Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
On my theory that "Sephiroth" is just an image and a grudge pasted onto Jenova, note how he's getting his revenge.
He manipulates Cloud, torments him psychologically and with Jenova cell manipulation, then lies to him about his own origins and nature to make him doubt himself and break his spirit and make Cloud into his tool. Now, does that sound to you how a supersoldier who spent his whole life learning how to sword good and firaga good seeks to harm a particular person, or does it sound like how an infectious shape-shifter seeks to harm a particular person?
The target selection is Sephiroth, sure, but everything else, not just the broader goal but even methodology of how the revenge is pursued and skillset used in that pursuit, screams Jenova.
He manipulates Cloud, torments him psychologically and with Jenova cell manipulation, then lies to him about his own origins and nature to make him doubt himself and break his spirit and make Cloud into his tool. Now, does that sound to you how a supersoldier who spent his whole life learning how to sword good and firaga good seeks to harm a particular person, or does it sound like how an infectious shape-shifter seeks to harm a particular person?
The target selection is Sephiroth, sure, but everything else, not just the broader goal but even methodology of how the revenge is pursued and skillset used in that pursuit, screams Jenova.
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
Don't forget that Sephiroth isn't the only one who was dealt a humiliating defeat by Cloud in that Reactor. Jenova went down with him, and lost the opportunity to have its new champion finish killing everyone.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
For another potential insight, I get the impression the "true" Sephiroth, when they first arrived at Nibelheim and before he went No Sleep Kill Everyone, was actually somewhere between Tifa's "cold and foreboding" and Cloud's "great hero".
Considering the following:
We can be fairly sure that Sephiroth did know about Cloud the random Shinra trooper, and that Cloud's hometown is Nibelheim. And since Cloud (during the flashback) is shown to have visited his mother and spent time at his house, that is consistent with what I mentioned way back then, viz Sephiroth the commander of this expedition is flexible enough to grant one of the troops under his command the freedom to bunk at his old home.
With these new revelations, Sephiroth was willing to allow this for a low-ranking Shinra trooper, rather than a fellow Soldier (however low-levelled to be one-shot by dragons). So clearly he wasn't that cold.
Yeah, the translator seems to be having trouble with one of those "multiple terms for the same idea, with differing shades of meaning" cases. The "memories" that Tifa refers to as potentially false is "記憶", "kioku", and when she says "consciously recalled" she uses "無理矢理", "muriyari", which translates to "forced". In other words, Tifa is saying that if Cloud tries to force himself to remember, those memories could be false; not even due to Jenova manipulation, but just human psychology of misremembering things.
Meanwhile, the latter "true" memories Tifa refers to are "思い出", "omoide". She even emphasizes it by saying "the memories deep within your heart", meaning memories that are not simply "data stored", but rather the deep-down "I know this to be true" memories. Some articles about the differences try to explain it as "kioku" being like "records" memories, and "omoide" being like "nostalgia" memories.
To use a FFXIV example, Emet-Selch recreating Amaurot is largely "kioku" memories. But his stray thought of "Hythlodaeus will figure it out" is "omoide" memories.
And later, "Remember that we once lived" is also intended to be "omoide" memories, where Emet-Selch wants us to remember the Ancients in a more visceral way than "there was once the Ancients".
And later, "Remember that we once lived" is also intended to be "omoide" memories, where Emet-Selch wants us to remember the Ancients in a more visceral way than "there was once the Ancients".
(For a change, the above spoiler is safe for Omicron, as well as anyone else who is current on FFXIV's story. I'm putting it into spoilers in case someone doesn't want to be spoiled on FFXIV, particularly Shadowbringers.)
"Now that you mention it" is the more literal translation of "そういえば", "sou ieba", but yeah, the translator had to be working without context here. A more natural phrase keeping the same meaning is "By the way".
Yeah, Sephiroth's line there is "おまえごときに..." trailing off, which is unhelpfully just "The likes of you...". So the Retranslated mod is how I'd translate it too.
