Selphie: Did I stutter?
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Selphie: Did I stutter?
What? I didn't mention any names for those guest characters, and Omi knows he's getting close to the end of disc 1 because that's where his first play through ended because his disc 2 wouldn't load.
- Location
- Canada, probably
My troll senses are tingling, but in case you're sincere: it's everything else. The part where you state your recollection of the future of the game.
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- She/They
Oh I love this. I've been wondering for a while how the other Garden's operate, given that GF's are explicitly a Balamb Garden thing, and the answer is the Galbadia Garden has its own unique Thing, in the form of mechanized exoskeletons. Each Garden has its own unique fighting style that gives it an edge in combat, and while Balamb's usage of GF's is notable, they're not the only game in town, with the other Garden's pursuing their own unique styles.
It makes me really wonder what the third Garden has going on now.
This is also a really nice bit of worldbuilding. Galbadia Garden can afford to train larger numbers of people, because their mecha suits are presumably easier to learn to use than bonding with GF's, and they can teach it in larger numbers than a highly personalized style involving bonding with sentient energy forces would allow.
Presumably they're on some level designed to be easier to use, and while a Galbadian SeeD might not be the same individual force as a Balamb SeeD, they can more easily make use of numbers and train up replacements. And given Galbadia's status as an aggressive power, the Garden's almost certainly have a philosophy of friendly-ish rivalry on the battlefield, pushing each other to find the limits of their own fighting styles.
Oh this is really interesting. It'd be one thing of Galbadia was just using monsters as shock troops and military units, but the idea of having an ice hockey team of monsters suggest a broader societal integration that... what is the end goal? There has to be something more than just making a better soldier, they're shooting for broad social acceptance.
Is this a recent thing? Did this process start before Deling, when Galbadia was less of a world conquering power? What do the people who aren't training to be elite shock troops think about this? I have so many questions that I want answers to.
This definitely paints the picture that the sorceress is a recent destabilizing factor, and that up until now Galbadia Garden's status as a pseudo-neutral, pseudo-national force was broadly balanced. Now nobody knows if things are business as usual or if they're going to need to openly declare hostilities with Galbadia, and nobody really wants to openly acknowledge it.
I am loving how much evidence there is for this read. Balamb sends a deniable asset, burns it, but the sorceress having maybe mind control throws a wrench into everything. Not only does Galbadia potentially have a pet SeeD to throw at problems, they also have access to all the information in his head, including the fact that Seifer was sent there, not as a rogue agent. That information will be as important or more so than his raw combat prowess.
My money is on the assassination attempt later on failing due to Galbadia being fully aware of SeeD's plans to remove the sorceress and destabilize Galbadia, but we'll see how it shakes out when we get there.
Now this? Oh this is all gold. I've been wondering what will shake Squall out of his overly aloof affectation, and having his face shoved into confronting his own mortality would certainly do it.
The interesting part here is his response, that he won't allow himself to be a memory, opens the door for him to get much worse before he gets better. It's entirely possible he goes all in on making a name for himself, acting more like Seifer in an attempt to make his mark on history, rather than trying to open up or anything. He's freaking out and primed to lash out rather than actually reconcile what he just learned.
I also love the acknowledgement that Squall did actually like Seifer, that they did have a lot in common. They butted heads as teenagers do, but there was a legitimate respect there.
I fucking love this. It's not even denial, just "yeah the boss is going to go out causing enough casualties to depopulate a small town, it's going to go on national news. He'll be fine."
10/10 disciplinary squad best team.
Foreshadowing is a literary technique in which-
Okay who on the dev team is a texaboo, betweem cowgirl Tifa and now this. It's gotta be one person really into it, right?
I continue to appreciate the moral greyness with which SeeD operates. Destabilizing a country to ensure continued business through assassination is entirely within their motives, and none of the party save maybe Rinoa really even cares. It's fantastic.
I really think they could've gone with having a couple characters with nonstandard power systems. Give Irvine a mech he can call in as either a super mode or just his source of powers! Show us what makes SeeD unique by contrast! It can certainly be done, games like Lost Odyssey can have different progression systems for different characters. But I suppose maybe the devs weren't confident enough in their ability to pull it off. A real shame that.
