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

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Connelly said:
It's going to be one of those cultural "personal growth through traditional family matters lesson" that make no sense when observed by a foreigner, is it?
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I mean, not really? Sure, familial shame is more of a thing in Japan AFAIK, but it doesn't explain the whole 'we literally just made up that your dad was a coward for explicitly no reason, and in fact have negative reason to do so'. It's just, y'know, Standard Bad Final Fantasy Writing, that stands out here because the rest of it's been fairly solid.
 
The thing that always drove me nuts about that plot beat is the "Turned to stone" part. There are literally items in this game that reverse that! The player will probably have some in their inventory! Why didn't anyone use one of them at some point!

Anyway still shouldn't watch the abridged if you care about spoilers, I'll drop a message when the plot moves past the part they were/are making jokes about.
 
Fun fact: The Pheonix Downs you were using on your dudes are also oneshots against that boss @Omicron. I'm honestly a bit surprised you didn't twig to the undead status (and the Cure Kills Undead option that goes with), given its presence in prior FFs. FF7 was my entry to the series so yeah, I did it the hard way too, so you have all my sympathies. :(
 
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Omicron said:
let's just not interrogate the whole 'elf maturity' thing and how you can still be a child while having 48 years of life experience, nothing good lays that way
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I was assuming it was brain chemistry. I mean, life experience doesn't mean too much if your brain is still being flooded with hormones that make you act like an idiot.
 
Dybbukpossesed said:
The thing that always drove me nuts about that plot beat is the "Turned to stone" part. There are literally items in this game that reverse that! The player will probably have some in their inventory! Why didn't anyone use one of them at some point!

Anyway still shouldn't watch the abridged if you care about spoilers, I'll drop a message when the plot moves past the part they were/are making jokes about.
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He's still full of swords, arrows, and the like. Whether they're removed or not, de-stoning him would probably just kill him from all the blood loss restarting.
 
foamy said:
Might as well ask why anybody dies in a series where Phoenix Downs can be bought in shops.
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Because they never get brought up outside of shop inventories and nobody in the game acknowledges their existence. The Soft item literally has a separate merchant who sells them in Costa del Sol as souvenirs which means characters in universe know about them. Like, I get that certain items are just there for gameplay convenience and don't interact with the plot, but a dude is literally selling the cure to this problem as a tourist memento in another town.
 
Kadmus said:
I mean, not really? Sure, familial shame is more of a thing in Japan AFAIK, but it doesn't explain the whole 'we literally just made up that your dad was a coward for explicitly no reason, and in fact have negative reason to do so'. It's just, y'know, Standard Bad Final Fantasy Writing, that stands out here because the rest of it's been fairly solid.
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If they had gone with something like "Your father disappeared long ago, I'll tell you what happened when you're older," or "Your father died long ago, but his final resting place is cursed and we don't want you getting killed" it'd make a lot more sense. But I think it's just a simple case of the writers feeling like they need some sort of Big Dramatic Twist and settling on this certain trope without actually thinking through the implications.
 
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Dybbukpossesed said:
Because they never get brought up outside of shop inventories and nobody in the game acknowledges their existence. The Soft item literally has a separate merchant who sells them in Costa del Sol as souvenirs which means characters in universe know about them. Like, I get that certain items are just there for gameplay convenience and don't interact with the plot, but a dude is literally selling the cure to this problem as a tourist memento in another town.
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Again. He's got how many swords, spears and arrows sticking out of him? He'd probably keel over the moment his petrification was removed.
 
foamy said:
Might as well ask why anybody dies in a series where Phoenix Downs can be bought in shops.
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I mean, we tried back with Galuf, remember? Sometimes the soul just isn't there anymore.

And for FF7, bodies seem to degrade really quickly, "joining the life stream," which also seems to imply one's body and soul are far closer linked, or even one and the same, and may be why people can do crazy stunts. SOLDIERS just have bigger/stronger/more soul then other people due to Mako (ie soul energy) injections, but you can strengthen your own soul through life experience, martial arts, overcoming hardship, et cetera.

Therefore, you have your normal citizens living their average lives, almost entirely mundane outside the occasional adrenaline fueled limit break, while also having members of a terrorist cell capable of jumping a dozen feet, while also having a bartender turned freedom fighter able to keep up with an amnesiac SOLDIER.
 
I actually like the twist that the Promised Land is a religious concept about Heaven and the satisfaction of a life well lived, and the Shinra leadership have just misinterpreted it as a physical place with infinite resources that they can use to make money. As a villain, the Shinra board is scary and dangerous for all the power they command, but they are also idiots who are wrong very often. I like that; it makes a point about how blind and contemptible their way of thinking is. They are like Demiurges who have supreme control over the physical world and arrogantly think that that is all there is.
 
I've basically realized the Turks are like a reverse Kefka, where they start at their most threatening and destructive but then get reduced to quirky miniboss status.
...And now I'm imagining Reno in charge of the World of Ruin.