The translation is more bloodthirsty than the original, where Zack tells Cloud to stop Sephiroth. Admittedly at this point Sephiroth does not seem likely to be stopped by any means less than lethal, so I don't know if this is a case where the Japanese script is too implicit for me to catch the meaning of.
The Japanese text is "ずにのるな", "zu ni noru na", albeit with more ellipses for dramatic effect. It translates roughly to "don't get carried away" or "don't push your luck", which is probably what the translator is going for. Sephiroth is indeed warning Cloud not to mess with him; depending on how one interprets the tone, it could be Sephiroth's last vestiges of caring for the troops under his command that makes him warn them, or it could be Sephiroth puffing himself up arrogantly with "you cannot hurt me, so don't even try".
The greatest guide in Nibelheim everybody! Accept no substitutes, for mazes physical and mental!
Honestly the association of Mt. Nibel with death and the afterlife (and thereby mako as well) is especially interesting considering Tifa's motivations for learning to navigate it; while she was never able to find her mother... she still in the end rescued someone from the jaws of death. A reverse psychopomp in a way.
Honestly the association of Mt. Nibel with death and the afterlife (and thereby mako as well) is especially interesting considering Tifa's motivations for learning to navigate it; while she was never able to find her mother... she still in the end rescued someone from the jaws of death. A reverse psychopomp in a way.
Considering the context of "don't push your luck/don't get carried away" being Cloud showing up again as Sephiroth is on the retreat after already getting stabbed in the back, my take is it's more of a "yeah sure, you got lucky, you managed to catch me off guard. I'm looking at you now, you'll die if you dare get close, so screw off". Basically, a bit of posturing while too injured to easily and casually take out Cloud like he would be able to if he was at his fullest, but also pointing out that there's no way Cloud will get lucky a second time, especially when this time it won't be a sneak attack.
And then of course Cloud proves him wrong by going full Hulk Rage Limit Break, but hey.
That's been this entirely playthrough for me, absolutely. Like, I never fell into "FFVII is bad awful stinky game actually" territory, but I did end up in that good ol' FF fanboyism of "FFVI actual peak, FFVII kinda overrated", not to mention just having a general dislike of Sephiroth with how often he shows up in other media (with the crowning king of that being everyone hyping him in Smash Ultimate while I'm sitting here going "oh fuck off he's literally Another Anime Swordsman he's just one you all happen to like").
But Sephiroth is pretty dope, actually? FFVII has a pretty good story a lot of the time, actually? It holds up far better than I expected, especially considering it's in that awkward 2D to 3D jump territory. And also, as shown in the FFVI playthrough... despite all the praise, it's still a game with some low points like "and then Kefka genocided all the espers in one scene with never before seen supermagic powers", and how... somewhat meandering the World of Ruin becomes.
Or in other words, Childhood is idolizing Sephiroth as the Coolest Awesomest Villain Ever. Teenagerhood is when you realize actually Kefka is the Coolest Awesomest Villain Ever. Then later as an adult you realize "no wait actually it was Sephiroth all along, my B"
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
That ain't the only time they help in that regard either. Tifa can race Chocobos.
OK, gotta say, comparing this sequence with the previous games, the writing is such a massive improvement when it comes to producing psychologically grounded, emotionally compelling narratives.
A big part of it is just size, of course. We've commented many times before that FFVII is just massively more "talky" than previous games simply because the new hardware meant writers weren't told, "You have ten dialogue boxes and two set pieces max, make it count", so there is plenty of room to flex and explore characters' inner workings (literally in case of Cloud).
But another part is just quality. Compare Cloud's childhood memories, the devil combo of loneliness, arrogance and misdirected anger, with, say, Locke's flashback, which also deals with the tragic backstory of one of the main characters and how it defined their path moving forward. And, well, Locke's story is, above all else, melodramatic. Like it or hate it, it doesn't seek to be grounded in anything. It's a big, sweeping tragedy of improbable events designed to elicit the maximum anguish out of Locke, but it's not particularly resonant other than in very broad strokes (bad things happening to a person you love, partially because of you, is bad).
