Gonna be honest, at the rate Omi's going he'll be finished with the entire LP before XVI even gets released. The idea of a modern FF game (that isn't a XIV expansion) releasing anywhere near when projected is just hilarious.
Gonna be honest, at the rate Omi's going he'll be finished with the entire LP before XVI even gets released. The idea of a modern FF game (that isn't a XIV expansion) releasing anywhere near when projected is just hilarious.
But XVI's made by much of the same team as XIV. They've proven they know how to make deadlines for the last decade, in stark contrast to the rest of the company.
But XVI's made by much of the same team as XIV. They've proven they know how to make deadlines for the last decade, in stark contrast to the rest of the company.
Gonna be honest, at the rate Omi's going he'll be finished with the entire LP before XVI even gets released. The idea of a modern FF game (that isn't a XIV expansion) releasing anywhere near when projected is just hilarious.
Let's work backwards and unpack this. What're we defining as 'a modern FF game' to draw this conclusion?
FF15, yes, that project careened wildly out of control and released blatantly unfinished, shidding and fardding all the way to its final resting place on Stadia. Started development in 2006 as a companion game to FF13, went into a tailspin because the switch to HD development almost killed the Japanese games industry (and Crystal Tools was pants), was retooled multiple times, then finally got forced out the door just so it could be done with.
FF14 (2.0 and beyond) is somewhat notorious for Yoshida being some kind of S-ranked manager who actually knows how to appropriately distribute a workload, budgeting out employee time on FF14 from the inception of A Realm Reborn all the way up to the release of Heavensward apparently down to the minute at times because that's just what it took (and then everyone got a big break after 3.0). Ever since, development has run like clockwork, even with Covid.
Fixing FF14, it should be mentioned, was a truly monumental investment of time and money -when getting an MMO off the ground is already a gigantic money sink- all because they felt abandoning FF14 in the state it was produced in would do more harm to the brand than eating the cost of fixing it.
FF14 (1.0) came out on time. It was just shit.
FF13 was announced three years out from its release. It took five-ish years to make, being the first ever title Square would develop for HD systems, which necessitated a complete overhaul of everything they had taken for granted on the PS1 and PS2. That game was made on a pants engine for the Byzantine architecture of the PS3's hardware (the 360 port was a much later consideration, requiring a drop in resolution and three, count 'em three DVDs) and it was delayed multiple times, then came out looking better than most PS4 games would.
Then they made two more games. Like they were Big Quotes 'spinoff' games but the 13 sequels were like... extremely fully-featured all the same. 13-2 was basically 13 again in scope and complexity (actually more scope and complexity but I'm giving some leeway because of the restricted party), just with a lot of the mechanical kinks worked out. 13-3 was a completely new gameplay style, completely new world yet again, balled out with a Majora's Mask structure, and perhaps more visibly 'budget' but still broadly extremely high-quality in presentation (The Dawg is funny and the environments weren't great but this was 7th gen, nobody had good environments). And they rattled those off in two years apiece.
Before these titles, the turn of the century was some kind of utterly insane once-in-a-lifetime dubstorm as 9, 10 and 11 were all announced simultaneously, came out one after another in three years, and then 12 started development in the middle of all those. FF12 apparently also had its own delay, but yeah, no shit, you released two other mainline titles and an MMO while you were making it!!!
The perception that "oh no Square Enix can't release games" is based entirely on the fact that in early 7th gen they had a bad time and money was tight.
Newsflash, assholes, that was EVERYBODY in 7th gen.
This is also the source of the "KH3 took 13 years to come out" meme. Because it just wasn't actually being made. Because Square was haemorrhaging money and fighting to correct a serious skid. Because during 7th gen Nomura used shoestring budgets to create multiple handheld spinoffs on razor thin margins because there just wasn't the tools or overhead to make KH3 during that period and have it be, uh, good at all. One of the reasons that FF15 (then Versus 13) had such a Sisyphean struggle to get off the ground was that it was trying to be a realtime action game during a time period where nobody could make a good one of those, not a single one, we went HD too early and the performance and responsiveness hits were too terrible to comprehend, and also Crystal Tools was shit which I've already mentioned.
