FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
Balamb Garden/SeeD needs a Big Bill Hell's commercial edit yesterday. I'd do it, but I don't know what should replace Baltimore in FUCK YOU, BALTIMORE! 
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
FUCK YOU, DOLLET! IF YOU'RE DUMB ENOUGH TO PAY MINIMUM PRICE ON SeeD ASSISTANCE THIS WEEKEND, THEN YOU'RE A BIG ENOUGH SCHMUCK TO GET UNDER-TRAINED SCHOOL CHILDREN!Balamb Garden/SeeD needs a Big Bill Hell's commercial edit yesterday. I'd do it, but I don't know what should replace Baltimore in FUCK YOU, BALTIMORE!
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Well...
Yeah, that. Many enemies have "stay idle" as one (or more!) of their attack options, and when you find ones that don't you can really tell the difference.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm... kinda surprised you made the obviously false connection of intro-girl to the woman in blue, really? Like, woman in blue has chin-length light brown hair. Intro-girl has black hair below her shoulderblades. Unless woman in blue is using a lot of magic, she cannot be intro-girl; even a different hairstyle wouldn't explain it when combined with hair dye, give both of them look to be wearing their hair loose.
And of course there's no indication Squall gave intro-girl his name, which adds another layer of 'this is likely not her' if the completely different character designs didn't clue you in.
And of course there's no indication Squall gave intro-girl his name, which adds another layer of 'this is likely not her' if the completely different character designs didn't clue you in.
Somewhere out there, there's a universe where Cid's Ambiguously Evil Plans were derailed because he decided on a whim to give the Lament Configuration to an impulsive teenager who opened it immediately, causing all present to be demoned to death, and I think that's beautiful.
Some people have a teen crush on Tifa in FF7, my teen crush has always been the dark hair girl in white dress in FF8 (and will always be).
In french, Diablos is called Nosferatu, which is okay. Still serving my theory about an extremist christian in the translation team who has changed the name in something less "dangerous" than the Devil (aka Diable in french).
Oh, by the way Omicron, you have spoken about Renzokuken present in the fight against Elvoret, but did you use it ?
In french, Diablos is called Nosferatu, which is okay. Still serving my theory about an extremist christian in the translation team who has changed the name in something less "dangerous" than the Devil (aka Diable in french).
Oh, by the way Omicron, you have spoken about Renzokuken present in the fight against Elvoret, but did you use it ?
Ace of Scarabs
Mechanoid Pilot
- Location
- Singapore
Going back to FFVI, there's some shenanigans that can be had if you set all your gear to get your evasion (or magic evasion) to 127 (or more preferably above 128), and then pretty much everything that can be dodged will simply fail to hit you. Mostly it's the ladies who get this, since they have the Minerva Bustier and lots of Magic Block gear available. Going all-in on evading was even more viable in the SNES build of FFIII, where a bug made Magic Block do double duty for all kinds of evasion and made the physical evasion stat do nothing.
Example: Terra or Celes with the Illumina (lightbringer), a Force Shield or Paladin shield, the Minerva Bustier, a Mystery Veil, and some relics that give Mblock. From there the only thing you're afraid of are attacks that have perfect accuracy.
It's the highest of cheese and it never gets old to see Terra casually parry or shield away the bulk of the damage thrown at her.
In post-patch versions of FFVI (GBA and Pixel Remaster versions), Locke is fairly easy to get to 127 physical evasion with the help of his Valiant Knife and a full stack of evasion gear.
Example: Terra or Celes with the Illumina (lightbringer), a Force Shield or Paladin shield, the Minerva Bustier, a Mystery Veil, and some relics that give Mblock. From there the only thing you're afraid of are attacks that have perfect accuracy.
It's the highest of cheese and it never gets old to see Terra casually parry or shield away the bulk of the damage thrown at her.
In post-patch versions of FFVI (GBA and Pixel Remaster versions), Locke is fairly easy to get to 127 physical evasion with the help of his Valiant Knife and a full stack of evasion gear.
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- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
I saw it as basically the equivalent of "dress blues", to use the media-popular term. It's the uniform for the highest formality, when you're in the honour guard contingent or meeting foreign dignitaries or, as in this case, attending a formal graduation ceremony.
Pedantically, it could also be the next tier down for uniform formality, ie for formal dining events. Also quite fancy, but you don't have to put all your medals on. Essentially for black-tie dinners but you don't want to be that ostentatious. Still, for the most part, the distinction isn't that important to the public, so "formal dress" works as a general label.