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Considering how out-of-pocket the junctioning system is, treating all characters as mechanically the same was probably the right choice.
Nothing here is like other games, having multiple new bespoke experimental systems on top of an already ambitious system was probably not worth attempting.
Nothing here is like other games, having multiple new bespoke experimental systems on top of an already ambitious system was probably not worth attempting.
- Location
- Canada, probably
I mean, I can't disagree? But meeeeeechs…
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
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- He/Him
I do love the idea that Seifer's squad don't belive he's been executed, not because they don't think he's killable, but because they know he's just such a tremendously messy bitch he'd never go out quitely. If Seifer's dying, he's making it everyone's problem.
(Also isn't Selphie from Garden 3? I think I remember mention that she's a transfer, and she can Junction though again that's one of those 'is this diegetic or not' things like Irvine and Rinoa's ability to do so. Maybe Garden 3's speciality is high explosives and trains, given Selphie's... Selphieness.)
(Also isn't Selphie from Garden 3? I think I remember mention that she's a transfer, and she can Junction though again that's one of those 'is this diegetic or not' things like Irvine and Rinoa's ability to do so. Maybe Garden 3's speciality is high explosives and trains, given Selphie's... Selphieness.)
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Sure, but she transferred to Balamb to be a SeeD. She must have met the requirements and training.
All SeeDs are based in Balamb. The other gardens seem to have other deals that makes them more then feeder systems for balamb, but if you want to be a SeeD, you have to transfer to balamb.
- Location
- Brittany, France
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- He/Him
@Cyn I appreciate that it can be difficult to keep a lid on things you're excited about, but the thing is, I can both read and put 2 and 2 together, so when you're very heavily implying things or directly answering questions in my posts that weren't actually meant to be answered with future knowledge, it's still disruptive. This is the second time you've posted in that way and I have to ask you to cut it out.
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See I was under the impression that SeeD was just the general term for the elite soldiers originating from the Gardens, with each Garden just having different criteria and unique styles determining what makes their SeeDs count as elites.
So transferring to Balamb would be less "I want to be a SeeD" and more "I'd rather learn to use magic pacts over mech suits"
It's entirely possible to give every character a bespoke mechanic, it's not even unusual for JRPGs. The problem here is that GFs are too demanding. It's a complex expansive system that ties into nearly every other aspect of the game. In this context, if you want most of your characters to use GFs but some of them to have unique mechanics, you basically have two choices:
- Give them similarly complex versatile systems with their own versions of stat junction, access to variant abilities, etc. The issue is obviously that it would greatly increase the complexity of the game, both to master as a player and to, you know, design and program it all;
- Give them a more simple mechanic locking them into particular combat roles and only allowing minor variations. The issue here, of course, is the lack of versatility and depth compared to "normal" characters, which is likely to lead to such characters being regarded as inferior and possibly being inferior since they lack access to ways of breaking the game.
Now, personally I do prefer when JRPGs just define every character mechanically and only give you so much freedom to customize them within predefined classes or equivalent, but if you're committed to having a system like GFs, applying it equally to everyone probably is the best or at least the least problematic approach.
Of course, it ties into an issue that plagues FF series as a whole in that characters have minimal mechanical identity even if they have defined narrative roles that should lend themselves easily to defining their combat roles... Well, we've had this discussion before, what was said about FFVII remain true now, perhaps moreso since Materia at least was a simple concept that didn't produce as many worldbuilding questions, even if it wasn't integrated into the narrative that much.
She is a transfer student, at least. While it does rise questions of how hard it is to junction, anyway, and what it actually involves in-universe, at least she has a reason to be able to do it at all.
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
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Oh wow I'm like the complete opposite, in FF Tactics I had my team of Faceless Normies that didn't have any unique classes and they carried me all the way to the end. I like the idea of everybody being basically soldiers that equip out of the same armory to fight together, as like a story of camaraderie. And I like being able to pick characters for different party roles based strictly on story-thematic or aesthetic reasons knowing that I can just equip them to do whatever *mechanical* job in the party I want them for.