FF16, by all accounts, simply had an extended pre-production period as Yoshida and various key members of staff slowly transitioned off FF14 post-Heavensward while trying not to disrupt ongoing service, and 'real' development kicked in 2020. 3 years to make an AAA game is completrely normal. It's a little disappointing that they couldn't hit a 2022 release date, they probably wanted to, but a delay of like six months when Covid happened indicates very little.
No one else seems to have mentioned it, but everyone note here: Just as soon as Zeromus's beard breaks free of the confines of his mortal shell, he promptly opens up a can of whoopass on the entire audience. The beard wasn't missing, it was confined. Golby and fussy set it loose.
... also that evil spirit sprite is totally giving me shining force flashbacks. and the third zeromus form is giving me flashforwards, ha!
No one else seems to have mentioned it, but everyone note here: Just as soon as Zeromus's beard breaks free of the confines of his mortal shell, he promptly opens up a can of whoopass on the entire audience. The beard wasn't missing, it was confined. Golby and fussy set it loose.
... also that evil spirit sprite is totally giving me shining force flashbacks. and the third zeromus form is giving me flashforwards, ha!
First of all, I posted very relevant comics to your update! And the rest is all stuff that'll get talked about once you get to the relevant game. It's a measure of investment in your little project here that we can't wait!
Oh yeah, one other thing worth mentioning about Zeromus is that in FF4 Easy Type (a Japanese rerelease that included most of the changes from the original English release plus a few other changes to make it easier) his true form uses a different sprite from what we see in every other version. Apologies for the Fandom link but it's the quickest way I could think of to link it.
I have no idea why they went with the different sprite for that version and only that version, but it is a thing that happened.
Oh yeah, one other thing worth mentioning about Zeromus is that in FF4 Easy Type (a Japanese rerelease that included most of the changes from the original English release plus a few other changes to make it easier) his true form uses a different sprite from what we see in every other version. Apologies for the Fandom link but it's the quickest way I could think of to link it.
I have no idea why they went with the different sprite for that version and only that version, but it is a thing that happened.
... what kinda shiz is this. The Geiger hate abomination made more sense than this gratuitous bikini elf embedded in a bone golem with a sword. And it's supposed to be the censored version for the sensibility afflicted Americans. x_D
Nope, the original English version used the original sprite. Easy Type was a Japanese exclusive rerelease that changed more things (including simplifying the script somewhat, since it was aimed at younger players.)
This sprite was reused for the superboss in the GBA and PSP versions, though.
... what kinda shiz is this. The Geiger hate abomination made more sense than this gratuitous bikini elf embedded in a bone golem with a sword. And it's supposed to be the censored version for the sensibility afflicted Americans. x_D
[puts lips directly up against the microphone] what crystal tho where did this come from were you going to mention this at any point fusoya
Like I get it 'The Crystal' is just a shorthand for Cecil having become a born-again Christian and turned his life around over the course of the game and 'overcome hatred' but my guy if you're gonna externalise that into a MacGuffin you can't introduce it in the very same scene you use it! Bad! Very bad!
I just assumed it was one of the upteenjillion crystals we've been running around shoving into Golbez's hands tbh. I don't know why it does what it does but who knows what crystals actually do tbh. Even in FFXIV it's confusing!
(Unsurprisingly as I found while googling to confirm the accelerated levelling there are psychopathic boomers out there who believed the Pixel Remaster ruined the game by making it at all sane for normal people to play so the CASUALS could get through it, shitting and pissing with rage because they unlocked Holy naturally before the final boss rather than having to stop and grind for it as GOD INTENDED.)
So, Zeromus. If you try to use steal on him before he transforms, you will nab a Dark Matter. And it does absolutely nothing. In the 3D remake, if you carry it over to New Game + and use it on the face on the moon, it will summon the strongest boss in the game; Proto-Babil.
You remind me that I literally haven't used Steal. Someone needs to tell me when it actually starts getting worth using because so far I'm not impressed (every time I try it with Edge the enemy just no-sells it).
Yeah, my guess is that in the development cycle of FF4 the plan was for Fusoya and Golbez to be in your party, and they needed to get Rosa and Rydia out because of the 5 person party limit, but then something happened along the way and they either couldn't get Golbez done in time, or they ran into an issue of the two being much weaker than Rosa and Rydia. The in game mechanical reason for them being gone was removed, but they decided to keep the scene and just have the two stow away aboard the Lunar Whale.
