I have to respect the sheer confidence on display here for a team of potentially three people to look at the tower holding the monsters capable of reducing almost the entire world to a scarred, desolate landscape of sand and rock, and go 'yeah, we can take that.'
Like, did they all conclude that the first time the triad woke up they only lost because the sun was in their eyes? Absolute chads.
I have to respect the sheer confidence on display here for a team of potentially three people to look at the tower holding the monsters capable of reducing almost the entire world to a scarred, desolate landscape of sand and rock, and go 'yeah, we can take that.'
Like, did they all conclude that the first time the triad woke up they only lost because the sun was in their eyes? Absolute chads.
There is an optional puzzle in the tomb - in one room, there's a tombstone with a blank space where we can carve a name, and in another room there are four individual tombstones which each bear a different nonsensical set of four letters (ERAU, QSSI, WEHT, DLRO).
The first time I encountered this puzzle, I solved it mostly by accident. As in I thought "wouldn't it be funny if the solution was like this" and the solution indeed turned out to be like that.
As such, I continued to have very favourable memories of this puzzle for a long time, entirely because child me could solve it on their own. I can't even speak to the objective quality of that puzzle; I liked it just because I could solve it, and that was the end of my thought processes.
I've always wondered if the white bird here is simply and straightforwardly a white bird, or if the intent was for a blue bird, via the "blue bird of happiness" parable that pops up everywhere in pop culture. (Amusingly this isn't me making yet another FFXIV reference, apart from how FFXIV uses the same symbolism from the same sources.) White as a positive "hopeful" colour is also a possible factor, and even in the "blue bird of happiness" stories, the shade is often a lighter mix of blue with white highlights.
I've always wondered if the white bird here is simply and straightforwardly a white bird, or if the intent was for a blue bird, via the "blue bird of happiness" parable that pops up everywhere in pop culture.
8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
It would be very funny if Sabin were the only one qualified to wear the princess dress, as the closest thing to a princess in your party; Edgar doesn't qualify, he's a king, and Terra isn't a princess as far as we know and even if she was at some point in the past there's no kingdom or people left for her to be princess to. So Sabin has to wear the crown he sprinted away from and gets a kickin' rad dress and then goes to punch Kefka in the face repeatedly.
Otherwise it goes to... Relm, maybe? I think she's the only other female party member who you don't have with you? Or Shadow, who's been doing the Batman Voice (TM) and is actually the princess of, uh, Doma I guess, in this re-imagining?
*Random monster is trying to fight the party, but keeps getting distracted by Sabin in a tiara and fancy dress*
Monster: "Why-"
Sabin: "It's got some great stats, okay?!"
Celes: *trying her damnedest not to laugh*
Edgar: *barely holding it in*
Relm: *laughing her ass off*
I know someone else will discuss the music in depth later, but I'll just put in my two cents.
"Searching for Friends" is, IMO, the best bit of music in FFVI alongside the intro scene music (where Terra and the two Imperial goobers trek through the snow in magitech armor). Part of it is because they've got strong notes and themes, and partly because how they deal with setting the tone.
The intro music is haunting and chilling because it comes with an opening scroll and hints of what's to come, a dark, dreary intro to a great game and the music sets the tone beautifully. A slow, haunting melody that is beautiful to listen to and segues us into the game nicely.
"Searching for Friends" is a a bit stronger and more uplifting, and is made all the more striking not because of how it sets the tone, but rather, how it challenges it. Before you enter Daryll's Tomb, the music is haunting, grim, and sombre. The overworld music is a harsh, discordant organ intertwined with soft, wistful tones and the wind howling throughout, to highlight how the world has become harsh and desolate, a far cry from the lush environments of the World of Balance. Everything is either sick and dying, or has been twisted into brutish monstrosities, with life barely hanging on. Even the towns theme, while softer, is still sad and melancholy as a way to sadly remember the better times that were. The towns are getting by - barely - but some are wondering if there's even a point to it all anymore. Every surviving settlement is a pale shadow of what it was, and the music helps with that.
