovering how each individual thing worked in isolation and discovering new things they'd never known about the game with each playthrough, or guidebooks and magazines a d actually playing the game with them open cross-referencing everything. I know as a kid I would have been the latter, if given the chance. In the circumstances in which I'm playing it today, though, it often leaves me at a loss what to do with its mechanics.
Thankfully, just using Magic seems to work well enough as a fallback.
With Ultros defeated, nothing stands in our way, and we head for the depths of the caverns, where the espers are holed up - first we see a sylph, then a werewolf, and then dragons start showing up.
"I had no idea there were this many…"
"Gramps, take Relm and get out of here!"
The party now completely surrounded, they prepare to fight - until one esper steps forward, calling for everybody to stop. His name is Yura, and he is one of the more human-looking espers; he and Terra look at each other, and Strago, who had so far not noticed nothing out of the ordinary with her, now starts perceiving Terra's 'incredible power.' The group braces for another trance incident, but instead, the screen flashes with light, and some connection seems to establish between Terra and Yura.
The espers stand down, and both groups can now talk with each other peacefully.
In a twist that makes a lot of sense in retrospect, the espers we're seeing here aren't some generic sampling of all espers, they're specifically the young generation; all espers are forbidden from crossing the Sealed Gate, but it was they who had the reckless temperament of youth and decided to ignore the warning and try to rescue their friends abducted by the Empire.
Unfortunately, as soon as they crossed the threshold, they were overcome by the same overpowering emotions as Terra, and lost control of her powers just like her, only to significantly more dramatic results.
There's a very long, very complex conversation regarding the share of responsibility borne by the supportive civilian population of a fascist empire; suffice to say that you don't have to agree with the firebombing of Dresden to think 'people who had done no wrong' is overstating the case a little here.
Strago deduces that there is something inside the esper world which dampens their powers, and that upon being introduced to the human world unprepared, they are unprepared for their own full power and it runs wild.
You know, that actually explains a lot about two things: How esper society manages to be peaceful and stable when everyone is packing magical WMDs in their biceps, and how the Empire was able to seize so many of the espers before they had access to Magitek, even though the espers' power is precisely what makes them so valuable.
It's a bit of a sleight of hand regarding the actual responsibility of the espers in the death toll they caused, but it's a lot more elegant than 'Zeemus mind control,' because instead of enemy actions it's something innate to the nature of espers that casts new light on why their ancestors thought they and humanity could not co-exist.
Then, Locke asks the fateful question: the Empire wants to make peace. Will the espers come with them?
Oh boy. I really don't like that phrasing.
It's not that the devastation of Vector was right. By all accounts the civilian death toll was enormous. But I came here expecting vengeful avengers sitting in anger debating whether to visit doom upon mankind, who might be entreated to find mercy and settle for peace with Esper Assured Destruction guaranteeing the Empire's good faith. Instead what I get is a bunch of teenagers who briefly lost control of their actions and are now wracked by guilt and hoping we might forgive them.
These guys don't stand a chance.
Well.
Let's do this.
General Leo introduces himself, and so does Yura, clearly acting in some capacity as the representative/leader of the young espers.
"What we have done to your people is inexcusable," he says. "We are in no position to ask for your forgiveness, but…"
"Speak no further," Leo answers. "We did not seek you out to chastise you for past mistakes. It is we who ought to be ashamed. We thought of you only as a means to wage war. How close we came to bringing about a second War of the Magi!"
Yura agrees to put it all past behind them. Locke declares their work is finally done, and it looks like peace is finally upon us. He and Celes look at each other, then bashfully away, grasping for words to put to their complicated feelings, and draw closer; Relm makes a highly inappropriate comment for her age; Locke reacts with a shocked sprite and Celes with a bashful sprite. Relm laughs. Kefka laughs. The end!
To be fair, they deserve to be made fun of.
Wait what was that last part?
It was all too beautiful to last.
This twist has been hanging heavy over the game for the past hour - with every step we took closer to making it clear that the Returners, Leo, and the espers were genuinely willing to set aside the past and work together, it became clear something had to break. It was simply too early for the story to be resolved like this.
And ooh boy, is shit about to break.
Note: Kefka is attacking Leo's soldiers. This isn't a concerted plan, Leo is completely out of the loop. Kefka is claiming this is on the Emperor's orders, and that's believable, but also Kefka lies all the time so at this stage there's really no way to know one way or another. Also, Kefka is about to try out his special new ability:
He can turn espers to magicite.
There's no explanation for this or even any special Magitek gizmo, he just raises his hands over his head and create a point of light which flies towards an esper and instantly turns them into magicite, starting with Yura.
Let's put a pin in that for now.
Kefka sets the Magitek troops to light the village on fire while blasting the suddenly hapless espers with his magiciting beams of ???, while the entire party lies knocked out.
The only one who has withstood the initial onslaught and is still standing… is General Leo.
Okay, props for that character switch, I genuinely wasn't expecting it. Also it was always implicit in his sprite but with his face portrait it's even more clear that Leo is, I think, the first Black character in all of Final Fantasy? Interesting choice to make him the One Good Man in the evil empire.
And that's it. Leo has finally had enough to stand by as Kefka commits atrocities, and finally turns around to challenge him.
Okay.
Here's something I might have forgotten to tell you before: when visiting Vector, there's incidental dialogue in which people mention that, among the reason why Leo is so popular, is that he's the only one of the Empire's generals (Kefka and Celes being the others) who isn't augmented. He has no magic, only pure warrior skill.
So, remember that time many updates ago when I made a remark that it was kinda funny where FFVI's setting draws the line of 'magic' because Sabin can straight up shoot Kamehamehas out of his hand?
Yeah, so, Leo has a special ability called 'Shock.'
It's him swinging his sword so hard the entire screen explodes.
Also, he takes 1 damage from Kefka's attacks.
Alright, I will admit, for a one-fight-wonder narrative beat, this guy is pretty cool. The chances of him surviving the next five minutes are nil, but in terms of absolutely clowning (hehe) on Kefka and making it clear what a gap there is between the two, this scene does pretty well, with Leo shrugging off magic with two-digit counts of damage while blasting Kefka for over a thousand with every screen-rattling blast.
So unfortunately, that means Kefka has to play dirty.
I really love how the game keeps playing with the format of the battle as a narrative setpiece.
Incidentally, this is something I haven't touched upon a lot, but something FFVI does a lot is play with the rhythm of dialogue scrolling. For instance, when Kefka shouts 'EM-PER-OR GES-TAHL,' each syllable appears one at a time to clearly convey that he is punctuating his shouting.
