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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]

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Omicron said:
They're trivial opponents, but at this stage, we only have 30 seconds on the counter. It's simply not enough to select attacks and play out their animations in full. Quistis takes out the officer with her Laser Eye, and the countdown hits 0.

…which actually causes a very neat non-standard gameplay to play out, but put a pin in that, we'll get to it in a moment.

For now, let's do this again, and do it right this time.
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Did this actually get expanded upon and I just missed it?
 
GlassOlive said:
Did this actually get expanded upon and I just missed it?
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Yes, there's a paragraph about it at the end.
Those last two shots of the view-from-the-sky of the explosion going off, by the way? They're what plays when you reach the special game over for running down the timer in the base. Which I suppose could be said to spoil the final effect, but... Not for me, not really. I saw that when I lost that second fight and thought, 'wow, they really went above and beyond making missable FMVs for special game overs,' and then I watched through that final scene and the realization started to sink in that I was going to see it again.
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Omicron said:
"Sorceress Edea… Now she's what I call a queen. Oh… What strength. What power. She's beautiful."
"That guy just talked the talk. He never walked the walk. He was such a greedy bastard. Yeah it's terrible he got killed like this, but I think he deserved it."
"People follow strength, not charisma. Sorceress Edea is so strong and so alluring."
"President Deling? Yeah, a good guy on the outside, but basically a loser."
"Long live Sorceress Edea! We can take Eshtar now!" [In answer to this, everyone in the street spontaneously shouts "YEAHHHH!!!"]
"Woman power from here on in. It's about time a woman took charge of the world."
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IDK what you're on about with mind control, those are normal opinions which I many normal people share.

Omicron said:
I mean, if I had the choice between being ruled by a bland military-officer-turned-dictator with boring conservative beliefs who hasn't won a war in two decades, and being ruled by Disney's Maleficent, I know who I'd pick.
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Though it is inherently funny how FFVIII starts as, like, not, like, realistic, but grounded techomagithriller about very important geopolitics focused on what's essentially more blunt USA...

And then suddenly fucking scene Jadis takes over the country and promises to plunge it into nightmare eternal. She still uses missiles, though.

Like, revealing an elemental force of evil behind a petty dictator is not exactly new ground for the franchise, but I think the modern aesthetic and the, like, mundanity of the conflict before that amplifies the dissonance.

It's like Die Hard turning into Backrooms creepypasta halfway through the movie.

Can't argue with the results, though. The boot of oppression was never as attractive.

Omicron said:



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RIP Selphie, she died as she lived: at the ground zero of a massive explosion she's caused.
 
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Taking all bets! How did the missile base team survive? I refuse to believe they killed off those characters for the reasons Omi listed so here's my guesses as someone who's never played this game.

Got blasted Team Rocket style to another location where we'll reunite with them.

Mystery person swooped in with some kind of transport at the last second.

Thrown into the past and that's what's causing the weird flashback sequences.

Found a shelter somehow and are still alive but trapped in the ruins of the base.
 
Dybbukpossesed said:
Taking all bets! How did the missile base team survive? I refuse to believe they killed off those characters for the reasons Omi listed so here's my guesses as someone who's never played this game.

Got blasted Team Rocket style to another location where we'll reunite with them.

Mystery person swooped in with some kind of transport at the last second.

Thrown into the past and that's what's causing the weird flashback sequences.

Found a shelter somehow and are still alive but trapped in the ruins of the base.
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My money's on them getting isekaied to go be Light Novel protagonists, with them returning as effectively entirely different characters later, either with new designs but the exact same personalities or with new personalities but the exact same appearances.

At least one of them will probably have undergone the "reincarnated as non-humanoid creature" to "generic humanoid omni-caster with maybe some aesthetic influence from what they started out as at most" pipeline, and another will have been put through the standard "betrayed for having a supposedly useless / no superpower" to "turns out to have the best / all the superpowers" Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer-but-edgier plotline.
 
