- Location
- California
SV try not to spoil person doing Lets Play/Read/Watch Challenge (Impossible)
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As a regular reader of Leila's Let's Watch thread, I was thankfully well-familiar with this issue before starting, but it's still impressive to see in action.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
In Italy it was localized as "Gidan", for pretty much the same reason, I imagine - he was playing in the Italian football league in 2000, and that was just two years after France first victory of the world cup. It was very much the correct localization decision to make, honestly.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, Djidanne/Gidan makes a lot of sense in the context of the time the game was released. It'd be less necessary if you were rereleasing the game with a new localization today.
There are some other localization decisions that I find a lot more inexplicable, on the other hand. My favorite being that in FFVIII's French version, Quetzacotl (who was meant to be Quetzalcoatl but ran into character limits), is instead named "Golgotha." Yes, like the mountain of crucifixion.
There are some other localization decisions that I find a lot more inexplicable, on the other hand. My favorite being that in FFVIII's French version, Quetzacotl (who was meant to be Quetzalcoatl but ran into character limits), is instead named "Golgotha." Yes, like the mountain of crucifixion.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
That's weird, although I think I heard somewhere that the French translation of FFVIII in particular was very different from most others? Can't find a source for it, however. Still, if that's the case, it might be because of that.
The italian answer to the character limit was to shorten it to Quetzal, which incidentally is very similar to the name of another (non-lightning bird) summon in a previous FF (I hope knowing that is not enough to count as a spoiler), so... yay for creating continuity where none existed?
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
It was ugly by current standards when it released, too, though
Somewhat better than a lot of the early 3D stuff, but the early stage 3D stuff was competing with late stage spritework and it just about universally looked like ass in comparison. There was a degree of wow factor because of the size of the undertaking and relatively better 3D aesthetic, but make no mistake, FF7 was not pretty by the standards of its age, either. There are gorgeous games in the late SNES, early PSX period, they just ain't 3D, heh.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
FF7 was lauded for the visuals on its cutscenes, not the in engine gameplay
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
Yeah, I've met that version. Also was it Shiva's attack that was named 'Transcendantale', or something similar?
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
There's some exception here. For one the original Crash Bandicoot still works, and I wouldn't call the firrst Medievil bad.It was ugly by current standards when it released, too, though
Somewhat better than a lot of the early 3D stuff, but the early stage 3D stuff was competing with late stage spritework and it just about universally looked like ass in comparison. There was a degree of wow factor because of the size of the undertaking and relatively better 3D aesthetic, but make no mistake, FF7 was not pretty by the standards of its age, either. There are gorgeous games in the late SNES, early PSX period, they just ain't 3D, heh.
And TBH even in FFVII the in-battle graphics are way better the the rest of the game, cutscenes excluded.
- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It was ugly by current standards when it released, too, though
Somewhat better than a lot of the early 3D stuff, but the early stage 3D stuff was competing with late stage spritework and it just about universally looked like ass in comparison. There was a degree of wow factor because of the size of the undertaking and relatively better 3D aesthetic, but make no mistake, FF7 was not pretty by the standards of its age, either. There are gorgeous games in the late SNES, early PSX period, they just ain't 3D, heh.
Also, bear in mind this was the beginning of the 3D era. You think the graphics treadmill craze is bad these days? People literally went gaga over "3d graphics" in next gen consoles back in the late 1990s. It was the hot new thing, everyone wanted to get on board that gravy train. It's part of the reason why the Sega Saturn basically got torpedoed so quickly; it didn't have 3D graphics, and so struggled to match the abilities of the PSX and N64 (though admittedly Sega's massive blunder with the Saturn release date and lineup didn't help at all). The failures of the Saturn and the subsequent failure of the Dreamcast ended Sega as a console company.
Nowadays, what with the insane cost of graphics cards and the realization that there's a hard limit to how much detail a human eye sees, we can see that the "3D graphics" craze was yet another fad, albeit one that started us on the graphics treadmill insanity. Sure, we got better looking games as 3d graphics improved, but for a while, in-game graphics kinda sucked.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I honestly think the simplified 3D graphics of FFVII hold up better than the more ambitious ones of VIII and IX? Sure, everyone looks like a Lego, but at least they don't fall into what I internally call 'the Morrowind problem', where they all look like a terrifying doll that's squeezed itself into the still-fresh skin stolen off a regular person's body.
