Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
How do the roofs differ between the two nations? What materials are used to tile them? Paint job?
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
It's vast generalization, but the stereotypical Japanese school roof is the sort of flat, open rectangular plan, sometimes with chain link fencing. If you've ever watched an anime even tangentially related to a high school, you probably can imagine what I'm talking about. It's not that US schools can't be like that, per se, but more that the stereotypical Japanese school does, so they decided to design the ingame roof of an American school like that even after using video references of an actual American school for the rest, because as far as they know, why would they be any different? It'd be like someone from the US Midwest writing a story with a scene in a New Orleans cemetery where the graves are described as being below ground, not knowing that the majority of burials there take place in aboveground plots because of the swampy ground. Just a fun little way that harmless little cultural quirks are subconsciously carried through into the works one creates.
You can't even do that (in FFVI at least)! I tried! If a given key isn't already present on the mapping, it's inaccessible. So, you can switch the functions of Enter and Backspace, but can't assign anything to 0. Numpad is just dead.
FF ports controls are a thing in itself.
Ngl, her portrayal may be rooted in some sexist tropes, but
Cait Sith: Come on, Barret, we gotta save Tifa! We just need to get to the airship! And fly to another continent! And get you some rest while we're at it, why not!
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
Reading through the Japanese script, I really can't blame the translator here either. Throughout the entire sequence, and with the peculiarities of Japanese grammar relying on context to determine plurals, any translation direct from the text would have assumed "Weapon" was a name or title that had to be used as is, and was singular.
As in, not once in the Japanese text in these scenes does anyone clarify Weapon being plural, or that it should be "a/the Weapon" rather than simply a monster named "Weapon". Even knowing the greater context of the Weapons (plural), if I were translating this, I'd also have thought Barret didn't know about it, and assumed the one Weapon approaching Junon was the only "Weapon".
The same follows for the odder parts of the dialogue. Barret going "Don't worry. I don't know what happened to Cloud either" is a direct translation of the Japanese, and also sounds kind of weird. Same for Red XIII's "we also thought it was Cloud". All in the original Japanese, so the translator cannot be faulted.
An interesting side effect of the previously mentioned "singular Weapon" script is that we never learn the name of this particular Weapon.
Now, we all know what this Weapon is actually named, due to bonus materials that percolated back into canon. But not once in FFVII itself do we learn the name of this Weapon, because it was never mentioned in dialogue, and it was never fought in a battle (as in with the battle interface) so we can target it and check its name.
(I assume Omicron also knows the name by now, not least because we got a Gundam-esque solo instance with it in FFXIV.)
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Tbf given that as far as Shinra knew until this point Cait Sith was their agent, it might have been a case of "he's wearing this for the execution? well okay" while Cait Sith himself was like 'nobody suspects a thing'.
The breakout is really weird though. There's two options I can think of:
1) Cait Sith intended to turn the airship's guns on the gas chamber, but the Weapon did that for them
OR
2) Cait Sith never intended to rescue Tifa at all, considering her already dead but knowing Barret wouldn't abandon her otherwise.
As a fan of theory "the guard who dropped the key was bribed as part of Cait's plan", I lean towards 1, but it's all kind of a narrative mess to the point it's unsure.
Manipulate Materia strikes again.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Brought this up earlier, but apparently Elric of Melnibone (antihero and not villain, though that can be debated) was big in Japan back in the day, which I'd say where the Sephiroth archetype comes from. But it goes back further, with Elric himself being reportedly based on the pulp character Monsieur Zenith as well as several Conan villains.
Sephiroth himself wasn't even the first silver-haired prettyboy heroic paragon-turned-villain in jRPGs, being predated by Lunar's Ghaleon
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Ah, that definitely adds weight to 'common inspiration' for me. I certainly remember there being quite a lot of them back in the day, but I was in middle school then so I couldn't possibly tell you what order they came out in. Skies came out in 2000, vs VII's 1997. I almost would have expected there to be more of a gap to accomodate the full "7 makes it big -> generates lots of edgy imitators -> Skies comes out full of optimism to buck trends" narrative, but games tended to have shorter dev cycles back in those days. Hell, FFVIII came out in 1999, before Skies, even. So maybe that was enough time after all.