Selphie really talks like someone who would be described as "a bundle of energy", or even "a walking fusion reactor of energy". Highly enthusiastic, very cutesy, rushes up to people like an excited puppy. Here, she cheers in English to "GOOOOO" to the party.
I remember thinking that Selphie felt like the dev writers took Yuffie's "extroverted teenage girl" mannerisms, and raised the hyperactive energy levels to as high as they can get away with.
For some extra context, the way Squall says "thank you", "yes?" and "whatever" are very distant and formal. Like someone talking to a complete stranger they have to be polite to, but don't really care about either way. Here, the "whatever" is more literally Squall saying "My bad" (悪かったな) in a polite way, like he's just saying stuff to get past this conversation.
So for Squall's first three lines here (up to "whatever"), I would have translated them as "I appreciate your saying so", "Was there something you needed?", and "I'm sorry to hear that". It's that level of polite formality.
Technically speaking, Quistis refers to the "secret area" as just a place students like to hang out after curfew, rather than Makeout Point. Still, given we actually see primarily couples making out at the secret area later, I can't say the interpretation is inaccurate.
And here, Squall's "oh really" I would have translated to a completely disinterested "... is that so."
So I also agree Squall is being completely insufferable here.
Post-character development version?
Kinda interesting if contrasted with AC Cloud
Guile
Having a really great time right now
KH is just all over the place with its Final Fantasy crossovers. Leon is a good guy; Cloud is a brooding loner; Aerith is the Friend Of All The World.
Li'l Selphie seems about right though.
somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
Though on the topic of Kingdom Hearts characterizations, I think someone mentioned before in here or the spoiler thread that Leon's role was originally meant to be filled by Cloud and Cloud's role was originally meant to be filled by Vincent. So it's fully possible that the writers just didn't bother updating the story after changing the aesthetics; hell, even KH Cloud's aesthetics are blatantly influenced by Vincent's.
Xero Key
Flying high, spinning webs!
Selphie and the two others (still two numbered titles away) seem to fit just fine and how one would expect them to at the apparent age.
Still, very little of Squall seems to have translated.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
That was me! I mentioned that. I still hold that the correct course of action would have been to put Squall in the place where Vincent was, in the Coliseum, since Hades had him hired as "a mercenary", and that's Squall's job description. Plus other reasons that would be spoilers.
Anyway, going back to the Italian translation:
- I forgot last time, but Raijin doesn't seem to me to have any specific verbal tick in the Italian localization - although he's only had the one line in the cafeteria and the one after the exam right now, so maybe it's not apparent yet. Fujin's kanji speak was translated with all-capitalized single-words, only one per dialogue box, like in English.
- In the Hyne tale, there are several differences, which cast Hyne as more villainous, and the opposition to him as more righteous. It goes like this:
Old Man: "Long, long ago, when this world was just made, there was a strong god named 'Hyne.' This god was very, very strong, but after fighting a lot of monsters, he became very tired. So he made 'people' like you and me to do all the work, and the god went to sleep."
Girl: "So he took a nap?"
Old Man: "That's right. However, the god was very surprised when he awoke. Surprised that there were so many people."
Girl: "Yeah, there are so many in this world."
Old Man: "Hyne didn't want so many people around, and decided to kill all the children."
Girl: "You mean… children… like me..?"
Old Man: "Yes. Pretty evil, right? Everybody got angry with him, so they declared war Hyne. He was very powerful, but the people were much smarter, and cornered him. Not knowing what to do, Hyne gave half his body to the people, and the remaining other half ran off."
Girl: "How did he split his body like that?"
Old Man: "Well, he was a god. And he tricked the people, as the half that ran away was the half with magic powers."
Girl: "Oh... did the people ever find the half that ran away???"
Old Man: "Hmm… It might be close by, actually. It might even be watching you."
So, the story is similar, but Hyne is portrayed as much more villainous, and in an interesting detail, the story suggest that the half of himself Hyne left behind had no magical powers at all. Not sure what to make of that.
Additionally, I think it's worth nothing that the scene with the Hyne story doesn't always appear - the first time I tried to get it I got the man complaining about his work as a fisherman and his cat, and I had to reload to get the Hyne scene to trigger.
- The debriefing after the return from the Dollet exam is mostly the same, with the two students talking about the disturbance of radio transmission, Xu (Shu in Italian) complaining about the fact Garden couldn't make more money out of it, and Seifer getting dressed down. Although a slight alteration is that, when Seifer tells Quistis that she's a mediocre instructor, Xu interject with "that's over the line", which, considering that this is the first line Xu has in the discussion before she starts berating Seifer, always gave me the impression that she was mostly chastising him to defend Quistis, rather than simply because he performed badly. It's very minor, but it helped cement in my head the idea that Xu and Quistis are friend, so it seemed worth remarking upon.
