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

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I'm going to say something controversial.

Final Fantasy, as a franchise, has had some weird story beats. Both in games before VII and after. Some of them work. Others don't, but they can be glossed over.

This beat is an absolute flop. It just DOES NOT WORK.

I keep turning Tifa's part in this scene around in my head, trying to make her stated intent lead to her on-screen actions, and I just can't. They don't make sense. Reading this update didn't break my suspension of disbelief so much as shatter it.

And maybe I'd find it easier to give it a pass if it weren't for the fact that we've had thirty five years of people saying this game is the shit and the best FF ever and every game since is flawed because it isn't FF7. I think the only FF game I've played that had dumber character behavior was Lightning Returns.

Maybe.

I don't want Omi to take this personally because it is nothing against this Let's Play series, but just goddamn. Honestly the explanation I'm going with from here on out is that Tifa doesn't actually have big tits, she just carries two giant Idiot Balls under her shirt.
…I can't wait to move on to FF8. Seriously. At least that game has the excuse that ALL the characters have crappy memories.
 
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McFluffles said:
Probably should have... talked to the rest of the party at some point though. Might have helped avoid things.
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Actually, wasn't Arieth starting to try and get Cloud to untangle himself before she got killed? I give it decent odds that Tifa talked with her about it and wanted to coordinate a plan with her on Cloud before being interrupted by events.
 
Whelp, damn, this section is... a lot. This feels like the absolute nadir for Cloud's arc and emotional state, and it comes riding on the coattails of Aerith's death after only a brief break. This is one part of FFVII that I've only seen bits of, but reading you go through it, it feels a bit like the knife that's been ready in the dark since the first act of the game being finally sunken between the ribs while the player is still down on their knees from being punched in the gut and decked in the jaw by the cruelty of Aerith leaving the stage.

It's a really thorough corridor of horror, bouncing between the utter dissonance Cloud is trying to use to protect himself, Tifa's desperation, and Sephiroth's newfound glee in psychologically flaying Cloud. But what surprises me here, thinking about it is kind of how... intricate this setpiece is.

Not just in terms of the intense characterization, including the reveal of how complex Tifa's anguished thoughts are and unknowingly to us have been from the first about Cloud, but also in how much complicated foreshadowing ties in. There are a few elements in FFVII, like in most Final Fantasy games so far, that don't quite hit or work, but VII has used uncertainty to an incredibly strong effect and seeded the course of the story with many pieces that keep us doubting what is plausible, only to finally, seemingly, bring them together for a devastating snap to reality. So many elements that point to things really being as they have been exposed... but a few possible inconsistencies and unanswered holes.

Of course Sephiroth and Hojo are untrustworthy. Of course Sephiroth at this point is going out of his way to torment Cloud and so even his use of the truth is dubious. But at this point in the game, what Sephiroth says seems terrifyingly true. It's effective. I can't wait for the next part of this.
 
Omicron said:
It's a… really, really strong power to give to an antagonist. The kind that immediately raises questions as to how the heroes are supposed to actually win. I mean, you know me; I made my name on this website with a million-word Bleach Quest, I have thought a lot about the ridiculous nature of freeform illusion powers with no clear limits but, well. We'll see.
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So maybe I'm the wrong kind of person for this beat, but my read of this situation is to break away from the game and look at the developers. And the developers seem to have said, "Right, we need to make this scene really impactful, totally sell that this is Cloud's lowest point. So somehow we need the party to get the Black Materia back so Cloud can be forced to give it to him, but we can't make these characters look to stupid because we've spent a long time building them up, and we have these assets to work with and this much time to spend on it. Okay, Sephiroth has been doing mental stuff and illusions and the like, and this a place where there's a lot of power, right? So write some creepy dialog, do a one off super illusion hopefully no one ever brings up again, and get the characters off to point B with this really cool cinematic. Okay? Okay."
McFluffles said:
It's incredible really, how Hojo somehow gets actively worse in every way with every scene he's in. And I'm not even sure if this is rock bottom.
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He can get worse. There is no way telling you Hojo can and will get worse is a spoiler, so I'm just going to say it.
Hell, even after he's dead he can get worse. And he does! Hojo could be in the secret compartment under Satan's wine celler and he'd break out a shovel to dig himself even lower. It's truely amazing.
 
