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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Amidatelion said:
FFV might be my most beloved Final Fantasy game, but when my mind flashes back to the Materia hitting the floor as the piano starts playing, I feel like crying all over again.
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I haven't really talked about the cinematography of FF7's FMVs much, because it didn't occur me to approach them this way beyond the immaculately shot intro movie, but it really is noticeable how like... VI was still 2D; it had some genuinely impressive visual flair at times, but like, the addition of PSX FMVs is a sea change in performance, and they really did a great job with it? Did someone on the dev team go and get a filmmaking degree between VI and VII lmao.

Mister Bad Guy said:
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I had actually originally thought to include this comic strip as the final picture in my update, though in the end it would have been too silly and would have needed like, a whole subsection about why I think it gets at something real and meaningful about maladaptive ways of coping with loss through the veneer of a joke that I couldn't give it. I should have known I could trust my readers to know it and post it themselves!

UnsneakyLurker said:

View: https://twitter.com/i/status/1678117975398707201
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Okay but speaking of that video's music can we talk about the fact that we haven't heard One Winged Angel at all in the game yet? At this point I feel pretty sure that its original version is going to be Sephiroth's boss track and only heard once in the game, and I'm kind of dreading experiencing the original after having two decades' worth of covers and remixes and orchestral versions and finding it kinda mid. Will it even have lyrics???

ZerbanDaGreat said:
This all is probably the strongest evidence that Aerith probably won't die in the remake continuity, because time and pop culture has transformed it into a kind of destined 'sacrifice'. The only way they could remake the impact of Aerith's death is to avoid Aerith's death and do something else just as shocking if not moreso. They've already laid the groundwork for it, as at the start of Chapter 9 Cloud has a flashforward to her death complete with notes of her theme, and in the Aerith version of Chapter 14 she explicitly warns him not to fall in love with her because of how badly she knows it'll turn out.
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So fucking excited to see what Nomura is cooking in Rebirth, Remake was my gateway drug into Final Fantasy and I am now officially obsessed

Cosar said:
Ok, is anyone else getting only about half the images to load? So far that's what I'm seeing.

20 minutes later they're all good.
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Yeah, dunno what that was about. I went to bed very quickly after posting the update, so I don't know what happened with the picture. Looks to be fixed now, though?

Zap Rowsdower said:
Also, the timing of the death did come as a surprise to me... because decades of fanart and stills had led me to believe she was kneeling in the shallow water when she got stabbed, so it happening on the platform did indeed surprise me
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OH THANK GOD I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

I don't know why or how, but one reason Aerith's death surprised me so is I thought she was kneeling in the water when she got stabbed??? I have no idea how that drift occurred, or if there even was a drift and not just my memory blending together 'Aerith is stapped in the gazebo' and 'Cloud gives Aerith's body to the water' into one scene, but there being someone else who also thought the same makes me feel less insane. Thank you.

Egleris said:
@Omicron: as others have said, you missed a Summon Materia in the sleeping forest - and it can only be obtained at this time, I believe; also, this is probably the time to mention that there's a completionist prize at the end of the game if you pick up every Materia of a given color. And! Jenova-Life (interestingly named boss, that, considering what just happened before fighting it) actually has the rare Aqualung Enemy Skill, which has the same power as Beta but is water-type. Go ahead, replay that whole sequence for completionism's sake!
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Oh, I didn't think to mention it because I haven't used it a lot, but I got Aqualung off the Chimera way back in one of the Buggy updates when I went putzing about the Gold Saucer Desert for some reason. CAN'T GET ME THAT EASILY

Gun Jam said:
Counter point - while in the scene itself she didn't get to do much, she did make decisions that led to it - namely, leaving the party to go and save things alone (recall Don's mansion? Aerith being reckless didn't come outta nowhere).
Heard people say that her death's a fridging. Because of that, can't say I agree.
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Yeah, I specifically meant within the context of her death scene; I agree that Aerith isn't a 'fridged' character and it comes in part from how much she... hasn't told us. Like, the fact that we don't really know why she went to the Forgotten City or what she was trying to accomplish here actually does work towards selling this scene because Aerith was clearly working towards an active goal unbeknownst to the rest of the cast and she just... died before she even had a chance to tell us, and now we don't know and have to find out what she was trying to achieve, which is like, the opposite of how fridging works.
 
Omicron said:
Okay but speaking of that video's music can we talk about the fact that we haven't heard One Winged Angel at all in the game yet? At this point I feel pretty sure that its original version is going to be Sephiroth's boss track and only heard once in the game, and I'm kind of dreading experiencing the original after having two decades' worth of covers and remixes and orchestral versions and finding it kinda mid. Will it even have lyrics???
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf6aMcnR9WQ

The OG track is really good, though. Don't need to worry about that.
 
Gun Jam said:
Counter point - while in the scene itself she didn't get to do much, she did make decisions that led to it - namely, leaving the party to go and save things alone (recall Don's mansion? Aerith being reckless didn't come outta nowhere).
Heard people say that her death's a fridging. Because of that, can't say I agree.
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Also, she was killed by Sephiroth while trying to do something that would interfere with Sephiroth, which goes against the basic idea of "fridging". She was killed because she was the problem the villain wanted to deal with, not as a plot device to further a (male) character's story.
 
