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

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Omicron said:
why do they need money?
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Look, the tickets for the Train of the Dead aren't cheap, OK?

Omicron said:
INAPPROPRIATE WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR, TSENG. DON'T FRATERNIZE WITH YOUR SUBORDINATES!
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And she can't even report him to Human Resources because in Shinra it's just an euphemism for Hojo's freezer.

Omicron said:
Why on earth would they build a doomsday device Materia???
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"There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year."
 
Omicron said:
The Ancient (and other identical Ancients we'll meet throughout the dungeon) acts as a save point, inn, and shop all at once, which we probably shouldn't be looking too hard at (why do they need money?).
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I like the idea Barret is insisting on paying, just like in Shinra tower. He's got principles, dammit!

There's a lot of debate on where Cait Sith falls in terms of 'fully controlled by a guy fused by his own sweat to his gamer chair' and 'an onboard AI that occasionally receives emails' and there's enough variation in scenes you can make a case anywhere along it, but I want to point out the cat's sacrifice is in the context of the game turning the spotlight on Cloud's own lack of agency, being controlled and acting against the interests of the party. (And if you think about the 'flunkies', there's a theme of disposability in this sequence too). There's an interesting interweaving here, tonally bizarre as it is.

That's right, Cait Sith's pilot is a narrative parallel for Sephiroth. You heard it here.
 
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Omicron said:
Therefore, none of the weapons found in the Temple of the Ancients has any Materia slots.
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There's one! Room 4 in the clock tower has a weapon for Aerith, that I don't think you mentioned.

Also, since we know you're aware of Aerith's contribution to popular culture...

Your last chance to unequip her of her gear was a split-second moment when you can open the menu when Cloud is lunging at her in the pit. You'll lose any items she has equipped otherwise, though I believe not any Materia she had slotted in them. (Though so long as she's not wearing your Ribbon it's probably not the biggest deal.)
 
FallsSideways said:
I like the idea Barret is insisting on paying, just like in Shinra tower. He's got principles, dammit!

There's a lot of debate on where Cait Sith falls in terms of 'fully controlled by a guy fused by his own sweat to his gamer chair' and 'an onboard AI that occasionally receives emails' and there's enough variation in scenes you can make a case anywhere along it, but I want to point out the cat's sacrifice is in the context of the game turning the spotlight on Cloud's own lack of agency, being controlled and acting against the interests of the party. (And if you think about the 'flunkies', there's a theme of disposability in this sequence too). There's an interesting interweaving here, tonally bizarre as it is.

That's right, Cait Sith's pilot is a narrative parallel for Sephiroth. You heard it here.
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1. That's brilliant, and I never actually thought about it that way.

2. I now have the mental image of Sephiroth asking Cloud "would you kindly retrieve the Black Materia for me" as Cait Sith loudly bellows that A MAN CHOOSES, A SLAVE OBEYS and Cloud brains him with his shiny new ancient nail bat.
 
Guile said:
Depending on what Sephiroth's deal is, vis a vis Jenova, maybe Cait Sith's narrative parallel is Sephiroth!
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As far as broad themes go, I'm kinda angry at how well this works. "I'm a literal toy, a bunch of cloth and stuffing following ignoble orders. But even if there's a million toys just like me, my own soul and will is something unique and irreducible, and I can willingly choose to make this ultimate sacrifice"
JUST LIKE A CERTAIN OTHER PERSON WE KNOW
vs. Sephiroth's most-specialist boy megalomaniacal sophilism that is so all consuming that he dominates others and seeks to subsume the totality of life itself into his being.

DAMN YOU KOJIMA KITASE / NOJIMA
 
still sick but alive, appreciate everyone's replies through the brain fog

Nachtprophet said:
Fitting in with all the other FFIV call-backs I always considered Cait Siths "death" and immediate replacement a great self-parody of all those fake party member deaths in IV that were followed with the characters being perfectly alive and rejoining later.

As the whole "are the Ancients actually ancient aliens, or not" question has been brought up again, I always considered that just another case of misleadingly vague writing.