Most of my memories about New Threat's version of the Junon Raid/Sapphire Weapon sequence are a bit muddled. There is the usual translation cleanup, and IIRC Caith Sith is more openly involved in Tifa's escape, is the one who hands her the key, and he and Barret turn off the gas before they go to the airship. IIRC.
The slap fight has an additional command: Limit Break, which has chibi Tifa go through her Limit Breaks at Scarlet, ending the fight instantly.
If Aerith is alive, she is disguised as a journalist outside the gas chamber. When the gang launch their ambush she rushes Scarlet with a folding chair and beats her over the head with it. From there she takes Yuffie's spot as the third party member in the breakout. Yuffie still pretends to be a reporter, but doesn't join the party.
The slap fight has an additional command: Limit Break, which has chibi Tifa go through her Limit Breaks at Scarlet, ending the fight instantly.
If Aerith is alive, she is disguised as a journalist outside the gas chamber. When the gang launch their ambush she rushes Scarlet with a folding chair and beats her over the head with it. From there she takes Yuffie's spot as the third party member in the breakout. Yuffie still pretends to be a reporter, but doesn't join the party.
If the guard wasn't bribed, Scarlet might have told him to drop the key in the chamber so Tifa would have had the agony of escape being just out of her reach while she died. It fits her sadistic personality.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Honestly she doesn't even need the "but", at least half of healer mains will throw hands on a moment's notice.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
Well, while granted I'm much more a fan of Skies of Arcadia than FFVII, I do think I'd agree.SerGregness said:
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
Keep Calm and Cast Holy.
I forgot : since when Barret knows that Cait Sith works for Shinra ?
And maybe a weird take, but I prefer largely Rufus as a vilain than Sephiroth. He is blunt and direct, doesn't try to wrap things from his past to justify his actual actions and ready to do anything to achieve its own success.
And maybe a weird take, but I prefer largely Rufus as a vilain than Sephiroth. He is blunt and direct, doesn't try to wrap things from his past to justify his actual actions and ready to do anything to achieve its own success.
Cait insisting on showing up to the public execution Like That is very funny. Like a 14 year old that wants to wear the Misfits t-shirt he just bought from Hot Topic to his grandma's birthday party.
"It's not a *PHASE* Scarlet, this is who I am!"
ApocalypticFish
Been reflecting lately.
- Pronouns
- He
Of the four American schools I went to, all of them only had roof access through a ladder. No door at the top of the stairwell that was locked to stop kids from getting out onto it.
ApocalypticFish
Been reflecting lately.
None of the US schools I attended allowed students access to the roof at all, as far as I know. I'm not even sure how you would get up there, and I'm reasonably sure at least one just didn't have a way of getting to the roof without a ladder on the outside or something.
Universities are a different matter, but the roofs I've seen for those did not resemble the ones you typically see in Japanese media.
Universities are a different matter, but the roofs I've seen for those did not resemble the ones you typically see in Japanese media.
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There's no way these guys get paid enough for this. Shoulder-fired rockets, really?
On the one hand, they've got a story that will get them free drinks for the rest of their life. On the other hand, they're probably blind and deaf from being outside the armor when the biggest gun ever made was being fired. I'm sure ShinRa's veteran benefits are really something, too.
First of all, she responded to Aerith's voice. Secondly, the 'daycare' Barrett left her with was Elmyra, Aerith's mom. Aerith even ended that conversation saying "I hope my mom is okay" and she was never mentioned again.
I wonder if Cait Sith told Elmyra that her daughter died? I'm imagining a goofy cat toy riding a Mooglebot stuffed into an ill-fitting black suit, knocking on Elmyra's prison door and saying "I'm sorry to have to inform you..."
Barret's line is in response to Tifa admitting she's not asking about Cloud because she's afraid of the response. Obviously Cloud isn't in the room with them, 'he's fine' isn't really a possibility, so the closest thing to reassurance Barret can offer is that he doesn't know anything more about Cloud than Tifa does. He goes on to acknowledge that 'don't worry' isn't exactly right in this situation, but it makes sense to me as a thing someone would say.
Red XIII's line doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the first part of the conversation, but it gets at something interesting to me: who does the party think Cloud is, at this point?