And yeah, one recurring problem that I've seen in FF games is that the final boss represents a huge difficulty spike, to the point where you can steamroller the entire game and get stomped on by the final boss. Generally FF expects you to be about 50-55 when facing it, what level are your party members at?
The lowest leveled character at the time of my first fight with Zeromus was Edge, at lv 58. Cecil and Kain were both lv 60.
Incidentally, something is fucked about the XP curve, because it's not identical for every character. I assume that was to make sure Edge could catch up to a group that was higher level than he was when he joined, but this has the extremely funny result of doubling down on the Girls Are Icky bits of the endgame because he somehow inexplicably starts levelling up ahead of Rydia at some point and by the end of the game, he was higher level than she was.
You remind me that I literally haven't used Steal. Someone needs to tell me when it actually starts getting worth using because so far I'm not impressed (every time I try it with Edge the enemy just no-sells it).
Steal is sadly mostly useless in almost every FF game that you can use it in, a combination of high failure rates and there being very little worth stealing generally.
FF9 being the largest exception where it's absolutely fantastic.
Steal is sadly mostly useless in almost every FF game that you can use it in, a combination of high failure rates and there being very little worth stealing generally.
FF9 being the largest exception where it's absolutely fantastic.
That's debatable. There is a lot of coot stuff to steal in v and vi, steal works a bit better in v, MUCH better in vi, and in vii, most of the good stuff is on common enemies, so while steal is a bit inaccurate, the foes are not that big of a threat.
You remind me that I literally haven't used Steal. Someone needs to tell me when it actually starts getting worth using because so far I'm not impressed (every time I try it with Edge the enemy just no-sells it).
Steal is sadly mostly useless in almost every FF game that you can use it in, a combination of high failure rates and there being very little worth stealing generally.
FF9 being the largest exception where it's absolutely fantastic.
In FFV you can start stealing since almost the beginning, and IIRC you can at the very least steal everything you might otherwise get in a nearby town, or somewhat in the same level range, plus bonus stronk goodies. Very sure that starting FF6 there are plenty of unique items that need to be stolen, and gear to improve your odds, so stealing is always a worthwile thing to do. Dunno FFVII. Stealing in FFVIII isn't sure fire, but it has uses for transmutations so it's not a bad idea to put some effort in it either. And yeah, FFIX is the best game for stealing, because it allows you access to skills far sooner than normally.
Steal is sadly mostly useless in almost every FF game that you can use it in, a combination of high failure rates and there being very little worth stealing generally.
FF9 being the largest exception where it's absolutely fantastic.
FFV Steal has been fairly reliable for me; has something like a base 40% success rate (which doubles with a specific accessory), you can eventually get Mug so it isn't as much of a wasted turn, and as Connelly mentions there's several instances where you can steal better equipment than you already have (not to mention it's the only way to get dupes of other equipment, and one entire armor set is steal-exclusive).
Edge's version of steal is just kinda doofy because it both has abysmal rates and for some inane reason they decided that failing to steal should make you take damage, so it's worse than a wasted turn.
Edge's version of steal is just kinda doofy because it both has abysmal rates and for some inane reason they decided that failing to steal should make you take damage, so it's worse than a wasted turn.
From a 'if you do this in reality' sense I can see why failing to nick an item = damage, as the would-be victim whacks you for the attempt. When it comes to fun videogame mechanics it actively punishes you for trying, however.
Pretty sure it was 2 I'm thinking of? It had the ones that looked a lot like zemmy there right near the beginning (and later), iirc. Think it even had ones more or less the same color, along with the weaker white colored ones.
Down in the Lunar Subterrane - neither at its deepest level nor at its highest, but somewhere in the middle - there is a room. It is a small, unsuspecting room, containing a single chest, which contains a Red Fang item. You would go there, take the item, leave, and never think of it again.
In that room there is a small, small chance that you will encounter an enemy called the Flan Princess - the most powerful member of the long line of slimes, oozes, puddings and mousses that have appeared in this game before. And if you encounter that enemy and defeat it, there is a small, small chance that it will drop an item called a 'Pink Tail.'
You would have no reason to suspect this, but that item, which you will never obtain in the course of normal play, is the key to the strongest piece of equipment in the game.