"I'm sorry I had to deceive you," the apparition of Gestahl says. "It was the only way to get the magicite. You understand, don't you?"
But of course Leo doesn't understand. After all the conquests and massacres, he's finally reached the limits of his ability to feel like he's fighting for a worthwhile cause. He turns to his Emperor asking him outright, "What have I been fighting for?"
Which is when 'Gestahl' reveals himself as an illusion Kefka used to get Leo to drop his guard, and stabs him in the back.
Exit Leo.
I… hm.
I'll talk a bit more about Leo in my conclusion to this post, which I can already tell is going to be massive.
Then, just as Kefka is crowing over Leo's dead body, another surge of energy washes over the town, shocking the jester himself - and, in the distance, something terrible is happening - the Sealed Gate, along with the rock wall built in front of it, explodes, and more espers come flying out.
Judging from the sprites repeat and what we now know about the young espers, it looks like the Bahamut sprite that flew past us wasn't necessarily the actual Bahamut. In fact, here he comes again, along with a third Zona Seeker and another Carbuncle. I think we shouldn't read too much into it.
This is painful.
Obviously the older espers - the parents and relatives of the young ones who recklessly went out of the gates - would, when faced with the others being wiped out, come to their head. Even if it was totally suicidal, it would still be understandable.
But of course, all this does is get them into range of Kefka's magic spammable beam of Convert to Magicite.
It's not clear what happened here, but from the fact that that the Magitek soldiers around Kefka vanished in that flash of light, I am guessing that his new magic may be based in a kind of life drain or forcible human sacrifice, converting the soldiers into raw power for him to use - either that or they just happened to be in the blast area for a simple AoE destruction spell.
The espers come down to engage Kefka, but it's pointless. He absorbs their strongest magic, directly healing from the damage before turning them to magicite one by one.
"What a joke!" he says, "I didn't know espers were such wimps! This isn't even fun…"
So, yeah.
This entire scene is completely reliant on Kefka's sudden and unexplained ability to no sell the entire esper population while converting them to magicite en masse. If you buy that it's a sudden dramatic twist for the worse, and if you don't it's just ???
The way Ramuh initially presents magicite is that the Empire cannot obtain the full power of espers, because it only occurs when given willingly by turning oneself into magicite; every esper we then see turning to magicite is doing so willingly upon seeing their death approach and choosing to use it to help the heroes. And what we know about espers is that their power was used to lay waste to the world once, and to destroy Vector and the Imperial armies not long ago.
And now Kefka shows up and he can just… Snap his fingers and turn them all to magicite against their will while shrugging off their magic?
I'm going to withhold judgment until we find out if it turns out there was a major breakthrough in the Empire that explains this, but it's a swerve.
Now, of course, Kefka is intent on claiming 'that final treasure' beyond the Sealed Gate, which - god, he's referring to the Warring Triad, isn't he? And that has to be the same 'legendary treasure' that Gestahl had been looking for in the first place when he went to the esper world twenty years ago. These guys really looked at 'gods of magic whose fighting tore the world apart' and went 'big Magitek pinata.'
And then he… leaves. He doesn't bother capturing the rest of the protagonists or finishing them off, we just fade to another scene after he's left, where everyone's gathered around the last grave I'd expected.
Terra : "I… I wanted you to teach me so much more."
They made him a whole-ass monument with a sword stuck in the stone and Terra put down a flower bouquet before his tombstone.
I guess you get a lot forgiven for turning around and doing a heroic last stand at the last second.
…
So, Leo. Let's talk about Leo.
We've talked a bunch about Leo and the Rommel 'noble fascist' archetype in fiction in this thread. And I think, ultimately, I have a positive view on Leo's arc, because here's the thing.
Yeah, aside from a single conversation where he says he's 'as bad as Kefka,' the game mostly treats Leo as a paragon whom everyone respects and trusts, even his enemies, who has words of wisdom to share with Terra and the espers, and under whom the Empire would likely be well-steered, even though he's a general of the Empire who oversaw brutal, unprovoked wars of aggression, massacres, forced conscription of conquered populations, and who by carelessness or stupidity left Kefka in charge to commit the genocide of Doma.
But the thing is that in the end, Leo was wrong. He was a fool, and he was a tool. He failed to recognize Kefka's evil and trusted him with command, he failed to see through the Emperor's true motives, he naively worked towards a 'peace' that was only a cover story and helped bring the espers into Kefka's grasp. The crucial difference between Leo and some other 'one good man in the evil empire' archetype is that Leo fails to actually make anything better, and in fact makes everything worse against his will. He gives the Empire a mask, a patsy who genuinely means the stuff about peace, because the fact that he believes it makes it all the easier for others to be fooled by it.
Kefka first killed Leo's soldiers because the Emperor probably packed the Magitek ship with Leo's men so he could remove them all at the same time, before they had a chance to splinter off into a rebellious faction.
Hell, that whole 'talk to soldiers before dinner' thing? That was probably so the Emperor could identify loyalists and purge the rest of the army.
…
Oh, right. Since Kefka is a compulsive liar, it's not necessarily clear whether Gestahl himself was lying or if Kefka just took unilateral action yet, but thankfully some friends will be here to clarify things shortly, right after we find out about the most despicable of the Empire's crimes to date:
They hurt Interceptor.
Locke says "Not only Leo, but Shadow too… Curse the Empire!" which I take as indication that we/the characters are meant to believe that Shadow is dead as well, although I won't buy that until I see him die an actual on-screen death.
Locke bandages Insector's wounds, and Celes whispers "you're so sweet," so it seems like these two are on good track. Relm promises to take care of Interceptor, and Shadow's fate leaves everyone to wonder if the others are alright.
Moments later, we see the newly-repaired airship arrive from the sky, and the rest of the party we left over in Vector comes out.
WELL.
GOOD THING I LEFT A GROUP OF MY TRUSTED PARTY MEMBERS ALONG WITH THE ENTIRE RETURNER FORCES UNDER BANON'S LEADERSHIP PLUS AN EXTRA HELPING OF NARSHE'S MILITARY TO MAKE SURE NOTHING UNTOWARDS WAS HAPPENING IN THE EMPIRE'S UTTERLY RAVAGED CAPITAL WHOSE SOLDIERS HAD ALREADY GIVEN UP ON WAR. SOMEBODY MIGHT CONCEIVABLY HAVE USED THIS TO THWART THE EMPEROR'S PLAN, MIGHT THEY NOT?
But apparently not. Do you want to know how they managed to escape the capital before whatever trap the Empire had prepared for them was sprung?