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
Yeah, the more cartoon-y stuff did... okay. When it wasn't trying for relatively high fidelity (note that in reference to the time period that's a joke, but still) and stuck with stuff that wasn't outright terrible with the period technology, it did okay. "Okay" when you're in the period of late stage SNES spritework isn't exactly praiseworthy, though
Not trying to dump on FF7, exactly, but it really does need to be said by folks that were there, no, that stuff didn't look great even at the time, heh. It's not just a matter of standards being higher these days or it not aging well. Better than some of the legitimate aesthetic disasters of the time being published in the 3D rush, but the bar for that is remarkably low, ahaha.
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Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
This reminds me of those images of a FFVI demo for N64, before Square jumped ship to the PSX and made FFVII.
It also looked like shoe boxes. But they were pretty shoe boxes, in comparison to FVII later. Then again, you have a lot more leeway to make your demo pretty, I guess.
*is put into a straitjacket by two handsome and strapping nurses, then thrown inside a white van*
*the van starts running. Falls on its side. Explodes*
But yeah, one would expect we wouldn't seriously hold a fictional character's name to the faults of an unrelated element.
Still, yeah, I do get the reasons for the name change in translation.
It also looked like shoe boxes. But they were pretty shoe boxes, in comparison to FVII later. Then again, you have a lot more leeway to make your demo pretty, I guess.
I mean, yeah, but I held hopes that that the reason was a very particularly personal yet ridiculously hilarious anecdote. Not the sharing a name with a dude who did something or another shut up I'm not tired of soccer and shit being such a big deal here in Spain YOU ARE FUCK SOCCER AND F-
*is put into a straitjacket by two handsome and strapping nurses, then thrown inside a white van*
*the van starts running. Falls on its side. Explodes*
But yeah, one would expect we wouldn't seriously hold a fictional character's name to the faults of an unrelated element.
And here here they changed it to Yitan. Which is funny because while it doesn't mean anything at all, it's pronuntiation (that -tan is kinda hard and aggressive) makes the character come off as the very polar extreme of a rogue that would go by Shadow or Wind or whatever else your "he be swift and sneaky" vibe you'd like to go.
Still, yeah, I do get the reasons for the name change in translation.
I remember watching in youtube a theory about the villain that hinged in the differences between the original JP text and the English and French translation. And a third of the video might have been jabs at how utterly bad the French translation was and how it gutted a lot of lore shit. :_D
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FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
I remember seeing those demo images! Nintendo Power was probably where I saw them, IIR. I was so hyped as a kid to see Terra, Locke, et al rendered in all them fancy polygons - I'm sure it'd look not so great now but at the time it was a cool step forward from sprites.
OTOH nowadays I will vehemently insist that if they do a remake of VI they need to just go all in on artsy fartsy cell shading and rendering in order to best adhere to the spirit of VI's original art design (particularly the enemies), which was incredibly fantastical and outlandish.
People are showing pictures of soccer dudes and I'm still all like, literally who?
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cB557
voOOP
I dunno if "fad" is the right word for 3D graphics back in the 90s. Like it did have fad-like overhype and rushing to use them, calling it the future of video games and whatnot. But that was kinda right? More than just sticking around, 3D graphics have become the norm for video games now.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The norm, but not exclusively so. Just recently Squenix has proved sprites can still compete on even ground at the A or AA tier even if not AAA with Octopath Traveler and the following games in that engine
Zinedine Zidane, a famous former soccer player and current soccer coach. When FFIX came out he was still an active player.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Was his father a big Stan Lee fan (if I give my kid an alliterative name, it'll be easier to remember)?
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nah, it's just that alliteration adds additional appeal.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Anyway, never heard of the guy before, because I don't follow the sportsball (any of the sportsballs), but I do see how it could be a little distracting if you did. Still, it's not necessarily the game-designers' fault, since it wasn't made in France.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I
My ten-year old self didn't care about sports, and in fact hated sports, and loathed football in particular for how it seemed like everyone was into it and people expected you to be into it and treated you like a weirdo if you weren't. Not only was football absolutely inescapable, France had won the world cup a year or two before FFIX's release, so it was even more dominant. There was no escaping football. It didn't matter if you were the kind of nerdy kid who came up with creative ways to dismiss 'sportsball' as a hobby for meatheads, the world would inflict that knowledge upon you. People would parade in the streets. The news would cover major victories as headline news. There just wasn't a box you could tick for 'I have never heard of Zinedine Zidane and so this name isn't distracting to my experience of the game.' That wasn't an option. You didn't get a choice in the matter, unless you were living in a cave and your family didn't own a TV.