In order to facilitate obtaining the item, you may leave the Lunar Subterrane again, head all the way back to the Hummingway shop, and purchase a Siren item. When used in the unsuspecting room on the unsuspecting floor, it will immediately trigger the fateful encounter.
Every time you do this, you will fight five Flan Princesses. Each one has 20,000 HP, and two moves. One is a mediocre physical attack. Another is "Dancing." Dancing targets one of your party members, and causes it to enter the Berserk status.
A Berserk character is one you no longer control. It will attack one enemy at random every turn. However, because the Berserk status also increases attack power and speed, Berserk is considered a buff. As a result, you cannot cure it with Esuna. If Berserk hits Rydia or Rosa, those characters become completely useless. Even if it hits Cecil, Kain, or Edge, all of whom technically "benefit" from Berserk, the randomized targeting means that their attacks will be spread across the enemy, meaning you're not focusing fire and defeating the Flan Princesses one at a time, which means they stay alive longer, which means they deal more damage.
Did I mention these little pink puffs have 20,000 HP?
This is going to take up the next two hours of my life.
Thankfully there are ways around this. The Ribbon item makes a character immune to status effects. And the Crystal Mail protects from Berserk as well. So you can have up to three characters - most likely Cecil, Rydia, and Rosa - safe from the Flans, while Kain and Edge just remain largely useless, as is their wont. With that set-up, it becomes possible to deal with each encounter in three turns - two Bahamut castings will deal 19,998 damage, and then you need one attack on each Flan to destroy them. All at the low low cost of 120 of Rydia's MP.
This is what happens when you do something stupid like stop micromanaging things twenty battles in and trust the autobattle to deal with it for you.
Once you have established this most efficient setup, you just.
Do it.
Over.
And over.
The Pink Tail has like a 1/64 drop rate. At 5 Flan Princesses a pop, you're looking to be fighting at least twenty of these encounters before they finally give you what you want.
It is a huge pain in my ass. But at the very least it provides one side benefit - the Flan Princesses also provide really good XP.
Over the course of the 30 or so battles I've had to go through here, my characters gain over 5 levels individually.
And then, finally, it drops.
But getting the Pink Tail isn't the end of the ordeal. We have to get the Pink Tail to that weirdo in the cave back on earth. That means leaving the Subterrane, walking all the way back to the Lunar Whale, touching down in the far west corner of the map, picking up the Ship and the Hovercraft, touching down on the coast off his island, taking the hovercraft, and then doing it in reverse. It's a chore.
Now, here's the thing: I was never going to do this. I don't care about completionism. I don't hunt for achievements. I was going to peacefully ignore it, until Zeromus kicked my teeth in and booted me back to cutscene start three times in a row. I only set out to farm for the Pink Tail because I was grinding anyway, so might as well grind with a sidequest. And even when I got it, I wasn't really expecting much. Yeah, I'm gonna get a couple extra points of defense, big deal, whatever.
Except.
+100 Defense and +15 in every stat??? What the fuck???
This is straight up the most powerful piece of equipment in the series so far, it outshines Excalibur, it surpasses Ragnarok, holy shit.
Well, while we're here, might as well visit the Tower of Prayer, just to check if all our friends are there before the final cutscene.
They are! That's cute.
Although it does kind of raises the issue that EVERYONE IS HERE, THOUGH. THE GAME COULD JUST LET ME MAKE UP MY OWN PARTY. PALOM LITERALLY SAYS "I WISH I COULD COME WITH YOU" AND THERE IS LITERALLY NO REASON THEY COULDN'T.
Well, no, I guess they're all lv 20 or something ridiculous. And I guess it would have been impossible for the SNES at the time to handle the changing dialogue lines according to who is actually in the group. Somebody please tell me they change this in the 3D versions.
The dream of a team with two Black Mages capable of casting Flare will have to go unlived.
Anyway, we head back to the moon, do the whole annoying trip again…
…
You know, I have dozens of unused Sirens and a couple of characters close to a level up. Why not just fight a couple more Flan Princesses just to round it out?
…
Ha
Ha
Hahahahahahahaha
HEY YOU KNOW WHAT?
