Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Agrias: No.
Ovelia: I think you would surely look quite fetching...
Agrias:
Agrias: OK.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Ovelia: I think you would surely look quite fetching...
Agrias:
Agrias: OK.
I forget if you're one of the people in this thread who plays FF14, so I'm not sure if you knew the fact that boss Agrias upon being defeated ends her 'good job' line with "My Ovelia awaits." Which, uh... I'm not sure which of this joke post you made and that quote is more laden with subtext.
Also for some reason Agrias is fought in a zone labeled 'Realm of the Templars' when she herself was a member of the Lionsguard and the only member of Ramza's party to have been affiliated with the Templars was Meliadoul, who, again, never appears in the Return to Ivalice storyline.
It might be because, now that I think about it, the Orbonne raid encounters are sort of set up to parallel the Orbonne chain battles in Tactics, with Mustadio and his room full of turrets and robots standing in for the Machinist with a bunch of monsters, while Agrias and Cid represent some combination of Folmarv/Hashmal's knight duo and the Lucavi-possessed man himself, but in that case why don't they include Meliadoul at any point, seeing as her presence would make the connection to Folmarv's troops more obvious being as she's the man's daughter?
Even if they decided the Rapha/Marach and Beowulf/Reis duos weren't worth including from the list of people with some semblance of actual personalities Ramza recruits (that aren't cameos), surely a double-boss encounter with Agrias and Meliadoul wouldn't have been too out of place compared to, say, the random tacked-on ones at the beginning of the raid or between Agrias and Cid where you just fight a bunch of monsters for no reason?
This was meant to be a joke post but turned into a rant about the Orbonne raid's encounter design. I'm sorry for that.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Even I, a person whose direct experience with FFT was limited to watching a friend play the final boss fights and little else, managed to pick up enough through osmosis and the occasional plot read that the first time I ran through Orbonne my reaction was "oh hey did they just canonize the yuri that's cool."
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Meanwhile I'm thinking about how, like, Hashmal in the Ivalice Raids is just... Some random boss? Mid-dungeon, even, not the final boss of his dungeon? What a long way to fall.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Even worse, he loses out to Argath as final boss of that dungeon.
It's incredible that the second raid has its whole narrative be that you're pursuing a resistance fighter who's gone too far and gotten himself possessed by an Auracite chunk he got his hands on, Belias is in said raid as a boss, and these two facts are basically completely unrelated.
Also for some reason the tower / lighthouse you're fighting through just... randomly turns out to also be Goug, somehow? And this lighthouse-with-a-city-on-top also the original Garlean homeland before they left for the one that's actually relevant to the narrative of later expansions and then got forced out of that too? Also for some reason basically the entire city is in pristine condition so there's no reason for them to have abandoned it I can tell?
Why not - going out on a limb here - have the lighthouse be within the confines of what used to be Goug, if we need to shove Goug in here for no apparent reason?
Edit: Also, for how much Return to Ivalice loves shoving Tactics references in the player's face without actually doing much with them, you'd think it'd include more of Tactics' roster of Lucavi than just Hashmal, Belias, and Ultima, or at least give the two it did the same short bit of screen time as their human form before the fight starts that it does for Argath and the Orbonne party member bosses.
Not that the human appearance they use for Argath actually resembles either his Chapter 1 appearance or how he looks in the WotL rematch, but this is the same raid series where every single step features people following behind you to say "Look, it's a thing from Tactics! It's incredible how cool this thing from Tactics is!" every time you encounter something as banal as 'there's an Archaeodemon in this pack of trash mobs.' Orbonne is the worst offender, with the NPCs following you around to watch you do all the work mostly just going "Wow who's that they look really cool and intimidating" before each of the Mustadio, Agrias, and Cid fights, then go "Wow we sure learned a lot about that person from their contextless combat barks and references to people we've never actually met, I will spend the rest of my life wishing I were as cool as them" afterwards, but the earlier two don't hesitate to have the NPCs ramble at you about how incredible it is that you've found Lesalia and Goug without actually explaining why either of those places should matter to you, you'd think they'd give you contextless lines from dialogue boxes labeled Folmarv and Wiegraf that said NPCs can marvel over.