Obviously, none of that is on the Japanese devs. They didn't make a bad decision or anything like that. It was just a necessary tweak due to differences in cultural context.
It's not like Char Aznable from Gundam, whose name is deliberately and knowingly a mangling of Charles Aznavour because the director was a huge fan
I think that's an interesting comment, actually, because it unwittingly gets to why the change was made, even though it may seem weird to us today, or to people from Non-Football Countries at the time.
My ten-year old self didn't care about sports, and in fact hated sports, and loathed football in particular for how it seemed like everyone was into it and people expected you to be into it and treated you like a weirdo if you weren't. Not only was football absolutely inescapable, France had won the world cup a year or two before FFIX's release, so it was even more dominant. There was no escaping football. It didn't matter if you were the kind of nerdy kid who came up with creative ways to dismiss 'sportsball' as a hobby for meatheads, the world would inflict that knowledge upon you. People would parade in the streets. The news would cover major victories as headline news. There just wasn't a box you could tick for 'I have never heard of Zinedine Zidane and so this name isn't distracting to my experience of the game.' That wasn't an option. You didn't get a choice in the matter, unless you were living in a cave and your family didn't own a TV.
Obviously, none of that is on the Japanese devs. They didn't make a bad decision or anything like that. It was just a necessary tweak due to differences in cultural context.
It's not like Char Aznable from Gundam, whose name is deliberately and knowingly a mangling of Charles Aznavour because the director was a huge fan
- Location
- Not your place of residence
The real question is how many different flavors of meme have FFIX Zidane headbutting villains from the game or the series.
Final Fantasy IV, Part 14
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So!
Yang is alive, somehow.
We can't do anything with that information right now. He's unconscious and not waking up. There are two Claw weapons in the chests nearby - which is a cute gesture (your reward for finding Yang is his old weapons that he can't currently use), if fairly pointless (Edge can use them but they're very outdated by this point).
So, we take the teleporter out of the Sylvan Cottage and, having nowhere else to go (we can't access the overworld for now, remember), it's time to get on with the main plot by heading to the Sealed Cavern, where I predict all our plans will go to naught and Golbez will acquire his final crystal.
I'm sorry if that seems a little cynical. I am enjoying FFIV's story, but this kind of plot development is inherent to the 'spiraling down' narrative arc it's going for. Eight crystals are necessary to open the path to the moon, and it would be a massive letdown if we never went to the moon after it's been hyped up, which means the eight crystals have to be gathered, which means we have to fail. It makes the story predictable, which isn't inherently a sin, but I feel I have to acknowledge.
The entrance to the Sealed Cave is located in a valley near the dwarven village whose name I can't recall, and it is opened by Luca's necklace. The dungeon itself is… okay, I guess. It has this neat mechanic where you move between levels using climbing ropes, and the introduction of a surprise new enemy:
Door mimics.
Get it? It's a trap door because it's a door that is also a trap but not an actual trapdoor - ah, never mind.
I kind of love it as an idea, and the first time it happens it's a genuine surprise that I wasn't expecting. But the game is a little too in love with it; every door in the Sealed Cavern is a trap door. And several of them only lead to empty monster closets. And it's not like those that reveal loot are any use to me because, as it turns out, the Sylph Cave and Passage of Summons really were meant as late-game area and the loot I got plundering them is a cut above anything in this dungeon. Which incidentally also means all the fights are trivial.
Which is fine by me. Bulldozing through the expected challenge with your overpowered new gear and extra levels is the reward you get for taking on tough challenges out of order. The party cuts a bloody swath through the dungeon wildlife, leaving a trail of murdered vampires and broken doors behind them, before finally reaching the crystal room:
There is, surprisingly, no major boss getting in our way, and Golbez doesn't teleport into the room the moment we get the crystal,which has me highly suspicious… with good reason:
I appreciate giving this classic trap a JRPG twist by having us fight the closing walls as a monster, and this is an absolutely sick design, but it does make it a little eyebrow-raising that we do this now when Porom and Palom had to turn themselves to stone to save us the last time this happened.