Heh, I do recall naming Cloud "Psi Kho" and Barret "Maas Aker" (because gun-arm) when I first played it way back when. Dumb jokes but not that bad at least.
 
cB557 said:
Final Fantasy 7 lets the player choose the names of their party member which lead to a lot of teenagers naming their characters dumb jokes, leading to emotionally impactful scenes consisting of a character named GAY420GAY mourning the death of COOLRANCH.
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Ah, gotcha. I renamed Cloud because Cloud felt too much like a hippy name but I let everyone else keep theirs. I don't remember what I renamed him, but it was just some standard fantasy name, not something stupid. I'd have gotten sick of looking at some joke long before the game ended.
 
In that same vein of renamed characters, I will always distinctly remember having bought my PS1 secondhand including memory cards with FFVIII save files, which included such things as a file right at the final boss with a level 100 party. An otherwise normal level 100 party, other than the fact that one girl was, for whatever reason, renamed to "FUCK ME".

Dunno what that guy was on about, she wasn't best girl.

(Also this file is totally why I can claim to have beaten FFVIII, because otherwise on a straight playthrough I stalled out somewhere late in Disk 3)
 
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Omicron said:
OH THANK GOD I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

I don't know why or how, but one reason Aerith's death surprised me so is I thought she was kneeling in the water when she got stabbed??? I have no idea how that drift occurred, or if there even was a drift and not just my memory blending together 'Aerith is stapped in the gazebo' and 'Cloud gives Aerith's body to the water' into one scene, but there being someone else who also thought the same makes me feel less insane. Thank you.
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I was wondering if it was just me! This is some real Mandela effect shit.

Looking at it now I think it's the lighting. The "reflections off of moving water" effect on Aerith's and Sephiroth's models look a lot like it's coming from below, which is also a lot more natural of an assumption than watery lighting coming from an upside-down ocean above them.
 
Part of it might also be that most cutscene compilations concerning Aerith's death transition straight from that to the burial at sea (or, well pool). I genuinely didn't know there was a segment between the two where the party members react to her death and then Cloud picks up her body.

(The trip to the death site is also pretty important in terms of getting the lay of the house and it's ocean basement, so if you google 'Aerith Death Scene' or just don't remember it because it's been years and the moment of impact came after it, you're going to miss out on that hint too.)

Last edit I promise: I've just realised that since the trees in the background of the burial mean the party's outside, they had to have traveled back up every single winding glass stair with her.
 
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Omicron said:
CAN'T GET ME THAT EASILY
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What about the missing summon Materia in the sleeping forest? Aren't you going to collect that one?

Also, speaking of summons - you already have Odin, Leviathan, and Bahamut. I was wondering how it feels to have those three summon while knowing full well that you've a lot of game left over? Is it annoying that they've been removed from holding the "highest trio of summons" place they had held so far, in an even more decisive fashion than FFVI did? Or is that just me?
 
Got nerd sniped by the Aerith fridging discussion, I once went like 11 pages back and forth on some forum or other about that. I'll echo what seems to be thread consensus, Aerith's death is about her, not about how it will make Cloud feel. She is Sephiroth's true antag at this point, and her death is the conclusion of that struggle.
 
I think this got spoiled for me due to strategy guide, so it didn't hit hard, pluss I'd lost Tellah in FFIV so it wasn't new to me to lose a party member for good. I just vaguely remember some buggy problems with the discc change.

For that matter, I can't remember precisely where I was and how I reacted to seeing the Death of Optimus Prime, just that I cried (I was like 3-4 years old at the time, so that's an excuse). And I feel that's a comparable moment for someone born in the late 80s/90s versus someone like me born in the late 70s/early 80s.

ZerbanDaGreat said:
This all is probably the strongest evidence that Aerith probably won't die in the remake continuity, because time and pop culture has transformed it into a kind of destined 'sacrifice'. The only way they could remake the impact of Aerith's death is to avoid Aerith's death and do something else just as shocking if not moreso. They've already laid the groundwork for it, as at the start of Chapter 9 Cloud has a flashforward to her death complete with notes of her theme, and in the Aerith version of Chapter 14 she explicitly warns him not to fall in love with her because of how badly she knows it'll turn out.
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TBH, I have the strong feeling that whatever cross-timeline/crosstime chicanery is going on - note I've not completed the final chapter yet due to finding the motorcycle sequence frustrating, as losing on the boss fight forces me to repeat the entire fucking thing - is something Aerith herself has some awareness of. Red also seems to know something about the Auditors of Reality, er, sorry, I mean the Arbiters of Fate.

That said, I think there's maybe a 20% chance Aerith still dies, that the canon event happens anyway or in some altered form.