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Other than the "Maybe switch where Goug and the lighthouse are relative to each other so we're spending less time wondering how nobody on the airship we took to get here noticed an entire city being on top of this building and more thinking 'Oh, this place must be important if they're talking about it like that'" thing, most of my complaints there weren't worldbuilding, they were "Why are you including only two of the plot-important Lucavi, and why are you treating them as throwaway bosses when you're willing to spend so much time lavishing attention on other characters?"
Edit: I am aware that Adrammalech shows up in Bozja, by the by, so that makes, what, three of the four? He's still treated as a throwaway boss who's basically just there to say a line from Tactics and then die. I also realized I forgot my most major 'why the hell is this bit from Tactics here' gripe in Return to Ivalice - Ultima, for some reason, spouts off her whole spiel about how she's suddenly realized the person she's fighting is descended from the one who killed her previously, but for some reason it's directed at the player character. It made no sense as a least-minute reveal in Tactics, it makes even less in a setting like 14.
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The Ivalice raids are probably my favourite alliance raids in the game to actually play and I am an unironic defender of Bozja gameplay (it's fun! I got a lot of mileage out of it!) but narratively they are both pretty bad lol, yeah.
The best I can say for Bozja is that it was a better speed leveler than the Deep Dungeons... which is a great example of why leveling off-classes should not take more than an hour.
- Pronouns
- She/They
... I kinda liked the Ivalice and Bozja story content. Like sure they were overly wordy, but what was there was pretty alright!
MiskWisk
Hoot
- Location
- Somewhere devoid of wit
- Pronouns
- He
My main issue with Return to Ivalice and Bozja isn't that I think the storylines were bad, at least in concept (execution wise there were definitely things that could have been done better), but rather that they could have been so much better.
I can't fully talk about my ideas since that would be potentially spoiling XII, but at the very least I'd say they should have leaned more into the Espers as actual characters by pulling on the Tactics material while using the actual plot of XII as a framework rather than as setting for the first half of RTI. That might be an issue with the Alliance Raid storyline structure though, we only got to properly interact with the ARaid bosses in Myths of the Realm.
I'd say the main issues with Bozja meanwhile are Misija's arc which needs either scrapping or heavily reworking, and the fact that the environment is a massive step down from Eureka.
Ya like muddy brown? Here, have endless environments of nothing but muddy brown plains.
I can't fully talk about my ideas since that would be potentially spoiling XII, but at the very least I'd say they should have leaned more into the Espers as actual characters by pulling on the Tactics material while using the actual plot of XII as a framework rather than as setting for the first half of RTI. That might be an issue with the Alliance Raid storyline structure though, we only got to properly interact with the ARaid bosses in Myths of the Realm.
I'd say the main issues with Bozja meanwhile are Misija's arc which needs either scrapping or heavily reworking, and the fact that the environment is a massive step down from Eureka.
Ya like muddy brown? Here, have endless environments of nothing but muddy brown plains.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
the real benefit of starting a playthrough with a PSX emulator is that i can obsessively turn the crt filter on and off again several times an hour trying to find which version of the image "looks best"
You should alternate it in the screenshots and see if anyone in thread notices.
I really like it's sequel: "fucking around with the rendering and resolution settings until you get so confused you just set everything back to default." And the spin off: "fuck that looked really good for this one specific screen, but it looks like shit in the next one."
By the by Omi your not actually done with tactics final fantasy 9 can't come yet until you go over this! Kek
marathonrecaps.wordpress.com
Final Fantasy Tactics – Appendix: The Sound Novels… Complete!
Back when I originally covered FFT, I dedicated a single, appendix post to its four, Japanese-exclusive Sound Novels. Unfortunately, we hadn’t actually played them because they had hadn’…
marathonrecaps.wordpress.com
BarnabusBarnabus
Something like spice and something like pine.