The Demon Wall has a mechanic where every turn it advances, its sprite literally moving closerto the party, even as it uses attacks on the party. I assume that if it gets close enough, it dies, but that's not really a threat. It has 28,000 hp (I can check that with a Bestiary item now!), and Rydia recently learned Firaga, which hits for like 5k damage a pop, and that's just one party member. The Demon Wall is promptly reduced to rubble.
With the Demon Wall defeated, nothing stands in our way leaving the cavern, but of course, just as we are about to exit, the Ominous Voice of Golbez appears, and, well…
Seriously? That's bullshit, man.
Kain attempts to fight off Golbez's mind control with the support of the others, but he quickly succumbs, somehow snatches the crystal from Cecil, and heads out of the cavern while everyone just lets him, standing around gormlessly while giving enough time for both Golbez's disembodied voice and Kain himself to gloat.
Motherfucker literally throws in a 'Mwahahaha!'
This is not my favorite plot development in the story so far.
A cutscene plays out as the gathered crystals all light up, and an energy field enshrouds the Tower of Babel, acting as a forcefield repelling any attempt to approach it.
Golbez has succeeded. The path to the moon is finally open.
Which means we are, thankfully, once again in a part of the story where it's not obvious what's going to happen next. Obviously we're going to have to follow Golbez (and Kain, least reliable party member ever) to the moon, but I have no idea how or what's waiting for us there. Things are exciting again!
First, though, we have to report to the Dwarven King that we failed again, which, perhaps understanding that these repeated failures are necessitated by the script, he takes with sober resignation.
AGAIN WITH THE MOONWHALE??? WHAT IS GOING ON
Okay, King Giott clarifies that the Lunar Whale is not an actual whale, lunar or otherwise, but rather a huge ship spoken of in legend, "One born of a dragon" - like the Mysidian prophecy, remember!
…wait, born of a dragon? Which according to the Land of Summons' book it is also sleeping inside of?
How very peculiar.
There's this very funny exchange where everyone goes "Oh I recognize that it's from the Mysidian prophecy" and the Dwarven King is like "You know of Mysidia???" and the party absolutely blows his mind by revealing that the legendary town of Mysidia whose existence is shrouded in myth and who might or might not exist is actually just like, a town in the overworld, that you can visit and whose elder they just spoke to like a week ago. I love that kind of twist on perspective - of course to the dwarves, much of the overworld's history would be things of legend that they can't assess the truth of. It's just as much of a mysterious otherworld than the underworld is to us.
King Giott then has a bizarre leap of logic whereupon learning that the elder of Mysidia spends his days in prayer, he suggests that maybe he's praying for the Lunar Whale, and we should hurry to Mysidia. Everyone points out that due to Cid's reckless and questionably-necessary actions, the Underworld is closed off, accessible only through the Tower of Babel which is currently shielded by a force field.
So of course, it's time for Cid to show up with one final upgrade.
Cid says that he will attach a drill to the Falcon's bow, which is the kind of crazy shit I love Cid for. Everyone tells him he should still be in bed and he shrugs it off, saying he's fine and it'll be "easier'n falling off a bike," which I will admit is a pretty funny saying I had never heard of before (but also do bikes even exist in this setting? Now my suspension of disbelief is ruined).
The game then plays a complex, and completely dialogue-less animation skit using its limited sprite budget, which is honestly impressive even if I'm not quite sure what's happening in it, and impossible to capture in screenshots. It involves Cid, Edge and Rydia, so I think what's happening is that Edge is hassling Rydia and Rosa with dopey flirting again, and Cid, who due to his age is kind of acting as Team Dad, rubbing Edge's ears over it.
Very hard to capture in screenshots in any case, but I appreciate the effort. However, immediately after finishing the drill's installation, Cid predictably collapses again from overworking himself while injured.
Honestly, old man, you gave a better showing than I'd ever expected.