In contrast, well, as Omi said, a lot of people can relate to child!Cloud not fitting in with Tifa's gang and constructing his identity around being better than them, only for it to blow up in his face because he does something foolish to be seen as "brave" by a person he likes. Of course, eventually his story does become highly fantastic, with alien infection and fractured memories and clones and Sephiroth being a wimp and all that, but you can see the throughline leading from his childhood to the person he is today, he remains a psychologically compelling character.
Speaking of being compelling, though:
I dunno, sounds fake.
I think you're unwittingly editing your memories so you could perceive yourself as smarter and cooler than you actually are.
I mean, you couldn't even get a Ribbon, no way you could have predicted such a major twist.
A big part of it is just size, of course. We've commented many times before that FFVII is just massively more "talky" than previous games simply because the new hardware meant writers weren't told, "You have ten dialogue boxes and two set pieces max, make it count", so there is plenty of room to flex and explore characters' inner workings (literally in case of Cloud).
But another part is just quality. Compare Cloud's childhood memories, the devil combo of loneliness, arrogance and misdirected anger, with, say, Locke's flashback, which also deals with the tragic backstory of one of the main characters and how it defined their path moving forward. And, well, Locke's story is, above all else, melodramatic. Like it or hate it, it doesn't seek to be grounded in anything. It's a big, sweeping tragedy of improbable events designed to elicit the maximum anguish out of Locke, but it's not particularly resonant other than in very broad strokes (bad things happening to a person you love, partially because of you, is bad).
In contrast, well, as Omi said, a lot of people can relate to child!Cloud not fitting in with Tifa's gang and constructing his identity around being better than them, only for it to blow up in his face because he does something foolish to be seen as "brave" by a person he likes. Of course, eventually his story does become highly fantastic, with alien infection and fractured memories and clones and Sephiroth being a wimp and all that, but you can see the throughline leading from his childhood to the person he is today, he remains a psychologically compelling character.
Speaking of being compelling, though:
I dunno, sounds fake.
I think you're unwittingly editing your memories so you could perceive yourself as smarter and cooler than you actually are.
I mean, you couldn't even get a Ribbon, no way you could have predicted such a major twist.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
The protagonist originally being Faceless Minion #2 and ashamed of it is a gimmick that should be used more.
Also:
Congratulations, Cloud!
Also:
Congratulations, Cloud!
- Location
- UK
The amazing thing about this revelation is the fact it justifies a few gameplay quirks - quirks that would only otherwise make sense with the reasoning of "it's an RPG, don't think about it."
Why is Cloud, who is not only an ex-SOILDER but a First Class Elite, such a low level at the start of the game? Because he never made it into SOLDIER and is just a normal dude who has been pumped with Mako and Jenova bullshit. He's stronger than a regular human but lacks both the training and experience of a SOLDIER.
LIkewise, why is Flashback!Cloud an utter wimp who gets oneshot by every single monster encounter, whilst his fellow elite Sephiroth can effortlessly carve through everything? Even considering the gulf between the legendary Sephiroth and other First Classes, it seems odd that a SOLDIER can't even protect himself against local wildlife, even if they are dangerous monsters spewing from an old Reactor.
Except Flashback!Cloud is Shinra Grunt #2. He's just a guy with a rifle and a baton, the lowest class of trooper, the same type we've been cutting down easily since the first Reactor. Of course he's going to get bodied by monsters on Mt Nibel. Thinking about it, it's possible that Grunt!Cloud actually did get smashed by a dragon and other monsters during the mission (much like Flashback!Cloud did) and every time, Sephiroth used his Full Life Materia to revive and save him. If so, this does suggest Sephiroth did have some fondness for Cloud even when the latter was just a fanboying trooper - or maybe Sephiroth really did care about the common mooks under him?
Why is Cloud, who is not only an ex-SOILDER but a First Class Elite, such a low level at the start of the game? Because he never made it into SOLDIER and is just a normal dude who has been pumped with Mako and Jenova bullshit. He's stronger than a regular human but lacks both the training and experience of a SOLDIER.