I've said before that I think Hojo is directly responsible for everything awful that happens in FF7, up to and including things that happened thousands of years before his birth. And I don't think I'm out of line.
 
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Mister Bad Guy said:
However, there's another, more modern definition of a ronin, which has arisen from slang: a ronin in modern Japan is a person who failed their university entrance exams, couldn't get into college, and now wanders around doing work for whoever needs a person with a high school education.

Unbeknownst to us when we first heard this, that definition also fits Cloud pretty well.
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Given the romcom hidden variable minigame, you could make a Love Hina/Maison Ikkoku joke out of this. :V

The gut punch sequence feels like one of the Eva mindfuck sequences, specifically the ones where Ayanami gets reminded she's a tomato and the Other is a real bitch about it.
 
FourthWall said:
Given the romcom hidden variable minigame, you could make a Love Hina/Maison Ikkoku joke out of this. :V

The gut punch sequence feels like one of the Eva mindfuck sequences, specifically the ones where Ayanami gets reminded she's a tomato and the Other is a real bitch about it.
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Not wholly coincidence, I'd wager, given Eva came out 1995-1996 and this was 1997.
Its not the only Eva evocative thing either.
 
Omicron said:
…the Black Materia, hovering above the ground where we killed Jenova.

What an incredible turn of good fortune! We won! Now to just take that thing, turn around and never come back!

Cloud: "Jenova's cells… Hmm. So that's what this is all about. The Jenova Reunion…"
Tifa: "Not Sephiroth!? You mean this whole time it wasn't Sephiroth we've been after?"
Cloud: "I'll explain later. Right now, the only thing I'm thinking about is beating Sephiroth."
Tifa: "But Sephiroth is…"
Cloud: "He's here. The real Sephiroth is just beyond here."
Cloud: "It's both incredibly wicked and cruel… But it's releasing a powerfully strong will from deep within the Planet's wound."
[Cloud picks up the Black Materia.]
Cloud: "...The Black Materia is back in our hands. Now all we have to do is defeat Sephiroth and that'll be the end of it."
Tifa: "We'd better not take the Black Materia any further. Why don't you give it to someone else to hold onto?"

It seems like everyone saw Sephiroth turn into a Jenova-entity, and concluded 'oh, Sephiroth was a fake, it was Jenova using Sephiroth's appearance', with Cloud knowing that there's more to it than that but deciding not to explain it right now.

It's a bit of a weird sequence to be honest, especially because this Sephiroth was actually, physically carrying the Black Materia. So I guess that we did actually beat the embodied Sephiroth that stole the Black Materia back at the Temple of the Ancients? Just one body of his, but it seems like this is the actual, physical vessel which took the Materia, left for the Forgotten City, killed Aerith, then traveled all the way to the North Pole, saw that we caught up with it and turned into a Jenova-entity to fight us, and we blasted it into smithereens. Granted, given that it's just a decoy body, that victory holds little meaning, but we should take our wins where we get them.
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This isn't just a "decoy body." This is the same JENOVA that was in the tank at Shinra HQ. It broke itself out, turned into Sephiroth, let Cloud and co out of their cells, stabbed President Shinra with a piece of itself (that's how Sephiroth still has the Masamune despite leaving it behind in Midgar) and since then has been flinging bits of itself at you on a semi-regular basis whenever you catch up to it.
 
Ah, good. Time to walk out of Killers of the Flower Moon and facefirst into a two-part update on the most complicated part of FF7. It's like being fed a full course meal, then finding out dessert is an entire chocolate cake. Enticing, but also very hazardous to my health.

