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

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oh boy i sure picked a moment to finish catching up lol

So, a couple things - first, Omi mentioned earlier that he's not sure how many of his readers are unfamiliar with FF as a franchise and how much the dancing around spoilers matters, so I should mention that I almost entirely haven't. I've played like... There was a demo for FF7 that had some kind of battle gauntlet where you lost levels after each fight? And I played a couple of sessions on a friends copy of FF9, where I got up to, I think it was the Evil Forest. I know the rough outline of FF7 (even saw Advent Children back in the day), I think I might have read part of a walkthrough for FF8 when I was younger, and I have heard things about the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free tri- but besides that I am entirely blind. So, this has been a fascinating dive into a franchise I am largely ignorant of, tracking the development history and its influences on the wider landscape of game design.

Second, as far as Cid goes... Yeah, wow. It's interesting, how it so heavily slants towards his death (naturally enough since it's a stronger scene), despite theoretically leaving the door open to save him. I'm inclined to echo an acquaintance who remarked it's fuel for a playground legend kind of deal - you hear about that one kid who managed to save Cid, so you have to try for yourself to see if it's possible, and that sliver of hope makes it land better even if it's entirely impractical to actually pull it off. That seems to be the intent. Whether it'd have been better if you just couldn't do it though... I dunno. I am reminded of a point made by College Fool as part of Renegade Reinterpretations, though, that players often feel like any character death that's avoidable is a form of punishment, while if it's totally unavoidable, it loses some of its weight because the inevitable foreshadowing means you can see it coming. I think Cid manages to avoid that, but I do nevertheless like the sweet spot that CF suggests, where character death is affectable, but not avoidable; people will die, you can't save them all, but you can choose who is saved.
 
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Omicron said:
A handful of starving rodents.

How do I know they're starving? Well, they only have one HP, and they are inherently tagged with the Sap status. This means that, on their first round of battle, they automatically take one point of damage and die.
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One small addition to this. There is a small desert area on the island that has unique encounters. One enemy is a stingray that has the same gimmick as the rodents and dies immediately. The other is the Black Dragon, which doesn't die immediately. Why? Because it's undead. The only things that can "survive" are those that are already dead.
 
McFluffles said:
I can't recall if it came up before this point in the game, but the whole Opera sequence absolutely left its mark on Celes, because her theme is permanently changed afterwards to incorporate bits of Maria's theming from the Opera.
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So, you never actually hear Celes' Theme before the opera. I think it only plays in one place before the Solitary Island sequence, during the moonlight scene between her and Locke just before everyone gets on the boat to Thamasa.

McFluffles said:
And speaking of the opera, I also want to point out something I noticed on my playthrough of this bit - the shape of the cliff as you walk up it is... a bit vaguely, so I might be stretching it, but it's shaped similarly to the actual section of the opera that Celes walks up from dancing with Draco's spirit to throwing the flowers off the upper balcony.
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Doesn't she also fall in the same arc as the flowers? Hard to consider that anything but a callback.
 
Incidentally, if you want to know how the Woolsey translation handled it... well, there's really no other way to describe it than just showing it.



It sure did, game. It sure did.
 
McFluffles said:
Maybe this is an odd comparison, but it's like how in Breath of the Wild you've got all these major important quests about taking back the Divine Beasts and retrieving the Master Sword and gearing up for the big battle with Calamity Ganon... or Link can run straight to the final boss with no pants, beat the shit out of the final boss, and scream "HYRULE IS SAVED" and that's it that's the end of game.
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I'm just gonna save everybody else the trouble:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1or3YILu28M
 
Mister Bad Guy said:
It sure did, game. It sure did.
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That's one of those things I didn't get at first, but in retrospect years later... it's some high ordinance gallows humor, and extra dark considering the implications of there being undead on the island.

Perked 'em right up, alright, and you can assume someone then had to dispose of subsequently murderous remains of the increasingly few people still alive around them. Not just having to deal with the suicide of what little human contact you have left, but then having to actively kill something that looks like them afterwards, too.