They were all present for Cloud saying "I hope you all meet the real Cloud, one day" and Hojo explaining he's a failed Sephiroth clone. Is Red XIII supposed to be comforting Tifa, saying that they also got tricked by the imposter? Do they think the Cloud they knew got switched with the Sephiroth-copy version at some point? But that doesn't make sense with the following conversation about undersea Mako vents. So they all just kind of brushed past the whole "Cloud begging Hojo for an experiment number" thing?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, about that! It's not clear initially, but if you check the crewman's dialogue explaining the mutiny again, the ship wasn't stolen five minutes ago, but a week ago. They basically rebelled the moment Cid first walked onto the bridge shortly after after escaping the North Crater and landing at Junon, took the Highwind, and escaped, with Barret and the then-unconscious Tifa being captured in the commotion. For unclear reasons, they then spent a week waiting for an opportunity to come in and rescue Tifa and Barret; it seems that the scheduled public execution was their chance?
Which is kind of just displacing the problem, because it means that the Highwind, a huge, conspicious stolen airship, was able to enter the Junon air space undetected and unhindered, land there, and wait for Cait Sith to go in and come back with Barret, despite this being, again, an airbase with artillery and multiple aircraft on standby.
It's possible we're meant to interpret this as the group having sent Yuffie and Cait Sith to inflitrate ahead of time while the airship was parked in a hidden place, and it only flew to Junon once Fishzilla had everyone distracted. It's not clear, but it's slightly more plausible, so we might as well go with that.
Yeah. Not to bring the mood down, but while I knew gas chambers are partially associated with the US death penalty, my personal association with the word "gas chamber" is the Holocaust, which made this whole sequence really uncomfortable to watch.
Not really.
This is partly my fault, because I don't take him around that much. Three characters with one (Cloud) mandatory, meaning only two party slots, is really, really restrictive. I've played Cid a little, and I'll probably grind out his Limit Breaks, but essentially everyone else has a higher priority when I'm considering who to take on a plot beat. So Vincent, who has very few lines in the mandatory plot bits, still got to talk a little when given some of the 'third party members says something' canned lines, while Yuffie, Cait Sith, and Red have all had plot segments featuring them and their story. Meanwhile, Cid has had nothing since his introduction.
Honestly, yes. This is my headcanon until proven otherwise.
I think we're meant to read it as like, Barret was the one charged with protecting Tifa while she was unconscious, and while Barret could fight off a bunch of second class SOLDIERs or a Shinra mech, he couldn't do it while carrying Tifa. Everyone else got to escaped because they could run, but Barret was pinned down in an infirmary or medical bay or bedroom because Tifa was there and he needed to protect her.
Having looked at a version of this cutscene by someone who didn't have Yuffie in the party, it doesn't look like it - Barret instead runs into the cameraman who was filming her and past him onto the airfield.
It's a very short sequence, though, so it wouldn't be much of a problem.
I HAVE ASKED MYSELF THE SAME THING.
"Cait Sith has a recording of Marlene's voice" or "Cait Sith literally just called Marlene on the phone and cut her off before she had time to say anything that would give it away" both struck me as possibilities at the time.
At the very least we know it's Marlene on the other hand; she has exactly two lines when Cait Sith calls her, the first is always "Papa! Tifa!" Then, depending on who is on the date with Cloud, she says "Hey! It's the flower lady! Flower lady...", "Hey! It's Cloud!," "Hey! It's dad! Dad, it's me, Marlene!" ...or, if it's Tifa, "Hey! It's Tifa! Tifa, help, I'm-" before Cait Sith cuts her off.
So, in at the very least the case of Tifa answering the phone, Marlene does explicitly call out for help. Every other line could just be Marlene answering the phone to say hi and Cait Sith cutting her off before she can reveal the bluff, but the Tifa one does seem to suggest she's actually being threatened/held captive, and I don't think Marlene would play tricks on Tifa.
I think we're meant to assume that they would have talked about it at some point between the Temple of the Ancients and the North Crater, just because Cloud not telling Barret anything would be real dick move.
Listen.
Just because this has happened three times, in three different games, in this Let's Play series, doesn't mean anything.
Hmmm. Actually, going further, rather than an unaffiliated soldier, with Cait Sith potentially/in later games being semi-autonomous, him and his handler doing a joint operation would make a lot of sense.
