Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Which is just as well - doublecast is most broken when you have another magic using class with better casting power and higher level spells to pair it with. Like White Mage and Black Mage, being learned now.
- Location
- California
Unacceptable. Stay as Freelancer until you can pick up Red Mage. It is the verway.
- Location
- The Internet
The SA FFV Four Job Fiesta threads have loads of info on every job and how to abuse them, and the post on !Mix is a thing of beauty
--Spoilers snipped--
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ChildishChimera
A umbran summon
- Location
- New York
Okay I know Omicron mentioned that they might have seen some spoilers while they looked up info on how some jobs work but posting endgame combo's and breakdowns of how evey job compares statwise feels a bit much when he just got access to the jobs at the first crystal
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- Location
- The Internet
Should I edit it out entirely? It's in spoilers but if it's too much i'll remove it and repost later when Omicron's much further in.
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
Like, I'd at least edit out mention of end-game bosses and whatnot, if you didn't just wait until after the spoilers are over to post it? Since there's more than just one or two mentions of that or explicit counters to specific bosses. It'd be a lot less questionable if it was just mechanics spoiler instead of further boss/enemy spoiler, heh.
Final Fantasy V, Part 2, Part A
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back!
I swear I'll get the screenshots under control and stop needing to split these soon, just today.
Last time, we left off after unlocking the job menu and our basic jobs.
And where we're picking up again, we're seeing a massive improvement in quality of life compared to previous games, in the form of an actual tutorial.
I'm pointing this out first because it's cute to have the chocobo explain things, but also just because never before had the game just, like… take the controls away and show you through an entire model of the menu, presenting you a version of Bartz with more classes to walk through the process of equipping abilities on a different job. It's such a small thing, and yet it matters so much. If you'll recall, one of my petty but consistent gripes with FFIV was how it introduced whole new mechanics to the series in characters' commands like Cry or Pray and never explained how they actually worked.
It's also oddly nostalgic. My very first memory of the Final Fantasy series is opening FFVIII, having my mind blown to bits by the opening cutscene, wandering about the enormous weird sci-fi school, and then running into Quistis explaining to me the GF-Junction system through a tutorial just like this one and having my mind blown again but in a very different way. This is way, way simpler than being taught how my relationship meter to Shiva will impact how much benefit I get from junctioning her to my magic resistance.
FFVIII is a lot, you guys.
I'm going to loop back around to jobs in a moment with my final selection. For now we're just going through a narrative bit so it doesn't matter (and I shuffle my choices a couple times then).
First off, with Faris's ship, we can wander about the inner sea of the ring-shaped continent, but we're locked in. There is a canal which leads into the outer sea, but…
So, if we want to find the other crystals, we're going to have to find a way past that gate.
Roaming about a bit, we find our way to Tule, the village previously mentioned as being close to the Wind Shrine. As soon as we enter, Faris decides it's time to take his men and get plastered at the local tavern, leaving us alone.
These guys are fun.
As a starter town, Tule contains shops that allow us to equip any of the jobs we have access to as well as sells the basic tier of magic (Fire/Thunder/Ice on one hand, Cure/Libra/Poisona on the other), as well as a 'Greenhorn's Club' which contains a bunch of old dude sprites, who inform us about classic mechanics for newcomers ('Cure hurts the undead') and new ones (Thieves have a Find Passage ability!) There's also a Surprise Monster where one of the geezers 'teaches us' about trapped chests by having us open one and fight a bunch of goblins.
Also, every time we enter a gear shop, Faris pops in to ask that we don't forget to include him in the gear-up:
As for the common townsfolk, there's this, hm, shall we say experimental bard:
Yeah, you, uh… keep at it, buddy…
Someone tells us that our meteorite isn't the only one that fell recently, another landed in the mountains to the West. I'm wondering if this is gonna be a trend. Starshower? We're also informed that the Kingdom of Walse lies on the other side of the canal and holds the Water Crystal, so that's our next destination and we're going to need to get past that damned door.
And of course, there's the local tavern, which I kept for last, as that's where all the pirates are partying:
…I'm not sure if I should be flattered.
"Everyone is into Faris" is going to be a running theme here.
We are informed that Faris is resting upstairs, and, well…
As you can see above, Faris is sleeping in that bed. But the moment Bartz enters the room, his sprite shifts to a different one, where his hair artfully falls around his sleeping face, and, well…
Bartz leaves the room, Galuf asks him what on earth is that goofy expression for and decides to go check the room as well, following which we have not one, but two dumbstruck idiots with hearts in their eyes:
Who the fuck is 'Caesar'?
Further information will recontextualize Faris's whole deal but it'll nonetheless be clear at this point Galuf and Bartz don't suspect Faris or not being a dude. This is officially the gayest Final Fantasy cast so far.
Lenna asks what the hell is all this about, but before she can go into the room and get her own taste of Faris's Beautiful, Beautiful Face, Faris wakes up.
Faris and Lenna take position in front of Bartz and Galuf respectively and deliver them a Patented Porom Smack On The Head, knocking both out of their fugue state. Then Faris kicks everyone out so he can do his morning routine.
Now… There is a room at the north of town that is where the plot will lead us next. But first…
If we try to leave town, Faris immediately appears out of nowhere and joins the party, then leaves the moment we enter Tule again. Which is very convenient to ensuring we don't have a party member losing progress compared to the others, but also extremely funny since this whole time Faris is ostensibly just taking a break in his room.
So! Jobs!
First of all, I want you all to admire these gorgeous customized sprites for each character:
The traditional Black Mage No Face is kinda funky when combined with the character still having their hair.