I mean, it seems to me that the best solution is to make it so that only the Balamb SeeDs can Junction, not send Zell with Squall originally, and make him and Quistis recurring characters who are nevertheless with you for less than half (preferably a quarter) of the game time put together. This lets you give the others distinct mechanics, let's Squall show off by adapting to fill whichever role your other party members need, and makes the other SeeDs showing up into hype moments as you get to spike your combat ability by rearranging them to best fit the situation in a way the rest of the party can't.
...This doesn't quite handle the problem of just how overpowered Junctioning+Refining is, because having one character with five times the stats tends to make the other two useless, but if it was just less broken instead of properly balanced it would work fine. Having the customization be able to reach greater heights than the fixed characters is perfectly valid.
Well, at this point you may as well just redesign the game to be more conventional JRPG where everyone has their own thing on the level of complexity of Black Mage vs Ninja and such. Or do the Persona thing where everyone technically plays by the same rules, but the protagonist is unique in being able to switch skillsets at will.
I don't think the specific mechanics of junction are important narratively so far. Presumably, the whole "it may cause memory loss and prostate cancer, but don't worry about it" thing will come up eventually, but you can add that side effect to any shady powerset.
I mean, everyone does have their own unique mechanic. Its the limit break.
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Although with one exception, they all work the same way in that lower health lets them spam their limit break every turn. And even that 'exception' still has it work like all the others, it just has another thing going on.
Anyways, with Omi talking about the love triangle and everyone else talking about how Seifer causes problems, I thought a chart might help clarify some of the character dynamics going on.
Note that this underlines Squall as the Ideal Mercenary, since causing problems that he can then solve (for money) is just good business. Also shows how Squall and Rinoa both share a lot in common with Seifer, but have a bit of a gap for understanding the other's perspective.
Anyways, with Omi talking about the love triangle and everyone else talking about how Seifer causes problems, I thought a chart might help clarify some of the character dynamics going on.
Note that this underlines Squall as the Ideal Mercenary, since causing problems that he can then solve (for money) is just good business. Also shows how Squall and Rinoa both share a lot in common with Seifer, but have a bit of a gap for understanding the other's perspective.
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Uniqueness just tends to heavily fluctuate from one Final Fantasy game from the next, tbh. Like on one end you have 3 or 5 where mechanical differences are extremely minimal and mostly changed by what classes you decide to train in (and even then 3 you basically swap at will with full power), on the other end you have something like 4 where every character has pre-defined classes and levels and abilities from level 1 to 70, and will always fulfill the same roles.
FFVIII is one of those games that falls towards the "very little difference" end of the scale, even in comparison to FFVII with its materia systems. At least there, you had variables like "different party members weapons might have different materia slot combinations", or the existence of ranged weapons making a difference in like three whole battles. FFVIII? There's no actual equipment beyond weapons (which upgrading is basically just an attack boost in most cases), GFs and magic are freely transferred from character to character for junctioning, the only thing that really matters from person to person is said limit breaks. And to be fair, it's possible to really spam those limit breaks with the right build... but FFVIII still isn't really a game with individual character mechanical variety.
Honestly? With the systems in play, I'd go so far as to say that FFIV was the last Final Fantasy game to come up in the thread with really unique characters. FFVI is a maybe but most characters unique skillsets fall by the wayside eventually in favor of 'what if everyone knew Ultima?"
Although with one exception, they all work the same way in that lower health lets them spam their limit break every turn. And even that 'exception' still has it work like all the others, it just has another thing going on.
Anyways, with Omi talking about the love triangle and everyone else talking about how Seifer causes problems, I thought a chart might help clarify some of the character dynamics going on.
Note that this underlines Squall as the Ideal Mercenary, since causing problems that he can then solve (for money) is just good business. Also shows how Squall and Rinoa both share a lot in common with Seifer, but have a bit of a gap for understanding the other's perspective.
Selphie feels like lower-left quadrant to me, and Zell has already demonstrated upper-left tendencies.
At least in 6 'how much work is it to respec?' ends up being a factor in practice. Sure you could boost Cyan's magic stat into the stratosphere and have him glass Kefka's Tower, but it's much easier to just lean in and boost his strength and bushido everything to death. It's like 80% as effective (which is plenty to get you through endgame) but like 25% as much of a pain in the ass. And the more characters you decide to grind magic stat on, the bigger pain it is the juggle the magicite.
