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

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DanZapman said:
Wiegraf as Wiglaf makes sense in that context, particularly given his backstory and all, but 'graf' is also a historical Germanic noble title roughly equivalent to a count, so his name can be read as battle-lord as much as battle-leavings.
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That's actually kind of perfect for the commander of the Corpse Brigade
 
DanZapman said:
Of course, all these names are as far as I know mostly made up by chaining together stuff that sounded European to a Japanese audience, so any funny coincidences are probably just that- Barbaneth/Balbanes is an example of plausible syllables strung together. So I'm left unsure whether the possible Beowulf references are intended to be meaningful (probably? naming your hero after Beowulf isn't difficult) or the devs just decided that a famous European epic was a decent source to mine for suitable-seeming names.
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The other day I was seeing some tweet complaining (very fairly) about Western writers who are writing Japanese characters but can't be bothered to look up real Japanese names, so they make up an assemblage of syllables that 'sounds' Japanese, but isn't an actual Japanese name that any person has ever borne. And I think that's a fair complaint, not to say pretty funny, but also I couldn't help but think about Final Fantasy XIV.

Because you see, I'm French, and in FFXIV, the Elezen race (the setting equivalent to elves) are clearly meant to evoke France in some regards (the nation of Ishgard is often referred to jokingly as 'French catholic elves'), and that shows most prominently in their names, which sound French (more specifically, kind of medieval French-y).

But they're not. They're completely made up. They're an assemblage of syllables that sound French but aren't a name a French person has ever borne: Tivionne. Jainelette. Lainiette. Alphinaud. Haurchefant. Jannequinard!?

They're all the mutated offspring of actual French names and if you kinda squint you can see the chain of descent (Janequin is an actual French family name; Jannequinard isn't), but playing through Heavensward is just, like, walking through a collection of bizarre French cosplayers who very enthusiastically came up with their Frenchsona's elaborate name.

It's very funny.
 
Omicron said:
The other day I was seeing some tweet complaining (very fairly) about Western writers who are writing Japanese characters but can't be bothered to look up real Japanese names, so they make up an assemblage of syllables that 'sounds' Japanese, but isn't an actual Japanese name that any person has ever borne. And I think that's a fair complaint, not to say pretty funny, but also I couldn't help but think about Final Fantasy XIV.

Because you see, I'm French, and in FFXIV, the Elezen race (the setting equivalent to elves) are clearly meant to evoke France in some regards (the nation of Ishgard is often referred to jokingly as 'French catholic elves'), and that shows most prominently in their names, which sound French (more specifically, kind of medieval French-y).

But they're not. They're completely made up. They're an assemblage of syllables that sound French but aren't a name a French person has ever borne: Tivionne. Jainelette. Lainiette. Alphinaud. Haurchefant. Jannequinard!?

They're all the mutated offspring of actual French names and if you kinda squint you can see the chain of descent (Janequin is an actual French family name; Jannequinard isn't), but playing through Heavensward is just, like, walking through a collection of bizarre French cosplayers who very enthusiastically came up with their Frenchsona's elaborate name.

It's very funny.
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incredible. reminds me of the fucking. what was the name, the Japanese baseball game where the devs tried to imagine normal American names.

edit: found it.
 
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Omicron said:
I mean, I get the feeling that within the narrative they're supposed to have all died in the Ziekden Fire, as Ramza wandered off into the snow alone, but the game understandably isn't taking all the blorbos I have spent the last eight game hours laboring over away from us. Which is a good thing, because I would have instantly quit.
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I know of people who just let all of their starting generics die at Ziedken, with Ramza collecting the crystals, so they start chapter 2 with just a super-powered lone Ramza with a ton of skills, and have to rely on the provided team of Alicia, Lavian and Radd going forward. The idea is to create an emotional resonance with the narrative, but it's also something of a fun challenge. Not something I'd usually do myself though, I'd much rather bring the starting team along - I get attached quickly.

Omicron said:
It hits so hard in fact that long before playing the game, I'd already heard that line in the form of @Kei's Quest Stand And Watch Them Fall!
(I haven't read the fic, but the title cropped up often enough in my eyesight that when I got to that line I immediately thought 'wait, I've heard this before.')
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Ah, yes, the quest that made me join this site. It's a great read, as others mentioned; it follows Ramza taking a different path after the events of Ziekden and focuses on training a medieval/magic spec-op team, with a lot of spoilers for you right now, but it's written really well and does a lot to breath life and details into the setting. It's really sad that it's dead, but it's understandable, and what's there is still great.