…I'm gonna have Lenna as a Monk solely on the basis that I love this outfit-hairdo combo. She looks straight out of a fighting game. Like, not Chun-Li, but definitely Chun-Li-adjacent. As for my final selection…
I didn't want to pass up on Thief's passive benefits, so this is my basic line-up. There's gonna be a twist very soon though.
Oh, you might be wondering why I'm leaving Tule in the first place. The answer is simple - to retrace our steps to the pirate cave.
Uh-oh. Did the chocobo follow after us in the monster-infested cave? That doesn't sound good. Only one thing to do then; head into the cave and fight our way back through to the pirate hideout.
…aaaw, they're helping!
Poor stupid chocobo, getting himself into trouble. Thankfully the pirates were here. The pirate elder tells us not to worry, all he needs now is some rest, and though Boco lets out a pitiful "Kweh…" he's gonna be alright. While here, we grab some loot from the cave (presumably Faris's presence grants us implicit permission to raid the stores), and on our way out…
We can get a quick look at more details of the job system. Simply by equipping Black/White Mage, Galuf and Faris gain the appropriate Magic command that lets them cast spells of that color up to lv 6 spells. But right now, they learned "White/Black Magic Lv 1," which is an ability they can equip onto another job. Meaning that I can do this…
…and now Galuf is a Monk who can cast lv 1 White Magic spells. Which are the only ones available at this level, so I don't lose anything (I do lose something, in that Monk has a bad magic stat, but that's a secondary concern here). And I do the same with Faris and lv 1 Black Magic. Now I have a party of three monks dealing massive physical damage and who can still fall back on magic when I need to cast Cure or target an elemental weakness.
Of course I don't mean to stick with this for too long, the point is only to still have two pseudo-mages while I train Galuf and Faris to learn the Monk's Barehanded ability and swap them back to mages who now can also cast FIST.
In the meantime though, going through dungeons punching everything so hard it explodes is extremely funny.
With that done, we head back to Tule. Faris leaves the party once again and we head north.
Zok, we learn, is not only a friend of the family, but also the man who built the Torna Canal that we're supposed to be taking. If anyone can let us through, it's him.
Torna explains the group's predicament. Zok, however, explains that the canal has been taken over by a dangerous beast, and is too dangerous to go through. He also says that he "lost the key somewhere," and so couldn't help us through if he wanted to. Then he offers that the group stay the night with him. With no other lead, the group agrees, and Zok shows them to their room.
There is something adorably goofy about their sleeping sprites.
Bartz, however, wakes up in the middle of the night, and decides to go out for a stroll.
Oh-oh! Bartz backstory?
Well this is certainly intriguing! It looks like there's more to Bartz than meets the eye. I'm… going to go out on a limb and say that his father kinda looking like King Tycoon might look without his helmet is just the inherent limits of sprite design and he probably isn't Lenna's secret sibling? If nothing else he seems to have lived in a simple house, not a castle.
…also I'm dumb, Bartz would have recognized his voice when he appeared all ghost-like. Never mind that.
Zok standing over Lenna while she mutters in her sleep has me worried we wandered into another 'character not being who they claimed to be' which we've had in every game so far, but no, it's sadder and more wholesome; Zok is afraid for Lenna's safety if she goes through the canal and, out of concern, pretended to have lost the key to try and keep her from this dangerous journey. But now, listening to her muttering in her sleep and realizing how much this matters to her, he has changed his mind, and addresses Bartz when the young man comes back into the house:
In the morning, the party regroups, Zok wishes them a safe journey, and they head out. But, just as they're about to leave Tula, Faris joins with the group again. But this time, sensing that this is for good, the pirates appear, asking their Captain to wait for them.
The pirates are distraught. They swear they'd follow Faris to the ends of the earth, and Faris says he knows they would but not this time.
This smells of bullshit to me. I strongly suspect that the real reason Faris is leaving the pirates behind is because he's genuinely worried they might not make it, and is worried about their safety. Like sure, they're a ruthless crew of pirates, sailing the high seas hardy-har-har (well actually they're sailing a fairly large lake but never mind that), but also their reaction to finding a wounded bird was "poor thing, we must take care of it." I mean, they were being all threatening towards their prisoners, sure, but it took Faris one evening to turn around and release them.
What I'm saying is I suspect they're actually a bunch of huge softies who are also all level 1 mooks and Faris is afraid that if he takes them with the party on their journey they will meet the fate of redshirts everywhere. Like Leila's crew in FF2.
Honestly? Good call on this one, I say.
The group takes the ship again, and heads for the canal. On the way, we have a cutscene in which a thoughtful Lenna - raised, no doubt, with knowledge and warnings of the nature of the crystal her father was protecting - explains the true stake of their journey to Bartz. Right now, the wind has only slowed, but…
The way she's presenting it, there is no avoiding this fate. The crystal has been shattered, the winds aren't coming back. She is so somber because, no matter what, the world has been bereft of the blessing of wind, and all will suffer for it. Which gives an increased urgency to their task of protecting the other three crystals.
Bartz asks what would happen if the other crystals were lost.
It's the classic FF1 apocalypse revisited, but with the shattering of the crystals granting it an edge of dangerous, of something that could not be undone by killing a monster and cleansing the crystal if it came to pass. We're raising the stakes compared to previous games despite keeping the same structure.
Galuf shows up, confidently shouting that they need to protect the crystals, and when Bartz asks if he's regained any of his memories, Galuf says no - but it doesn't matter, this is a task that's more important than whatever he was doing before, and he'll help. Faris concurs, and says besides, they have to find King Tycoon. When Lenna says he disappeared into thin air, Faris interjects:
Then Lenna asks if Bartz will join them on this quest, and Bartz says that until now he's just been "along for the ride." Which is true - even though he received the blessing of the Wind Crystal, so far he's only been, like, there. Out of a vague sense of obligation to need to help and, possibly, the Call of Adventure. But now that Lenna has explained the stakes to him and he's been endowed with the power and responsibility of the Wind Crystal, he is forced to reflect on his involvement, and to commit to this course for the long run.