See, that explanation Sephiroth gave in the Nibelheim flashback never actually says that the cetra came from space. It's "Cetra was a itinerant race. They would migrate in, settle the Planet, then move on..." If you consider that "The Planet" is the name everyone in VII calls their world, this can easily just be a weird formulation of "The Cetra were a nomadic people that travelled across the land, made temporary settlements, then continued travelling." With the ancestors of the modern humans being the Cetra that gave up that livestyle in favor of agriculture und permanent settlements.

At least the German translation of VII seems to have used a phrasing that's closer to that reading. I'm not good enough at Japanese to definitely understand the original text, but at a cursory look at it, it's similarly vague as the translations and uses an uncommon phrase for "itinerant race" that might just be a synonym for nomads. Of course you can totally have space nomads, but I think if that was always the intended reading they would have made it more explicit.
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See, on the one hand, I can totally see what you're saying, this would make a lot of sense, but on the other hand this means that the big clash Sephiroth blames on the "traitors" who split off from the Cetra isn't "not continuing their journey through space" but instead... Abandoning nomadic pastoralism for sedentary agrarian civilization??

The implications are fascinating and yet, I don't feel like I'm supposed to be pulling out my big book of anthropology for this
 
Guile said:
Depending on what Sephiroth's deal is, vis a vis Jenova, maybe Cait Sith's narrative parallel is Sephiroth!
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Or, perhaps, Cloud, given how he got got by Sephiroth into handing over the Black Materia.

Omicron said:
still sick but alive, appreciate everyone's replies through the brain fog


See, on the one hand, I can totally see what you're saying, this would make a lot of sense, but on the other hand this means that the big clash Sephiroth blames on the "traitors" who split off from the Cetra isn't "not continuing their journey through space" but instead... Abandoning nomadic pastoralism for sedentary agrarian civilization??

The implications are fascinating and yet, I don't feel like I'm supposed to be pulling out my big book of anthropology for this
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Well, game's nowhere near over yet. Maybe there's more info coming?
 
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I will say that given what we've seen in the LP so far, Cait Sith's sacrifice has negative emotional weight, yeah. Especially given he's just been revealed as an enemy (twice! stole the Keystone and kidnapped Marlene, and then also bugged all the party to spy on them!) and immediately appears afterwards with a shrug and no indication there's anything that's been lost other than a bit of metal from the destroyed drone.

You could possibly go 'oh but there's some sort of independent AI/pseudo-AI in him that runs him when Shinra Office Drone No. 1551 isn't driving him' but there's been, AFAIR, no indication that's the case. I'm not sure the crew are (were?) even aware he wasn't alive, so it's not like the Shinra office drone couldn't have slept like a regular person and had CS shut off or enter 'sleep mode' or something.

That or the office drone is just strapped up to a bunch of unpleasant tubing and a VR rig of some kind, and gets replaced every time the drug cocktail used to keep them awake and operation for days on end kills them.
 
There's no actual hint that this is the case, but I'm sort of thinking that the "pilot" back in Shinra HQ is like, "permanently plugged in," someone who because of disability or coercion or whatever was just put in a life support system that controls (possibly multiple simultaneous instances of) Cait Sith, which explains why they never have to 'log off' or take shifts, and they just sleep when Cait Sith does and wake up if he's woken up.

That said, "Cait Sith instances have their own AI personality and the pilot is more of a 'handler'" would probably be the best way to make the sacrifice make sense and have actual emotional value, you'd just have to like... Actually write it that way.
 
Omicron said:
There's no actual hint that this is the case, but I'm sort of thinking that the "pilot" back in Shinra HQ is like, "permanently plugged in," someone who because of disability or coercion or whatever was just put in a life support system that controls (possibly multiple simultaneous instances of) Cait Sith, which explains why they never have to 'log off' or take shifts, and they just sleep when Cait Sith does and wake up if he's woken up.