I wonder if we'll ever actually meet the pilot/handler.
I want you to take time and reflect on the fact that you just typed out the sentence "It's perfectly reasonable to expect [Hojo] to work with [anyone]."
Honestly.
...I'm sorry, Kindergarten Cop???
I'm sort of thinking it's like, an 'underground river' running through tunnels within the crust?
Fun fact: Years ago when I was writing Should the Sun not Rise, my Aztec supernatural detective story, I wanted to set a scene in a cemetary in Providence, Rhode Island. So I looked up pictures of the place to describe it accurately. Which is how I discovered that some American cemeteries don't have, like... tombs? They have graves with headstones, but the graves are covered up with earth, so they look like a bunch of headstones sticking out of the grass?
That was extremely surprising and weird to me, as all the cemeteries I've ever been to (mainly in Paris and in rural Brittany) have visible tombs. They're not aboveground plots like in New Orleans, the person is still buried underground, but each grave (which are usually family vaults with more than one coffin per grave) have a visible, removable stone plate covering them, usually engraved or decorated, like so:
So finding out a lot of American cemeteries are basically grassy parks with headstones sticking out of them was quite strange.
Myself, my high school rooftop was neither the Japanese accessible rooftop of anime nor that kind of 'access through a ladder' American roof you described. Instead, it was a 19th century building with a slate-tiled gable roof. You couldn't have accessed it even if you wanted, short of engaging in sports climbing. It just wasn't designed as a place anybody should be walking on.
It's very, very obvious from the Remake that whoever was charged with doing Remake!Scarlet thought the most important thing to get across about Scarlet was how much she should step on them, and in fact included a scene of Scarlet doing just that, literally stepping on the camera (or rather the journalist carrying the camera in the segment it's in).Ngl, her portrayal may be rooted in some sexist tropes, but
You know, it's striking me now that the reason the Sapphire Weapon in FFXIV gets a special solo duty instead of an actual trial is... Well, it's because each Patch Trial sequence is only allowed three Trials, sure, but the reason they picked this one of the four Weapons in XIV to be the one who gets a solo duty instead of a Trial is probably directly meant to reference the fact that in VII, it's the one that doesn't get a "proper" boss fight.
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MiskWisk
Hoot
- Location
- Somewhere devoid of wit
- Pronouns
- He
Really Omi, you've been against Hojo from the beginning. I'm starting to suspect you don't like the man or something.
Not just referenced, but in some cases a one-to-one recreation. My guess is that Team Silent was looking for reference material on what an American School looked like, and chose that as their primary source. It's not the last time it happens either. Beyond the obvious Jacob's Ladder / The Mist inspirations for all 4 games, SH2 takes huge inspiration from the first half of Lynch's Lost Highway and Blue Velvet. SH3 doesn't have as many IIRC, but there at least one that's a direct reference to indie horror film Session 9.
A lot of them, especially where I'm from aren't even that. The headstones are just replaced with plaques in the ground, so it's just one vast flat lawn and maybe a central mausoleum.
EDIT: The links now go to the intended articles and not old tokusatsu film scores.
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The roofs I recall were no only inaccessible, but lined with barbed-wire fences in case somebody tried to climb. It created a strong "you are in prison" vibe, I'll say that.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is how a lot of graveyards in the UK are, as well (despite our rep for being a waterlogged place). Part of my first job involved cutting the grass for a number of them, each one taking multiple people an entire day of work (because graveyards tend to be old, and cramped, and full of bits of rock that will break a lawnmower and so you have to use a strimmer to cut the entire thing instead).
On this update... it's just sorta generally weak? The plot's a bit nonsense. It feels a lot like they had the one setpiece they wanted ('NGE was sick bro let's stick that in here') and they had to contort the plot to allow them a reason to show it off. That and Scarlet lasting long enough against Tifa to do anything other than briefly beg for mercy is simply ridiculous.
There's definitely a re-flow you could do of the general outline to make it work, but it would mostly involve playing as Red, Yuffie, Cid, and Vincent and doing a Mission Impossible heist to get the airship over to Junon and bust out your guys from the hospital before they can get executed. Or have them being executed in a big public open area and swoop down into a boss fight to rescue them, or so on.