Back at the canal, Bartz produces the key and opens the way. When the others ask him where he found it, he says it doesn't matter. I get that he's trying to cover for Zok's white lie, but it's kind of funny that if we take this at face value he just told the group "Come on with me to the canal gate, I know it's closed, just trust me bro, come on," and once there went "I absolutely DID NOT steal the key don'tlookatthejobihaveequippedrightnow."
Anyway, nobody gets any prize for guessing what's waiting for us on the other side, given that it's less been "foreshadowed" and more "explicitly said to our face."
Rudder not responding, friendly dragon in trouble, it's a proper crisis.
A fucking crawfish? That's your monster? What is this, Elden Ring?
Karlabos has a "Tail Whip" move which is just Hurricane, setting a character's health to a single digit number, which is a cheap fucking way of making a boss threatening. He also has a paralyzing attack. One of the villagers in Tula said that the monster of the canal 'only seems to target women'; I initially assumed that this was meant to hint at something regarding Faris when the monster attacks him later on, but it turns out to be a complete lie. Karlabos just takes turns hitting Bartz and Galuf and then dies to the overwhelming pressure of three monks, one of whom can cast Thunder.
Unfortunately, it looks like we haven't avoided tragedy today -
Syldra and the ship have been separated, and Syldra is being sucked into the whirlpool created by the monster!
Faris cries out in fear for his friend, Bartz tries to reassure him that Syldra is a fighter, but the whirlpool keeps its hold on her. Faris tries to throw himself off the ship to join her, and has to be bodily restrained by Bartz and Galuf to keep him from this obviously suicidal course of action.
Within moments, the whirlpool has disappeared, and Syldra with it.
…
THIS DRAGON BETTER TURN UP AGAIN WITHIN THE NEXT HOUR OF GAME OR I FUCKING RIOT.
Too many animal friends are being hurt in this game!! I am officially filing a complaint!!
This isn't just a tragic loss, though. This also means everyone is pretty much screwed. Without Syldra and with the wind dying, the ship has no means of moving other than aimlessly drifting with the currents, day after day.
Split for image count.
I swear I'll get the screenshots under control and stop needing to split these soon, just today.
Last time, we left off after unlocking the job menu and our basic jobs.
And where we're picking up again, we're seeing a massive improvement in quality of life compared to previous games, in the form of an actual tutorial.
I'm pointing this out first because it's cute to have the chocobo explain things, but also just because never before had the game just, like… take the controls away and show you through an entire model of the menu, presenting you a version of Bartz with more classes to walk through the process of equipping abilities on a different job. It's such a small thing, and yet it matters so much. If you'll recall, one of my petty but consistent gripes with FFIV was how it introduced whole new mechanics to the series in characters' commands like Cry or Pray and never explained how they actually worked.
It's also oddly nostalgic. My very first memory of the Final Fantasy series is opening FFVIII, having my mind blown to bits by the opening cutscene, wandering about the enormous weird sci-fi school, and then running into Quistis explaining to me the GF-Junction system through a tutorial just like this one and having my mind blown again but in a very different way. This is way, way simpler than being taught how my relationship meter to Shiva will impact how much benefit I get from junctioning her to my magic resistance.
FFVIII is a lot, you guys.
I'm going to loop back around to jobs in a moment with my final selection. For now we're just going through a narrative bit so it doesn't matter (and I shuffle my choices a couple times then).
First off, with Faris's ship, we can wander about the inner sea of the ring-shaped continent, but we're locked in. There is a canal which leads into the outer sea, but…
So, if we want to find the other crystals, we're going to have to find a way past that gate.
Roaming about a bit, we find our way to Tule, the village previously mentioned as being close to the Wind Shrine. As soon as we enter, Faris decides it's time to take his men and get plastered at the local tavern, leaving us alone.
These guys are fun.
As a starter town, Tule contains shops that allow us to equip any of the jobs we have access to as well as sells the basic tier of magic (Fire/Thunder/Ice on one hand, Cure/Libra/Poisona on the other), as well as a 'Greenhorn's Club' which contains a bunch of old dude sprites, who inform us about classic mechanics for newcomers ('Cure hurts the undead') and new ones (Thieves have a Find Passage ability!) There's also a Surprise Monster where one of the geezers 'teaches us' about trapped chests by having us open one and fight a bunch of goblins.
Also, every time we enter a gear shop, Faris pops in to ask that we don't forget to include him in the gear-up:
As for the common townsfolk, there's this, hm, shall we say experimental bard:
Yeah, you, uh… keep at it, buddy…
Someone tells us that our meteorite isn't the only one that fell recently, another landed in the mountains to the West. I'm wondering if this is gonna be a trend. Starshower? We're also informed that the Kingdom of Walse lies on the other side of the canal and holds the Water Crystal, so that's our next destination and we're going to need to get past that damned door.
And of course, there's the local tavern, which I kept for last, as that's where all the pirates are partying:
…I'm not sure if I should be flattered.
"Everyone is into Faris" is going to be a running theme here.
We are informed that Faris is resting upstairs, and, well…
As you can see above, Faris is sleeping in that bed. But the moment Bartz enters the room, his sprite shifts to a different one, where his hair artfully falls around his sleeping face, and, well…
Bartz leaves the room, Galuf asks him what on earth is that goofy expression for and decides to go check the room as well, following which we have not one, but two dumbstruck idiots with hearts in their eyes:
Who the fuck is 'Caesar'?