It's one of those cases where the original localization is fractally fucked up, ha, and largely before that kind of setup would be particularly enshrined in the zeitgeist by high profile zombie apocalypse media.
 
SerGregness said:
So, you never actually hear Celes' Theme before the opera. I think it only plays in one place before the Solitary Island sequence, during the moonlight scene between her and Locke just before everyone gets on the boat to Thamasa.
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You know, I could have sworn that Celes' theme plays when Locke first meets here in the South Figaro scenario, but on checking apparently it does not. So yeah, guess it always just incorporates Maria's theme from the Opera as part of it.
 
McFluffles said:
Similarly, Chrono Trigger NG+ you can just go "yeah I could go save all these people and stuff, or I could just go kick the big bad's butthole and call it a day!" Heck, there's a dev room you can unlock if you do it at the right time (though beats me if I remember exactly when that time was, it's been a long while since I replayed Chrono Trigger).
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You get the Dev room ending by beating the final boss the moment you gain control of your main character, long before you even learn of it's existence in story.
 
Kakanma said:
You get the Dev room ending by beating the final boss the moment you gain control of your main character, long before you even learn of it's existence in story.
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foamy said:
You can actually wait just a hair to pick up your 2nd party member, which makes it way easier, but otherwise yeah. Divebomb, no brakes.
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You can also get it by beating the boss when it shows up in a fight you're actively supposed to lose, where it's legitimately buffed to the point that it's first attack is expected to be a party wipe even though afterwards there's only one sequence before the "every remaining task is an optional sidequest" endgame.

Note: I call it 'legitimately' buffed because that opening attack is the same one it uses normally, but it's attack and defense for the entire fight are IIRC tripled.
 
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The first time I got to the World Of Ruin, Cid died because I did not know about the beach. Instead, I wandered around the limited amount of overworld thinking that I was stuck grinding levels on these weak critters, until Cid basically died of starvation.

And then the Woolsey translation made me confused about what was actually happening with that cliff. Given Celes obviously survived throwing herself off, I thought the "cheer themselves up by jumping off the cliff" thing was completely literal, and Celes was just too depressed for it to work.

When I finally learned what it was supposed to be and how to "win" at the minigame, I made sure to save Cid every time. Because while I agree that Cid's death is the more powerful and "right" ending narratively to Cid's character arc, it's still much too heavy for me personally, and I don't want to have to see it in my entertainment.
 
beowolf said:
You can also get it by beating the boss when it shows up in a fight you're actively supposed to lose, where it's legitimately buffed to the point that it's first attack is expected to be a party wipe even though afterwards there's only one sequence before the "every remaining task is an optional sidequest" endgame.

Note: I call it 'legitimately' buffed because that opening attack is the same one it uses normally, but it's attack and defense for the entire fight are IIRC tripled.
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I mean, that opening move leaves a hell of an impression when you run into it. Especially if you remember the footage of the future...
 
IMO Cid's death is only impactful because the player has the option of saving them. Cutscene deaths are, for better or worse, largely meh due to the lack of agency. Contrast with what happens in FFVI where, if Cid dies, it's your fault. You could have saved him, but you fucked up or deliberately left him to die. That's on you.

It makes things much more powerful than it otherwise would have been. This scene is why I forgive FFVI for all its plotholes, shenanigans, and general Kefka plotarmor. Sure plot might be meh but the character vignettes are just utterly :: chef's kiss ::
 
foamy said:
I mean, that opening move leaves a hell of an impression when you run into it. Especially if you remember the footage of the future...
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Oh, absolutely. But the primary reason I'm bringing it up is because winning that fight gives you the same dev-room ending as skipping to the final boss before the plot of the game even starts. Since people mentioned being unsure of how to get it.
 
Me, I'd already heard that you could save Cid if you fed him the right fish, but I never could get the right ones, so I just gave up and let the death scene play through.