- The Garden Faculty are just as ominous in Italian as they are in English, although they're identified as "Garden Teachers", which is a strange choice; also, the line about this being a lesson for Dollet wasn't present, or at least I didn't manage to make it trigger.
- Selphie is just as hyper, with capitalized words and elongated vocals and jumping up and down, which is why she's the best character in the game. Also, not only is whether you agreed to help her with the festival kept track of, I'm pretty sure it influences a cutscene later on.
- Mysterious Girl #2 - white dress, black hairs to the shoulder, was Blue Girl in the intro - has the same dialogue as in English, very much word for word, which means she has the same exact characterization as an extrovert hurricane Squall has no defenses against, like his wall of aloofness isn't even there. She's great.
- When Quistis then makes her own attempt and fails miserably to break past Squall's wall, his "Whatever" is instead localized as "My apologies"; of note, when he was speaking with Cid earlier and had another "Whatever" as a possible answer on his feeling about the exam, in Italian it was more of a "nothing worth talking about".
Anyway, continuing the discussion, Quisis doesn't say "I was like that myself", bur rather "I am like that myself"; that gives less of a connotation "I've learned to be better than that" and a more "we're alike" vibe, which feels more appropriate for the mess of emotions Quistis' going through here.
- The conversation at the training center is mostly the same, with Quistis trying desperately to open up and make a connection with Squall, and Squall pushing her off incredibly rudely because he has his own issue with opening up to people, although there's a slight nuance in that, instead of saying that she's been removed from the teaching position, she says that she's renounced it of her own initiative. The conversation still includes her line about "they say I'm lacking in leadership qualities", but it makes it seems like it was less that she was deemed incompetent, and more that the combination of failure and constant criticism got to her. It's a subtle change, but it emphasizes how out of sort Quistis is right now.
- The encounter with Mysterious Girl #2 - white skirt, blue blouse, green shawl, hair in a brown bob - goes exactly the same as in English, since there's only names here, so nothing really that has to be changed.
- The briefing for the Timber mission is pretty much the same, no specific dialogue changes here, even the Magical Lamp has the same name.
Although, speaking of names, while all of the main cast has remained the same so far with the exception of Xu (which was translated as Shu), several monsters, and even GF, were named differently. So far, that was:
Bite Bug - renamed to Lesmathor
Caterchipillar - renamed to Kedachiku
Bomb - renamed to Piros
Fastitocalon F - renamed to (Fake) Focaral
Elvoret - renamed to Herbia
T-Rexaur - renamed to Archeosaurus
Raldo - renamed to Ralth
Granaldo - renamed to Granalth
Quetzacolt - renamed to Quetzal
Ifrit - renamed to Ifrid
By the way, there's another thing:
I forgot to mention this before, but this menu? It updates whenever something new comes up in the story. So, you might want to check it after every new story beat - for example, once you've been given the mission for the Timber Owls, information about Timber is added in.
And the menu isn't the only thing that has been updated - the Garden Festival Committee page has also been updated! You can ONLY access that one from the terminal in the Classroom, not from the menu like the Information tab, so you'll definitely want to give it a read before you leave Balamb to go on this first mission.
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deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
To me it raises the question of what the relation is between the town of Balamb and Balamb Garden. I don't get the vibe that the Garden mostly recruits from the town, rather that Zell is the designated 'local kid'. The game describes it as having a 'university town' feel to it, which I can certainly see, but I suppose the Garden gets to be that to Balamb as the town only interacts with it on those terms, they never see the Garden it its role as 'mercenaries who kill for money'
I mean, to be fair I do think it deserves some emphasis there, the Dollet tower is clearly a Communications Tower, with capital letters. Thing was gigantic.
I think the dialogue implies that those are terms that the Dollet parliament reached with Galbadia, so SeeDs interference did make a difference there. Whatever they're going for Galbadia was just going to take it, and whilst they do still get it, it's under an agreement they weren't even going to initially bother with.
I do really appreciate the joke. Like, they had to have one other character getting it other than the PCs for the scope of the test to make sense, but him being nameless and told to stand out more is great.
Personally I think he just thinks they're as cool as we did when we were teenagers (and still do).
It does go further to show though that Seifer isn't the designated rival character. Like, the archetype would spit on Squall for 'getting what only he deserved', but I take this as genuine. Seifer is not a cliche.
Got to have a uniform for posturing as well. If some dictator hired them he'd want them to have the capacity to stand around looking sufficiently official. Got to make a point when you hire elite mercenaries sometimes.