A lady was bringing them tea and Edgar flirted with her and she blurted out the whole plan to him.
Whether because she was so flustered by his incredible charm or because it was all she could think of to distract him and draw his attention elsewhere, we might never know.
Ah, well.
Many of you commented on either having never heard of the banquet scene, or having largely forgotten it, and maybe that's why: because evidently it didn't lead to anything, it only existed to better sell Emperor Gestahl's betrayal. And in this, it succeeded, in that I went from 'this guy is obviously waiting for the first opportunity to stab us all in the back while cackling madly' to 'he's definitely planning something, but maybe it'll be more complex or spontaneous than him just lying the entire time while waiting to spring his betrayal,' and it turned out he was lying the entire time to spring his betrayal on us.
What was the point score system at dinner with rewards handed out for performing well? I don't know. Maybe Gestahl just appreciates good manners that much even from people he's planning to murder. Maybe he gave us more if he felt like we were meeting him halfway because he thought it was a better way of selling the lie, whereas if we're uncooperative he would assume we don't trust him anyway and so not even bother to sell the con. I don't know.
It's a bit disappointing, to be honest, but ultimately like, we knew Gestahl was going to betray us. It was obvious. It's only in the specifics that I might have leaned towards a more nuanced or elaborate presentation of said betrayal.
Edgar tells us we need to rethink our plan, and the group decides to head back to the airship; Strago asks if he can follow, which leads to Relm demanding she come along as well.
Sabin, in a moment of hilarious hypocrisy for the guy who brought Gau into the group, says 'we can't had kids getting in the way!' and Relm calls him an 'overfed muscle-man,' then threatens to draw his picture, which causes everyone who was in the mountain party to beg her to stop and not do this terrible thing.
Okay, 'people act horrified whenever this kid threatens to draw a sketch of someone, to everyone's confusion' is a pretty funny bit. Strago relents, and agrees for Relm to come along, though not without first one of the most baffling exchanges in the game.
And this, really, is where I want to leave that update on, because it is literally the last thing that happened before we returned to the world map and I saved and closed, and I can't not touch on it, but also I just don't know what to do with it. Here it is: the group is leaving. After everyone else has left, just as they are about to leave too, Relm and Edgar are alone together.
Relm: "What's wrong, lover boy?"
Edgar: "...How old are you?"
Relm: "Ten… why?"
Here, Edgar says nothing but turns around and does a 'waving his hand above his head' motion.
Relm: "Weirdo. I'm going on ahead, okay?"
Edgar, now alone: "They grow up faster than you think… You'll break a few hearts when you're older, kid."
Now. This is such a truly weird exchange, right? I mean it has bad vibes. It has very bad vibes, but it's not, like, explicit? "They grow up faster than you think" in this context doesn't seem to make sense, right? It's something you'd say about how a kid you already know has grown up faster than you imagined because you still think of them as small, right? And the oblique reference to how attractive she… will be when she grows up? Already is??? Is so weird.
I'm staring at that exchange and I just. I have to know.
I'm going to look up a direct translation of the original script.
…
I'm going to go lie down for a bit.
In the meantime, please contemplate these words:
Last time on Final Fantasy VI, we met Strago and Relm, and learned about a magical mountain range in the west where the espers are likely to be drawn to. Let's investigate!
This is mostly using the same environmental assets as Mount Kols. So far so familiar; move between various openings between the inside and the outside of the mountain, walk on drop floors to land somewhere in the corridor below, the works. There's just one twist, though. Every so often, from behind the group, we can see someone emerge and then just as quickly flee out of sight…
…yeah, no prize for guessing Relm didn't care about any order she was given and wanted to come with us anyway. Nor does the group spot her trailing them (terrible form, guys; this is why you need Shadow).
At the heart of the mountain, there is an… interesting room. On a raised dais, with a light well pouring sunlight on them, three gold statues have been erected, and the sight of them shocks Strago - and brings up a name we've heard before.
The 'Warring Triad.' That's the mysterious group which Kefka is planning to resurrect with the power of espers, isn't it?
Neither Locke nor Terra know anything about this Triad, and so it falls on Strago to explain it. The Warring Triad are gods of legend who created magic. Which means they also created the espers, who worshipped them in return. They are called the 'Warring Triad' because they were in eternal conflict, until eventually they grew tired and turned themselves to stone - a pretty radical action which seems to suggest the Triad didn't have a choice in their endless warring, they were in some way compelled to it by their nature. Now their petrified selves rest beyond the Sealed Gate, in the esper world.
In fact, examining the statues reveals even more details, some of them quite revelatory. The statues were erected in reverence to the Triad, but also as a warning that they should never be woken up again. They also go into more details regarding the full origins of espers:
Espers were once humans, who were caught among the Triad's fighting, transformed into magical beings and forced to fight endlessly as slaves to the gods, until the gods realized their fighting would never end and agreed to seal themselves away, returning the espers' free will with the last of their strength.
Their last words: "Never must we be woken."
Oooookay.
Okay so the militarization of espers is baked into their entire history. The Empire isn't just repeating the specific mistake of the War of the Magi which turned a peaceful civilization to war - the espers have always been caught in the cycle of violence and warfare, used as tools and weapons against their will, from the very start, from their very creation.
And they're humans, not a unique species of greater metaphysical nature - people, transformed by the warping effects of divine magic. Like the magi, only transformed even more profoundly. No wonder Maduin and Madeline could have a child, they're the same species, a history apart.
Not just people, though. Victims. Victims first of the Triads, turning them into weapons of war. Then of the magi. Then of the Empire.
…
I keep holding back on going on long tangents because I want to see what the game actually does with the whole esper/human cohabitation/history thing, because I don't want to project stuff I feel about other media onto the game before it's actually guilty of it. But, for instance, I have very complicated feelings regarding the 'persecuted magical minority' trope, especially when it's as plain as 'a category of people have special magical power which no one else has and does not affect them negatively in any way, and humanity decides to persecute these people because they're afraid,' but it's like two sentences in Strago's exposition, so I'm not going to go on a whole rant about it, I guess?
But now that we're delving more deeply into the history of the espers and how they have been constantly weaponized by others throughout history, hmmm. I'll have to see more and think about it.
Anyway, everyone agrees this sacred place to the espers is most likely where they would be drawn to and gather after sacking Vector, so on we goooo-
ULTROS, YOU UPSTART CALAMARI, HAVEN'T I KICKED YOUR ASS ENOUGH FOR A LIFETIME?