That said, "Cait Sith instances have their own AI personality and the pilot is more of a 'handler'" would probably be the best way to make the sacrifice make sense and have actual emotional value, you'd just have to like... Actually write it that way.
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All I can say is that Remake has already made some very interesting choices with how they're interpreting Cait Sith, and it will be very interesting to see what other choices they will make in pt. 2 and 3.
 
21stCentury said:
Cait Sith was a summon in some other FFs. Therefore we can infer that Cait Sith may be considered, if not a corporate-created character, a folk or myth character here as well.
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Er. That really doesn't hold up for me, sorry, given how much things can vary from Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy; I think the evidence would need to be specifically from FFVII material.

What Terrabrand said, basically.

Omicron said:
the game where I caught the sickness midway through writing this update and wrote most of it while dying on the inside and also the outside
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Oh, sorry! I hope you feel better soon, if you aren't already.

...
It occurs to me.
Cait Sith N°2 arrived really quickly.
"Would even delivery by ballistic rocket from Midgar have been fast enough?" quickly.
...So exactly how many spare Cait Siths are following the party around?

GilliamYaeger said:
My take on the Cait Sith sacrifice is that there's some kind of independent onboard AI on the robot so the Shinra pilot doesn't have to be online 100% of the time. It'd certainly suck if Cait Sith needed to interact with the party while the pilot was sleeping, for example. So that onboard AI, the "real" Cait Sith, genuinely sacrificed itself for the party's sake.
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I was wondering why they wouldn't just have that AI server side, where it would also benefit from more powerful hardware -- but then I realized that the AI could also cover for connection outages.

Zap Rowsdower said:
Did... did that whole temple complex/materia get built in the space of the three to six months/one to two seasons nomadic societies will traditionally remain in a single place?
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Well, they could have gone back there multiple times, doing more work on it each time. Göbekli Tepe got built somehow.
(Though apparently there might now be some debate on whether that was build by nomadic non-agricultural people, or whether actually settled living began earlier there than previously thought? Or something like that?)

Thozmp said:
So, you're saying that the Temple was built by a succession of mad men, each with their own brand of madness?
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...
Ohhhh. Okay, no, this makes sense now.
Year 0: "Well, lads and lassies, the wagon axle just broke, so, in accordance with tradition, this is where we're settling down. STRIKE THE EARTH!"
Year 1: "So, the previous overseer certainly did build a nice pyramid here. Living quarters, stable agriculture... very good start to the fort. But since that's done, I have some of my own ideas..."
Year 2: "And my predecessor built a... giant clock bridge room. Okay, sure, why not, but if it's going to be that sort of project, I've got this cool idea for a perpetual falling boulder trap..."
Year 3: "THE ELEPHANTS, THE ELEPHANTS, THE DREADFUL TRUMPETING, MAKE IT STOP!"
Year 4: "And the previous overseer built a... what? An anti-elephant doomsday device that works by shrinking the entire fortress down and summoning a meteor to cause a mass extinction event?! ...Well. Uh. Okay, so, I guess I'll lock the controls for that down tight. And might as well give my engravers some practice in there."
Year 5: [the overseer put all their time into the space-twisting mazes, the booze ran out, and a tantrum spiral ensued]
:D
 
... It's just me, or does it feel like nothing Cait Sith has done or said has any weight on the plot? We could have skipped the "lol I swindled you the keystone, but let's go together, but I got your kid, lmao even" simply with a line explaining Dio gave the keystone to Shinra (it's not like he'd be awfully attached to it if he gives it to the party after a failed battle round). The fake sacrifice falls flat, and leaves Marlene's alleged kidnapping unaddressed. Write Cait Sith off the plot, and we miss nothing. At least Chu-Chu in Xenogears (aka Final Fantasy VII: The Rejected Plot) doesn't steal the show like this.

I can only describe the entire situation as "Psyduck_hands_on_head_migraine_emoticon.jpg" because hot damn Sakaguchi what were you people thinking?
 