I was also this kid. This is fear masquerading as aloofness.
It turns out his anti-social behaviour is useless against someone that just ignores it.
And this is another reason to hate the level scaling system, coming back to a hard enemy hours later generally finds the fight harder. Both because without increasing amounts and quality of junctioning their stats scale better than yours do, but also because they break out extra abilties.
Yeah, it's a running thing from at least part way through FF to have dinosaur type enemies weak to ice.
Peter Principle in effect. She was a prodigy at combat and all that SeeD stuff, until they promoted her to a position that involved a completely different skillset. No wonder she floundered.
Teen me sided with Squall on this (I did not understand his character). He was trying to be the disaffected professional, and in came all these people ruining it with their feelings and humanity.
You have clinic girl with short brown hair, a white top and a green shawl thing, and you then have long lack hair girl in a dress. Different people.
Oh yeah, I died the first few attempts as well. Sheer comedy. On the other hand (due to stupid level scaling again) it's genuinely a bad idea to leave this boss for later. You should figure him out without much difficulty.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Honestly, I think in these two particular cases, the level scaling is correct and should be there; as in, if I was solving all the problems I had with FFVIII, I would give the enemies in, say, Dollet fixed levels and stats, but leave the enemies in the Training Center and Diablos with level scaling, specifically so that they can remain a good challenge when you fight them further into the game. Diablos especially, considering how he's probably in the top 5 GF of the game, when combining utility as a summon and utility of his abilities.
Honestly part of me still sides with Squall on this. Don't get me wrong, he's being a massive dick about it, but... why should it be his problem that someone who was his teacher until 2 minutes ago (and just used that teacher authority to force him in this situation in the first place) is trauma dumping all over him? Why is it his job to give a shit about Quistis' problems? If someone just graduated High School and had their former 20 year old teacher or something doing this in the real world, there would be a shitload of eyebrows being raised.
If anything, I think level scaling should add more enemies to the Training center. As is it's kind of silly that this elite training area's only combat options for students are "walking digestive plant bags" and "literally a T-Rex", you'd think there would be more variety to train against.
I mean, if you take the ludonarrative implications seriously, both gunblade users we've seen have had 255% accurate attacks, which is the kind of thing you can deliberately find inaccurate but powerful techniques to use with it for an incredibly powerful combatant. And also screws over anyone who tries to be a highly evasive fighter. If he hasn't gotten anyone who can actually pull off using the weapon like that while knowing it's how it work, he'd be very happy to finally have that kind of niche filling in his mercenary organization. A specialist to call in if someone does start trying to counter his forces by using some trick and copied junctioning to get dodge so high even most SeeD can't touch them.
Sure would be funny if someone had decided to start another playthrough to actually finish the game with this LP, and then got several hours and plot points ahead of this only to realize they had somehow not gotten the lamp and was now sunk-costed into just continuing on.
Super funny. Hahahaha haha.... haaaaaaa.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
...that should be impossible; if you leave without talking to him, Cid should stop you and give the Lamp to you. And you can't get rid of the Lamp once it's in your inventory. How did you manage to dodge the script?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Since Child Me didn't know about the level scaling, I did the thing that felt most natural when Nosferatu/Diablos kicked my ass, which is leave the lamp alone until I had gotten a bunch more levels to fight him again.
Needless to say this backfired.
Needless to say this backfired.
I remember one blog post by the devs of lords of xulima, in their thoughts about designing RPGs, when they referred to level scaling as "so horrible that it destroys the very essence of an RPG".
Posts like this give credit to this view, y'know?
- Location
- Sweden
If you head back into the Garden after the conversation about the mission, the "Cid gives you the lamp" conversation won't trigger, and you'll have to go to his office and talk to him there before heading to Timber.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I had Cid give me the Timber mission and team assignment, and then I thought something like 'oh, I should double check I got all the Balamb dialogue before I leave' and it's been like ten years since the last time I ran through this section. Didn't even think about it 'till I Omicron mentioned it in his update. >.<
Edit: Oh, incidentally! The Pixel Remasters on Steam all had an update today. The QoL features from the console releases (so, encounter rate, xp and gold modifiers, and soundtrack selection) got added in and FFVI actually had a small balance adjustment* that I don't remember if it was in the console version.
"*The following improvements have been made to adjust the overall balancing of magicite and the bonuses that improve specific statuses when levelling up while magicite is equipped.
・Raiden Str +2 ⇒ Speed +2
・Alexander: None ⇒ Str +2"
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- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
These were in the console (or at least Switch) version, yes.