Further information will recontextualize Faris's whole deal but it'll nonetheless be clear at this point Galuf and Bartz don't suspect Faris or not being a dude. This is officially the gayest Final Fantasy cast so far.
Lenna asks what the hell is all this about, but before she can go into the room and get her own taste of Faris's Beautiful, Beautiful Face, Faris wakes up.
Faris and Lenna take position in front of Bartz and Galuf respectively and deliver them a Patented Porom Smack On The Head, knocking both out of their fugue state. Then Faris kicks everyone out so he can do his morning routine.
Now… There is a room at the north of town that is where the plot will lead us next. But first…
If we try to leave town, Faris immediately appears out of nowhere and joins the party, then leaves the moment we enter Tule again. Which is very convenient to ensuring we don't have a party member losing progress compared to the others, but also extremely funny since this whole time Faris is ostensibly just taking a break in his room.
So! Jobs!
First of all, I want you all to admire these gorgeous customized sprites for each character:
The traditional Black Mage No Face is kinda funky when combined with the character still having their hair.
…I'm gonna have Lenna as a Monk solely on the basis that I love this outfit-hairdo combo. She looks straight out of a fighting game. Like, not Chun-Li, but definitely Chun-Li-adjacent. As for my final selection…
I didn't want to pass up on Thief's passive benefits, so this is my basic line-up. There's gonna be a twist very soon though.
Oh, you might be wondering why I'm leaving Tule in the first place. The answer is simple - to retrace our steps to the pirate cave.
Uh-oh. Did the chocobo follow after us in the monster-infested cave? That doesn't sound good. Only one thing to do then; head into the cave and fight our way back through to the pirate hideout.
…aaaw, they're helping!
Poor stupid chocobo, getting himself into trouble. Thankfully the pirates were here. The pirate elder tells us not to worry, all he needs now is some rest, and though Boco lets out a pitiful "Kweh…" he's gonna be alright. While here, we grab some loot from the cave (presumably Faris's presence grants us implicit permission to raid the stores), and on our way out…
We can get a quick look at more details of the job system. Simply by equipping Black/White Mage, Galuf and Faris gain the appropriate Magic command that lets them cast spells of that color up to lv 6 spells. But right now, they learned "White/Black Magic Lv 1," which is an ability they can equip onto another job. Meaning that I can do this…
…and now Galuf is a Monk who can cast lv 1 White Magic spells. Which are the only ones available at this level, so I don't lose anything (I do lose something, in that Monk has a bad magic stat, but that's a secondary concern here). And I do the same with Faris and lv 1 Black Magic. Now I have a party of three monks dealing massive physical damage and who can still fall back on magic when I need to cast Cure or target an elemental weakness.
Of course I don't mean to stick with this for too long, the point is only to still have two pseudo-mages while I train Galuf and Faris to learn the Monk's Barehanded ability and swap them back to mages who now can also cast FIST.
In the meantime though, going through dungeons punching everything so hard it explodes is extremely funny.
With that done, we head back to Tule. Faris leaves the party once again and we head north.
Zok, we learn, is not only a friend of the family, but also the man who built the Torna Canal that we're supposed to be taking. If anyone can let us through, it's him.
Torna explains the group's predicament. Zok, however, explains that the canal has been taken over by a dangerous beast, and is too dangerous to go through. He also says that he "lost the key somewhere," and so couldn't help us through if he wanted to. Then he offers that the group stay the night with him. With no other lead, the group agrees, and Zok shows them to their room.
There is something adorably goofy about their sleeping sprites.
Bartz, however, wakes up in the middle of the night, and decides to go out for a stroll.
Oh-oh! Bartz backstory?
Well this is certainly intriguing! It looks like there's more to Bartz than meets the eye. I'm… going to go out on a limb and say that his father kinda looking like King Tycoon might look without his helmet is just the inherent limits of sprite design and he probably isn't Lenna's secret sibling? If nothing else he seems to have lived in a simple house, not a castle.
…also I'm dumb, Bartz would have recognized his voice when he appeared all ghost-like. Never mind that.
Zok standing over Lenna while she mutters in her sleep has me worried we wandered into another 'character not being who they claimed to be' which we've had in every game so far, but no, it's sadder and more wholesome; Zok is afraid for Lenna's safety if she goes through the canal and, out of concern, pretended to have lost the key to try and keep her from this dangerous journey. But now, listening to her muttering in her sleep and realizing how much this matters to her, he has changed his mind, and addresses Bartz when the young man comes back into the house:
In the morning, the party regroups, Zok wishes them a safe journey, and they head out. But, just as they're about to leave Tula, Faris joins with the group again. But this time, sensing that this is for good, the pirates appear, asking their Captain to wait for them.
The pirates are distraught. They swear they'd follow Faris to the ends of the earth, and Faris says he knows they would but not this time.
This smells of bullshit to me. I strongly suspect that the real reason Faris is leaving the pirates behind is because he's genuinely worried they might not make it, and is worried about their safety. Like sure, they're a ruthless crew of pirates, sailing the high seas hardy-har-har (well actually they're sailing a fairly large lake but never mind that), but also their reaction to finding a wounded bird was "poor thing, we must take care of it." I mean, they were being all threatening towards their prisoners, sure, but it took Faris one evening to turn around and release them.
What I'm saying is I suspect they're actually a bunch of huge softies who are also all level 1 mooks and Faris is afraid that if he takes them with the party on their journey they will meet the fate of redshirts everywhere. Like Leila's crew in FF2.
Honestly? Good call on this one, I say.