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Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
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- He/Him
Feels like Selphie is bottom left there, Zell is upper left, Quistis is... probably upper left, given what we've seen of her, and Irvine feels so far like he's next to Seifer on the chart.
Note that this leaves 0 people in the 'solves problems on purpose' quadrant, which I feel is fair.
Note that this leaves 0 people in the 'solves problems on purpose' quadrant, which I feel is fair.
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Slephie so far hasn't done anything wrong, in her life, ever, and if people listened to her more everything in the game would be remarkably problem free and simple.
But no one ever takes her suggestions seriously, and they're all failures for not doing what her genius mind says to.
- Location
- Canada, probably
Quistis is tricky. She solves some problems too, as I recall. I might give her centre-left alignment. (True Accident?)
Though I suppose in the Japanese version, where she can run out the timer on the tutorial dungeon with her chatting and then you die? Definitely top-left.
Though I suppose in the Japanese version, where she can run out the timer on the tutorial dungeon with her chatting and then you die? Definitely top-left.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
But where do the Galbadian Trio fall?
They all have similiarity in how it can be accessed, but the mechanic of limit breaks themselves are drastically different. With Squall you are playing rythm game. With Zell you play fighting game. Selphie is a slot game. Rinoa is tamagotchi or whatever that was pet game device that require you to walk the pet.
The mechanical distinction in how the limit breaks operate is more important characteristics than in the similarity how the accessed. Otherwise we can say that, for example, all FFVI's characters work the same way because their special abiilty is accessed through combat menu, or that all FFV's jobs works the same way because they all require you to grind AP to acquire the abilities.
It is not too much variety between characters perhaps. But I think its more than sufficient, given the complexity and variance some of these limit break systems have, and how much showy they are. Like how VI's commands is enough to give each characters enough mechanical identity.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Procrastinating on important work is a path to many abilities some consider... Unnatural.
It's really interesting and brain-tingling and I am sort of bracing myself for the disappointment of it turning out to be left unexplored beyond a couple of throaway gags.
Hey, listen.I like @Omicron giving Irvine flack for picking the two women for party members as if Omi didn't do exactly the same thing in both FF7 and FF8 as soon as the opportunity presented itself
Listen.
...
Shut up.
I do find myself surprised at how much I am genuinely enjoying these weirdos. I don't know if you saw it in the screenshots, but Fujin has an eyepatch? Peak character design. I want a spinoff about the Disciplinary Team doing, like, an investigation into a rogue GF on campus or something.
I think the PSX straight up might not have had enough room to accomodate extra nonstandard power systems for specific characters, considering how complex and heavy the GF system is. Plus, these characters would probably have ended up being perceived as worse than those with access to the incredible depth, flexibility and power of the GF system by players.
With that said, I do wonder if FF8 might not have benefited from a system like Persona, where Squall specifically is the one who can equip any GF he wants, and each other character is junctioned to one plot-related GF that they can't change.
RE: Irvine calling in a mech as a super mode; we never ended up seeing it in this LP, but Cid's ultimate Limit Break in FF7 was "Call in the Highwind to deliver an airstrike," which I find absolutely hilarious and an excellent bit of gameplay-story integration.
Selphie actually never says which Garden she's from.
It's easy to derive by implication though. The desktop informational says that Trabia Garden, the third Garden that we haven't seen yet, has an exchange student policy with Balamb Garden, and Selphie never shows any sign of familiarity with Galbadia Garden while she's there. So by implication, she's from Trabia Garden.
I'll be very curious to find out what their deal is and what they have that Balamb Garden students might more find attractive for a transfer than GF-based power.
It's pretty much a specializing trend across VI-VII-VIII. V had the job system, which was very specific in the way it approached character classes. VI is where the game blows up the concept of 'classes' by giving everyone Magic and access to Magicite stat boosts, and from there, each game iterates to make characters less unique and their mechanics more interchangeable, culminating in VIII, where your character's mechanical identity is literally offloaded to a different 'character' (the Guardian Force).
It's also where it stops. IX, as I recall, has very strongly defined character classes. What we're seeing here is the apex of a particular trend within FF history.