Connelly said:
... It's just me, or does it feel like nothing Cait Sith has done or said has any weight on the plot? We could have skipped the "lol I swindled you the keystone, but let's go together, but I got your kid, lmao even" simply with a line explaining Dio gave the keystone to Shinra (it's not like he'd be awfully attached to it if he gives it to the party after a failed battle round). The fake sacrifice falls flat, and leaves Marlene's alleged kidnapping unaddressed. Write Cait Sith off the plot, and we miss nothing. At least Chu-Chu in Xenogears (aka Final Fantasy VII: The Rejected Plot) doesn't steal the show like this.

I can only describe the entire situation as "Psyduck_hands_on_head_migraine_emoticon.jpg" because hot damn Sakaguchi what were you people thinking?
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Cool things can still be cool for their own sake, if you do 'em right.

Did Tseng need to show up, try and solo Sephiroth, get his ass kicked and then hand the Keystone over to us while Aerith has Very Complicated Feelings in the background? No. Is it still kinda cool anyway? Yeah. Am I looking forward to seeing it in FF7R? Hell yeah.

Cait's arc was fumbled, but 'party member betrays the party Because Capitalism' is hypothetically cool! It worked for Yuffie.

Just, y'know. Needed more room to breathe, and a better wrap-up explaining who the hell this even is.
 
Omicron said:
See, on the one hand, I can totally see what you're saying, this would make a lot of sense, but on the other hand this means that the big clash Sephiroth blames on the "traitors" who split off from the Cetra isn't "not continuing their journey through space" but instead... Abandoning nomadic pastoralism for sedentary agrarian civilization??
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More of a turning away from a lifestyle based on mystic spirituality and communion with the Planet and instead embracing a sedentary lifestyle based on vulgar materialism. I agree though, the concept of them being aliens is a lot more compelling than if they're just garden variety Earthlings.

Guile said:
Cool things can still be cool for their own sake, if you do 'em right.
.....
Cait's arc was fumbled, but 'party member betrays the party Because Capitalism' is hypothetically cool! It worked for Yuffie.
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Yeah, I'd rather the game try for something interesting and fumble the attempt while still coming out with something memorable than just write the entire thing off as not worth having happened to begin with. Especially when most of the problem is IMO in the execution, not the concept. Also, as anyone in the spoiler thread has seen me SCREAMING about, there's still two more discs of story to go.
 
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Cypocryphy said:
Yeah, I'd rather the game try for something interesting and fumble the attempt while still coming out with something memorable than just write the entire thing off as not worth having happened to begin with.
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That's been the story of the entire thread, really - every game past the first just shoots for the stars every single time. Even FF2 at least grasped for an epic story of betrayal and redemption with Leon. If there's one word that never applies to Final Fantasy, it's "safe".
 
eagle_II said:
That's been the story of the entire thread, really - every game past the first just shoots for the stars every single time. Even FF2 at least grasped for an epic story of betrayal and redemption with Leon. If there's one word that never applies to Final Fantasy, it's "safe".
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Even the first game had an insane timeloop plot reveal 90% through the game.
 
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Reese said:
Ohhhh. Okay, no, this makes sense now.
Year 0: "Well, lads and lassies, the wagon axle just broke, so, in accordance with tradition, this is where we're settling down. STRIKE THE EARTH!"
Year 1: "So, the previous overseer certainly did build a nice pyramid here. Living quarters, stable agriculture... very good start to the fort. But since that's done, I have some of my own ideas..."
Year 2: "And my predecessor built a... giant clock bridge room. Okay, sure, why not, but if it's going to be that sort of project, I've got this cool idea for a perpetual falling boulder trap..."
Year 3: "THE ELEPHANTS, THE ELEPHANTS, THE DREADFUL TRUMPETING, MAKE IT STOP!"
Year 4: "And the previous overseer built a... what? An anti-elephant doomsday device that works by shrinking the entire fortress down and summoning a meteor to cause a mass extinction event?! ...Well. Uh. Okay, so, I guess I'll lock the controls for that down tight. And might as well give my engravers some practice in there."
Year 5: [the overseer put all their time into the space-twisting mazes, the booze ran out, and a tantrum spiral ensued]
:D
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So that explains why Aerith's flower garlands menace with spikes of flowers...
 