Then you get on board the Falcon, and "Searching for Friends" plays. Immediately the mood changes. The world's still a ruin, and there's still a genocidal maniac in the sky with godlike powers, but it's different now. The music, like the Falcon itself, gives you a sense of hope. The world opens up again, possibilities are open once more, and it feels like you finally have a chance. And the music does it beautifully. It's soft and wistful, but it still gives you strength and a desire to continue rather than stifle you. Hell, when I was younger, I never wanted to get off that damn airship after that because the music was so much more uplifting than the rest of the overworld music. It's strong and memorable despite the soft tones, as though the fragile concept of hope itself is ironicallyproving strong enough to power through. Kefka thrives off the people's death and misery, and the mere fact this song, much like the Falcon, exist to give hope is a spiteful spit in his eye. Maybe he's toying with us, maybe he's just resting up after the last town he fucked up, but the idea that he no longer holds all the power is a comforting thought as we rebuild our teams and get ready for the final showdown.
Whoa, whoa now. This isn't minimal party, Sabin is here! Gotta kick him out of the parties entering the tower for full realism.
Sabin: "Dude, you can't kick me out of the party!"
Celes: "Fine, then I'll rewind to reliving my personal trauma then skipping both you and Terra!"
Really, FFVI doesn't have a main-main character. There's certainly characters who get more screentime and focus than others - just compare Terra, Celes, or Edgar to someone like Shadow, Gau, or god forbid the optional Mog - but I think the ensemble cast is just a part of what makes the game so enjoyable. It fumbles on this sometimes, don't get me wrong, Cyan is peak "powerful character arc then sits in the back of the party for a dozen hours", but I do like how the game goes out of its way to try and give every character a bit of focus. Double so now that Omi is in the World of Ruin, and most characters have a little something or other in terms of additional story beats and quests.
I notice there are "tiers" of character-hood in the group. Some are A-tier, with goodish arcs devoted to them and their characters, others are tied closely to the plot, while others have minor arcs or just seem to just 'be' there, contributing their own little sidestory before going back to being a cheerleader or support for someone else. And then you have those like Mog, who just are there to round out numbers.
Waiting with baited breath for the "Let's Play Every Zelda Game In Order Of Release" Thread. Zelda II is a personal favorite that I am sure won't frustrate anyone ever.
Yup, from this point forward? The World of Ruin is almost entirely open world. Sure, there's a couple areas or events I can think of that require a different one to be completed first, but you pretty much have free reign to wander where you will, and can pick up characters in whatever order if you know where they are. Personally I'm already up to six characters, and know where a number of others are.
As soon as I get over the brainrot and just bother leveling my party so they can actually take on some of the threats on the way.
Eh, for a lot of these characters you can just slap on a couple high level magicite and drop them in a more competent party for a little bit, and they'll be ready to go.
That said? I can't deny that while this open world part of the World of Ruin is pretty cool... it's also part of the reason that I've never actually finished a full run of FFVI. I tend to just sort of run out of gas during the final preparations arc where I'm going "okay gotta train everybody up to be viable in Kefka's Tower since I can bring 12 people."
It's been that way since antiquity. The power of flight is an uplifting idea, something usually given to gods and heroes, and thus birds are the subject of envy for how free they are. Plus, birds have always been symbols of hope for sailors (since sea birds nest close to or on shorelines, so seeing one out at sea is a sure sign you've come close to land and can thus resupply and rest) and disasters in general (they flee the area when threatened, and come back when things have calmed down, thus providing a sign things are going to get better). People just tended to attach a lot of myth and religious overtones to it as is the nature with any culture.
Because you see, his Dice weapon has a very interesting special effect - it rolls for damage, instead of being affected by stats. He rolls two six sided dice, and does more damage the higher he rolls. This could be as piddling as one hundred... or in my case, rolling high against Dullahan and dealing over 5000 damage in one go.
If memory serves, it's literally the two dice faces multiplied together, multiplied by Setzer's level. It not only also ignores the damage penalty from being in the back row, but any damage penalty. Including from sources that haven't been found yet. It also, hilariously, works with dragoon boots.
I have an effort post in the backlog for the music that plays for the ultima weapon fight that was delayed by some nonsense, but for my money, Searching for Friends is the single greatest uplift from original to Pixel Remaster on the entire soundtrack. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but the SNES version was always middle of the pack for me, but the pixel remaster version is incredible. It starts off with the same relatively spare orchestration of flute and prominent bass backup, but where the SNES version kind of vibes along at the same intensity, this version builds and adds percussion (that triplet lead in to the next section from the concert bass drum at 1:25 is just unf) and brass and the whole nine yards, culminating in that almost distracting triplet figure out of the high strings before finally releasing that built up pressure to transition back to the beginning of the loop. It adds so much power that wasn't there before.