Ultros is here for the golden statues which, he declares, will 'finally get him some respect from Siegfried,' which-
Ultros, man. I'm sorry. I've met Siegrief. The fact that you are looking for respect from him is just - it's the most pathetic thing I've heard all week. I'm sorry, man. We're cool. Just take the statues and leave. It's fine. I hope you find a better life for yourself somewhere.
Okay, never mind, we have to fight him.
"I've got more lives than I do arms!"
This is more of a narrative beat than it is a real fight, we just have to shake him a few times with Thundara before Relm drops in.
Kid's got ego, I'll give her that. She asks Ultros his name, and Ultros gets offended that she would even dare to ask.
In a move that really shows the game's theatrical inspirations, Locke then leaves the party order and turns to the camera to address the audience, Greek Chorus like: "A pintsize virtuoso and an egotistical octopus… Do I even want to know what's next?"
Well, what's next is that Relm asks Ultros to pose for a portrait and the octopus refuses rather rudely, leading Relm to turn around and threaten to jump off a bridge to her death.
This is such a wildly over-the-top escalation it's legitimately hilarious, especially because everyone else's reaction is to bully Ultros into accepting to have his portrait drawn.
Ultros, threatened with a crying child, grudgingly agrees to have his picture painted, calling himself 'Uncle Ulty'. Then the group falls back into combat order and battle resumes, with Strago literally telling Relm to 'get over here,' as in in the standard Final Fantasy battle row, which is a very funny meta touch.
Then battle resumes with Relm added to the roster and us having access to her !Sketch command, but this is no longer a real boss fight. Although Ultros follows the reopening of hostility by casting a bunch of buffs on himself and then fake-apologizing for the cheap move, all we have to do is use Sketch, and…
Realm conjures up a perfect copy of Ultros, which uses his own Tentacle attack against him, but that's not what matters. What matters is that Ultros looks at his own picture, realizes he is just a 'washed-up old octopus,' and then immediately gets so depressed he runs away.
Peak comedy.
God that kid is such a brat.
Anyway, Strago gives up and allows Relm to stay with the group, as we always knew she would.
So.
Sketch.
It's the third Blue Magic in this game. When used on an opponent, it either misses or succeeds, in which case it randomly uses one of two abilities allocated to that opponent against them. And… that's it, I guess. It has the benefit of simplicity and of not requiring grinding, but it's another of those 'either you know what all the Sketches do and which enemies give one or you essentially have a randomizer that outputs unpredictable attacks each turn'.
Final Fantasy VI iterates a lot, I can certainly give it that. Each character has their own custom mechanic - more than one, when you consider that several characters can have their ability changed by the right Relic. It's definitely a game that's willing to push the boundary, and connecting each character's unique ability to their personality and history while still giving everybody access to the same Magicite and Magic system is a really interesting compromise between FFIV's character-driven approach that had some severe limitations when the mechanics pushed against the boundaries of what could be done with a character that was interesting (see Cecil spending the late game just spamming Attack and Kain just using Jump forever) and FFV's flexibility and customization.
…I think I prefer FFV's job system, though. It was… cleaner.
It makes a certain sense, for a game aimed primarily at children who'd either replay it over and over, slowly discovering how each individual thing worked in isolation and discovering new things they'd never known about the game with each playthrough, or guidebooks and magazines a d actually playing the game with them open cross-referencing everything. I know as a kid I would have been the latter, if given the chance. In the circumstances in which I'm playing it today, though, it often leaves me at a loss what to do with its mechanics.
Thankfully, just using Magic seems to work well enough as a fallback.
With Ultros defeated, nothing stands in our way, and we head for the depths of the caverns, where the espers are holed up - first we see a sylph, then a werewolf, and then dragons start showing up.
"I had no idea there were this many…"
"Gramps, take Relm and get out of here!"
The party now completely surrounded, they prepare to fight - until one esper steps forward, calling for everybody to stop. His name is Yura, and he is one of the more human-looking espers; he and Terra look at each other, and Strago, who had so far not noticed nothing out of the ordinary with her, now starts perceiving Terra's 'incredible power.' The group braces for another trance incident, but instead, the screen flashes with light, and some connection seems to establish between Terra and Yura.
The espers stand down, and both groups can now talk with each other peacefully.
In a twist that makes a lot of sense in retrospect, the espers we're seeing here aren't some generic sampling of all espers, they're specifically the young generation; all espers are forbidden from crossing the Sealed Gate, but it was they who had the reckless temperament of youth and decided to ignore the warning and try to rescue their friends abducted by the Empire.
Unfortunately, as soon as they crossed the threshold, they were overcome by the same overpowering emotions as Terra, and lost control of her powers just like her, only to significantly more dramatic results.
There's a very long, very complex conversation regarding the share of responsibility borne by the supportive civilian population of a fascist empire; suffice to say that you don't have to agree with the firebombing of Dresden to think 'people who had done no wrong' is overstating the case a little here.
Strago deduces that there is something inside the esper world which dampens their powers, and that upon being introduced to the human world unprepared, they are unprepared for their own full power and it runs wild.
You know, that actually explains a lot about two things: How esper society manages to be peaceful and stable when everyone is packing magical WMDs in their biceps, and how the Empire was able to seize so many of the espers before they had access to Magitek, even though the espers' power is precisely what makes them so valuable.
It's a bit of a sleight of hand regarding the actual responsibility of the espers in the death toll they caused, but it's a lot more elegant than 'Zeemus mind control,' because instead of enemy actions it's something innate to the nature of espers that casts new light on why their ancestors thought they and humanity could not co-exist.
Then, Locke asks the fateful question: the Empire wants to make peace. Will the espers come with them?
Oh boy. I really don't like that phrasing.
It's not that the devastation of Vector was right. By all accounts the civilian death toll was enormous. But I came here expecting vengeful avengers sitting in anger debating whether to visit doom upon mankind, who might be entreated to find mercy and settle for peace with Esper Assured Destruction guaranteeing the Empire's good faith. Instead what I get is a bunch of teenagers who briefly lost control of their actions and are now wracked by guilt and hoping we might forgive them.
These guys don't stand a chance.
Well.
Let's do this.
General Leo introduces himself, and so does Yura, clearly acting in some capacity as the representative/leader of the young espers.
"What we have done to your people is inexcusable," he says. "We are in no position to ask for your forgiveness, but…"
"Speak no further," Leo answers. "We did not seek you out to chastise you for past mistakes. It is we who ought to be ashamed. We thought of you only as a means to wage war. How close we came to bringing about a second War of the Magi!"
