I mean Niebelheim is already the place that they keep all their dirty company secrets.
What's one more
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
What's one more
- Location
- Spain
Well this is extremely interesting.
If Materia is a source of magical knowledge, not of magical power.... doesn't this suggest that SOLDIER's may work in the exact same way?
The Mako infusion doesn't give them superhuman strenght, it allows them to channel the martial art knowledge and combat experience of some forgotten ancient hero.
(This even explains why they prefer to fight with swords instead of more modern weapons).
And of course, that also explains why a martial art master like Zangan can keep up with SOLDIER's. Their source of superhuman prowress is actually the same, they just learned their arts in a different way.
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21stCentury
Let's get down to bismuth
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You see, in-universe, those are fantasy worlds.
Texas is from a trilogy of fantasy cowboy movies, you know.
NATO on the missile is graffiti by a big nerd who's obsessed with a fantasy TTRPG
the Korean BBQ Plate is kind of like those Lord of the Rings themed Denny's meals.
and France exists as a land of elves and magic from a famous religious allegory book series. Kinda like Narnia but with more missiles.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
While this is a super-cool idea, SOLDIERs do seem to just be superhuman in many ways; super-strong, super-tough, and so on. The Remake really plays this up (see Roche) but even the original has elements of this; see Cloud's hilariously-sized sword, which is implied to be the standard-issue size for SOLDIERs or Sephiroth's makes-Sasaki-Kojirou-envious katana, and compare them to the weapons everyone else has.
Sure, Tifa punching a robot to death and Barret's arm cannon are both silly, but they're not 'unwieldably huge' the way the SOLDIER weapons are. Even a fairly strong normal person would struggle to lever Cloud's sword up onto its point, let alone lift the thing. Sephiroth's katana is probably slightly less ridiculously heavy, but would have a balance point something like a metre along the blade, so it would likely feel even heavier.
EDIT: Like, there are videos where World's Strongest Man top-ten competitors struggle with Buster Sword replicas.
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"this wasn't what I meant by 'add magic missile to the game...' "
For some reason, this choice ain't cosmetic. Hope you arbitrary-ly choose the right one!
Rarely. When I played it, the dragon insisted on killing Cloud, while Seph insisted on rezzing him, so the game spend a few minutes fighting itself while I looked haplessly. Would be amusing - if it happened to somebody else.
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MiskWisk
Hoot
- Location
- Somewhere devoid of wit
- Pronouns
- He
Oof. I said rarely because for me Sephiroth had usually locked in his action just before Cloud got knocked out, so that never happened to me. But I can absolutely see how you could get screwed over by that sort of mechanic.
Kemayo
A Certain Cheerful Tone Of Voice
- Location
- Missouri
The sequence of events involving the piano are definitely pretty ridiculous and obscure.
Step 1: play the piano in the flashback, choosing the "jam on it" option.
Step 2: when you've got Tifa as the party leader for a bit much later in the game, go look at the piano again for an Elemental materia.
...entirely unrelated, and even later in the game, is Tifa's final limit break, gained by independently working out and then playing a recreation of the FF7 main theme on the piano. 😂
Step 2: when you've got Tifa as the party leader for a bit much later in the game, go look at the piano again for an Elemental materia.
...entirely unrelated, and even later in the game, is Tifa's final limit break, gained by independently working out and then playing a recreation of the FF7 main theme on the piano. 😂
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RogueIce
Noctis Æternæ
- Location
- New Lunar Republic, Equestria
Annoying as it could be for a player, I think it's a neat touch to add on to the Pre-Incident Sephiroth's characterization we see: not only is he a 'normal guy' who acts as a good mentor/leader figure towards his subordinate/comrade, he also puts a premium on keeping said subordinate/comrade alive and (reasonably) well during battle, rather than directly going to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible. The degree to which we see this behavior is somewhat varied depending on how the battle plays out, but it's a neat touch to be there that they didn't have to do (since you could hardly party wipe) so I feel was a bit of using the mechanics to reinforce that Sephiroth was the Great Hero everyone thought him to be...at first.
This whole game really do be like, "Wait, we can have how many megabytes of dialogue?"
My immediate thought was "material magic", as a pun, but your explanation is better.
Wait, is this motherfucking Gaster? Did the doctor fall down into the Mako core?
Sepiroth: Come on, do something.
Cloud: ...
My immediate thought was "material magic", as a pun, but your explanation is better.
Wait, is this motherfucking Gaster? Did the doctor fall down into the Mako core?
Sepiroth: Come on, do something.
Cloud: ...
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Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
Wait, just had a thought. Let's take a moment and imagine that Texas is still a fantasy place in-setting.
This would make her 7th Heaven bar something like a catgirl maid cafe type place.
And this scene? Imagine professional soldiers, being sent out to inspect a power plant, teaming with dangerous wildlife, and their guide shows up and it's a teenage girl dressed like a cat girl.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
She's a park ranger, no need to overcomplicate things.
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
I mean, I'm not saying she's bad at her job. I assume she's well versed in mountaineering, and is the best person for the job. Just might be a Bunny-Ears Lawyer thing going on.
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
Posting this for no reason whatsoever, absolutely unrelated to the topic of discussion, no idea why I'm even pressing the button here, obviously not relevant.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
FF7R's deluxe edition art book has an even sharper-looking Zangan that still hews impressively close to the old Nomura art:I mean check out this dude's art-
(original art by Nomura)
Look at that ponytail. Dude practically is an old-man Sabin.
I also appreciate how similar Elmyra and Mama Cloud look. Mama Cloud at least gets a bit of ruffle on her sleeves, cuffs and the edge of her dress, while Elmyra is entirely no-nonsense.