- Location
- A beach, limned in silver like the painted moon.
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Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
i'm sorry whatBy the by Omi your not actually done with tactics final fantasy 9 can't come yet until you go over this! Kek
Final Fantasy Tactics – Appendix: The Sound Novels… Complete!
Back when I originally covered FFT, I dedicated a single, appendix post to its four, Japanese-exclusive Sound Novels. Unfortunately, we hadn’t actually played them because they had hadn’…
Article: At this point, we've covered basically everything an international player would expect from a Final Fantasy Tactics playthrough, minus Midlight's Deep. But what about a Japanese player? Well… remember FFT's Errands, and the artefacts they sometimes rewarded? You know, the ones that referenced past Final Fantasy games, accelerating the grand, incestuous tradition of Final Fantasy cross-references to the state it's in today? In international versions of FFT, there's only one artefact you get to examine up close: the Scriptures of Germonique. But this wasn't the case in the Japanese release, where all the other book artefacts can be experienced as "sound novels." These were never officially translated, not even in international versions of the remake, and only got working fan-translations a few years back!
there were entire mini-stories in the game that neither port bothered to translate??? what the hell???
Wild, isn't it? This is my blog, btw. Every time someone spreads a rumour about a new FFT remake, I'm there crossing my fingers going, "This time, translate the sound novels. This time, translate the sound novels!" They're probably the one, weird, Final Fantasy tie-in I'm most attached to, and we've covered so many weird ones that they have their own directory. We're currently knee-deep in three and a half million Chocobo games as we try to mop up even more spinoffs we've missed. I do not begrudge you sticking to the numbered titles!
I'm glad to see another long-form writer trying to take on the entire Final Fantasy series, and I quite enjoyed your final thoughts on FFT! I hope you enjoy FFIX coming up, that's one of my favourites.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Me: "In VII the game opened with the Mako Reactor Raid, which is a fairly neat beginning-and-end story beat with a boss and a chance to see both the characterization of the first party members and the mechanics of the combat and ends in a relatively self-contained way, so that made for a perfect opener to cover in the first update. And as it turns out, IX also begins with a relatively self-contained story beat that ends on a boss fight and a natural stopping point, so I should do the same thing and cover it in full in the first update!"
Also me: failing to realize that the Mako Reactor Raid was like thirty minutes beginning to end whereas the equivalent prologue in IX is an hour and a half
anyway this first update will be like 12k words so enjoy that i guess
Also me: failing to realize that the Mako Reactor Raid was like thirty minutes beginning to end whereas the equivalent prologue in IX is an hour and a half
anyway this first update will be like 12k words so enjoy that i guess
Thank you for the kind words and also your work on these recaps, and welcome to the thread!
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Final Fantasy IX, Part 1.A: The Kidnapping of Princess Garnet
New
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Preamble: A Short History of Console Time
The year is 1994. Square releases Final Fantasy VI on the SNES. Months later, a new console enters the market; the PlayStation. For three years, the world is without a Final Fantasy game, until VII releases on PlayStation and makes gaming history. It is followed by VIII on the same console, two years later.
The fascinating, rough, often frustrating, at times beautiful story of VIII culminates in Time Compression, when past, present and future all collapse into a single point. Perhaps it is fitting, then, than what follows Final Fantasy VIII is a sort of Time Compression of its own. VIII is released in February, 1999. In September of the same year, the PlayStation 2 is announced, a console that promises to cement Sony's leadership in the console war and become a monument to gaming with a lifetime of over a decade.
The PS2 will be released in March 2000. Final Fantasy IX, the following game in the FF series, will be released in July 2000, on the original PlayStation. Time has been compressed; present and future have collapsed; the latest entry in the widely acclaimed Final Fantasy series will come out on a previous-generation console after the release of the industry-warping PS2 juggernaut. Past continues into the future. Final Fantasy IX emerges not merely at the tail end of the PSX's lifetime, but in its afterlife, as its successor has already stepped onto the stage. IX's own successor, Final Fantasy X, is already being developed, and it promises to be "one of the…" You know the rest.