Yura agrees to put it all past behind them. Locke declares their work is finally done, and it looks like peace is finally upon us. He and Celes look at each other, then bashfully away, grasping for words to put to their complicated feelings, and draw closer; Relm makes a highly inappropriate comment for her age; Locke reacts with a shocked sprite and Celes with a bashful sprite. Relm laughs. Kefka laughs. The end!
To be fair, they deserve to be made fun of.
Wait what was that last part?
It was all too beautiful to last.
This twist has been hanging heavy over the game for the past hour - with every step we took closer to making it clear that the Returners, Leo, and the espers were genuinely willing to set aside the past and work together, it became clear something had to break. It was simply too early for the story to be resolved like this.
And ooh boy, is shit about to break.
Note: Kefka is attacking Leo's soldiers. This isn't a concerted plan, Leo is completely out of the loop. Kefka is claiming this is on the Emperor's orders, and that's believable, but also Kefka lies all the time so at this stage there's really no way to know one way or another. Also, Kefka is about to try out his special new ability:
He can turn espers to magicite.
There's no explanation for this or even any special Magitek gizmo, he just raises his hands over his head and create a point of light which flies towards an esper and instantly turns them into magicite, starting with Yura.
Let's put a pin in that for now.
Kefka sets the Magitek troops to light the village on fire while blasting the suddenly hapless espers with his magiciting beams of ???, while the entire party lies knocked out.
The only one who has withstood the initial onslaught and is still standing… is General Leo.
Okay, props for that character switch, I genuinely wasn't expecting it. Also it was always implicit in his sprite but with his face portrait it's even more clear that Leo is, I think, the first Black character in all of Final Fantasy? Interesting choice to make him the One Good Man in the evil empire.
And that's it. Leo has finally had enough to stand by as Kefka commits atrocities, and finally turns around to challenge him.
Okay.
Here's something I might have forgotten to tell you before: when visiting Vector, there's incidental dialogue in which people mention that, among the reason why Leo is so popular, is that he's the only one of the Empire's generals (Kefka and Celes being the others) who isn't augmented. He has no magic, only pure warrior skill.
So, remember that time many updates ago when I made a remark that it was kinda funny where FFVI's setting draws the line of 'magic' because Sabin can straight up shoot Kamehamehas out of his hand?
Yeah, so, Leo has a special ability called 'Shock.'
It's him swinging his sword so hard the entire screen explodes.
Also, he takes 1 damage from Kefka's attacks.
Alright, I will admit, for a one-fight-wonder narrative beat, this guy is pretty cool. The chances of him surviving the next five minutes are nil, but in terms of absolutely clowning (hehe) on Kefka and making it clear what a gap there is between the two, this scene does pretty well, with Leo shrugging off magic with two-digit counts of damage while blasting Kefka for over a thousand with every screen-rattling blast.
So unfortunately, that means Kefka has to play dirty.
I really love how the game keeps playing with the format of the battle as a narrative setpiece.
Incidentally, this is something I haven't touched upon a lot, but something FFVI does a lot is play with the rhythm of dialogue scrolling. For instance, when Kefka shouts 'EM-PER-OR GES-TAHL,' each syllable appears one at a time to clearly convey that he is punctuating his shouting.
"I'm sorry I had to deceive you," the apparition of Gestahl says. "It was the only way to get the magicite. You understand, don't you?"
But of course Leo doesn't understand. After all the conquests and massacres, he's finally reached the limits of his ability to feel like he's fighting for a worthwhile cause. He turns to his Emperor asking him outright, "What have I been fighting for?"
Which is when 'Gestahl' reveals himself as an illusion Kefka used to get Leo to drop his guard, and stabs him in the back.
Exit Leo.
I… hm.
I'll talk a bit more about Leo in my conclusion to this post, which I can already tell is going to be massive.
Then, just as Kefka is crowing over Leo's dead body, another surge of energy washes over the town, shocking the jester himself - and, in the distance, something terrible is happening - the Sealed Gate, along with the rock wall built in front of it, explodes, and more espers come flying out.
Judging from the sprites repeat and what we now know about the young espers, it looks like the Bahamut sprite that flew past us wasn't necessarily the actual Bahamut. In fact, here he comes again, along with a third Zona Seeker and another Carbuncle. I think we shouldn't read too much into it.
This is painful.
Obviously the older espers - the parents and relatives of the young ones who recklessly went out of the gates - would, when faced with the others being wiped out, come to their head. Even if it was totally suicidal, it would still be understandable.
But of course, all this does is get them into range of Kefka's magic spammable beam of Convert to Magicite.
It's not clear what happened here, but from the fact that that the Magitek soldiers around Kefka vanished in that flash of light, I am guessing that his new magic may be based in a kind of life drain or forcible human sacrifice, converting the soldiers into raw power for him to use - either that or they just happened to be in the blast area for a simple AoE destruction spell.
The espers come down to engage Kefka, but it's pointless. He absorbs their strongest magic, directly healing from the damage before turning them to magicite one by one.
"What a joke!" he says, "I didn't know espers were such wimps! This isn't even fun…"
So, yeah.
This entire scene is completely reliant on Kefka's sudden and unexplained ability to no sell the entire esper population while converting them to magicite en masse. If you buy that it's a sudden dramatic twist for the worse, and if you don't it's just ???
The way Ramuh initially presents magicite is that the Empire cannot obtain the full power of espers, because it only occurs when given willingly by turning oneself into magicite; every esper we then see turning to magicite is doing so willingly upon seeing their death approach and choosing to use it to help the heroes. And what we know about espers is that their power was used to lay waste to the world once, and to destroy Vector and the Imperial armies not long ago.
And now Kefka shows up and he can just… Snap his fingers and turn them all to magicite against their will while shrugging off their magic?
I'm going to withhold judgment until we find out if it turns out there was a major breakthrough in the Empire that explains this, but it's a swerve.
Now, of course, Kefka is intent on claiming 'that final treasure' beyond the Sealed Gate, which - god, he's referring to the Warring Triad, isn't he? And that has to be the same 'legendary treasure' that Gestahl had been looking for in the first place when he went to the esper world twenty years ago. These guys really looked at 'gods of magic whose fighting tore the world apart' and went 'big Magitek pinata.'
And then he… leaves. He doesn't bother capturing the rest of the protagonists or finishing them off, we just fade to another scene after he's left, where everyone's gathered around the last grave I'd expected.
Terra : "I… I wanted you to teach me so much more."
They made him a whole-ass monument with a sword stuck in the stone and Terra put down a flower bouquet before his tombstone.
I guess you get a lot forgiven for turning around and doing a heroic last stand at the last second.
…
So, Leo. Let's talk about Leo.