LIkewise, why is Flashback!Cloud an utter wimp who gets oneshot by every single monster encounter, whilst his fellow elite Sephiroth can effortlessly carve through everything? Even considering the gulf between the legendary Sephiroth and other First Classes, it seems odd that a SOLDIER can't even protect himself against local wildlife, even if they are dangerous monsters spewing from an old Reactor.
Except Flashback!Cloud is Shinra Grunt #2. He's just a guy with a rifle and a baton, the lowest class of trooper, the same type we've been cutting down easily since the first Reactor. Of course he's going to get bodied by monsters on Mt Nibel. Thinking about it, it's possible that Grunt!Cloud actually did get smashed by a dragon and other monsters during the mission (much like Flashback!Cloud did) and every time, Sephiroth used his Full Life Materia to revive and save him. If so, this does suggest Sephiroth did have some fondness for Cloud even when the latter was just a fanboying trooper - or maybe Sephiroth really did care about the common mooks under him?
That's been this entirely playthrough for me, absolutely. Like, I never fell into "FFVII is bad awful stinky game actually" territory, but I did end up in that good ol' FF fanboyism of "FFVI actual peak, FFVII kinda overrated", not to mention just having a general dislike of Sephiroth with how often he shows up in other media (with the crowning king of that being everyone hyping him in Smash Ultimate while I'm sitting here going "oh fuck off he's literally Another Anime Swordsman he's just one you all happen to like").
But Sephiroth is pretty dope, actually? FFVII has a pretty good story a lot of the time, actually? It holds up far better than I expected, especially considering it's in that awkward 2D to 3D jump territory. And also, as shown in the FFVI playthrough... despite all the praise, it's still a game with some low points like "and then Kefka genocided all the espers in one scene with never before seen supermagic powers", and how... somewhat meandering the World of Ruin becomes.
Or in other words, Childhood is idolizing Sephiroth as the Coolest Awesomest Villain Ever. Teenagerhood is when you realize actually Kefka is the Coolest Awesomest Villain Ever. Then later as an adult you realize "no wait actually it was Sephiroth all along, my B"
I'll try and riff off this without provoking an edition war here, but I'll second the "I never thought 7 was bad" notion. And ditto with sort of resenting the ubiquity it had while I was growing up but even now Cloud doesn't really grab me as a protagonist, and Sephiroth doesn't really grab me as a villain. Since this game is The Cloud and Sephiroth Show, that central pillar being so shaky it means that even with the amount of legitimately good stuff still happening here (and the LP is doing a good job pointing it out), it's hard for it to all add up for me. I had friends who loved this game when I was in high school. I watched the machinabridged when it was coming out, and that wasn't even that long ago but only the broad strokes stuck in my mind because the rest just slides off. >.<
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
The dude knew off the top of his head that they were in Cloud's hometown and even let him go stay at his home with his mom.
If anything, him not immediately recognizing it was Cloud who stabbed him in the Jenova freezer room is a red flag that something's deeply wrong with him.
This actually brings up something interesting in regards to FF series as a whole, and that is the role of monsters in it.
Like, random monsters are everywhere in the games, they're a major part of the core gameplay loop, the game literally doesn't work without them, but they're also kinda... non-diegetic? They're everywhere in the world, but the world doesn't take their presence into account. There are no mentions of the refugees from the mining town being picked one by one by monsters in the night or anything like that, most towns don't have fortifications that could protect them against dreadful stray cats and leaf bunnies, everything functions exactly the same as if monsters didn't exist (or at least weren't more dangerous or more likely to attack humans than regular wild animals).
It's not entirely true, though. The giant snake is acknowledged in the narrative, that's why you need a ride to begin with, and the corpse of its brethren serves to demonstrate Sephiroth's power. Such things existed in previous games as well, including that one hunting quest from FFVI. But they remain exceptions and typically concern powerful unique or semi-unique monsters, or else characters talk about a particular area infested with monsters for some defined reason, like the boat graveyard full of undead.