StormyEyed said:
Is it bad that my initial thought was that Selphie would do exactly that? My girl is such a chaos gremlin I fully expected her to pull something like that if given the power. I mean, how often do you have your hands on several ICBMs, it would be a crime to not at least one on some place you don't care about too much, right?
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I figured she'd input the coordinates of the base itself, but I guess there's no need with a handy selphie-destruct system right there.

Would've been a funny image to see the FMV of the missiles launching and a mirror FMV of them going right back.
 
illhousen said:
I figured she'd input the coordinates of the base itself, but I guess there's no need with a handy selphie-destruct system right there.

Would've been a funny image to see the FMV of the missiles launching and a mirror FMV of them going right back.
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Would it be funnier for them to actually be animated as turning around or for it to literally be the same animation in reverse, complete with the missiles somehow inhaling their own exhaust?
 
SolipsistSerpent said:
It's a missile base. It's already full of explosives. I'd just close all the missile hangar doors and set all missiles to launch (or better yet, explode without launching if that's an option).
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The missiles themselves may well have a self-destruct option. It's required on non-military rockets, though there's reasons you might not want a Flight Termination System on your ICBM.
 
Dybbukpossesed said:
Taking all bets! How did the missile base team survive? I refuse to believe they killed off those characters for the reasons Omi listed so here's my guesses as someone who's never played this game.

Got blasted Team Rocket style to another location where we'll reunite with them.

Mystery person swooped in with some kind of transport at the last second.

Thrown into the past and that's what's causing the weird flashback sequences.

Found a shelter somehow and are still alive but trapped in the ruins of the base.
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVryJmZNFdU
 
- Selphie remains the best.

- The lack of making sure your enemies is dead thing is super glaring because, like, you're playing a team of mercenaries, people who quite literally kill for money; they have zero moral qualms - and we repeatedly see that they really don't find killing people at all objectionable, even! They aren't anime mercenaries who magically never actually do any mercenary-ing! - about just merking a dude from behind or while he's asleep, they should absolutely be making sure everyone is dead.

- I'm kinda torn on the obvious sacrifice fakeout, coming so soon as it does after the previous obvious sacrifice fakeout. I think they're leaning too hard on the whole 'wOooOo we killed Aeris, we'll kIlL characters! wOoOoooO, be afraid!' thing and it's just, uh, kinda campy and dumb? On the other hand, it's a pretty good bit here where the Squall bit just completely fell flat.
 
I think it might just be standard Galbadia training to play possum when possible. Which might well mean the group should be prepared for it, but both at the missile base and at the Dollet communication tower, the group was on a timer, so I think it might make sense that they didn't waste time confirming the kills, in those particular situations. It's still annoying from a narrative standpoint, but perhaps justifiable in-character.
 
Egleris said:
I think it might just be standard Galbadia training to play possum when possible. Which might well mean the group should be prepared for it, but both at the missile base and at the Dollet communication tower, the group was on a timer, so I think it might make sense that they didn't waste time confirming the kills, in those particular situations. It's still annoying from a narrative standpoint, but perhaps justifiable in-character.
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It may be justified, but we were still robbed of Selphie flitting between fallen foes with her girly walk and shooting them twice in the head before doing a victory pose, and I think that's a tragedy.
 
Omicron said:


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I love this aesthetic so much, you guys. Pretty much half of Armored Core 1 was menus looking exactly like this and that was one of my very first video games.
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Wish you had explored the equipment section of the control panel more, as it has some interesting stuff on the weapons and tech in the Galbadian Army. Plus, if you press the arrow and square keys (PlayStation controls, at least) there, you will see a Galbadian Soldier or Elite Soldier dance.

Omicron said:
We are, as this game seems to like to do, given the option to pick the timer on the self-destruct - 10, 20, 30 or 40 minutes. I decide that I feel like a proper challenge since the game has not given me much of that, and pick the shortest length - 10 minutes.
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Looks like you fulfilled both criteria for increasing your SeeD rank here: you get an increase if you get through setting the self-destruct without getting caught prior, and for getting out in the 10 minute limit.