I guess the ultimate reason why the game threw in Cid's fakeout sacrifice was that it thought it needed severe injuries as a justification for him staying out of the action. And I suspect the same happened with Yang - as we'll soon see. It's frustrating, to be honest, but I can at least understand the chain of logic that got us there, if not agree with it.Cid asks Edge to look after Rosa and Rydia, which is a little weird and which I choose to interpret as Cid trying to get him to focus on protecting the girls instead of hitting on them with all the grace and seductive appeal of the thirstiest teenagers on earth.
One character note I like is that the dwarven nurses have been fully converted into Cid fans and amateur airship engineers while still thinking the old kook is totally bonkers. Weird to say but one of this game's bright point is that it really utilizes unnamed NPCs well.
We now have a ship equipped with a drill capable of piercing the very vault of the underworld (that Cid collapsed in the first place), which means we're freely able to navigate between the two regions!
Now, the ostensible next course of action is to head to Mysidia to figure out our next steps.
We're not going to do that, though.
We have something much more important to take care of first. A sidequest.
The goofiest, funniest sidequest in the game.
So we found Yang in a coma, right? Severely injured from whatever he did in the Tower, being cared for by the Sylphs who worry that he's not waking up. So very obviously, we have to find a way to wake him up. How do we do that?
Well.
First we go visit his wife.
And she gives us the Frying Pan. The legendary Nonstick Frying Pan with which she fended off the invaders of Fabul. To go. And smack her husband with. Who is in a coma.
Funniest shit I've ever seen.
So of course the next step is to go back to the underworld, do another painful run through the Sylph Cave (while my party is slightly higher in level than the first time around, we're now missing Kain, which puts a significant hole in our DPS and tankiness), and then…
There's a missing line of dialogue there where Yang wakes up thinking he's back in training and being smacked by his master, I think, but I accidentally skipped through it.
Yeah, and I'm mostly glad he's ALIVE after we SMACKED HIM OUT OF A COMA WITH A FRYING PAN.
Wives truly do know best.
Yang immediately says he'll join up with the group, which would be really nice seeing as how I kinda need a fifth member until we get Kain back, unfortunately the rest of the group decides to be "sensible" and "responsible" and "not play with the life of a man who barely escaped death," and tells him to stay put and rest to recover from his injuries. Also Edge is here.
I realize that you fulfill similar mechanical niches and so in a sense you are literally Yang's replacement but Edge, please, I need a fifth seat so bad.
Then, there is this very interesting twist - it's the Sylphs who ask to take Yang's place while he rests, as they both feel indebted to the players for being his friends and waking him up and worry about his health should he fight again.
And just like this, Rydia learns Sylph, a single-target summon that drains health and returns it directly to the whole party. Nice.
This is an interesting departure from previous summons, incidentally, in that it's not one we had to fight to have access to; instead we completed a sidequest doing something for them, and they rewarded us by peacefully agreeing to provide assistance. I like it.
They really seem to care about him. Where did that come from, anyway?
And with this task done, and Yang safely in the Sylphs' care, we can return back to the overworld and get on with the plot!
…not yet, though. Just one thing to take care of first. We have to get the adamantite.
…which involves a really stupidly involved process in which we have to put the drillship down next to our old airship, so we can use that airship to pick up the hovercraft, so we can drop the hovercraft on the coast near the island of the dude with the ore, so we can take the hovercraft to get there. It's just a lot of fussing about for several minutes. Why am I spending my precious hours on this earth doing this?
Anyway, we do it…
Then we head back to Kokkol's Smithy in the Underworld…
…he takes the Sword of Legend that Cecil has been carrying since he became a Paladin and which has by now been long left in the dust by newer, better weapons, and in return he gives us…
…EXCALIBUR.
Holy shit I wasn't quite expecting that. And +58 attack points over whatI was using before? That is a massive jump in power. Goddamn. Real glad I did this whole thing right now.
Alright. Let's get back on track now!
Incidentally you can visit Edward regularly to keep him update about the goings on, which is cute.
Hooting and hollering at my screen as the magic lunar whale ship emerges from the sea and does a random giant ball of energy shooting rays for no other purpose than looking incredibly fucking cool.
Yeah, baby, that's how you introduce your hype new ship.
Previous games had a normal ship? A canoe? Airships? Well move over, baby, because it's time for FFIV to blow them all out of the water with a fucking spaceship.