Omicron said:
See, on the one hand, I can totally see what you're saying, this would make a lot of sense, but on the other hand this means that the big clash Sephiroth blames on the "traitors" who split off from the Cetra isn't "not continuing their journey through space" but instead... Abandoning nomadic pastoralism for sedentary agrarian civilization??

The implications are fascinating and yet, I don't feel like I'm supposed to be pulling out my big book of anthropology for this
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Well...

Long, long ago in the sixth update of this thread.
Omicron said:
IT'S THE PASTORALIST-AGRARIAN CONFLICT

A SHIFT IN ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITION HAS MADE LARGE-SCALE STATE ENTITIES NON-VIABLE, FORCING SEDENTARY AGRARIAN POPULATIONS TO WITHDRAW INTO SMALL, DEFENSIBLE SETTLEMENTS IN THE FEW REMAINING FERTILE "GRASSLANDS"

ALLOWING THE PASTORALIST, NOMADIC "MONSTER RACES" TO EXPAND BACK FROM THE UNSETTLED "FRINGES" THEY HAD BEEN PUSHED BACK TO

EVEN THOUGH THE LAND IS GROWING BARREN AND HOSTILE, THE MASSIVELY EXPANDED RANGE OF ROAMING THEY ENJOY ALLOWS THEM TO THRIVE ANYWAY IN COMPARISON TO THE PRIOR STATE OF THINGS

WHAT HUMANITY IS EXPERIENCING AS MONSTER INVASIONS IS THEIR INABILITY TO SUSTAIN THE LOGISTICAL WEIGHT OF A MILITARY CLASS MEANING THEY CAN NO LONGER POLICE THEIR BORDERS AND THE PASTORALISTS CAN NOW FREELY FORAGE OFF LANDS ONCE RESERVED FOR AGRICULTURAL USE

I AM ACTUALLY A STATE AGENT ATTEMPTING TO SUPPRESS NOMADIC OGRE/GIGAS/SAHAGIN EXPANSION AND A RETURN TO THE SUPREMACY OF MILITARIZED, AGRARIAN STATE ENTITIES

SOMEBODY GET JAMES C. SCOTT ON THE PHONE STAT
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It wouldn't be the first time.

More seriously, I'm not really convinced either way, it's just that Alien Ancients wasn't my read when I first played this, so it feels kinda weird when I see that as the immediate interpretation in playthroughs by other people.

You're definitely correct in that an extraplanetary origin of the Cetra feels more fitting for the kind of story FFVII appears to be telling. Even the weird Mayan-Egyptian hybrid temple makes a bit more sense if you think about it as a reference to real-life ancient alien theorists obsessing over those cultures. Although with all the other FFIV callbacks I would have expected something more in line with the Tower of Babil or the Lunar Whale. Something actually out of place for an "ancient civilization". On the other hand, a technologically advanced Cetra-Civilization would probably be too close to Shinra and how they are portrayed as the ideological opposite of the Planet-friendly Ancients.

Of course that is an argument against alien Ancients, since they're always depicted as deeply connected to this specific planet. If they wander from star to star, does every world in this universe have a compatible Lifestream?

For a more in depth discussion we should probably wait until later in the game before it gets into spoiler territory. Ultimately the way the game talks about the Ancients (up to this point) just doesn't feel to me like the characters in-game are interpreting the Cetra as aliens, as that should be big enough to warrant more comments and reactions by everyone, especially Aerith. But who knows, they're obviously very good at not talking about important stuff...
 
New Threat changes some of the items around and cleans up the translation a bit. The biggest change is that the mouth in the clock room gives you the option to spawn ten more clock hands, allowing you to access every room at once.
 
Nachtprophet said:
Of course that is an argument against alien Ancients, since they're always depicted as deeply connected to this specific planet. If they wander from star to star, does every world in this universe have a compatible Lifestream?
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If you subscribe to the fan theory that
FFVII and FFX are in the same timeline/universe
which was further developed in the climax of Endwalker, then yeah, each one would have it's own.
 
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