Things are trickier if you get caught during the infiltration. Not only are there random encounters, but you have to set the self-destruct first, then get an ID and password from a fallen soldier at the base entrance, and then go to the control panel to tamper with the target - and still get out and fight the boss in time, of course.
 
foamy said:
The missiles themselves may well have a self-destruct option. It's required on non-military rockets, though there's reasons you might not want a Flight Termination System on your ICBM.
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I feel like that would depend on the type of explosive in the warhead itself - a nuclear or magitech equivalent could probably have the rocket blow up without triggering the actual warhead, though a more conventional explosive might not be as safe.

I really am starting to wonder what these are packed with though, if these are proper ICBMs it makes sense to stuff your biggest boom into them, and with vague magitech being a thing it's hard to tell what scale they're operating at.

I suppose we'll see first hand when we eventually visit Trabia Garden, or if we visit the craters from the sabatoged missiles that went towards Balamb.
 
I'm sorry but I can't move past the fact that the missiles veer off course moments before impact just so they can robotech all around the fucking place. Who designed them to do that???
 
... Wait, why is Balamb Garden getting destroyed a full-on bad ending instead of a tragic doomed 'hometown' event?

All your characters except maybe the ones at the missile base are still around and have been operating semi-independently of Garden orders for a bit now anyway, all the Garden getting blown up does is kill off background NPCs and remove the people assigning missions, giving rankings, and sending money to Squall's account every so often.

I mean, yeah, it's a tragic waste of human life, but the main cast has kinda been cut off from Balamb ever since it turned out their contract with the Timber Owls had no end date and they weren't going to be able to just leave. Why does their journey's success or failure hinge on the upper management who only care to send the occasional check surviving?

Edit: Like, are we really sure "Oh no, the people randomly docking your pay for doing things that tarnish the reputation of their child soldier mercenary academies reliant on memory-loss-inducing giant monsters for powerups are dead" is a Bad ending? Is all this just because the programmers refused to make an alternative to the SeeD Rank mechanics for how your party funds their misadventures?
 
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wetodet said:
... Wait, why is Balamb Garden getting destroyed a full-on bad ending instead of a tragic doomed 'hometown' event?

All your characters except maybe the ones at the missile base are still around and have been operating semi-independently of Garden orders for a bit now anyway, all the Garden getting blown up does is kill off background NPCs and remove the people assigning missions, giving rankings, and sending money to Squall's account every so often.
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You've answered yourself: without a salary, there is no point in continuing.

(A serious answer is that FFVIII is a linear game and is not scripted to handle arbitrary survival/dying of a bunch of characters who're probably going to appear again. It could have been scripted around it in various ways, but it wasn't, probably because the effort was deemed excessive. The end effect is Morrowind's "thread of destiny" stuff: it's not like the fate of the island really hinges on the life of some dude, realistically, but the game needs him to give you a main quest, so if he dies, that's it for the main story.)
 
wetodet said:
... Wait, why is Balamb Garden getting destroyed a full-on bad ending instead of a tragic doomed 'hometown' event?

All your characters except maybe the ones at the missile base are still around and hresave been operating semi-independently of Garden orders for a bit now anyway, all the Garden getting blown up does is kill off background NPCs and remove the people assigning missions, giving rankings, and sending money to Squall's account every so often.

I mean, yeah, it's a tragic waste of human life, but the main cast has kinda been cut off from Balamb ever since it turned out their contract with the Timber Owls had no end date and they weren't going to be able to just leave. Why does their journey's success or failure hinge on the upper management who only care to send the occasional check surviving?

Edit: Like, are we really sure "Oh no, the people randomly docking your pay for doing things that tarnish the reputation of their child soldier mercenary academies reliant on memory-loss-inducing giant monsters for powerups are dead" is a Bad ending? Is all this just because the programmers refused to make an alternative to the SeeD Rank mechanics for how your party funds their misadventures?
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The destruction of the Garden means that the Garden Festival cannot happen. Thus, the thread of prophecy is severed and Squall must either restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world Selphie has created.
 
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