So that leaves IX. A game which sold less than VIII, which itself sold less than VII. The lowest-selling game in the 3D era of the Final Fantasy series. A game that deployed every single trick mastered by Square to draw the most out of the PlayStation console, a game strong of five years of PSX experience, of the lessons learned in VII and VIII. And yet already overshadowed. It will be given one year, almost to the day, before the next entry comes in and sweeps the board.
Obviously IX is not forgotten. It is a mainline entry in one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. And yet… It's impossible to escape the feeling that it is the small, unassuming child of the family. The overlooked one. VIII was controversial, yes, it had many flaws, but VIII is the brooding teenager of the family, it's dramatic, it's bold, it throws out ideas and doesn't commit. It's possessed of teenaged passions and a teenaged lack of follow-through. You might not be satisfied with it, but you certainly won't forget it existed. IX, though…
Well, perhaps there is a symbolism in the fact that all of its characters are shorter than the ones before. The youngest sibling, easily overlooked.
…
Unlike every other game in this series, I have played Final Fantasy IX before nearly to the end, once.
It was over twenty years ago now. My recollections are… Spotty. I remember specific plot beats, elements of characterization, but very little of the overall structure of the plot. I know the name of the main villain, but not what motivates them.
What I recall most of all about FF9 is a feeling. An atmosphere. A game whose aesthetic sensibilities are polar opposites to FF8's; a return to a kind of fantasy that was not, for me, my first exposure to Final Fantasy, and so was strange and novel, even as it may have been more familiar to a general audience.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. All these years ago, I never finished FF9, never crosses that final threshold.
Today, perhaps I will.
Hello again, dear readers.
Let's dive into Final Fantasy IX.
I. The Tantalus Theatre Troupe
Before everything else, before even the opening title, there is an opening montage. It's very short, much less of a distinct plot hook as VIII's duel between Seifer and Squall; rather, it's a sweeping view of beautiful vistas overlaid on a map that suggests the breadth of this fantasy world, its kingdoms and its cities:
Vast towering cities, airships flying over the mists, a distinct Early Modern vibe to it all. It's too short for us to learn anything much, but it's enough to inspire a feeling - some grand adventure is about to start, in a world perhaps more magical than we're used to.
Cut to title screen.
This time, the game's logo is some kind of orerry-looking contraption around what looks like a shining crystal. Could this be the return of Crystals as major elements of the game's story? They disappeared after V, so that'd be interesting.
We select New Game, and are greeted with a tense, dramatic opening cinematic. A ship is tossed over the waves amid a storm-wracked sea…
Two figures are sitting inside that ship, wrapped in heavy cloaks: A young woman, and an older one. We see their faces only briefly, but they are modeled so startlingly alike that there can be no doubt these are a mother and daughter. And as the camera zooms in on the older one's face, it transitions seamlessly to another girl waking up today in the middle of a frightful dream…
The brief beat of the mother's face went by too quickly for me to capture it.
It's only a glimpse, but it seems clear that we were looking at a nightmare drawn from the memories of this young woman - that she must have been the child of the two on that skiff, grown older now, though still younger than her mother was at the time.
Keep this in mind for later.
The young woman rubs her eyes, still shaking off sleep from her sudden awakening. She looks out the window at the bright day, and she's wearing a beautiful white robe and a diadem - she is, clearly, a person of importance, nobility or royalty of some kind.
She stands at the window, and the camera sweeps into a view out of a beautiful, enormous castle, and onto the city that surrounds it…
Flocks of white birds pass through the sky. In contrast to the grey storm-wracked sea of her dream, we are presented with beautiful waters, clear skies, white birds, cozy little red roofs, mills whose wings turn peacefully in the wind. A white castle towers at the heart of the city, dominating it with its strength, its shining walls, and the enormous central… Structure rising from between its towers (we'll get a better look at it in a bit).
The camera moves up, above the clouds, and a figurehead emerges - a winged mermaid, at the head of a massive, flying ship.
