…
You know, it's kind of impressive to me how forward women are allowed to be in Final Fantasy games. Like, it's not that common in older media, especially Japanese media like this? If we go back to I and II we at least have individual dialogues of women making advances on others and the Lamia Queen's seduction attempt, III ends with Princess Sara confessing her feelings to the leading Warrior of Light, and in IV Rosa is actively trying to get Cecil to get over himself so she can jump his bones. It kinda stopped with V (who didn't really have a romantic arc) and VI (where Celes is more of a blushing damsel towards Locke and Terra is somewhere on the ace-aro spectrum), but in VII it's back with Aerith being very flirtatious and playful with Cloud and taking him on a date, and now in VIII we've had Quistis, the Blue Girl proposing Squall for a dance at the ball, and now Julia inviting Laguna to her room.
It's neat.
Yeah, its neat.
Starting from late teenager into adulthood, I encounter a lot of talks in online space about the misogyny of Japanese media. Many of the accusations are certainly true, but as it happens, my childhood was filled to exposure to Japanese media (anime/manga/games) that happens to be pretty progressive? girl power? women empowering? IDK the right term to apply here, buy you can get the idea.
Its really formative in my conception in gender come to think of it.
On the other side, I also run into things like manga that shows boys cooking and talk about things like 'its not just woman work' or showing pride on it.
So who the fuck is Laguna?
I have no idea. I remember the Laguna sequences (there will be more than one) from playing the game as a kid; I never got to where they explain what the fuck they're about. For twenty years, I've occasionally thought back to FF8 and wondered, what was that? Why those random dreams? Why of that guy in particular? And I never ended up looking up the answer because every time I thought about it I then told myself, "nah, you'll finish FF8 eventually and find out the natural way."
And goddammit, today is that day.
I know that feeling.
Oh good lord it's an entire city built in Art Nouveau style.
For such a clear and outright jump in detail and quality, the choice to make everything look so pretty and artistic is really interesting, but I can't deny I like it. I don't think another mainline FF ever went so far with the modern world that doesn't end up all glass towers and smokestacks with magic.
Looking back like this, FFVIII was really pretty.
Alright ignoring Game Mechanic Neccessities for a moment - Man I really do love Laguna and his bros. In particular, Laguna's Limit Break, Desperado always stuck in my memory for how over the top it is:
Oh yeah. One of the best parts with these guest characters is trying out their limit break. For allegedly being the only thing by which each characters retain mechanical identity, they are really neat.
The best explanation I've seen for this is that they shoved this crap in to serve as fodder to sell game guides, back when those chunky paper things existed.
I think its just for fun. Easter egg kind of things as discovery reward for exploration, or making replays a bit more fun through encountering unexpected minor changes, or for something to share with friends when comparing plays
That sort of things can be problematic when it concerns stuff that can majorly influence gameplay or plot, but when it come to minor scene change like that, I don't think its bad.
It is, in fact, canon to the FFXIV setting that the gunblade predates the gun, and the term "Gunblade" initially came from the contraction of the "Blades of Gunnhildr"; when the Garlean Empire developed projectile-throwing weapons, the gunblade-using nation went "huh, this looks kind of like our gunblades, but without the 'blade'... I'll call it a 'gun!'"
That's odd, because if gunblades predate handheld firearms, I would have expect it to have normal sword grip instead of pistol grip.
... Oh well, this is a series full of improbable weapons and machinery. Maybe its derivative of kukri or something.
…
This is my Aeris/Aerith moment.
Japan famously does not draw a distinction between the L and R sound, which occasionally leads to oddities in the translation process into and out of Latin languages. In much the same way as Aerith is now officially established as 'Aerith' and the old translation of 'Aeris,' though understandable at the time, retroactively in error, this character is 'Rinoa'... Except in French.
In French, she's Linoa.
Weird, I recall the official romanization has been publicized widely before the game released. With minor characters like Xu, that understandable to happen since Squaresoft unlikely has released a official romaji of names like for the main cast. With FF7, possibly the communication/publication with western market hasn't been properly set yet.
…okay, I was expecting a mandatory fight, but a game over over this seems a little excessive.
IIRC, you can choose 'it's nothing' and the sequence will repeat from beginning, giving you a retry, in exchange of SeeD rank dropping. The game over is for player who want to load for perfect score.
I love this game's FMVs so much. They're so dynamic, so intricate, so pretty. Those trains look absolutely gorgeous, and the sequence that plays as they unhook and the Owls' train sneaks in is just, fantastic stuff.
It was really fun!
If I look at the Forest Owl's "Raider" train base as this setting's equivalent of Trotsky's train, then it all makes perfect sense. Which would make Rinoa… Trotsky???
TIL
For the most part, this is a pretty striking and compellingly believable story.
The story has more charm reading as an adult with understanding of politics and history
Anyway this is our 8th FF game so we just pull out a Phoenix Down and instakill it.
This was my first FF. (Well, I played a bit of VII before it I think, but not much) So I just fight it normally. I vaguely recall that there's was a moment much later when I was a bit surprised seeing my friend trivilalize another boss using that trick in his play.
This does imply there is no travel time between Balamb and Dollet, or at least so little travel time that it can be considered negligible. Which might be accurate in gameplay, but that would also make the entire world traversible in around a few minutes on foot (assuming one can walk on oceans).
The 'small size' impression of the world (along with the sparseness) continue to be a bother in my brain.
Hmm. I think forgot to quote it, but the part when Omni talk abotu whether FFVIII will have formulaic approach to the plot. That brings to my mind Trails of Cold Steel, which does have formulaic repetitions to its plot. (the results, eh, its kind of mixed bag).
And then I realize Cold Steel has a number of parallels to FFVIII. It have cool trains. Its also a 'battle school RPG' (though the premise is quite different).
Its kind of funny because Trail of Cold Steel also have some things reminescent of Xenogears.