Anyways, very bold choice for Square to hire Hideaki Anno as guest director for this one hour-long chunk of gameplay right off his mental collapse during Evangelion's production, but I think it worked out pretty well.
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
This absolutely tracks with his later portrayal as manifesting at the foot of Cloud's bed at 3am eating dry cereal by the handful while Those Chosen By The Planet plays, the man who will introduce himself to Cloud titties-first 30 minutes into Remake just to mingle Burning Nibelheim into Exploded Sector 7 and call his dick small.
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I just wanted to highlight this, because it's the best description of Remake Sephiroth I've ever seen.
 
foamy said:
I've said before that I think Hojo is directly responsible for everything awful that happens in FF7, up to and including things that happened thousands of years before his birth. And I don't think I'm out of line.
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All along, it turns out Jenova had a vision of Hojo being born and went "hell no, fuck that" and crashed into Earth entirely to try and genocide humanity pre-emptively, before that vile creature could ever come into existence. It all makes sense now.
 
While it's kinda bullshit, it is at least not 'oh right I just mind-controlled this guy to give me the materia'; FF has improved on previous iterations. Going into this bit, we know Cloud is completely untrustworthy, and so do the party. Even Cloud knows he's untrustworthy.

But the recent death of Aeris has shaken the team, and it makes them make bad decisions, is my read here? Cloud says 'don't give anyone this thing' but Barrett panics because shit, they just lost Aeris, he can't see another friend die.

Add in Sephiroth's spontaneous bankai manifestation (hey, his sword is stupid enough, and he wears a billowy black robe! it fits!) and it does actually all mostly fit together, though the seams are visible.

And yeah, it was obvious that the specimen reports about the two escaped dudes were about Cloud and Other Guy, with Cloud being Mook 1, when they first appeared; I think they're probably supposed to be obvious, to give observant/meticulous players an early indication that Cloud's not who he thinks he is? Hell, if Cloud was a mook, who's to say he wasn't in Nibelheim? He could well have been one of those guys in the back, after all; we can't see their hair, and that would explain how he visited his mother in the same time-frame.
 
Omicron said:
Cloud: "This is an illusion Sephiroth made up. He's trying to confuse us. It'll be all right. As long as we know it's an illusion, there's nothing to be afraid of. Come on, let's keep going."
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There's something so bleakly funny about this. Like, Cloud is all 'Don't worry Tifa! I'm not going to let Sephiroth control me, everything here is clearly just going to be some bullshit nonsense he's making up on the spot to try and rattle me so I'll let him in. Kind of cliche, if you ask me. I mean 'ooo wooo Cloud, your memories are fake' Ha! Like I'd fall for that! I mean, you're literally my childhood friend standing next to me able to corroborate my memories and history. Try a less-stupid plan, am I right?'

Meanwhile Tifa's just completely bricking it. 'Ha, yeah, all completely made up. All your memories are real, but incidentally, for no specific reason, you should not look at anything or listen to anything he's saying. In fact, just put this blindfold on right now. For a joke. Since his plan is so bad wouldn't it be funnier to not even pay attention to it? I think so, and I would...never...lie to you...about...anything...'

Omicron said:
The world goes white again, and we advance to Nibelheim burning.

Yuffie: "Wow… I didn't know it was THIS bad…"
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Gods, a return to 'Yuffie thought Cloud made his backstory up for clout' lmao

Omicron said:
I also don't know what to think of the fact that Jenova/Sephiroth seemingly turned into Aizen and unlocked Kyouka Suigetsu, having now the ability to perfectly deceive everyone with illusions that can arbitrarily disguise him as anyone, make people disappear from the scene, and make everyone pass out without the need to directly attack them? It seems like a lot.
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I'd just attribute it to having a bunch of disposable clones around, and this being the culmination of his plans so he's willing to burn resources. Like, reshaping a clone into being Tifa shaped using its Jenova cells would probably last like a minute at best before it collapsed into gore, but they're all clearly on death's door anyway, so no big loss. Plus with the lifestream being so close to the surface here, and him being right in the middle of it, presumably he can distort the ambient reishi mako to temporarily mask senses. Getting the black materia is his win con, so temporary tactics that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny aren't a big deal.

Omicron said:
Rufus immediately declares that this is truly the Promised Land, which makes Hojo angry because there's 'no such thing' as the Promised Land, so Rufus laughs and calls him a 'second-rate scientist.'
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I mean, dunking on Hojo is always hilarious, but Rufus is admittedly being a gullible idiot here as well.