The Mysidian elder informs us that "a strange voice addressed him during his prayer," which I am going to guess is directly connected to the voice that spoke to Cecil during his transformation into a Paladin and to the prophecy and the mystery surrounding his origins/true nature. That voice told him that we had to travel to the moon, where someone is waiting for us. According to ancient Mysidian documents, the Lunar Whale houses a Crystal (the word is capitalized, so this would appear to be a ninth elemental Crystal, existing in addition to the Light and Dark Crystals of the over- and underworld) which allows navigation between the earth and the moon.
We are doing it. We are going to the fucking moon. I am so hype.
Let's head into the ship…
As expected - the exact same futuristic design as Zot and Babel (although Fat Chocobo is a surprise; what does he know that he isn't telling us?) . This was clearly designed by the same, tentatively called 'Lunarian' civilization. From the way the legends about it are structured, with the lunar whale being presented as from the moon and descending to earth, it's increasingly looking like they are in fact from the moon rather than an advanced earth civilization that made the journey and back. Also they have SCIFI MECHANICAL BEDS which we can use to rest, which I think might be pods (not clear from the artwork), which is just delightfully extra.
And as soon as we approach the crystal… our journey begins.
TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOON
Fuck yeah, baby. Now this is a proper Final Fantasy endgame.
Yang is alive, somehow.
We can't do anything with that information right now. He's unconscious and not waking up. There are two Claw weapons in the chests nearby - which is a cute gesture (your reward for finding Yang is his old weapons that he can't currently use), if fairly pointless (Edge can use them but they're very outdated by this point).
So, we take the teleporter out of the Sylvan Cottage and, having nowhere else to go (we can't access the overworld for now, remember), it's time to get on with the main plot by heading to the Sealed Cavern, where I predict all our plans will go to naught and Golbez will acquire his final crystal.
I'm sorry if that seems a little cynical. I am enjoying FFIV's story, but this kind of plot development is inherent to the 'spiraling down' narrative arc it's going for. Eight crystals are necessary to open the path to the moon, and it would be a massive letdown if we never went to the moon after it's been hyped up, which means the eight crystals have to be gathered, which means we have to fail. It makes the story predictable, which isn't inherently a sin, but I feel I have to acknowledge.
The entrance to the Sealed Cave is located in a valley near the dwarven village whose name I can't recall, and it is opened by Luca's necklace. The dungeon itself is… okay, I guess. It has this neat mechanic where you move between levels using climbing ropes, and the introduction of a surprise new enemy:
Door mimics.
Get it? It's a trap door because it's a door that is also a trap but not an actual trapdoor - ah, never mind.
I kind of love it as an idea, and the first time it happens it's a genuine surprise that I wasn't expecting. But the game is a little too in love with it; every door in the Sealed Cavern is a trap door. And several of them only lead to empty monster closets. And it's not like those that reveal loot are any use to me because, as it turns out, the Sylph Cave and Passage of Summons really were meant as late-game area and the loot I got plundering them is a cut above anything in this dungeon. Which incidentally also means all the fights are trivial.
Which is fine by me. Bulldozing through the expected challenge with your overpowered new gear and extra levels is the reward you get for taking on tough challenges out of order. The party cuts a bloody swath through the dungeon wildlife, leaving a trail of murdered vampires and broken doors behind them, before finally reaching the crystal room:
There is, surprisingly, no major boss getting in our way, and Golbez doesn't teleport into the room the moment we get the crystal,which has me highly suspicious… with good reason:
I appreciate giving this classic trap a JRPG twist by having us fight the closing walls as a monster, and this is an absolutely sick design, but it does make it a little eyebrow-raising that we do this now when Porom and Palom had to turn themselves to stone to save us the last time this happened.
The Demon Wall has a mechanic where every turn it advances, its sprite literally moving closerto the party, even as it uses attacks on the party. I assume that if it gets close enough, it dies, but that's not really a threat. It has 28,000 hp (I can check that with a Bestiary item now!), and Rydia recently learned Firaga, which hits for like 5k damage a pop, and that's just one party member. The Demon Wall is promptly reduced to rubble.
With the Demon Wall defeated, nothing stands in our way leaving the cavern, but of course, just as we are about to exit, the Ominous Voice of Golbez appears, and, well…
Seriously? That's bullshit, man.