The group takes the ship again, and heads for the canal. On the way, we have a cutscene in which a thoughtful Lenna - raised, no doubt, with knowledge and warnings of the nature of the crystal her father was protecting - explains the true stake of their journey to Bartz. Right now, the wind has only slowed, but…
The way she's presenting it, there is no avoiding this fate. The crystal has been shattered, the winds aren't coming back. She is so somber because, no matter what, the world has been bereft of the blessing of wind, and all will suffer for it. Which gives an increased urgency to their task of protecting the other three crystals.
Bartz asks what would happen if the other crystals were lost.
It's the classic FF1 apocalypse revisited, but with the shattering of the crystals granting it an edge of dangerous, of something that could not be undone by killing a monster and cleansing the crystal if it came to pass. We're raising the stakes compared to previous games despite keeping the same structure.
Galuf shows up, confidently shouting that they need to protect the crystals, and when Bartz asks if he's regained any of his memories, Galuf says no - but it doesn't matter, this is a task that's more important than whatever he was doing before, and he'll help. Faris concurs, and says besides, they have to find King Tycoon. When Lenna says he disappeared into thin air, Faris interjects:
Then Lenna asks if Bartz will join them on this quest, and Bartz says that until now he's just been "along for the ride." Which is true - even though he received the blessing of the Wind Crystal, so far he's only been, like, there. Out of a vague sense of obligation to need to help and, possibly, the Call of Adventure. But now that Lenna has explained the stakes to him and he's been endowed with the power and responsibility of the Wind Crystal, he is forced to reflect on his involvement, and to commit to this course for the long run.
Back at the canal, Bartz produces the key and opens the way. When the others ask him where he found it, he says it doesn't matter. I get that he's trying to cover for Zok's white lie, but it's kind of funny that if we take this at face value he just told the group "Come on with me to the canal gate, I know it's closed, just trust me bro, come on," and once there went "I absolutely DID NOT steal the key don'tlookatthejobihaveequippedrightnow."
Anyway, nobody gets any prize for guessing what's waiting for us on the other side, given that it's less been "foreshadowed" and more "explicitly said to our face."
Rudder not responding, friendly dragon in trouble, it's a proper crisis.
A fucking crawfish? That's your monster? What is this, Elden Ring?
Karlabos has a "Tail Whip" move which is just Hurricane, setting a character's health to a single digit number, which is a cheap fucking way of making a boss threatening. He also has a paralyzing attack. One of the villagers in Tula said that the monster of the canal 'only seems to target women'; I initially assumed that this was meant to hint at something regarding Faris when the monster attacks him later on, but it turns out to be a complete lie. Karlabos just takes turns hitting Bartz and Galuf and then dies to the overwhelming pressure of three monks, one of whom can cast Thunder.
Unfortunately, it looks like we haven't avoided tragedy today -
Syldra and the ship have been separated, and Syldra is being sucked into the whirlpool created by the monster!
Faris cries out in fear for his friend, Bartz tries to reassure him that Syldra is a fighter, but the whirlpool keeps its hold on her. Faris tries to throw himself off the ship to join her, and has to be bodily restrained by Bartz and Galuf to keep him from this obviously suicidal course of action.
Within moments, the whirlpool has disappeared, and Syldra with it.
…
THIS DRAGON BETTER TURN UP AGAIN WITHIN THE NEXT HOUR OF GAME OR I FUCKING RIOT.
Too many animal friends are being hurt in this game!! I am officially filing a complaint!!
This isn't just a tragic loss, though. This also means everyone is pretty much screwed. Without Syldra and with the wind dying, the ship has no means of moving other than aimlessly drifting with the currents, day after day.
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Final Fantasy V, Part 2, Part B
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If you ask me, that was easily the most harrowing stretch of Master & Commander: Far Side of the World
The party passes out from thirst and hunger, until, finally, the ship collides with something - not a landmass, but something a little like it.
A ship graveyard.
Galuf is the first to wake up, and stirs the others one by one (Lenna first). When Bartz enquires about their surroundings, Lenna describes this place as "A gathering place for abandoned and scuttled ships… and a nest for the undead."
This is a terrible place to be in, and yet, ironically, it may be the best hope they've had ever since the whirlpool.
Man, Zok was kinda right, wasn't he? The monster was no trouble at all, and yet everyone almost fucking died trying to take that unassuming canal to the sea. Granted, it wouldn't have been a problem without the wind crystal shattering, but…
The ship graveyard is honestly one of the coolest places we've had in the game so far. Look at these environments:
Broken planks, cobwebs, dusty furniture, spooky windows to an ominous purple sky, dead sailors still wearing bandanas…
The way through weaves through masts, floating rocks, and from ship to ship, swapping between the exterior and the interior. Also, there is a whole underwater section which strangely suggests that our characters can breathe underwater or hold their breath indefinitely:
This line is not as innouous as it may appear, as we'll soon see.
Bartz mocks Faris for being "afraid to melt or something," and the group just, like, casually dives in and fights a bunch of monsters underwater.
But, on the other way, is a safe room, and the opportunity to take a rest for our water-soaked warriors.
Oh oh…
Oh no.
I like that Bartz set a coil of rope on fire. Sure, why not.
Faris says that he's fine, and to not worry about him. Galuf - not unreasonably! - says that's stupid and Faris is gonna catch pneumonia and die. Then, perhaps less reasonably, Gartz and Galuf decide to manhandle Faris and get him out of his clothes against his will. Faris freaks out. Then Galuf and Bartz freak out. Then Lenna comes out to see why everyone is screaming.
IT WAS HIM THIS ENTIRE TIME. THE LEGENDARY HE/HIM LESBIAN.
Yeah, I vaguely remembered that being a plot point and have been growing increasingly certain I was remembering it right ever since Faris's introduction.