Omicron said:
Yeah, I'm grudgingly in agreement here. I don't think the new cell-shaded CGI cutscenes are necessarily a bad idea in general, but having watched both versions thanks to a YouTube walkthrough of the PSX version, the in-engine game just works better and has a really impressive impact considering its graphical limitations.
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Oh! Then you're able to check the Mandalia discussion between Ramza and Delita, and give us an opinion on how you think that one compares to the WotL cutscene?

...also, does this means you don't need me to post notes from the PSX translation anymore, and that you'll be giving us your own opinion of that instead from watching the PSX version's walkthrough?

Omicron said:
It's just that Barbaneth literally says Delita joining the Akademy was a unique exception that made some people very mad, so at the very least "the members of the Northern Sky Order that come out of the Akademy" have to be nobles. And then maybe they recruit commoners under them, who become part of the Orders? It's what makes the most sense to me.
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My reading of this was that the Akademy is meant to create officers, which would be normally restricted to nobility; it's common enough in real life for everybody to be able to enroll in the army as a private but for people who've gone through officer schools to enroll directly as mid-rank officers, I just assumed this was a case of the same with a dash of "but only nobles can do that" thrown in as classism.
 
Egleris said:
I know of people who just let all of their starting generics die at Ziedken, with Ramza collecting the crystals, so they start chapter 2 with just a super-powered lone Ramza with a ton of skills, and have to rely on the provided team of Alicia, Lavian and Radd going forward. The idea is to create an emotional resonance with the narrative, but it's also something of a fun challenge. Not something I'd usually do myself though, I'd much rather bring the starting team along - I get attached quickly.
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At this point if anything happens to Hadrian, Osric, Gillian and Hester I will cry.

Oh! Then you're able to check the Mandalia discussion between Ramza and Delita, and give us an opinion on how you think that one compares to the WotL cutscene?

...also, does this means you don't need me to post notes from the PSX translation anymore, and that you'll be giving us your own opinion of that instead from watching the PSX version's walkthrough?
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Not at all, I'm not watching a full PSX playthrough; I only look at it occasionally to reference a specific event, usually prompted by thread comments. I'm not reading the complete dialogue so your notes are appreciated.

I did look at the Mandalia Plain dialogue, and unlike the Ziekden Fortress cutscene, I think that one is one where the new WotL cutscenes shine; the music, environmental sound, voice performance, and color palette are all really good and combine to make it a very touching moment in a way that IMO improves on the original. It helps that it mostly shot from a distance so you don't quite notice the models' fucked up proportions.
 
Omicron said:
I did look at the Mandalia Plain dialogue, and unlike the Ziekden Fortress cutscene, I think that one is one where the new WotL cutscenes shine; the music, environmental sound, voice performance, and color palette are all really good and combine to make it a very touching moment in a way that IMO improves on the original. It helps that it mostly shot from a distance so you don't quite notice the models' fucked up proportions.
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It's a bit of shame that the new cutscenes are hit or miss, because I do like the idea of them, and sometimes they do add quite a bit!

It feels like they were mostly let down by how the artists seem to be trying to emulate the sort of chibi spritework, plus the noseless profile pictures, into a 3D format. I feel like of they switched up the artstyle (or at the very least some of the proportions, why the yaoi hands) they would've been universally stronger.
 
I'm having a minor problem. After leveling Hester into Monk, it turns out her damage sucks - she's dealing 18-21 damage, compared to Monk Ramza regularly hitting 40s and 60s.

I checked her stats (I did make sure she had good Bravery before making her a Monk), and while her Bravery is below Ramza's, it's just 61 to his 72, it's not that much of a difference. Her Physical Attack stat, however, is 5, whereas Ramza's is 7. @Egleris wrote that the Monk damage calculation is PA x PA x 1.Brave, so the multiplicative effect would explain the huge discrepancy, but my question is - why is her Attack rating so low? They are both unarmed, so there's no weapon to explain it; is it just because Ramza is a couple of character levels higher?
 
Omicron said:
I'm having a minor problem. After leveling Hester into Monk, it turns out her damage sucks - she's dealing 18-21 damage, compared to Monk Ramza regularly hitting 40s and 60s.

I checked her stats (I did make sure she had good Bravery before making her a Monk), and while her Bravery is below Ramza's, it's just 61 to his 72, it's not that much of a difference. Her Physical Attack stat, however, is 5, whereas Ramza's is 7. @Egleris wrote that the Monk damage calculation is PA x PA x 1.Brave, so the multiplicative effect would explain the huge discrepancy, but my question is - why is her Attack rating so low? They are both unarmed, so there's no weapon to explain it; is it just because Ramza is a couple of character levels higher?
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In final fantasy tactics- this also applies to tactics advance, actually, but beside the point- different classes have different growth rates in stats.