But I'm leaning far more towards it being someone else: I think it's Tifa who is going to bite it. That they're going to pull that switcheroo on us. Maybe even have it outright being Tifa taking the hit for Aerith. Because that would be just as severe a blow I think. Especially since I always typically favored her over Aerith,, LOL. :cool:

Assuming they don't go with the choice of nobody dying at all as a part of the characters defying fate. Which I think I'd be happy with too. While some of the arguments here about the good story-telling impact of a character death are authentic, and I've done it myself... I've become increasingly skeptical of "kill a character to prove the situation is serious/make us think anyone can die". It's hard to pull off and half the time comes off as going for a cheap shock death. It's why I'm kinda happy XIV didn't kill off any Scions in Endwalker and don't get as frustrated in the lack of a lasting character death as impactful as Haurchefaunt's back in 3.0. Gosetsu's would've been hitting too if it'd stuck.

Anyway did you know that Aerith was a special preorder bonus assist-only character in Dissidia 012: Duodecim and if you call her out against Sephiroth he has a hard-coded spinal reflex to target her with Hell's Gate (a move where he descends from the air and stabs his sword into the ground/his target) because now you do.
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I think I still have a recording of a match I did against the CPU in Duodecim, I controlled Yuna and fought Sephiroth, and IIRC was just me blatantly going "Okay, time for some sweet revenge by having another FF staff chick kick his ass". And I think I did mostly kick his ass, culminating with Bahamut to the face. Would need to watch it again. Do kinda regret Dissidia Duodecim didn't let Yuna do Cecil's cllass change mechanic and exchange the staff for her twin semi-autos from X-2. :D

Man, that reminds me Dissidia had some sweet original music too, and preceded FFXIV in sweet remixes and remakes of classic FF tunes. Duodecim's "God in Fire"'s got some operatic bits.
 
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Steve said:
It's why I'm kinda happy XIV didn't kill off any Scions in Endwalker and don't get as frustrated in the lack of a lasting character death as impactful as Haurchefaunt's back in 3.0. Gosetsu's would've been hitting too if it'd stuck.
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Don't be ridiculous.
Of course Endwalker didn't kill off any Scions permanently; the whole theme of 6.0-6.5 has been FFIV homages - and that means the only good guy death it contained that wouldn't have to turn out to be a fake-out to complete the homage would be the older mentor figure. The Scions killing themselves one by one and then getting better immediately was all part of the homage.
 
Zap Rowsdower said:
Don't be ridiculous.
Of course Endwalker didn't kill off any Scions permanently; the whole theme of 6.0-6.5 has been FFIV homages - and that means the only good guy death it contained that wouldn't have to turn out to be a fake-out to complete the homage would be the older mentor figure. The Scions killing themselves one by one and then getting better immediately was all part of the homage.
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You make an intriguing point, Mr. Rowsdower. Yessss.....

Also, since Omi has prompted me to remember the whole Aerith death theme happening, and since newer FF is on my head,, I shall leave you all with my own mental image for an alternative.

Imagine that scene, Sephiroth descending blade down, the music playing softly... and then cutting out with a clang as the sword meets the raised and extended shield of the Warrior of Light, Champion of Eorzea, while the music transitions to the triumphant tones of Maker's Ruin. The ass-whuppin' promptly commences.

Assuming you're not groaning at this wankery, hopefully it has brought a smile to your face.
 
cB557 said:
God though my brain is fried, I can't see this image without giggling because Sepiroth is asserting dominance in the background.
He's not even actually T-posing! His arms are too bent and he's leaning back a bit. But it's still what I see it as every time I look at this.
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Honestly, even before I learned the actual dialogue of the scene is him expounding at length about how in his perspective it's for the good of everyone that Aerith is dead, it always looked like he was supposed to be in the pose of a particularly fire-and-brimstone preacher mid-sermon to me.
 
In FFVII, he always is. If you look back to the Nibelheim flashback, he did the same thing, and in the Temple of the Ancients, he'd doing that half the time - the other half being him brandishing his sword in a threatening manner. They changed that presentation in the later spin-off to make him appear more understated and conspiratorial, but original flavor Sephiroth is theatrical to the bone and never loses the chance to act like he's the most important person to ever exist. Which fits him better, honestly.
 
Walter said:
Got nerd sniped by the Aerith fridging discussion, I once went like 11 pages back and forth on some forum or other about that. I'll echo what seems to be thread consensus, Aerith's death is about her, not about how it will make Cloud feel. She is Sephiroth's true antag at this point, and her death is the conclusion of that struggle.
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The other thing to note about Fridging is that the reason it's a problem is because it's a reoccurring pattern, and not due to any one isolated instance. So people asking 'Does this one example count as fridging?' is like looking at a single tree and not the whole forest. I also wouldn't call Aerith's death fridging, but even if it was it wouldn't alone be the issue.

Admittedly, a counterargument to this would be that reoccurring patterns are still made up of individual cases, but even one individual case doesn't make a problem alone (well, unless maybe it's an extreme example)
 
wetodet said:
Honestly, even before I learned the actual dialogue of the scene is him expounding at length about how in his perspective it's for the good of everyone that Aerith is dead, it always looked like he was supposed to be in the pose of a particularly fire-and-brimstone preacher mid-sermon to me.
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Yeah it is 100% that, and that is what it read as the times I saw it before the "assert dominance" meme became a thing. But even knowing what it's supposed to be my brain still registers it as a T-pose now.
 
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