We've talked a bunch about Leo and the Rommel 'noble fascist' archetype in fiction in this thread. And I think, ultimately, I have a positive view on Leo's arc, because here's the thing.
Yeah, aside from a single conversation where he says he's 'as bad as Kefka,' the game mostly treats Leo as a paragon whom everyone respects and trusts, even his enemies, who has words of wisdom to share with Terra and the espers, and under whom the Empire would likely be well-steered, even though he's a general of the Empire who oversaw brutal, unprovoked wars of aggression, massacres, forced conscription of conquered populations, and who by carelessness or stupidity left Kefka in charge to commit the genocide of Doma.
But the thing is that in the end, Leo was wrong. He was a fool, and he was a tool. He failed to recognize Kefka's evil and trusted him with command, he failed to see through the Emperor's true motives, he naively worked towards a 'peace' that was only a cover story and helped bring the espers into Kefka's grasp. The crucial difference between Leo and some other 'one good man in the evil empire' archetype is that Leo fails to actually make anything better, and in fact makes everything worse against his will. He gives the Empire a mask, a patsy who genuinely means the stuff about peace, because the fact that he believes it makes it all the easier for others to be fooled by it.
Kefka first killed Leo's soldiers because the Emperor probably packed the Magitek ship with Leo's men so he could remove them all at the same time, before they had a chance to splinter off into a rebellious faction.
Hell, that whole 'talk to soldiers before dinner' thing? That was probably so the Emperor could identify loyalists and purge the rest of the army.
…
Oh, right. Since Kefka is a compulsive liar, it's not necessarily clear whether Gestahl himself was lying or if Kefka just took unilateral action yet, but thankfully some friends will be here to clarify things shortly, right after we find out about the most despicable of the Empire's crimes to date:
They hurt Interceptor.
Locke says "Not only Leo, but Shadow too… Curse the Empire!" which I take as indication that we/the characters are meant to believe that Shadow is dead as well, although I won't buy that until I see him die an actual on-screen death.
Locke bandages Insector's wounds, and Celes whispers "you're so sweet," so it seems like these two are on good track. Relm promises to take care of Interceptor, and Shadow's fate leaves everyone to wonder if the others are alright.
Moments later, we see the newly-repaired airship arrive from the sky, and the rest of the party we left over in Vector comes out.
WELL.
GOOD THING I LEFT A GROUP OF MY TRUSTED PARTY MEMBERS ALONG WITH THE ENTIRE RETURNER FORCES UNDER BANON'S LEADERSHIP PLUS AN EXTRA HELPING OF NARSHE'S MILITARY TO MAKE SURE NOTHING UNTOWARDS WAS HAPPENING IN THE EMPIRE'S UTTERLY RAVAGED CAPITAL WHOSE SOLDIERS HAD ALREADY GIVEN UP ON WAR. SOMEBODY MIGHT CONCEIVABLY HAVE USED THIS TO THWART THE EMPEROR'S PLAN, MIGHT THEY NOT?
But apparently not. Do you want to know how they managed to escape the capital before whatever trap the Empire had prepared for them was sprung?
A lady was bringing them tea and Edgar flirted with her and she blurted out the whole plan to him.
Whether because she was so flustered by his incredible charm or because it was all she could think of to distract him and draw his attention elsewhere, we might never know.
Ah, well.
Many of you commented on either having never heard of the banquet scene, or having largely forgotten it, and maybe that's why: because evidently it didn't lead to anything, it only existed to better sell Emperor Gestahl's betrayal. And in this, it succeeded, in that I went from 'this guy is obviously waiting for the first opportunity to stab us all in the back while cackling madly' to 'he's definitely planning something, but maybe it'll be more complex or spontaneous than him just lying the entire time while waiting to spring his betrayal,' and it turned out he was lying the entire time to spring his betrayal on us.
What was the point score system at dinner with rewards handed out for performing well? I don't know. Maybe Gestahl just appreciates good manners that much even from people he's planning to murder. Maybe he gave us more if he felt like we were meeting him halfway because he thought it was a better way of selling the lie, whereas if we're uncooperative he would assume we don't trust him anyway and so not even bother to sell the con. I don't know.
It's a bit disappointing, to be honest, but ultimately like, we knew Gestahl was going to betray us. It was obvious. It's only in the specifics that I might have leaned towards a more nuanced or elaborate presentation of said betrayal.
Edgar tells us we need to rethink our plan, and the group decides to head back to the airship; Strago asks if he can follow, which leads to Relm demanding she come along as well.
Sabin, in a moment of hilarious hypocrisy for the guy who brought Gau into the group, says 'we can't had kids getting in the way!' and Relm calls him an 'overfed muscle-man,' then threatens to draw his picture, which causes everyone who was in the mountain party to beg her to stop and not do this terrible thing.
Okay, 'people act horrified whenever this kid threatens to draw a sketch of someone, to everyone's confusion' is a pretty funny bit. Strago relents, and agrees for Relm to come along, though not without first one of the most baffling exchanges in the game.
And this, really, is where I want to leave that update on, because it is literally the last thing that happened before we returned to the world map and I saved and closed, and I can't not touch on it, but also I just don't know what to do with it. Here it is: the group is leaving. After everyone else has left, just as they are about to leave too, Relm and Edgar are alone together.
Relm: "What's wrong, lover boy?"
Edgar: "...How old are you?"
Relm: "Ten… why?"
Here, Edgar says nothing but turns around and does a 'waving his hand above his head' motion.
Relm: "Weirdo. I'm going on ahead, okay?"
Edgar, now alone: "They grow up faster than you think… You'll break a few hearts when you're older, kid."
Now. This is such a truly weird exchange, right? I mean it has bad vibes. It has very bad vibes, but it's not, like, explicit? "They grow up faster than you think" in this context doesn't seem to make sense, right? It's something you'd say about how a kid you already know has grown up faster than you imagined because you still think of them as small, right? And the oblique reference to how attractive she… will be when she grows up? Already is??? Is so weird.
I'm staring at that exchange and I just. I have to know.
I'm going to look up a direct translation of the original script.
Article: Edgar: Yeah, that'd definitely be a crime… I better just forget about it.
…
I'm going to go lie down for a bit.
In the meantime, please contemplate these words:
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- Location
- East Coast
Yes, but quite a few members will be guys who stay in you castle/base and give you a special bonus, or run your for free inn there.
Aliya
Someone I might become
- Location
- Kazakhstan
- Pronouns
- They/She/It
That's uh... That's a certified yikes moment right there. Like, wow, that is really bad. Kinda... Kinda overshadows the rest of the update.