I've talked before about how FFVI mostly iterates on FFII and FFIV (with a dash of FFV for AP system), which can be seen in plot, mechanics and its approach to the cast. This, however, is a very clear iteration on FFV hunt for the legendary weapons, improved in (almost) every way.
The problem with the legendary weapons hunt was basically it being a dungeon gauntlet: the world was open, and there was a lot to do, but the narrative was minimal until you actually ventured into the void. It was a collection of mechanical challenges, which could quickly become exhausting.
Here, however, world exploration is intertwined with the story: you're tasked with collecting your old comrades rather than relics, and each of them is involved in a story of their own you'd have to resolve, same as Edgar and Setzer we've seen already.
It's a major improvement in pacing that prevents mechanical exhaustion while still giving you freedom to do whatever you want, even storming the final dungeon right now.
There is only one problem with it. Remember how characters who exit the party for whatever reason and join later auto-level to the average level of your party with zero magicite benefits? This applies to everyone now, and the party members you recruit last would suffer from it all the more.
Once again, the whole thing with esper leveling proves to be a feelbadman mechanic that tarnishes an otherwise excellent setup.
Honestly, thinking on it, it really is wild that that is the final, mandatory party members. If I had to name a main character from the prior events, I'd pick Terra, Locke, or maybe Sabin, and yet all our just. Optional. Truly a wild game.
Honestly, thinking on it, it really is wild that that is the final, mandatory party members. If I had to name a main character from the prior events, I'd pick Terra, Locke, or maybe Sabin, and yet all our just. Optional. Truly a wild game.
Look, we have to have royalty on our side, otherwise we'd have no source of true legitimacy. What, you want to lead some kind of peasant revolt instead? Be real.
Honestly Setzer being mandatory is the bigger source of confusion for me. Sure he had the only airship in the world previously, but like... come on, surely Edgar could have figured out something, he's supposed to be an engineer too.
Honestly Setzer being mandatory is the bigger source of confusion for me. Sure he had the only airship in the world previously, but like... come on, surely Edgar could have figured out something, he's supposed to be an engineer too.
Look, Edgar's a digging engineer judging from some of his tools and what his castle does, that's, like, literally the opposite of aeronautical engineering
Look, Edgar's a digging engineer judging from some of his tools and what his castle does, that's, like, literally the opposite of aeronautical engineering
Look, Edgar's a digging engineer judging from some of his tools and what his castle does, that's, like, literally the opposite of aeronautical engineering
There is only one problem with it. Remember how characters who exit the party for whatever reason and join later auto-level to the average level of your party with zero magicite benefits? This applies to everyone now, and the party members you recruit last would suffer from it all the more.
Once again, the whole thing with esper leveling proves to be a feelbadman mechanic that tarnishes an otherwise excellent setup.
Maybe I was just an impatient type as an adolescent but... I never had this problem, because frankly I never gave a damn about the magicite stat thing. I just wanted the spells, and I grinded to get them, and leveled up in the process to the point I was strong enough to bull through things, at least in comparison to Omi here. I had Sabin's aeroblade blitz by the time of the Figaro engine fight for instance.
Also, may I just say how amusing it is that the most common meme in this thread is the frustrated cry of "Ommmmmiiiii!!!!" whenever he skips something interesting or lore important or misses something. I admit even I kinda did it in my head when he left Shadow behind.
There is only one problem with it. Remember how characters who exit the party for whatever reason and join later auto-level to the average level of your party with zero magicite benefits? This applies to everyone now, and the party members you recruit last would suffer from it all the more.
Oh, incidentally we're not quite far enough along that it's safe to post this outside spoiler boxes but an... 'interesting' mechanical optimization for Gau is that:
The 'get level boosted to the party average' mechanic doesn't apply to him when he rejoins from the Veldt. Normally this is just functional in case you decide to leave him there for whatever reason after Leaping, but Gau's 'On the Veldt' status persists through the warring triad apocalypse. So, just before you go to the floating continent, you drop Gau off with a pack of monsters, and then when you re-recruit him in the World of Ruin, he'll be at the same level you left him. If he's in your normal roster on the other hand, he gets boosted like anyone else would.