Faris gets defensive, asking if anyone has a problem with them being a woman, and Lenna says of course not, but why hide it?
Something that's going missing because I'm already overloaded on screenshots is some of Faris's funnier piratical expressions, like "I'll shiver your timbers."
I find that slip of the tongue - "a lad, er, lass" - fascinating, because it's pretty clear Faris has some Gender going on. Like, other people going forward seem to be referring to Faris as "her," and she doesn't object, so I'm gonna use she/her as well, but also, like… She clearly doesn't mind being treated as a man, and in fact seems to prefer it by default. She also doesn't react with hostility to being gendered differently by the rest of the group. I get the feeling that the pat way she's explaining it - "I grew up in a masculine environment so I dressed up as a man so I wouldn't be made fun of for being a woman, and if you make fun of me I'll shank you" - is kind of like… A simpler, let's-avoid-a-big-conversation explanation for the benefits of other people that hide a more complicated relationship to her own gender identity.
Galuf laughs that "he knew from the start you were awfully pretty for a man," but my dude, I saw your reaction in that bedroom, you didn't to know Faris was a woman to be swooning over them.
Faris, in an understandably grumpy mood, tells everyone she's headed to bed. Then in the morning she kicks everyone out of bed.
No, she didn't stop being masc the moment you found out she had tits, Galuf.
And with this, it's back to exploring the ship graveyard.
This item right there gets its own custom sprite for a reason: it's the World Map. An item which fulfills the same role as the Scry spell used to, only now it's usable whenever, revealing all unexplored sites on the map. I like that. It's convenient.
Also incidentally, first instance I can recall of contextual button jumping, where you look at a chasm, the ! icon pops up, and you press the action button to jump:
For something so omnipresent in isometric RPGs, it's taken a surprisingly long time for that relatively simple technology to emerge. And the game is very proud that it did; in that screen alone you can find three separate jumping sequences (it's the floating rocks).
Soon enough, we open a chest that appears to summon a sunken ship from the water…
…which doesn't seem to be suspicious at all.
Even less suspicious is the fact that boarding this ship leads us to a suspiciously boss room-shaped cavern:
The dialogue in this game is genuinely something else.
OH NO, IT'S SIRENS, BARTZ DON'T LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF THE DEAD
NO, BARTZ IS ALREADY UNDER THE SPELL, LENNA YOU HAVE TO RESIST -
Wait, I'm sorry, is Faris not getting an illusion of her own, is Faris really getting pulled into the siren's Stand by 'Lenna being in danger,' these really are the gayest Final Fantasy protagonist of all time
…
Wait
But if it isn't
The funniest Final Fantasy comedy moment of all time
…
HE'S AMNESIAC
SO THE SIREN PULLED OUT HIS TRAGIC BACKSTORY OR WHATEVER OUT OF HIS MIND
AND HE DIDN'T RECOGNIZE IT
His granddaughter appeared and he went 'who the fuck is this, anyway show yourself monster'
I'm sorry I'm sorry this is just
Like
GALUF'S PLAYER WAS OUT FOR PIZZA, COMES BACK MID-SCENE LIKE
"Oh hey boss monster, can I roll initiative?"
"Galuf, before you stands a young girl with blond hair, who looks at you lovingly…"
"Got it, ghost child, can I stab it?"
"...remind me of your granddaughter's description."
"Uuuuuh sorry dude I left my backstory sheet at home I didn't think it would matter"
"You left. Your backstory. At home."
"Man the pizzas are getting cold, can I roll Initiative?"
"...you know what, fine."
TOP TEN VIDEO GAME STORY MOMENTS ALL YEAR EVERY YEAR
Look, there's more to this scene, the Siren is trying to claim the souls of the warriors of light, it first tries to seduce Galuf to hand her his soul willingly, then she threatens that she might let him leave if he runs away, he refuses, she asks why he would do that and he says "they're my friends!" then goes over every single one to deliver a Trademark Porom Smack, but I just
Nothing matches the perfection of this sequence
Okay no granted the Smacking is actually pretty funny as well.
The illusion vanishes, the characters are awakened, and the incensed Siren attacks.
Siren has insanely high magic resistance - Faris's spells do nothing to her. She also has ice spells and debuff spells like Slow. Unfortunately, my party is made up of one Thief and three Monks, so she eats several hundred damage before going through her first phase change. The screen displays "Siren has become one of the undead!" and her sprite changes to this cool, spooky zombie woman. Her resistances change in that state and she switches to physical attacks that inflict poison.
Unfortunately at this point she's been hurt so much that I cast Cure once and it's over.
And with that, it's finished. Siren is defeated, and the group can have a good laugh about it.
And that's the Ship Graveyard wrapped up.
Next time: I have absolutely no idea! How exciting!
- Location
- California
He's no Yoshi-P, that's for certain.
Unfortunately, it's also the origin of XIV's most pointless and time-wastey MSQ dungeon. >.>
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- Location
- Portugal
Galuf avoiding the Siren hypnotic backstory lure because he is amnesiac is incomprehensibly funny, holy heck. It's interesting though, how it's so easy to read a lot of Gender™️ (Identity) in Faris's reveal here, more so than just in the explanations the cast takes at face value.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I suspect part of it may have been "do we think we're ever going to put the players on a boat any time soon? No? Then let's put it in, if we change our minds we won't get another chance".
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Sirensong Sea is based actually 😔
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Galuf's amnesia actually playing more of a role in the story than just hiding the tragic backstory is one of those nice touches that make FFV a truly good game. You see amnesia pretty often in stories, and it's always used in the same manner, to preserve mystery and nothing more; of course, FFV does that too, but the fact it also uses it actively for characterization and situations such as this one is one of those things that show the people who made this game actually did think about it, instead of just using it as a stock plot device.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Note: you'd have the full magic stat of the class with level 6 magic. As is, you're getting a fraction of the appropriate classes magic, this goes up by steps for each level of the magic ability, in addition to those levels allowing you to cast higher level spells.