Kain attempts to fight off Golbez's mind control with the support of the others, but he quickly succumbs, somehow snatches the crystal from Cecil, and heads out of the cavern while everyone just lets him, standing around gormlessly while giving enough time for both Golbez's disembodied voice and Kain himself to gloat.
Motherfucker literally throws in a 'Mwahahaha!'
This is not my favorite plot development in the story so far.
A cutscene plays out as the gathered crystals all light up, and an energy field enshrouds the Tower of Babel, acting as a forcefield repelling any attempt to approach it.
Golbez has succeeded. The path to the moon is finally open.
Which means we are, thankfully, once again in a part of the story where it's not obvious what's going to happen next. Obviously we're going to have to follow Golbez (and Kain, least reliable party member ever) to the moon, but I have no idea how or what's waiting for us there. Things are exciting again!
First, though, we have to report to the Dwarven King that we failed again, which, perhaps understanding that these repeated failures are necessitated by the script, he takes with sober resignation.
AGAIN WITH THE MOONWHALE??? WHAT IS GOING ON
Okay, King Giott clarifies that the Lunar Whale is not an actual whale, lunar or otherwise, but rather a huge ship spoken of in legend, "One born of a dragon" - like the Mysidian prophecy, remember!
…wait, born of a dragon? Which according to the Land of Summons' book it is also sleeping inside of?
How very peculiar.
There's this very funny exchange where everyone goes "Oh I recognize that it's from the Mysidian prophecy" and the Dwarven King is like "You know of Mysidia???" and the party absolutely blows his mind by revealing that the legendary town of Mysidia whose existence is shrouded in myth and who might or might not exist is actually just like, a town in the overworld, that you can visit and whose elder they just spoke to like a week ago. I love that kind of twist on perspective - of course to the dwarves, much of the overworld's history would be things of legend that they can't assess the truth of. It's just as much of a mysterious otherworld than the underworld is to us.
King Giott then has a bizarre leap of logic whereupon learning that the elder of Mysidia spends his days in prayer, he suggests that maybe he's praying for the Lunar Whale, and we should hurry to Mysidia. Everyone points out that due to Cid's reckless and questionably-necessary actions, the Underworld is closed off, accessible only through the Tower of Babel which is currently shielded by a force field.
So of course, it's time for Cid to show up with one final upgrade.
The game then plays a complex, and completely dialogue-less animation skit using its limited sprite budget, which is honestly impressive even if I'm not quite sure what's happening in it, and impossible to capture in screenshots. It involves Cid, Edge and Rydia, so I think what's happening is that Edge is hassling Rydia and Rosa with dopey flirting again, and Cid, who due to his age is kind of acting as Team Dad, rubbing Edge's ears over it.
Very hard to capture in screenshots in any case, but I appreciate the effort. However, immediately after finishing the drill's installation, Cid predictably collapses again from overworking himself while injured.
Honestly, old man, you gave a better showing than I'd ever expected.
I guess the ultimate reason why the game threw in Cid's fakeout sacrifice was that it thought it needed severe injuries as a justification for him staying out of the action. And I suspect the same happened with Yang - as we'll soon see. It's frustrating, to be honest, but I can at least understand the chain of logic that got us there, if not agree with it.Cid asks Edge to look after Rosa and Rydia, which is a little weird and which I choose to interpret as Cid trying to get him to focus on protecting the girls instead of hitting on them with all the grace and seductive appeal of the thirstiest teenagers on earth.
One character note I like is that the dwarven nurses have been fully converted into Cid fans and amateur airship engineers while still thinking the old kook is totally bonkers. Weird to say but one of this game's bright point is that it really utilizes unnamed NPCs well.
We now have a ship equipped with a drill capable of piercing the very vault of the underworld (that Cid collapsed in the first place), which means we're freely able to navigate between the two regions!
Now, the ostensible next course of action is to head to Mysidia to figure out our next steps.
We're not going to do that, though.
We have something much more important to take care of first. A sidequest.
The goofiest, funniest sidequest in the game.
So we found Yang in a coma, right? Severely injured from whatever he did in the Tower, being cared for by the Sylphs who worry that he's not waking up. So very obviously, we have to find a way to wake him up. How do we do that?
Well.