YOU CAN GET MORE THAN ONE ADAMANT ARMOR
AND IT CAN BE EQUIPPED BY ANYONE
ROSA IS NOW THE STRONGEST WHITE MAGE IN THE UNIVERSE
It's time to head back.
Oh, while I'm on the way, cool detail I didn't have time to touch on earlier - two of the "crystal core" levels are, as I mentioned before, full of incredibly tough beasties, including "fuck you" stuff like double Behemoth encounters. However, the second-to-last level, the one directly before the Zemus platform, is instead home to some entirely different beasts:
"Zemus's Breath" and "Zemus's Mind" are the only encounters on that floor. Zemus's Mind is incredibly resilient to physical attacks, while Zemus's Breath spends almost every turn (it has a rare Mind Blast attack) saying "Reporting to Master Zemus" and using Scan.
Even though it doesn't have any real gameplay or story impact, I think it's really cool how the game shows the sheer breadth and power of Zemus's psychic abilities by having the closest floor to him entirely filled with his psychic presence, an extension of his mind that is spotting your characters and analyzing them. It does a lot to characterize him as this incredibly potent mind reaching out of its cell.
Shame that characterization exists everywhere except when we actually meet him, but so be it.
Look at the picture above. An attack that used to deal 2000 damage has now been reduced by more than half. Rosa can cast a Flare and a Big Bang without healing in-between and survive. Cecil is nearly invincible.
I have the party use Haste items to self-buff, allowing everyone to outspeed Zeromus and keeping Rydia from getting killed before she can finish her Bahamut cast as well as Rosa to respond extremely quickly to any healing needs. I have Edge throw everything and the kitchen sink at him, including the all powerful Knife with its maximum damage.
Even Zeromus's Bio counters, which hit magic defense ratheer than defense, can no longer one-shot Rydia and only deal half of everyone else's HP in damage. This group is a fortress, and it's packing artillery.
HE MISSED? HAHAHAHAHA-
And like that, it's over.
Look at this. Everyone except Edge is at max HP.
Absolute blowout victory. And with an incredible 'vaporizing' sprite to go with it.
…
Hot damn, we beat the final boss. We beat the game.
…
It's time for the final cutscene.
It's gonna be messy.
…
I call bullshit.
Zeromus is just making this up. There is no reason why some Lunarian dude would also be some kind of inherent avatar of human evil who can't perish as long as humanity (not even his own species!) has evil in its heart. He's just saying this to spite us, that dude is 100% dead and I don't care what any sequel says.
This is a nice touch, though:
It feels like a natural conclusion, that humanity in its own way has already become ready to meet the Lunarians on an equal footing. Granted, they don't have spacefaring technology and giant moon-stations, but FuSoYa journeyed (however briefly) with the party as equal, and they, along with the rest of mankind, rose to defeat the Lunarians' own evil-
Fuck that's why this is bothering me. That's what's bugging me about this comment on "hatred in men's heart." Zeromus isn't humanity's sin. He's the Lunarians'. Everything about the power of hatred and the opening it gives to his mind-control powers and hatred failing to strike him down and him existing as long as evil continues to exist is trying to make this grand cosmic battle into humanity's conflicted potential for good and evil and Zeromus into the personification of their evil potential, but Zeromus is the Lunarian's own evil, one of their people, who at least initially was acting in their name, that they have failed to keep in check and allowed to run rampant and manipulate humans to wage strife and destruction, and they're not being held accountable at all, humans are somehow by presenting the spectre of Zeromus rising again should they fail. This whole conflict is presented as the good in humans' heart rising to meet its evil and overcoming it in a cosmic-scale escalation of Cecil's inner conflict at the start of the game, but it's not their evil, it's the Lunarians, who basically don't exist as characters, only as backstory elements, and…
Yeah I think the Lunarians are just kind of poorly integrated into the story and its themes. And it's going to become even weirder.
The group have some post-battle banter (Edge is trying to take credit for this and call it an easy win, Rydia tells him she's surprised Zeromus didn't mind-control him with all the evil that's obviously in his heart), and FuSoYa announces that it's time for him to "go home," whatever that means. Cecil agrees that it's time for them to go home as well, and FuSoYa says he's looking forward to their next meeting.