Siren also gains defense and loses magic defense in Undead form, in addition to resistances changing (picks up a weakness to fire if i remember right, on top of Being Undead).
- Location
- California
You're wrong, but I respect your personal choices nontheless.
Also, did you know the Sirensong Sea Prison is owned by Radz-at-Han? I would like to ask Vrtra why he owns and operates a run-down spooky ghost prison in the middle of the ocean. This place is clearly not OSHA compliant. Who let this happen.
Oh hey, that's pretty close to my earliest Final Fantasy memories. Except I was kind of a dumb-dumb as a kid so I skimmed over that entire tutorial, processed exactly nothing about the junctioning system, and proceeded to clear half of Disk 1 with literally only the Attack and Limit Break commands, then got stuck in the first Laguna interlude because I got lost and came to the conclusion that I had to defeat Diablos with this party of side characters to advance.
Truly, the brilliance of some children
Ooooh, quick side question there: did you play the piano at said tavern? There's actually a fun easter egg if you take the time to play every new piano you find in the world. If not, no worries you'll have your chance to head back to town at some point.
It came up earlier in the thread, but actually that bad magic stat isn't nearly as much of an issue as you'd think. A lot of equippable job commands come with a side of boosting related stats to make the extra skillset more viable. So by slapping magic on a monk, it'll boost their magic stat a bit to compensate, or when I had Faris running around as a White Mage temporarily and gave her Two-Handed so she could smash a massive flail into people with both hands it boosted her strength. Still not as good as being an outright spellcaster or knight, obviously, but better than Monk's base magic of... negative twenty-three.
Also maybe more of a me thing, but with how you can unexpectedly run into a new town and go "whoops new tier of magic obtained" I actually like to train up my magic commands to be one level higher than what I currently have unlocked. Just food for thought.
Not to mention this is a bonfire being started in the middle of a wooden ship. Sure, it probably wouldn't burn that well what with being a waterlogged shipwreck, but still maybe not the brightest of ideas.
Ah yes, one of the least-well kept spoilers of the game, on par with [FF7 spoilers that I won't say, but. We all know what it is.]
It really is, I'd forgotten how much I loved this party of doofs until I started replaying FFV myself. The characters just have a lot of personality with the incredibly silly things they have to do and say at times, not to mention how expressive the sprites can get (which will only peak all the more in FF6 but that's something to get into in another month or two I'm sure).
Like I said: lovable party of absolute doofs. Really is kind of hilarious if you consider FF games as D&D campaigns and compare FFIV and FFV though, jumping from dramatic stories and backgrounds and "nobody understands the darkness in my heart" to a cross-dressing pirate captain, an amnesiac old man, That One Guy who actually just goes "cool story DM but my character wouldn't join the campaign" and has to get railroaded by his own pet, and then Lenna the one person who's trying to take all this roleplaying seriously.
IIRC Siren swaps from high magic resistance to high physical resistance in her second phase, along with gaining the classic undead weaknesses of cure and fire. Buuuuut as you pointed out when you role into a fight where the boss gimmick is "starts with high magic defense but not physical defense" with 4 powerful physical attackers, well.
Helps that monks scale pretty well for the first chunk of the game, to the point you can basically skip buying weapons entirely if you want to just slap barehanded on every party member.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
I had that thought myself, but Bartz's father has a distinctive sandy colour to his hair as opposed to Tycoon's more saturated golden-brown. More like Galuf's hair, though Galuf obviously has been in the same room as him and has a full beard.
Damn I was just about to say 'you need more than four people to run a sailing ship so dismissing the crew means the gang should be stuck' but I suppose without the wind they're just sitting in a big wooden bucket while Syldra pulls them along huh. That goes to show me, I retract my cinemasins ding.
The Scene As Told By Bartz
Zok: "I hid the key to save her... but I see now this means too much to her to lie to her... here, I entrust the key to you..."
The Scene As Told By Zok
Zok: "Where did my- YOU LITTLE SHIT"
Bartz: "SCRAM MEANS I CAN ALWAYS RUN FROM BATTLES, FUCKER" *absconds out the window with the key, chortling like a goblin*
BARTZ YOU FOOL YOU'LL BURN DOWN THE ENTIRE SHIP GRAVEYARDI like that Bartz set a coil of rope on fire. Sure, why not.
Oh no.
Actually imagine what that horrific decades-old briny rope must smell like as Bartz burns it in a completely enclosed room. They'd be hotboxing a summer fish market in minutes.
You fool, if you had just levelled Blue Mage you could have used Scan to reveal Faris' pronouns before now.
IT WAS HIM THIS ENTIRE TIME. THE LEGENDARY HE/HIM LESBIAN.
You can tell she doesn't fit into the traditional female gender role in Final Fantasy because unlike Lenne she has biceps and knows how to use them-
Wait
But if it isn't
The funniest Final Fantasy comedy moment of all time
…
HE'S AMNESIAC
SO THE SIREN PULLED OUT HIS TRAGIC BACKSTORY OR WHATEVER OUT OF HIS MIND
AND HE DIDN'T RECOGNIZE IT
His granddaughter appeared and he went 'who the fuck is this, anyway show yourself monster'
I'm sorry I'm sorry this is just
Like
GALUF'S PLAYER WAS OUT FOR PIZZA, COMES BACK MID-SCENE LIKE
"Oh hey boss monster, can I roll initiative?"