While jobs do modify stats on a 'what's your current job' basis, they also modify them as you level- and, among other points, a quick check of the wiki shows Ramza has a special personal version of squire that just straight up has better attack growth.

So it's either that in particular or Hester has been leveling in otherwise worse classes compared to Ramza, in terms of attack growths, I would guess.

EDIT: reading the page more closely women grow MP and magic attack faster and men grow HP and physical attack faster, so hooray for sexism. Between that and Ramza's class, yeah. Gonna be worse off.
 
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Omicron said:
I'm having a minor problem. After leveling Hester into Monk, it turns out her damage sucks - she's dealing 18-21 damage, compared to Monk Ramza regularly hitting 40s and 60s.

I checked her stats (I did make sure she had good Bravery before making her a Monk), and while her Bravery is below Ramza's, it's just 61 to his 72, it's not that much of a difference. Her Physical Attack stat, however, is 5, whereas Ramza's is 7. @Egleris wrote that the Monk damage calculation is PA x PA x 1.Brave, so the multiplicative effect would explain the huge discrepancy, but my question is - why is her Attack rating so low? They are both unarmed, so there's no weapon to explain it; is it just because Ramza is a couple of character levels higher?
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Gender inequality is an issue in this game I'm afraid. Male's have a naturally higher physical attack. Females have higher base magic.

You can overcome this with leveling in the right jobs eventually but it is a disadvantage at the start.
 
Yeah, Female units have worse physical growth (HP and PA) and better magical growth (MP and MA) than Male units; this will generally amount to a 1, sometimes 2 points difference in the PA and MA. Note that Ramza is unique in that he gets the best growth in both - physical stats like a man, but magical stats like a woman.

Also, make sure that they have the same equipment before comparing - some equipment gives bonus stats.
 
Also, when comparing damage, have you taken compatibility into account?

I ask because:

5 x 5 x 1.61 = 40; Worst Compatibility = half damage = 20

7 x 7 x 1.72 = 84; Bad Compatibility = 3/4th damage = 63

That seems to be the numbers you're working with, right?
 
Egleris said:
Also, when comparing damage, have you taken compatibility into account?

I ask because:

5 x 5 x 1.61 = 40; Worst Compatibility = half damage = 20

7 x 7 x 1.72 = 84; Bad Compatibility = 3/4th damage = 63

That seems to be the numbers you're working with, right?
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I haven't, because I don't have the astrological chart memorized so I can't tell which signs are compatible mid-fight, but it does sound like that'd be one of the factors at play, yeah.

But the gender divide is genuinely an extremely frustrating thing to discover eight hours into the game
 
gender inequality as a stat mechanic is always something that gets a side-eye from me, honestly, but especially in older games I can to a point just shrug it off.

But of course, that's when it's reasonably open and upfront. It being secretly the case that you will do better if you make your men fighters and your women casters, and there's really no way to know this is true given it's not told to you and the game is quite complex and resultingly opaque on things like overall stat mechanics is extra Not Great.
 
Omicron said:
But the gender divide is genuinely an extremely frustrating thing to discover eight hours into the game
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I swear it got briefly mentioned around an earlier update... but entirely possible it was only being discussed in the spoiler thread, whoops.

Much like the zodiac system it's not a huge issue as the game goes on, it's still perfectly viable to have girl knights and boy mages, but I guess it can be something to worry about. A lot of those game tweak mods end up removing it for obvious reasons of "forced gender inequality be silly yo".
 
Yeah, Hester was doing fine enough as a Knight that I didn't notice her damage being particularly low, it's when she leveled into Monk that she literally powered down, her attacks are now weaker than they were as a Knight, the opposite of what happened to Ramza.

I guess she gets to graduate to Geomancer early
 
Omicron said:
I haven't, because I don't have the astrological chart memorized so I can't tell which signs are compatible mid-fight, but it does sound like that'd be one of the factors at play, yeah.
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You can just use Select on the status window (and remember, you can check the status of enemies in battle), pointed to the zodiac sign, and the game will tell you the compatibility. You don't need to memorize it.
 
Egleris said:
Yeah, Female units have worse physical growth (HP and PA) and better magical growth (MP and MA) than Male units; this will generally amount to a 1, sometimes 2 points difference in the PA and MA. Note that Ramza is unique in that he gets the best growth in both - physical stats like a man, but magical stats like a woman.

Also, make sure that they have the same equipment before comparing - some equipment gives bonus stats.
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Wait, does this mean that Ramza is a femboy?
 
Terrabrand said:
... if you're going in that direction it would imply he's non-binary. A femboy, being a feminine man, would logically either have male stats (because still a man) or female stats (because like a woman in physique and whatever all), not Best Of Both Worlds.
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I was tempted to say non-binary but I was worried that you'd take my post seriously if I did.
 
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