If there was a way to improve the Cid lives scene, I think maybe there could be a more tearful goodbye as Celes leaves, signifying that he's still alive (for now), but it's likely that neither will see the other ever again. And if you ever return to the island, the hut is empty, with his whereabouts left a mystery. Did he still pass away in the end? Did he slip off somewhere to end himself as a final penance? Or did he leave to find new purpose, like Celes did? I think that sort of open-ended finality would make saving Cid stand out more and not seem like the weaker narrative.

Even so, I'm just happy that at least one of the two options have a sincere poignance to it. It's certainly a moving scene.
 
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McFluffles said:
Man Chrono Trigger NG+ is just absolutely nuts because you can basically sit down at any point in the overarching plot and go "you know what if I just like, went and finished the game right now?" And then do it. Maybe this is an odd comparison, but it's like how in Breath of the Wild you've got all these major important quests about taking back the Divine Beasts and retrieving the Master Sword and gearing up for the big battle with Calamity Ganon... or Link can run straight to the final boss with no pants, beat the shit out of the final boss, and scream "HYRULE IS SAVED" and that's it that's the end of game.

Similarly, Chrono Trigger NG+ you can just go "yeah I could go save all these people and stuff, or I could just go kick the big bad's butthole and call it a day!" Heck, there's a dev room you can unlock if you do it at the right time (though beats me if I remember exactly when that time was, it's been a long while since I replayed Chrono Trigger).
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Yeah, that was absolutely hilarious. It's like Chrono slips into another universe with everything reset, but still has his mad gains and all his cool equipment. After a new NG+s, you can end up with the best equipment for everyone, then rip through all opposition, final bosses included, like Doomguy through Hell.
BLARGHER said:
One small addition to this. There is a small desert area on the island that has unique encounters. One enemy is a stingray that has the same gimmick as the rodents and dies immediately. The other is the Black Dragon, which doesn't die immediately. Why? Because it's undead. The only things that can "survive" are those that are already dead.
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Or maybe the Calamity effectively turned them into such. It's not just a wave of destructive energies that left the world ruined and dying; some of those energies are powerful, corruptive energies, leaving formerly living beings as shambling undead monstrosities. As if the world wasn't already in enough trouble, now there's the chance of a zombie apocalypse as well.
Kakanma said:
You get the Dev room ending by beating the final boss the moment you gain control of your main character, long before you even learn of it's existence in story.
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You also get it by-
beowolf said:
You can also get it by beating the boss when it shows up in a fight you're actively supposed to lose, where it's legitimately buffed to the point that it's first attack is expected to be a party wipe even though afterwards there's only one sequence before the "every remaining task is an optional sidequest" endgame.

Note: I call it 'legitimately' buffed because that opening attack is the same one it uses normally, but it's attack and defense for the entire fight are IIRC tripled.
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Dammit, ninja'd :p

But yeah, imagine this world-ending threat, and this random teenager goes into a weird warphole to face it, not even knowing what it was, kicking its ass in short order, saving the world and changing the future dramatically. Meanwhile, said teenager saunters out the same warphole, tossing his empty concessions container aside and shrugging when asked what the hell went in there before going back about his day. Or how this prophesized antediluvian monster comes out of nowhere, about to doom an ancient, powerful civilization, only for three scrappy kids from the future to basically beat it senseless.

The dev room ending even has a joke after you meet and talk to everyone in it. Talking to the last dev team avatar has them tell you that since you beat the game so damn fast, they're giving you the end credits to suit your style - and the end credits are basically sped up to 5X speed you can barely catch anything.

Back to FF6 for a bit... the Peepers (the rodents you run into as the first random encounter in the World of Ruin) are basically these weird googly-eyed things, but look sorta cute in Final Fantasy Mobius artwork. I remember them keep trying to cast a spell only to have "not enough MP" and then dying anyways. Turns out, they have White Wind, a very useful Blue Magic spell.

Younger Me: "Goddamn it, you ugly rats, quit dying on me so I can have Locke steal something from you!"
Older Me: "....I get it now..."