There is only one problem with it. Remember how characters who exit the party for whatever reason and join later auto-level to the average level of your party with zero magicite benefits? This applies to everyone now, and the party members you recruit last would suffer from it all the more.
Once again, the whole thing with esper leveling proves to be a feelbadman mechanic that tarnishes an otherwise excellent setup.
Counterpoint: by far the most important stat in FFVI is Level. A non-optimized character coming in at the average party level is always immediately useful; a character returning to the party fifteen levels below average is useless unless you take an hour or two bringing them back up to par.
Sure, if you carefully assign espers to minmax properly you can beat the game like a rented mule, but there's nothing that actually needs that kind of dedicated effort assuming the PR doesn't include the superbosses, and even then it's kind of iffy.
If I could beat this game at ten years old without even knowing what the heck the esper stat increases were then I'm sure that Omi isn't going to suffer for Locke or Cyan being suboptimal.
---
tl;dr: Don't worry about the "wasted" levels, it's not actually important.
Counterpoint: by far the most important stat in FFVI is Level. A non-optimized character coming in at the average party level is always immediately useful; a character returning to the party fifteen levels below average is useless unless you take an hour or two bringing them back up to par.
Sure, if you carefully assign espers to minmax properly you can beat the game like a rented mule, but there's nothing that actually needs that kind of dedicated effort assuming the PR doesn't include the superbosses, and even then it's kind of iffy.
If I could beat this game at ten years old without even knowing what the heck the esper stat increases were then I'm sure that Omi isn't going to suffer for Locke or Cyan being suboptimal.
---
tl;dr: Don't worry about the "wasted" levels, it's not actually important.
We've had this conversation before, and there is a reason I'm calling the mechanics feelsbadman rather than simply bad.
Like, yeah, ultimately it doesn't matter. Last time Omicron showed us Terra's charsheet, she had ~60 Magic, which is honestly enough even for endgame, everything past that is a bonus that would allow you to style on enemies with lower-tier spells while still getting 9,999 damage output.
Which doesn't change the fact that FOMO hits you like the realization that Cid can be saved by finding faster fish, so his death is your fault now and forever.
Objectively, you can always spend an hour bringing a new ice age to dinosaurs, so all your problems will go away because the level cap is a lot higher than what you reasonably need to finish the game. Subjectively, you can't help but run mental calculations on how high your Magic/Strength score could have been if only you found your favorite characters faster.
Someone has brought up a mod before that divorces esper stat gains from exp, limits them to IIRC 50 and allows you to reset if you built your character wrong, and this is simply a superior mechanic to what is present in the game (but it appears the mod also ups the difficulty of the game for some godforsaken reason without an option to turn it off, so fuck it).
Probably because the game is piss easy, so if you're giving quality of life options that let you min-max your party a lot easier, jacking up the difficulty a touch is a good idea.
Searching for Friends remains one of my favorite songs, and one of my top five Final Fantasy songs before FFXIV. Getting the airsip and flying around gathering the party was the turnaround point in the story for me.
The best part about "Searching for Friends" to me is that it persists as the general overworld theme even when you land the airship, which marks a turning point. You have hope and purpose now, you're not regressing to the despair and hopelessness of before.
I'm currently making my way through the thread and the picures are not loading in Final Fantasy VI, Part 7: Kohlingen, Jidoor and Zozo.
Trying to open the Image in a new tab gives a 403 error.
For all other posts the images are loading correctly.
I'm currently making my way through the thread and the picures are not loading in Final Fantasy VI, Part 7: Kohlingen, Jidoor and Zozo.
Trying to open the Image in a new tab gives a 403 error.
For all other posts the images are loading correctly.
If I could beat this game at ten years old without even knowing what the heck the esper stat increases were then I'm sure that Omi isn't going to suffer for Locke or Cyan being suboptimal.
I mean, for what it's worth, similarly aged frumple also didn't know what the hell they were doing, but rather than beating the game I got beat like a drum by the final boss even with grinding like half the relevant critters to over level 80, iirc some of them into the 90s.
