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

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Zimmerwald1915 said:
I've heard it's a mistranslation of "Exodus" that they ran with in later ports and remasters because lol, why not?

(EDIT: Terrabrand appears to corroborate this.)
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Doing some digging into the relevant wiki pages, 'Exdeath' appears to be the final thing they have settled on, however in the Playstation port (I believe that would be the first time it was localized) he was simply X-Death, exactly as Omicron apparently reads it, there was some manner of short anime (A sequel, 200 years in the future apparently?) which supposedly has him in some capacity as 'Exodes', and all the Ivalice games use Exodus instead, even though Exodus is a clear reference to Exdeath as characters go.

The wiki indicates that he is intended to be Exdeath, as in the latin Ex attached to Death (something about being one who exceeds death?), but of course the original japanese would sound vaguely like Exodus apparently as well.

So there's a lot there I guess. No clue how much of that is like, intentional Meaningful Name stuff and how much is just It Sounds Cool or whatnot.
 
Fun fact - every time a Cid has a male relative, he's either named Mid or Mid is part of his name. Shows up at least three more times I can think of off the top of my head.

Reminder - Cid Garlond's father in XIV was Midas.

Edit: Also, the sprite doesn't do justice to how NERD Mid is.

The only reason this guy isn't wearing a pocket protector is I'm not convinced they've invented pockets yet (and no, I don't know what that thing reading over his shoulder is).
 
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Zap Rowsdower said:
Fun fact - every time a Cid has a male relative, he's either named Mid or Mid is part of his name. Shows up at least three times I can think of off the top of my head.

Reminder - Cid Garlond's father in XIV was Midas.

Edit: Also, the sprite doesn't do justice to how NERD Mid is.

The only reason this guy isn't wearing a pocket protector is I'm not convinced they've invented pockets yet (and no, I don't know what that thing reading over his shoulder is).
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Aw, he's got a little tummy on him.
 
Omicron said:
It's a little weird because it's been established that Queen Karnak built the wall to keep out the annoying scholars, and the Fire Crystal only blew up just now, so how did he even know that the fire-powered ship needed a new power source?
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It would be so easy to write around this, too. If Mid was persuaded by the Librarians that tapping the crystal was a bad idea, he's exactly the kind of guy who would immediately start searching for an solution. If nothing else it would have been easier to persuade Karnak to ease off on the crystal-power if they had a safe, sustainable alternative.

Then you could just have him declare excitedly that he found a way for the FPS to not be dependent on the crystal, and the party respond that that's lucky since, uh, bad news...
Omicron said:
We need to find it, and for that, we need a means of transportation that can take us across the whole world - we need the fire-powered ship, which is where Mid's new book discoveries come in. The book he's found shows how to power the ship by…

By…

????
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Getting Ifrit is mandatory, right? Maybe they built a boiler that he hangs out in whenever you're not summoning him to smack a fool.

It is weird that they so conspicuously decline to explain it, though.
Omicron said:
"Exdeath" is kind of an incredible name. I can't not read it as X-Death. Like, dude called himself Superkill. It is either an incredible statement of threat, or the most self-aggrandizing edginess I've seen in this series.
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"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds! No, wait, I am even more terrible than death itself! I am..."

what's more terrible than death? Uh, hmm. Taxes? Taxdeath? No, that's not it.

ah, I've got it: the only thing worse than death is my ex-wife!

"I am Exdeath!!" dramatic thunderclap
 
Warclam said:
Helmet? Wait… wait, it is a helmet, isn't it? I always thought that was a really strange and elaborate hairstyle. It is Final Fantasy after all.
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A quick look at the wiki shows that yes, he wears a helmet. Fully covers all his hair except facial hair, not to mention his eyes. It's fancy.

(wiki also points out it's dragoon-ish, which is interesting from a man with a pet dragon.)
 
Terrabrand said:
A quick look at the wiki shows that yes, he wears a helmet. Fully covers all his hair except facial hair, not to mention his eyes. It's fancy.

(wiki also points out it's dragoon-ish, which is interesting from a man with a pet dragon.)
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King Tycoon's middle name is, in fact, Highwind, fitting the "dragoon named Highwind" trend (Count so far: three). Alexander Highwind Tycoon.
 
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Omicron said:
I've been warned about this, but due to random fight happenstance there's already a small XP gap that leaves Galuf a step behind the rest of the group. Hopefully it'll be enough when we get there; I'll try to zip back to the Library as soon as the rest of the party hits lv 26.
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You're going to want more than a small gap. The Xlvl spells can be pretty deadly. Lvl5 death is the one most guaranteed to cause a party wipe to the unprepared, but the other ones are mostly no joke either. Lvl3/Lvl4 SPOILERS can cause wipes pretty easily too. Lvl2 is the only one that isn't super nasty, which makes sense given how widely applicable it is.
 