Deathblow here reminds me of one of those attacks in Pokémon which are extremely powerful but nobody ever uses because of their awful accuracy (or in Focus Blast's case, are forced to use anyway when a Mon has no Fighting coverage otherwise). Just saying there'd better be a No Guard Materia coming up.

I've also been wondering whether the Cetra are meant to be Jewish-coded (...or even Jewish outright given Omi's theorising) given the term 'Promised Land' and their description as wanderers. Because if so, kinda makes it weird how Aerith was introduced working in a Christian-looking Church, but then again Jesus Himself was Jewish
 
Omicron said:
Anyway, then Seto's petrified statue starts crying tears of Materia at the sight of how much his son has grown.

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It's a little surreal but frankly my main emotional reaction is that I am mentally yelling at Red for not going over and picking up all those precious magical tears. Ah, well.
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I am now imagining Yuffie's eyes lighting up as she plots how to make Seto suffer even more.
 
Omicron said:
At that point I'm tired of these monsters so I start using Beta on everything, which is very satisfying, even if a bad decision in the long run - between Ramuh and Beta, I am going through my MP stores at incredible speed and end up burning through my full supply of Ether by the end of the dungeon, which isn't ideal.
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If you are having that much aggravation with the random battles, you might need to level up a bit.
 
ArlequineLunaire said:
Because if so, kinda makes it weird how Aerith was introduced working in a Christian-looking Church, but then again Jesus Himself was Jewish
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Japanese developers, not writers inundated in the finer details of all that their whole lives; if they understood the distinction clearly I'd be very surprised.

Particularly back in the '90s before the modern internet.
 
Geckonator said:
Is now the time to bring up one of the dumbest and most immediately infuriating transliteration quibbles that the Reunion and a certain class of fan have with this game?

In Japanese, his name ends with a "su" katakana, meaning that strictly speaking the original name is "Zax" or, if you really prefer dumb shit, "Zacks". Reunion really pushes hard for Zax, obviously, but they get even more insistent on it by claiming it's some intentional etymology to an Old English word "seax", which became "zax", which refers to a kind of knife.

Once again, I'm really disappointed with the motivated reason and big stretches to claim deep, meaningful etymology on names chosen to sound cool or fit the setting.
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The same mod also insists that Reno is actually Leno despite the fact he's been officially Reno for 20 years, not to mention the alliterative appeal and mouthfeel of 'those two guys, Reno & Rude'. The google doc even says under the Aeris-to-Aerith entry "this one has been specifically corrected by the original writers, it's a shame they didn't correct Zack and the others."

McFluffles said:
Okay but actually imagine that happening though? Now that would be the twist of a lifetime for FF7 to have in its back pocket.

Sephiroth: "Haha Cloud and other puny party members, soon I shall destroy the humans and rule over the planet as the chosen ancient with my mother JENOVA!"
Cloud: "Nah man turns out Jenova ain't an ancient, here's Gast's notes"
Sephiroth: "Ah shit I've been a doof haven't I. Damn, Hojo sucks can we go kill him and Shinra?"
Cloud: "Word"

Sephiroth has joined the party
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This will happen in Rebirth.
 
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The intended meaning is that Zacks is several kids named Zack in a trenchcoat. Source: trust me.
 
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Zap Rowsdower said:
Japanese developers, not writers inundated in the finer details of all that their whole lives; if they understood the distinction clearly I'd be very surprised.

Particularly back in the '90s before the modern internet.
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I guess it doesn't help their knowledge that the 80s and 90s were also a time of rising antisemitism in Japan, though the 90s at least saw more accountability in that regard
 
deadcrystal said:
I feel like Cloud's ignorance of his memory issues has to be wilful at this point. Like, this is not just him being oblivious, with as many issues as Cloud has had so far (especially including straight up having a hallucination at the Honey Bee inn that he just Does Not Acknowledge), Cloud is very definitely and deliberately Not Thinking About It.
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Yeah, I recall thinking that even way back when I first played. From the first mission on he repeatedly demonstrated he's got some weird mental issues going on, and his method of "dealing with it" is to not even acknowledge anything is happening. Not even to himself, much less his friends and allies.
 
Omicron said:
Nanaki is a teenager with a very formal affect who doesn't talk much and brings up "logic" and stuff. One thing we can say for sure is, he's a Redditor. And when he was captured by Hojo, however that happened, and assigned an experiment name, his reaction to hearing himself called "RED THIRTEEN" was "holy shit, this is the coolest shit ever," like he was named like some kind of fucked up mad science experiment or superweapon, so when Cloud asked for his name, he did not miss his shot at having everyone call him by his super-cool mad science nickname instead of his boring normal name. Because he's a teenager who really wants to look cool.

Rock on, Red.
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Huh, I always assumed he wasn't willing to trust AVALANCHE when he first met them with any personal information, not even his name, because they were a bunch of violent strangers he met at a Shinra base, but I do like this explanation.

Gun Jam said:
Really? For me the main reason to put this materia at all is because of big guard.
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For me, the main reason to put that materia on at all was Matra Magic so I could FIRE ALL MISSILES!
 
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