Then Golbez asks if he can come with FuSoYa too. In another echo of FF2, he explains that he feels he can't go back to the world after all that he's done, and that he wishes to meet his father's people. FuSoYa warns him that he must be ready for a long, long sleep, and Golbez says that he is, before dropping the big question:
FuSoYa tells the group that he and Golbez are off to spend many years in slumber, and hope the blue planet will be peaceful forevermore (...the implication is that this is on a generational scale, waiting for humanity to evolve, but also he just said that he's looking forward to meeting Cecil again, so???) and the two of them turn away to leave. Cecil watches them silently, and the rest of the group turns to him:
See, this scene has me conflicted because on the other hand, I don't believe that family is owed forgiveness because "it's family" as a matter of course, especially when it's family you've never known in your entire life that just happens to be related to you, but on the other hand Golbez did all his evil under mind control and the game trying to skip out of the implication by saying it was "seeds of evil" in him that opened the path to Zemus so he's still responsible have left me unconvinced, so it all results in a kind of "yeah I guess" reaction to this scene as opposed to the big emotional catharsis it's going for. It's totally understandable that Cecil, on an emotional level, has a hard time forgiving his brother for all the stuff he suffered at his hands even if Golbez wasn't truly responsible, but the way his entire friend group (including Rydia and Edge, who frankly have suffered quite a lot more at Golbez's hands) is just fine with everything and egging Cecil on to just mend bridges it's just…
It's a weird scene, man. I don't know how I feel about it.
Of course, Cecil is finally moved to - if not explicitly forgive him - at least acknowledge him as family:
We zoom out into a pretty view of the whole solar system and the planets orbiting around it, including the Earth and its two moons, as the prophecy plays out again, now with the added context of the plot, as well as adding a new component to it:
I still don't get the "dragon" thing; people in the thread have told me it has to do with the region of the world the Lunar Whale is in but I don't see it.
Also… "One born of a dragon" is the Lunar Whale - it's not Cecil, Cecil doesn't have anything to do with dragons. So "bearing darkness and light" can only clumsily refer to Cecil being a Paladin with a Dark Knight past; the more natural read would be instead that it is the whale bearing (one character embodying) darkness and (one character embodying) light, so…
Yeah I'm Golbezpilled at this point. I am 100% on the conspiracy theory that Golbez not becoming a playable character was a late-game decision that left a bunch of artifacts in the writing.
…also, wait, what. The moon will set forth on a voyage?
Why???
What is the motive for this? Did the Lunarians decide cohabitation with humanity was impossible after all? Isn't that counter to everything we've been seeing so far? Also aren't they all asleep? Did FuSoYa decide to take the moonship and search for another planet? Isn't that in contradiction with what he just told us? If this is a "Lunarians decide that coexistence with humans will be too dangerous for them and leave them in peace it would probably make more sense in light of the extra content from the 3D versions about how Kluya brought magic to humans and accidentally caused all kinds of bad things to happen as a result, but... that seems to just fly in the face of the rest of the ending in which the children of Lunarians and humans saved both worlds.
Steal is sadly mostly useless in almost every FF game that you can use it in, a combination of high failure rates and there being very little worth stealing generally.
FF9 being the largest exception where it's absolutely fantastic.
Then there's FFTA, where stealing is just plain ridiculous and can get you a bunch of incredibly valuable late-game gear and abilities early on if you play your cards right.
Although it does kind of raises the issue that EVERYONE IS HERE, THOUGH. THE GAME COULD JUST LET ME MAKE UP MY OWN PARTY. PALOM LITERALLY SAYS "I WISH I COULD COME WITH YOU" AND THERE IS LITERALLY NO REASON THEY COULDN'T.
Well, no, I guess they're all lv 20 or something ridiculous. And I guess it would have been impossible for the SNES at the time to handle the changing dialogue lines according to who is actually in the group. Somebody please tell me they change this in the 3D versions.
The dream of a team with two Black Mages capable of casting Flare will have to go unlived.
And following exactly that line of thought, this is where the GBA version of FFIV added the feature of "yeah just swap out anyone (except Cecil iirc) and use those old party members if you want". That plus a bonus dungeon full of character specific ultimate equipment and trials and stuff.
So yes, this does in fact mean you could dump the dead weight that is Kain and Edge and get another competent black mage, or even just something like Yang who at least has variety in Kick and Focus.