Omicron said:
This is what I'm going to call a very Final Fantasy move. It's growing more and more apparent to me over time that while Final Fantasy often has this kind of… 'incidental' threats to the world, stuff like Garlemald's imperialism (FFXIV), Shinra's over-exploitation of natural resources (FFVII), Palamecia's conquests (FFII), Baron's greed (FFIV), these are all ultimately backdrop for a cosmic threat or pure evil kind of deal ([REDACTED], Jenova, Actual Hell,
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To be fair, when you go to Actual Hell, it's still just to fight the same asshole Emperor who wants to conquer everything you've been dealing with the entire time. There's nothing eldritch here so much as a megalomaniac that just won't stop his imperialism, even dead.
 
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Omicron said:
Getting a lot of FFXIV meta lore today!

For the non-players: in the Heavensward expansion of FFXIV, we are introduced to two things. One is the Great Gubal Library, a massive magical library that is full of possessed books, that we have to venture into to find a specific plot-relevant book, and its final boss is Byblos. The other is an important friendly NPC called Krile.

Now, FFXIV's Krile is an adult woman, not a child. However, she's also a lalafell, meaning she looks like this:

​
And I'd be willing to bet that it's in reference to this Krile, who appears - though it's hard to judge from sprites - younger than the rest of the cast.
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Quick minor translation trivia for non-FFXIV players: Lalafell names are usually in a sort of sing-song rhyming pattern, like "Tataru Taru" or "Milala Mila". So Krile in FFXIV has a non-standard name for a Lalafell, which is explained as her being adopted and taking the name style of her adoptive grandparent.

However, in the original Japanese for FFV, Krile's name is "Kururu", which is a perfectly valid Lalafell name. So it's an example of name localization decisions that caused some minor lore disconnects between games with completely different settings.
 
Omicron said:
And I'd be willing to bet that it's in reference to this Krile, who appears - though it's hard to judge from sprites - younger than the rest of the cast.
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Krile XIV's adoptive grandfather is Galuf Baldesion, so yes that is exactly what it is. Make the youngest cast member's expy into one of the new game's short race, and then make her style all over XIV's young characters.

Krile is the best.
 
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Omicron said:
Level 5 Death, as has been said in the thread, is a spell that targets the whole enemy screen and instantly kills anyone with a level that's a multiple of 5. A very, very tasty prize…
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Okay, so Level 5 Death opens up a very odd quirk in this game. Traditionally enemies in most JRPGs either have a flag making them immune to instant death effects or are fully vulnerable. In FFV however, the game has three different flags for the same purpose, one for immunity to Death, one for Undead, and one colloquially known as 'Heavy', which provides immunity to several different things such as %-based damage.

FFV can't make up it's mind however, as different Death effects check for different flags. Heavy and Death Immune combined do protect against everything; except Level 5 Death which only checks Undead (and level). This is definitely 100% not abusable I swear on several of the harder fights in the game.
 
I love those library battle screens. I am surprised I have never seen them until now despite totally being the kind of person to click on some 'top 10 coolest jrpg environments' video,

McFluffles said:
Yeah, it's... a surprisingly common issue, now that you point it out. Not naming specifics, I can think of at least two or three other FF games that have a similar "but ignore all that possible real-world parallel stuff, time for big evil space baddies and wizards and demons or something" vibe by the end. Which works, I suppose, but it can be somewhat disappointing at times to go from the evils of man to "actually it was all because of Zeemus" or whatever else.
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The issue of completely yeeting your built-up themes as soon as it's time for that final twist is far more widespread than just Final Fantasy. One recent external example that immediately comes to mind is Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
 
VII and XIV at least start seeding that the initial foe isn't the only threat you have to face fairly quickly, even if it takes a while to fully develop.
 
Omicron said:
This is what I'm going to call a very Final Fantasy move. It's growing more and more apparent to me over time that while Final Fantasy often has this kind of… 'incidental' threats to the world, stuff like Garlemald's imperialism (FFXIV), Shinra's over-exploitation of natural resources (FFVII), Palamecia's conquests (FFII), Baron's greed (FFIV), these are all ultimately backdrop for a cosmic threat or pure evil kind of deal ([REDACTED], Jenova, Actual Hell, Golbez and then Zeemus). In Final Fantasy, an evil corporation or warlike empire is rarely if ever the endgame.
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McFluffles said:
Yeah, it's... a surprisingly common issue, now that you point it out. Not naming specifics, I can think of at least two or three other FF games that have a similar "but ignore all that possible real-world parallel stuff, time for big evil space baddies and wizards and demons or something" vibe by the end. Which works, I suppose, but it can be somewhat disappointing at times to go from the evils of man to "actually it was all because of Zeemus" or whatever else.
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Interestingly FFXII almost inverts that with the Occuria ending up as the back drop to the "evil" empire

Yes the was an Occuria assisting Vayne, but Vayne would have tried the things that he did with or without Venat's assistance.
 
Omicron said:
Level 5 Death, as has been said in the thread, is a spell that targets the whole enemy screen and instantly kills anyone with a level that's a multiple of 5. A very, very tasty prize…

…unfortunately, my characters are currently lv 21. And in order to learn Level 5 Death, you have to have it actually work on you, which means the character with Learn needs to died and be revived before the end of the fight.