... then I tried like a decade later and it happened again. Twice over a many year period I got to the end and stalled out on the final battle. The rest of the game largely was never a problem, but for whatever reason both times I made it to the last fight, something about it just took my party's skulls and used them as a bongo drum.
Hell if I know why at this point, though, it was a long, long time ago, heh.
Hey, I'm a bit late to this, but I got caught up on FFV and I have thoughts on my interpretation of Faris.
Namely, that she's a mix of Faris #2 and Faris #3.
Faris is genderfluid, expansively nonbinary. She is a woman, but she is also a man, and she's also something in between. She embraces her femininity and is comfortable with it without allowing it to pigeonhole her gender identity. She sees herself as both a man and a woman in different ways and chooses to live in a way that suits her.
You can definitely see a bit of Faris #3 in there, but honestly when I read the LP my first thought wasn't "trans man the universe hates" or "gender-nonconforming tomboy".
When roleplaying her, I've had her describe herself as "Gentleman adventurer and lady scoundrel" and I think that fits. Her masculinity is just as valid a part of her as her femininity.
To me, she's genderqueer, and genderqueer in a way that femininity is part of who she is but not all of it. If people don't get that she is a complex being, that's their problem, not hers. Gender-expansive might be a good word for it.
Then again, I have a similar relationship to my gender, so maybe I'm reading too deep into it.
Speaking of Shadow, I hope you kept a backup save of the path where you let him to die? There's some dialogues that are different if he's dead rather than alive that might be worth checking out, once you know how to see them with a minimum of fuss.
Or you could just look those out on a playthrough or wiki, I guess, but that's not as satisfying as experiencing the difference yourself.
egleris please that's like ten to twenty extra hours going through the post-apocalypse game checking for new dialogue i am not doing what's effectively a second playthrough right on the heels of the first
Siegfried is kind of weird, honestly. Feels like a cut-content Gilgamesh type guy who was supposed to show up more in the game, but... nope, this is it, two whole appearances despite having a unique sprite and everything. Just vanishes off into wherever after this bit. Hell, doesn't even show up in Castle Figaro proper with the rest of the thieves.
We'll get there when we get there but my bafflement at the Siegried 'plotline' only increases with time.
Omi
Omiiiiiii did you not visit the weapons shop
But yeah, despite his uselessness in terms of magic if you didn't previously raise him, I was able to scrape a pretty useful build out of Setzer for this dungeon by just loading him up with a Genji Glove and two sets of Dice. Because you see, his Dice weapon has a very interesting special effect - it rolls for damage, instead of being affected by stats. He rolls two six sided dice, and does more damage the higher he rolls. This could be as piddling as one hundred... or in my case, rolling high against Dullahan and dealing over 5000 damage in one go.
A thing about this game's design is that the Attack function has so consistently been useless and overshadowed by either Magic or individual character commands that at some point I... stopped really bothering with weapons? I mean I keep the characters upgraded and I occasionally buy new weapons just like, 'in case of need,' but I've been making so little use of attacks that it's really hard to remember.
I did visit the weapon shop though. I bought Setzer like, some kind of dart? Whatever had the highest listed damage value. Seeing as I had no idea any of his weapons had any special mechanics I'm not sure how I was supposed to know he has a potentially useful build based on weird dice mechanics
I've talked before about how FFVI mostly iterates on FFII and FFIV (with a dash of FFV for AP system), which can be seen in plot, mechanics and its approach to the cast. This, however, is a very clear iteration on FFV hunt for the legendary weapons, improved in (almost) every way.
The problem with the legendary weapons hunt was basically it being a dungeon gauntlet: the world was open, and there was a lot to do, but the narrative was minimal until you actually ventured into the void. It was a collection of mechanical challenges, which could quickly become exhausting.
Here, however, world exploration is intertwined with the story: you're tasked with collecting your old comrades rather than relics, and each of them is involved in a story of their own you'd have to resolve, same as Edgar and Setzer we've seen already.
It's a major improvement in pacing that prevents mechanical exhaustion while still giving you freedom to do whatever you want, even storming the final dungeon right now.
There is only one problem with it. Remember how characters who exit the party for whatever reason and join later auto-level to the average level of your party with zero magicite benefits? This applies to everyone now, and the party members you recruit last would suffer from it all the more.