"Galuf, before you stands a young girl with blond hair, who looks at you lovingly…"
"Got it, ghost child, can I stab it?"
"...remind me of your granddaughter's description."
"Uuuuuh sorry dude I left my backstory sheet at home I didn't think it would matter"
"You left. Your backstory. At home."
"Man the pizzas are getting cold, can I roll Initiative?"
"...you know what, fine."
TOP TEN VIDEO GAME STORY MOMENTS ALL YEAR EVERY YEAR
Look, there's more to this scene, the Siren is trying to claim the souls of the warriors of light, it first tries to seduce Galuf to hand her his soul willingly, then she threatens that she might let him leave if he runs away, he refuses, she asks why he would do that and he says "they're my friends!" then goes over every single one to deliver a Trademark Porom Smack, but I just
Nothing matches the perfection of this sequence
Okay no granted the Smacking is actually pretty funny as well.
>be Galuf
>lost in a ship graveyard
>friends all have their souls taken by a Siren
>refuse to interact with a woman
>"but it's your heart's desire, your long-lost granddaughter-" "don't remember lol"
>karate chop your friends so hard their souls go back in their bodies
>refuse to elaborate
>beat her to death
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
I sure didn't expect the amnesia sub-plot with Galuf to come up as anything but 'mystery backstory'. Quite amusing that he just completely ignored a boss monster's hypnotic visions by failing to recognise whoever the boss was showing him, lol.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
A minor thing I was curious about: playing the FFV Pixel Remaster on my phone, I discovered what probably counts as a "Peninsula Of Powerlevelling" quite early on, in a little outcrop southeast of Tule. At this point you're probably around level 5 or so, while in the few tiles of that one little outcrop facing the sea, you'll be facing level 20 Sahagin.
I was wondering if this is a bug unique to the mobile version, or if the PC version also had the weird overlevelled tiles.
I'm still mildly puzzled that upon encountering a wounded Chocobo, the pirates decided to place it into a bed for humans and even cover it with a blanket in the human manner (ie to the "shoulders").
Karlabos retains these moves in its incarnation in FFXIV, in Sastasha Hard. "Tail Whip" is now "Tail Screw", and a relatively useful spell for FFXIV BLU to learn (I don't recall if BLU in FFV can learn Tail Whip here), and the paralyze attack is now a stun on the Tank.
Other Karlabos-like palette swap critters also have the Tail Screw move, including the "Reflection Of Karlabos" in the Sirensong Sea dungeon mentioned above.
I was wondering if this is a bug unique to the mobile version, or if the PC version also had the weird overlevelled tiles.
Poor stupid chocobo, getting himself into trouble. Thankfully the pirates were here. The pirate elder tells us not to worry, all he needs now is some rest, and though Boco lets out a pitiful "Kweh…" he's gonna be alright.
I'm still mildly puzzled that upon encountering a wounded Chocobo, the pirates decided to place it into a bed for humans and even cover it with a blanket in the human manner (ie to the "shoulders").
Karlabos retains these moves in its incarnation in FFXIV, in Sastasha Hard. "Tail Whip" is now "Tail Screw", and a relatively useful spell for FFXIV BLU to learn (I don't recall if BLU in FFV can learn Tail Whip here), and the paralyze attack is now a stun on the Tank.
Other Karlabos-like palette swap critters also have the Tail Screw move, including the "Reflection Of Karlabos" in the Sirensong Sea dungeon mentioned above.
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
It was definitely in the original SNES game, but no clue about anything for different systems. Good (if initially risky) way to get a bump to deal with the boss, if it's giving you trouble.
- Location
- Alberta
...how strict must Faris be about alcohol if her crew's this excited over grog of all things?
So, the canal's the first of several areas where the PS1 version's localization gets enemy names hilariously wrong. First up there's an enemy called a Sucker in most versions that's called a "Soccer" in the PS1 version, then Karlabos ended up being named...Karl Boss.
This is why you give translators context, folks.
As McFluffles mentioned, putting a magic skill on another class will generally increase their magic stat. Specifically, it will override the base classes innate +/- modifier, but only if the result is higher than the base class.
Magic is unique in that the higher level of magic unlocked, the higher the bonus, maxing out at the same modifier you'd get for being that mage (E.g. max level Black sets your Magic stat to the same as a Black Mage). Non-magic transfer skills always set the modifier to the class the skill comes from.
What all this means in practice is that until you learn the max level magic skill for a given job, you can't offset a mage's squishiness with a tougher base job without also eating some reduction in magic effectiveness.
Magic is unique in that the higher level of magic unlocked, the higher the bonus, maxing out at the same modifier you'd get for being that mage (E.g. max level Black sets your Magic stat to the same as a Black Mage). Non-magic transfer skills always set the modifier to the class the skill comes from.
What all this means in practice is that until you learn the max level magic skill for a given job, you can't offset a mage's squishiness with a tougher base job without also eating some reduction in magic effectiveness.
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Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
I doubt they were thinking too much or at all about gender issues back in that time when they created Faris. But it'd be interesting to know how they come to the idea.
I'll never stop finding hilarious that Galuf's sprite is supposed to have a moustache, not a beard.
I looked around in the GBA advance and I can't find anywhere like that. It's goblins and killer bees everywhere I land.
That said, the boss isn't particularly hard? I remember my first time when I with monk, blue, white and thief, and only some token "let's see how this work" grinding, you just need to be on the ball for heals but he's barely much harder than the eagle boss.
From what we see, Faris seems to be strict as hell and expect her orders to be met with absolute obedience. Yet the entire crew loves her (and only one or two explicitly in a "omg he so handsome me luvs" way).
Assuming half of them might be as young as her or younger, makes you wonder what the hell she must have done during her life as a pirate to command such loyalty.