(Incidentally, you might be able to steal Elixirs off them if you're fast enough, though it's a rare steal)

So we have these little rodents, best suited to collecting nuts and fruits, and now not only are they dying, they're fighting adult humans armed to the teeth without running away, trying to heal each other and dying before anyone can land a blow on them. Sheesh, if anything shows how utterly fucked the World of Ruin is, how nothing is the same and how everything seems to be dying, this just signals it loud and clear to anyone paying attention. These poor critters are dying, desperate, and have no hope left except to stand and fight predators they have no chance against, or attack said predators out of desperation whether to get some food or just end their own misery. Yikes.

And then Cid's death hits like a ton of bricks. FF6 may not have even pacing or consistent storytelling, but for the moments it does give a good story, it hits with the impact of a runaway train.
 
Celes really do be like, "So you've watched your loved one wither away before your eyes day after day after day after day, unable to do anything, helplessness creeping up your spine and piercing your heart until you feel like you yourself are rotting from within, dying bit by bit day by day just as surely as they?

"Skill issue. Simply find a better fish."
 
I wonder whether I just have the worst attention span here or I somehow accidentally managed to get the perfect fish mix to keep Cid in limbo forever, because as mentioned earlier I reached the 'I must be missing some stupid trigger, there is no way this setpiece would just go on this long. Time to check a guide'-point before the minigame's natural conclusion.
 
illhousen said:
Celes really do be like, "So you've watched your loved one wither away before your eyes day after day after day after day, unable to do anything, helplessness creeping up your spine and piercing your heart until you feel like you yourself are rotting from within, dying bit by bit day by day just as surely as they?

"Skill issue. Simply find a better fish."
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"Or you can pull a Groundhog Day and just repeat the damn day till you get the right results."

I just spammed saves until I got the right fish when I was younger; I just hated losing, can't you tell? :p
 
Having player agency does a lot to make the player invested in the story as a whole, I would agree. Your ability to choose between different outcomes means that you can actually care about things happening because of you. Not because 'The Plot said so'.
 
Personally I think the core issue is that if you do know the way to save him, it's not like you can actually fail. You can just keep resetting until you get it. Agency is important, certainly, but within the framework of FF as a game the mechanics for saving Cid are something you can just keep trying over and over. Failing to save him is either your fault or your disinterest. I don't think that necessarily sabotages the moment, but, well… I am a bit disappointed that you can do that.
 
It's such a big swing between 'lol kefka lmao' and 'oh we've actually given you agency here' that I think my neck broke from the whiplash.

As someone who's only seeing this part of the game now, I honestly don't know if I would have even bothered still playing after the Kefka apocalypse bit? The insane plot-mandated Kefka victory just absolutely does not land, cannot land (for me at least; you can't make a character who's spent the whole game being beaten like a drum suddenly threatening, it just doesn't work, and the writers understand this, they have Ultros, what the fuck were they thinking), and after what looks like multiple hours of just having to smile while force-fed the shit-sandwich that was the plot from esper genocide through to Kefka apocalypse, it would have turned me off the game, possibly permanently.

Maybe it landed better if you were a kid and so didn't really get how stories worked, but I'm pretty sure I would have been fucking seething when I was like 12 if I'd played this.

The Cid thing... I can feel sympathy for Celes here, but that it's Cid dying kinda... saps the pathos of the scene from that angle. I can absolutely buy the suicide bit, though, because, well, yeah. Would you keep going after that?
 
Kadmus said:
(for me at least; you can't make a character who's spent the whole game being beaten like a drum suddenly threatening, it just doesn't work, and the writers understand this, they have Ultros, what the fuck were they thinking)
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Not quite? The only two times the party fights Kefka until now, he flees either because he's got more "important" things to do (poison Doma) and mocks Sabin for wanting a fight, or because you've beaten him and his soldiers badly enough that he isn't in any condition to yoink the esper, and genuinely flees because, at worse, he miscalculated the opposition and needs to gather more meat shielCOUGH to regroup. We don't know the details of what happened in the factory, and with Leo, he was just playing around with his food.

Both Kefka and Ultros are clowns in their own ways, but only one is a comic relief.
 
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