Hojo: 'The Promised Land is a Cetra metaphor for the afterlife you idiotic trust fund baby. You think the nature worshipping hippie ancient's idea of a paradise was an oil well? Jenova, but you're just like your father.'

Rufus: 'Clearly the Cetra were an enlightened Board of Directors, with net worth at the top of the Midgar 500. Naturally the Promised Land refers to a profit source. Though I did think it might be a fancy board room for a while.'

Omicron said:
Hojo: "Ha, ha, ha… This is perfect!! It means that my experiment was a complete success."
Hojo: "What number were you? Huh? Where is your tattoo?"
Cloud: "Professor Hojo… I don't have a number. You didn't give me one because you said I was a failed experiment."
Hojo: "What the..? You mean only a failure made it here?"
Cloud: "Professor… please give me a number. Please, professor…"
Hojo: "Shut up, miserable failure…"
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Hojo: 'My experiment succeeded! My theories have been validated! Everything has happened as I designed!'

Cloud: 'Actually you never finished your work on me, and threw me away. Also all your successes are barely capable of speech and are rotting into puddles of goo as they fail to reach this place'

Hojo, putting on sunglasses and looking off to the side 'No Hablo Inglés'
 
Omicron said:
An individual infected with Jenova, heading for Midgar, suffering pyschological issues causing him… Perhaps… Memory loss? Or maybe… Fugue episodes? Who might have… Perhaps… Landed in a train station in the slum, so out of it he could barely talk?
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*sits bolt upright*

WAIT HOW DID HE GET PAST THE FORCE FIELD-



It isn't just me right? How did he get to the train station? Did he slap the door sensor the right way? Walk straight through it Sephiroth-Jenova-power style? Did someone let him through? Is it something that's turned off and on? What's with that suspiciously cleared line of sight leading up to it? Why are there no train tracks? The more I think about the existence of this thing, possibly reaching an asymptote beyond where the developers did, the more fucked up questions it's existence raises in general. Because clearly people are getting to and from Midgar, but equally clearly this barrier is meant to tightly control or even prevent entrance and egress through the slums. No wonder Remake didn't bring it back.

McFluffles said:
Though now that I think about it, Cait Sith also wasn't there for the original briefing so who told him lmao
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I love the concept of Clout Telephone but I also love the spooky potential in Cait Sith (probably sans steed) having been spying on them as far back as Kalm, only choosing to write his self insert fanfic reveal himself in the Gold Saucer.
 
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Omicron said:
Let me tell you this whole thing is a bit of a random swerve when you reach this place without first finding the Icicle Inn tapes and have never heard about 'Weapons,' although Hojo does clarify that the Weapons 'appear when the Planet is in danger and destroy everything,' which is honestly all we really need to know to grasp the stakes. And then we move back to the party members who stayed behind.
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Yeah it was.

Also, wow, I forgot about Sephiroth's illusion powers. I mean, I remembered him manipulating Cloud and showing people Cloud's (or maybe Sephiroth's?) memories of the past, but Cloud is a special case. I'd completely forgotten about him tricking Barrett like that. That is a much more dangerous level of ability.
 
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Well, if you can swallow Sephiroth pulling Cloud, Tifa, party member #3 into the Nibelheim memory, then silencing Tifa and manipulating one person into not seeing the rest of the party shouldn't be much of a problem. I mean, nobody was asking how Sephiroth was pulling off his walk through memory lane...
 
Not a lot of changes in New Threat. Neo Bahamut is moved to after Jenova DEATH and the translation is reworked. Speaking of Jenova DEATH, the boss fight receives three major changes. First is that it starts off with the party fighting Sephiroth(same model as from the Nibelheim Flashback), only moving on to Jenova once he is dead. Jenova DEATH has a ton of Instant Death moves, making the Death Force Enemy Skill invalueable. It also starts the battle with maxed out defensive stats, which gradually decrease as the battle goes on(I can't remember if it is time based or depending on how many hits the boss has taken)
 
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