- Location
- PA
*slow blink*…
The sad thing is, I think about how kids want to be considered grown-up and Relm makes perfect sense, character-wise.
It's just.
The literal kid is the one basically having a musical in the red-light district. Not the womanizer king, who's actually pretty noble. Not the airship gambler, who's actually depressed. Freaking…
No wonder Relm gets a spotlight during a fight with Ultros.
The sad thing is, I think about how kids want to be considered grown-up and Relm makes perfect sense, character-wise.
It's just.
The literal kid is the one basically having a musical in the red-light district. Not the womanizer king, who's actually pretty noble. Not the airship gambler, who's actually depressed. Freaking…
No wonder Relm gets a spotlight during a fight with Ultros.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Imagine being me, 4,000 words into the update, having nearly finished it and completely forgotten that exchanged happened because it as a five-second bit three days ago, reaching the end of my update, going "wow I forgot about that bit but that's... that's sus," bringing it up on Discord, looking up a translation and then being smacked in the face by it minutes before posting!
- Location
- Spain
And the Espers use them as a bus service
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
If you want to feel even worse, you might remember the kid in Figaro Castle who was very vocal about her crush on Edgar. Comments were made at the time when that was brought up; they might be worth re-examining in a new light now.
Anyway! In the interest of changing the subject, Relm's sketching power is another thing that only really works the way it is in a 2D game.
Lots of... interesting stuff this update, but first, let's talk about something good.
Relm!
Sketch is... mostly bad. There is like three or so places where it really, really shines, allowing you to trivialize the fight, but mostly it's dogshit. Sketch attacks don't do as much damage as you'd expect from enemy performance, and a lot of enemies are immune to their own attacks, making its use problematic.
What makes Relm a decent character, though, is that she has the single highest baseline Magic score in the game. At this point, her Magic may very well be higher than Terra's (or at least Celes'), depending on your level and the use of espers.
She desperately needs esper time to be useful, but once she gets some good offensive spells, she can easily compete or even outshine with Celes (and Terra without Trance) as a caster.
She's harmed by her other stats being pretty meh and a poor selection of equipment, but she's still plenty useful as a pure mage.
It's a shame about Sketch because I really like the idea of paintings coming to life by her hand. Personally, I'd probably just given her Strago's Lores (he can retire due to an injury or whatever), but flavored them as her keeping sketches of monsters she's encountered and summoning them as needed.
Or possibly some other bespoke mechanic that would make Sketch more broadly applicable. There is a lot you can do with art imitating life. Let Relm go full Ib.
Relm!
Sketch is... mostly bad. There is like three or so places where it really, really shines, allowing you to trivialize the fight, but mostly it's dogshit. Sketch attacks don't do as much damage as you'd expect from enemy performance, and a lot of enemies are immune to their own attacks, making its use problematic.
What makes Relm a decent character, though, is that she has the single highest baseline Magic score in the game. At this point, her Magic may very well be higher than Terra's (or at least Celes'), depending on your level and the use of espers.
She desperately needs esper time to be useful, but once she gets some good offensive spells, she can easily compete or even outshine with Celes (and Terra without Trance) as a caster.
She's harmed by her other stats being pretty meh and a poor selection of equipment, but she's still plenty useful as a pure mage.
It's a shame about Sketch because I really like the idea of paintings coming to life by her hand. Personally, I'd probably just given her Strago's Lores (he can retire due to an injury or whatever), but flavored them as her keeping sketches of monsters she's encountered and summoning them as needed.
Or possibly some other bespoke mechanic that would make Sketch more broadly applicable. There is a lot you can do with art imitating life. Let Relm go full Ib.
Mister Bad Guy
Mr Mercury to friends
- Location
- Bay Area
My assumption when originally playing the game was just that Kefka was killing the Espers and then using whatever magicite he could scrounge up as a result of their deaths, rather than having gained a "turn into magicite" power.
- Location
- Norway
As far as Kefka steamrolling the espers go, yeah, it should have been explained better how he came to get the ability to shut them down, but my assumption is simply that he came prepared. Figuring out a spell based on seeing magicite, having equipment that dampens magic, probably absorbed a bunch more esper strength etc. We see that he stands no chance against Leo in a 1v1,so I assume he's not so much stronger than he was, simply more prepared and has made the ultimate anti-esper spells.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
You go full Pokémon and give her a backpack that let's Relm carry 6 paintings around that she can call upon on demand.
Bonus points for pre-empting the actual Pokémon games by two years and retroactively making Smeargle a Final Fantasy reference.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That'd make sense, but Ramuh specifically says Magicite is the result of a willing process, and we've already seen what happens when an esper dies without turning themselves into magicite on purpose - they just leave a corpse that eventually decays into bones like we find at the bottom of that garbage chute in the Magitek Research Facility, very close to this whole room full of esper vats that are conspicuously empty.
This whole "twist" section is really clumsy. FFVI has very high highs, but this one is a very low low.
It's pretty evident to me that the writers needed the plot to go from point A to point B, but weren't really sure how to actually accomplish this... so they just forced it.
It's pretty evident to me that the writers needed the plot to go from point A to point B, but weren't really sure how to actually accomplish this... so they just forced it.
Mister Bad Guy
Mr Mercury to friends
- Location
- Bay Area
Yeah, that's part of why I brought it up, since I was thinking "huh, am I missing something?"
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
See, until the translation was brought up, I thought the exchange was supposed to be, like, Edgar realising this was his secret daughter who he'd hidden away or something, not... that.
And I see Final Fantasy still doesn't understand how to sell its villains well. Kefka here just feels totally disconnected from the reality of the game and it's shattered my SoD.
And I see Final Fantasy still doesn't understand how to sell its villains well. Kefka here just feels totally disconnected from the reality of the game and it's shattered my SoD.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK. Fuck.
This is already my least favorite scene in the game - the one where Kefka predictably returns and suddenly busts out an I-win button and starts jamming on it.
And now we've got...this.
So, I used to have a headcanon on Edgar (by 'used to' I mean 'up until five minutes ago'), one similar to a lot of FF6 players, I think. Namely that Edgar is a bit of a control freak - he lost his parents relatively suddenly and was thrust into a situation where either he or his brother had to ascend the throne, so what does Edgar do? Lure his brother into a coinflip using a coin with two heads so that Edgar falls on the proverbial grenade and Sabin gets to go do monk stuff. As king he fills his castle with machinery and arms himself with custom made gadgets. He becomes an 'ally' of the Empire as a way to preserve his kingdom without it getting steamrolled. Edgar is fighting for the control over his life, in any aspect he can get. And the flirting? The flirting is a way of establishing social control, putting people off balance so that they don't quite know what to do with this guy. I'm not saying that makes it a good trait or that it excuses all the stuff we've seen in the past, but it's an interesting pathology of a character.