Tifa's Dad is a good mix of Mayor and Frontiersman, with the button-up shirt
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Wow, they couldn't even give Cloud's mum and Tifa's dad names...
Er, Strata and Tifather, how those names sound?
Er, Strata and Tifather, how those names sound?
One more, and he'll revert to having 0 students.
Been sitting on this since you first got Tifa in her party and it felt like she didn't measure up to Cloud the super solider and Barret the walking artillery piece - Tifa gets to be on the level by being the protégé of a mystical martial arts badass. I mean check out this dude's art-
(original art by Nomura)
Look at that ponytail. Dude practically is an old-man Sabin.
I'm sorry, but this is a penguin.
It makes sense that he a master martial artist then. After all, when fight or flight kicks in, penguins can't fly.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Since you noticed this, I wanted to ask a question on the matter. You've seen two different small towns with a big construction in the middle in this last update, Kalm and Nibelheim; these are both small, rural towns, and in past Final Fantasy, you remarked that many of the small towns looked similar. Would you say that this applies here, with Nibelheim and Kalm, or do you think that each town manages to have it's own personality and be visually distinctive?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes! I forgot to touch on this, but Cloud at 16 is, like... A very bombastic teenager, a guy who openly talks about wanting to be a hero, who strikes up chatter with fellow soldiers of his own initiative. He wants to be cool, but he doesn't really have a settled idea of what cool is.
Present day Cloud is, it's growing apparent, the way he is partly because of significant trauma that kinda killed the 'excited teen' spark he had, and also because of a (deliberate? unconscious? probably a mix of both) affect of Sephiroth's style and mannerisms, because pre-fall Sephiroth is the idea of what a 'cool dude' looks like that fully solidified in his head.
One thing I've been meaning to comment on and but keep forgetting is the shift from Amano concept art to Nomura concept art, because I think it's significant and Nomura produces some really excellent artwork and character designs.Been sitting on this since you first got Tifa in her party and it felt like she didn't measure up to Cloud the super solider and Barret the walking artillery piece - Tifa gets to be on the level by being the protégé of a mystical martial arts badass. I mean check out this dude's art-
(original art by Nomura)
Look at that ponytail. Dude practically is an old-man Sabin.
This is not it.
This belongs in the sin bin.
(But also yeah, that's AU Sabin, headcanon confirmed.)
Fun fact, I bought Umineko a couple of months ago! Have been meaning to give it a try but I've not had enough time for it yet.This whole game really do be like, "Wait, we can have how many megabytes of dialogue?"
My immediate thought was "material magic", as a pun, but your explanation is better.
Wait, is this motherfucking Gaster? Did the doctor fall down into the Mako core?
Sepiroth: Come on, do something.
Cloud: ...
It has been suggested to me that I do a Let's Play of it, whereupon I was instantly threatened with being shot to death for even thinking about it by @Tempera, the official sponsor of this Let's Play.
A very good question that I'm glad you asked!
Let's look at the full background 'painting' for Nibelheim and Kalm.
As you can see, the architecture of both towns is stylstically similar, though not identical; the half-timbered style is similar, but Kalm uses slate tile roofs, and Nibelheim uses what are probably terracotta. In France where I live, there is a fairly sharp divide where the North of the country traditionally uses exclusively slate tiles, and the South exclusively clay tiles, so you can tell apart towns from the North and South from an overhead picture by whether the roofs are red or grey. So I appreciate that aesthetic difference.
But also there's a lot more to it. Even though Kalm and Nibelheim are structurally similar, being circular towns centered around one fixture on the central plaza, the game is fully using its capabilities to make them feel different. Kalm is very clearly an old town dating back to the medieval era; on top of its very traditional architecture, it is surrounded by a crenelated wall, an obsolete fortification in the era of artillery but very typical of old towns in Europe, it has a very nice pattern of cobblestone pavement that, again, feels old-timey, there's a weird kinda spooky tower which we don't enter and seems just here for decorative purposes and which reinforces the medieval feeling; modern amenities have been added to the town, with boilers built into rooftops and the main energy infrastructure being outside of the houses.
Meanwhile, Nibelheim feels more recent and more frontiers-y. The houses are much more integrated with Mako energy infrastructure, to an extent that feels almost cancerous, like that one house having entirely too many chimneys, those giant boilers or tanks justting out of the buildings... There's pavement in the central place, but it's been largely covered with dirt or dust from outside the town blown in. There's also rust on the piping. All in all, this is a frontiers town whose youth has mostly already left it for the big city, so it's worn down, disused, decaying.
I get the strong feeling that Kalm is a 15th or 16th century local power (hence the fortifications) that adapted relatively well to the modern era and never suffered a 'hard break' in its fortunes, so it exists as this quaint, postcard-looking small town that's still doing relatively well for itself as a minor player thanks to Mako energy (but that may soon change as they no longer have the mithril mines to bring in resources); the houses look medieval but inside them everything is fully modern, same way a lot of old European towns work. Meanwhile Nibelheim is a much more recent, 19th century settlement that is technically more modern but is a lot more broken down because there just isn't enough wealth there to keep the whole thing sparking clean, which precipitates the youth drain to Midgar which is itself further reason why the town can't sustain itself - a close parallel would be American frontier towns of the Wild West, with a 'Mako rush' justifying its initial expansion and prosperity but the tap drying up once Mako extraction operations move to Midgar and the local reactor starts killing the local vegetation.
The art direction here is just, outstanding. You can tell so much from these two screenshots alone.
Seacats are dope, and you should absolutely read them, but also they're a series of 8 massive and very dense novels, so probably not the best thing to get distracted by in the middle of an ongoing project.
If you want to branch out into VNs, Higanbana by the same creators (and I think translated by the same group) is a better choice here: it's just 8 short stories each of which can be read in an hour or so.