I am not grinding 4 entire levels just so Galuf can learn this spell right now. We'll come back later.
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The library also has quite a few Blue Magic spells to learn. Moon Flute, Toad, etc... even Byblos has Magic Hammer, which halves a target's MP. But if you didn't learn it from him, there's other places you can, so don't fret it too much.

Also, be sure to check the books on the roof of the library again for Blue Magic spells.
McFluffles said:
I'll correct just one thing here, no elaboration on the rest: that's not the same werewolf as the one from the meteor, he has a slightly different fur color (flashback werewolf is brown/blonde colored, meteor werewolf was more grey/black).
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Yeah, it's not the same werewolf.
McFluffles said:
That's actually a pretty interesting way to do a Krile reference, ngl. And since we're mentioning ages (which don't actually come up in the game) and I got curious and looked them up a bit ago, might as well list a few here:
Bartz - 20
Lenna - 19
Galuf - 60
Faris - 20
Krile - 14

Really, the most surprising ones to me personally are Krile (who seems maybe 12 at most) and the smaller than expected age gap between Lenna and Faris. In particular, with how they're shown during the Castle Tycoon flashback bit to them being sisters, I'd peg Faris as being at least 3 or 4 when Lenna is little more than a newborn child.

But hey, that's fantasy ages for you. Maybe they didn't want too much of an age gap between Bartz and Lenna for shipping purposes.
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ZerbanDaGreat said:
That's wild as shit, I figured Faris for 19-20 but I always assumed Bartz and Lenna were more in the 15-16 range, and Galuf more of a mid-50s.
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I agree; there should at least be a couple years between Lenna and Faris, but I pegged Bartz as either being between the two or closer Lenna's age.
Zap Rowsdower said:
Fun fact - every time a Cid has a male relative, he's either named Mid or Mid is part of his name. Shows up at least three more times I can think of off the top of my head.

Reminder - Cid Garlond's father in XIV was Midas.

Edit: Also, the sprite doesn't do justice to how NERD Mid is.

The only reason this guy isn't wearing a pocket protector is I'm not convinced they've invented pockets yet (and no, I don't know what that thing reading over his shoulder is).
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A) Interesting fact about the Cid/Mid relationship, and;
B) Oh god why hasn't Mid been bullied for his lunch money yet? Then again, when you're a lvl 10+ Artificer (you have to be in order to be able to match your super-genius inventor gramps), bullies either learn to leave you alone, or they learn how quickly human flesh can catch fire.
Warclam said:
Helmet? Wait… wait, it is a helmet, isn't it? I always thought that was a really strange and elaborate hairstyle. It is Final Fantasy after all.
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So basically you're saying you though the guy was a Guado from FFX?
pedanterrific said:
"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds! No, wait, I am even more terrible than death itself! I am..."

what's more terrible than death? Uh, hmm. Taxes? Taxdeath? No, that's not it.

ah, I've got it: the only thing worse than death is my ex-wife!

"I am Exdeath!!" dramatic thunderclap
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Given who Exdeath is (SPOILERS, btw), that would be absolutely hilarious.
kairuf said:
Interestingly FFXII almost inverts that with the Occuria ending up as the back drop to the "evil" empire

Yes the was an Occuria assisting Vayne, but Vayne would have tried the things that he did with or without Venat's assistance.
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Overall, JRPGs prefer to have epic villains rather than human ones, facing off against supernatural entities rather than mundane evil. Arguably, SHINRA can be said to originally be the Big Bad, they just messed around with something they shouldn't have and unleashed a much bigger evil, which still fits FFVII's themes of environmentalism and hubris.[/spoiler]
 
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Great Gubal Library is great and all, but it's not 'All the book monsters tuck in their (library) chains because Big Dick Ifrit is strolling by' great.

What a brilliant idea.
Omicron said:
"Exdeath" is kind of an incredible name. I can't not read it as X-Death. Like, dude called himself Superkill. It is either an incredible statement of threat, or the most self-aggrandizing edginess I've seen in this series.
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I always assumed it was either a boast or a statement of intent. Aren't all the cool villains looking for immortality? "Death has no hold over me any longer! I am Ex-Death!"
 
Terrabrand said:
Doing some digging into the relevant wiki pages, 'Exdeath' appears to be the final thing they have settled on, however in the Playstation port (I believe that would be the first time it was localized) he was simply X-Death, exactly as Omicron apparently reads it, there was some manner of short anime (A sequel, 200 years in the future apparently?) which supposedly has him in some capacity as 'Exodes', and all the Ivalice games use Exodus instead, even though Exodus is a clear reference to Exdeath as characters go.

The wiki indicates that he is intended to be Exdeath, as in the latin Ex attached to Death (something about being one who exceeds death?), but of course the original japanese would sound vaguely like Exodus apparently as well.
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If we're going Latin, since "Ex Machina" means "From the machine" perhaps his name means "From Death."
 
Apparently his original Japanese name is 'Ekusudesu', written in katakana (most often used for English loanwords). No idea if that clarifies anything
 
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