Even his English line...does make some sense in that context. Relm comes at him with a really bold-for-her-age tough-girl "what's wrong loverboy?" and Edgar's response can be read as a slightly befuddled "Jesus you're old for your age" in an ironic and rather funny reversal for the control freak having his metaphorical table flipped by the precocious and aggressive Relm.
But no apparently Edgar really is meant to be a horndog who flirts with anything female and has to check himself before going after a ten year old. Hurk.
Goddamnit I liked this idiot. I had a Warcraft character named after him (hunter/engineer, natch).
Fuck.
This is already my least favorite scene in the game - the one where Kefka predictably returns and suddenly busts out an I-win button and starts jamming on it.
And now we've got...this.
So, I used to have a headcanon on Edgar (by 'used to' I mean 'up until five minutes ago'), one similar to a lot of FF6 players, I think. Namely that Edgar is a bit of a control freak - he lost his parents relatively suddenly and was thrust into a situation where either he or his brother had to ascend the throne, so what does Edgar do? Lure his brother into a coinflip using a coin with two heads so that Edgar falls on the proverbial grenade and Sabin gets to go do monk stuff. As king he fills his castle with machinery and arms himself with custom made gadgets. He becomes an 'ally' of the Empire as a way to preserve his kingdom without it getting steamrolled. Edgar is fighting for the control over his life, in any aspect he can get. And the flirting? The flirting is a way of establishing social control, putting people off balance so that they don't quite know what to do with this guy. I'm not saying that makes it a good trait or that it excuses all the stuff we've seen in the past, but it's an interesting pathology of a character.
Even his English line...does make some sense in that context. Relm comes at him with a really bold-for-her-age tough-girl "what's wrong loverboy?" and Edgar's response can be read as a slightly befuddled "Jesus you're old for your age" in an ironic and rather funny reversal for the control freak having his metaphorical table flipped by the precocious and aggressive Relm.
But no apparently Edgar really is meant to be a horndog who flirts with anything female and has to check himself before going after a ten year old. Hurk.
Goddamnit I liked this idiot. I had a Warcraft character named after him (hunter/engineer, natch).
Fuck.
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How could Kefka kill espers casually into magicite?
The breakthrough was in the research facility.
All those espers in *monitored containment tubes* that changed from living beings to magicite.
Kefka wasn't just hanging around in that jail cell the whole time. He was combining a piece of existing tech with the transformation info : Slave Crown + "I can choose to become magicite" knowledge = Slave Cast Command "Become Magicite!"
Boom. No sold esper genocide.
The breakthrough was in the research facility.
All those espers in *monitored containment tubes* that changed from living beings to magicite.
Kefka wasn't just hanging around in that jail cell the whole time. He was combining a piece of existing tech with the transformation info : Slave Crown + "I can choose to become magicite" knowledge = Slave Cast Command "Become Magicite!"
Boom. No sold esper genocide.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Remember when we said that FF6 was buggy to the point of breaking, but they fixed the worst of it?
Sketch was the worst of it.
See, AFIK, sketch checks the enemy's sprite for sone reason rather than any other ID.
So, if you use sketch on an invisible enemy, or an enemy with the invisible status, it tries to reference a blank and the game craps itself and random things occur, depending on a variety of factors. Sprites onscreen change to other characters, lines of code and random pixels appear onscreen and the music skips, inventory items are multiplied or created ex nihilo, save files are deleted, the game crashes. Its basically Missingno a couple years early.
They fixed it in later releases, thankfully - unlike supplexing the train it wasnt a bug they felt comfortable keeping. So, mechanically, you can sketch anything worry free now without accidentally giving reality a BSOD.
Watsonianly, do not paint the unpaintable.
Sketch was the worst of it.
See, AFIK, sketch checks the enemy's sprite for sone reason rather than any other ID.
So, if you use sketch on an invisible enemy, or an enemy with the invisible status, it tries to reference a blank and the game craps itself and random things occur, depending on a variety of factors. Sprites onscreen change to other characters, lines of code and random pixels appear onscreen and the music skips, inventory items are multiplied or created ex nihilo, save files are deleted, the game crashes. Its basically Missingno a couple years early.
They fixed it in later releases, thankfully - unlike supplexing the train it wasnt a bug they felt comfortable keeping. So, mechanically, you can sketch anything worry free now without accidentally giving reality a BSOD.
Watsonianly, do not paint the unpaintable.
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Okay, so. Relm has the nickname "Murder Child" because her magic stat is the highest in the game and she can equip most of the good magic enhancing gear. Give her the three -ga spells, Holy, and Flare, and she can roflstomp basically everything in existence. Give her Curaga as well and she can keep the rest of the party alive pretty trivially.
Sketch is useless - on top of enemies usually being immune or even absorbing the elements they fight with, it also uses the monster's usually crappy magic stat instead of Relm's godly one - but who cares, Relm's base magic stat is 44. Compare that to the next three highest - Terra at 39, Celes at 36, and Mog at 35 - and you can see she's an absolute beast coming right out of the gate. Slap Zoneseek on her for a few levels and she's even more of a machine that turns enemies into ghosts.
Plus, "sassy ten year old with a gun" is such a fun character to play with.
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I kinda just hum loudly and try to forget that scene with Edgar. The rest of his characterization doesn't work if he's actually a sexual predator instead of the world's most incompetent flirt, so while I recognize that the script writer made a decision, as it's a stupid-ass one I'm electing to ignore it.
Sketch is useless - on top of enemies usually being immune or even absorbing the elements they fight with, it also uses the monster's usually crappy magic stat instead of Relm's godly one - but who cares, Relm's base magic stat is 44. Compare that to the next three highest - Terra at 39, Celes at 36, and Mog at 35 - and you can see she's an absolute beast coming right out of the gate. Slap Zoneseek on her for a few levels and she's even more of a machine that turns enemies into ghosts.
Plus, "sassy ten year old with a gun" is such a fun character to play with.
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I kinda just hum loudly and try to forget that scene with Edgar. The rest of his characterization doesn't work if he's actually a sexual predator instead of the world's most incompetent flirt, so while I recognize that the script writer made a decision, as it's a stupid-ass one I'm electing to ignore it.
- Location
- Britain
A model swap is exactly the same process in full 3D as 2D...?
Maybe if you're a COWARD.