First we go visit his wife.
And she gives us the Frying Pan. The legendary Nonstick Frying Pan with which she fended off the invaders of Fabul. To go. And smack her husband with. Who is in a coma.
Funniest shit I've ever seen.
So of course the next step is to go back to the underworld, do another painful run through the Sylph Cave (while my party is slightly higher in level than the first time around, we're now missing Kain, which puts a significant hole in our DPS and tankiness), and then…
There's a missing line of dialogue there where Yang wakes up thinking he's back in training and being smacked by his master, I think, but I accidentally skipped through it.
Yeah, and I'm mostly glad he's ALIVE after we SMACKED HIM OUT OF A COMA WITH A FRYING PAN.
Wives truly do know best.
Yang immediately says he'll join up with the group, which would be really nice seeing as how I kinda need a fifth member until we get Kain back, unfortunately the rest of the group decides to be "sensible" and "responsible" and "not play with the life of a man who barely escaped death," and tells him to stay put and rest to recover from his injuries. Also Edge is here.
I realize that you fulfill similar mechanical niches and so in a sense you are literally Yang's replacement but Edge, please, I need a fifth seat so bad.
Then, there is this very interesting twist - it's the Sylphs who ask to take Yang's place while he rests, as they both feel indebted to the players for being his friends and waking him up and worry about his health should he fight again.
This is an interesting departure from previous summons, incidentally, in that it's not one we had to fight to have access to; instead we completed a sidequest doing something for them, and they rewarded us by peacefully agreeing to provide assistance. I like it.
They really seem to care about him. Where did that come from, anyway?
And with this task done, and Yang safely in the Sylphs' care, we can return back to the overworld and get on with the plot!
…not yet, though. Just one thing to take care of first. We have to get the adamantite.
…which involves a really stupidly involved process in which we have to put the drillship down next to our old airship, so we can use that airship to pick up the hovercraft, so we can drop the hovercraft on the coast near the island of the dude with the ore, so we can take the hovercraft to get there. It's just a lot of fussing about for several minutes. Why am I spending my precious hours on this earth doing this?
Anyway, we do it…
Then we head back to Kokkol's Smithy in the Underworld…
…he takes the Sword of Legend that Cecil has been carrying since he became a Paladin and which has by now been long left in the dust by newer, better weapons, and in return he gives us…
…EXCALIBUR.
Holy shit I wasn't quite expecting that. And +58 attack points over whatI was using before? That is a massive jump in power. Goddamn. Real glad I did this whole thing right now.
Alright. Let's get back on track now!
Incidentally you can visit Edward regularly to keep him update about the goings on, which is cute.
Hooting and hollering at my screen as the magic lunar whale ship emerges from the sea and does a random giant ball of energy shooting rays for no other purpose than looking incredibly fucking cool.
Yeah, baby, that's how you introduce your hype new ship.
Previous games had a normal ship? A canoe? Airships? Well move over, baby, because it's time for FFIV to blow them all out of the water with a fucking spaceship.
The Mysidian elder informs us that "a strange voice addressed him during his prayer," which I am going to guess is directly connected to the voice that spoke to Cecil during his transformation into a Paladin and to the prophecy and the mystery surrounding his origins/true nature. That voice told him that we had to travel to the moon, where someone is waiting for us. According to ancient Mysidian documents, the Lunar Whale houses a Crystal (the word is capitalized, so this would appear to be a ninth elemental Crystal, existing in addition to the Light and Dark Crystals of the over- and underworld) which allows navigation between the earth and the moon.
We are doing it. We are going to the fucking moon. I am so hype.
Let's head into the ship…
As expected - the exact same futuristic design as Zot and Babel (although Fat Chocobo is a surprise; what does he know that he isn't telling us?) . This was clearly designed by the same, tentatively called 'Lunarian' civilization. From the way the legends about it are structured, with the lunar whale being presented as from the moon and descending to earth, it's increasingly looking like they are in fact from the moon rather than an advanced earth civilization that made the journey and back. Also they have SCIFI MECHANICAL BEDS which we can use to rest, which I think might be pods (not clear from the artwork), which is just delightfully extra.
And as soon as we approach the crystal… our journey begins.
TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOON
Fuck yeah, baby. Now this is a proper Final Fantasy endgame.