I think this becomes more and more prominent as the series become more plot-heavy. In FFI, with its minimal lore and dialogue, random encounters were as real as everything else in the game because everything received minimal narrative attention on account of there not being much narrative. As the series progressed, the plots became more complicated and complex, the characters grew in definition, the themes became a thing that exists, but random encounters remained unchanged and, notably, were rarely incorporated into the plot unless there was a specific reason for it. In FFVI, everyone feared the empire, and some random encounters represented its forces, so they were "real" as far as a the game is concerned, but leaf bunnies existed for our heroes only and not for anyone else.
So, I guess, what I'm saying is that in the "true" version of most FF games, the one that could have been an anime or a novel, most monsters don't exist. So they may as well be sealed under Mt Nibel. There is no place for them above, after all.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Notably, the combat encounters in the flashback always occur in places where Trooper Cloud would have been around to participate in them.
kairuf
(Verified Kaiger) (Not the Siberian)
- Location
- The land of Potatoes
The time has come!
Zack's nickname is Puppy.
Well done Omi, 5/5 stars
I have kind of an inverse theory. I've felt that the last remnants of Sephiroth in Jenova are focused on Cloud in hopes that he can pull off the impossible again and succeed in killing him permanently.
And Jenova is reacting accordingly.
Mostly because Sephiroth pre insanity seems like a decent person (which is impressive considering the environment he was in)
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Ritual, maybe, or...
It's been discussed, fairly extensively in the Remake at least, that Cloud's bright green-blue eyes are the result of Mako exposure. Which seems reasonable, no one else has the same kind of eyecolor...
Except Aerith, who has almost exactly the same shade.
... basically what I'm saying is that SOLDIERS are essentially artificial Ancients, replicating their innate magical abilities and, to a lesser, perhaps unwanted extent, their sensitivity to spirits. I don't know how the Ancients did what they did, whether their methods were similar (in fact I think they weren't, and their 'enhancement' was somehow partly inborn, but I think that Shinra was basically trying to pull a classic 'ascension without enlightenment' bit.)
In addition to giving me a clearer and more positive understanding of things like Cloud's past/memory issues and the whole Jenova-Sephiroth thing, this playthrough has also given me a better view of Aerith.
See, I tend to prefer quirky, mischievous, and tomboyish characters over ones that are simply sweet and kind. From what I'd seen/heard in later works, I'd gotten the impression that Aerith was the latter - not someone I hate, but someone I just don't find that interesting. But she's (was) a lot more playful in this game...which made her death more painful to me.
See, I tend to prefer quirky, mischievous, and tomboyish characters over ones that are simply sweet and kind. From what I'd seen/heard in later works, I'd gotten the impression that Aerith was the latter - not someone I hate, but someone I just don't find that interesting. But she's (was) a lot more playful in this game...which made her death more painful to me.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Aerith got canonized as a saint, for understandable reasons: she's a selfless person, who performed miracles, and who was persecuted and eventually martyred over it. But that leaves out a lot of the rest of her life.
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- Location
- Drachyench on Discord
You've heard of the Lance of Longinus. Now get ready for: The Chair of Gainsborough.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
...well that would make Neon Genesis Evangelion more interesting to watch
- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Angels proving invulnerable to giant fuck-off particle cannons but folding like little bitches when hit by a folding chair the size of a skyscraper.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As I recall NGE the Angels, or at least one of them, are in fact specifically vulnerable to sufficiently giant fuck-off particle cannons
The funniest thing about this is that not only the player, but Cloud, has been telling himself "it's an RPG, don't think about it" the entire time.
The revelation also makes me think about how at the very beginning of the game, the mechanics tutorial is not Cloud having them explained to him, but him explaining them to other people. He's kind of showing off about it, going in depth, basking in people impressed by what he knows... and it's not something he learnt in SOLDIER, but as an ordinary grunt. In hindsight it's a little bit of him peeking through.
It's a long set up and pay off and may not even have been intended as such, but I love Cloud explaining limit breaks there, and effectively having one here. Rookie move, Sephiroth, stabbing someone enough to fill the meter.