This is FF9's first big surprise: We are starting in an airship. Its wooden hull and elaborate towers evoke the great ships of the Age of Sail, though this one lacks sails - it is driven by some other, unseen means. It's also much larger than such ships ever were, almost a floating castle unto itself.
The camera enters the ship, and we see a fireman's pole - and a young man descending from it.
We only see his back, but there are several notable features. His features are different from the tall, photorealistic appearance of VIII's characters, more squished, giving him more of the look of a character from a cartoon. He's blond, with thick boots and gloves but bare arms, a kind of 'adventury' look to his clothes. Also?
He has a tail. Like a monkey's tail. Like Son Goku.
Wild.
Goku enters a dark room, and this is where we transition to in-engine graphics.
So this is our first playable character. He quickly cracks a match, holding it between his hand, and we're given the opportunity to explore the small room until we find a candle and light it up.
Ah, gorgeous, gorgeous PSX pre-rendered backgrounds. How I've missed you.
There's a knock on the door, and as the boy answers, we're given a chance to name him.
…
In my childhood, this character's default name was Djidane. As far as I can tell this is because, at the time, Zinedine Zidane was a football player of such earth-shaking popularity in France that it would have been impossible to look at this guy and not snicker a little.
Of course, today I'm writing for a mainly English-speaking audience decades after Zidane's heyday, so we'll keep his name as is. But it still feels weird.
Zidane calls out to the people on the other side of the door, and they enter.
What a lovely collection of weirdos. We're definitely not dealing with the relatively homogenous look of the VIII characters; we have some muscular dude with pointy hair and tusks called Marcus, a dude with a pot-belly wearing a literal pot on his head and a red nose called Cinna, and a guy in pseudo-fetish gear wearing a leather blindfold called Blank. I knew him as "Frank" from the French version, but this is much cooler.
Zidane asks where's the boss, Cinna says he hasn't arrived yet, and then there's a great noise and the door on the other side of the room opens and a… Dragon-headed man enters!?
The creature roars, and initiates battle.
Alright! No "spending half an hour wandering around campus before we even get into a fight" this time around, the game is introducing us to its combat within about a minute of the first cutscene. And with a full party, too! Though something is telling me that most of these guys aren't going to be with us on a permanent basis - call it a hunch.
And oh, joy. The four-man party is back. No longer will we be shackled to three-men party comps that incentivize every character to be a generalist because there isn't enough room for specialization! At last we can run Fighter-Thief-Black Mage-White Mage again, or whatever!
Well, once we have our real party unlocked, anyway. Because there's something fascinating the game is telling us about these guys right here and there in the UI…
Every single one of them is a thief.
As in, literally, they all have the Steal Command. It's also, for Marcus, Cinna and Blank, their only Command other than Attack and Item. Zidane is the only one with a unique Command - "Skill," which will likely gain in use later; it's a menu command which likely has several options eventually, but right now all he has unlocked is Flee, which runs away from battle with increased odds, and we don't care about that right now (and probably can't use it anyway, as this is a story battle).
So we're looking at a band of thieves, one of whom has Special Character status. Zidane, notably, also dual wields dagger; this doesn't, sadly, results in two hits per attacks like the ninjas of past game - maybe that'll be a later upgrade.
As a battle, this is fairly straightforward. The dragon-headed man shouts "Gwahahaha!" and "Get some!" while waving his cutlass and doing basic attacks, and we basic attack right back at him. It gives us the opportunity to Steal from him, though; and notably we can steal from him more than once. This is a first! Our first Steal gets us a Potion, the second gets us a Mage Masher, which based on precedent is going to be some kind of dagger, and the third gets us a Wrist, before the command returns "Doesn't have anything." to inform us that further thievery is useless. That's neat! If we're going to have a character permanently shackled to the Thief class and the Steal command, which historically haven't been… great… Then having Steal tables with multiple items per opponent could be a real boon.
Once we have everything we want from the weird man, we beat him up until his dragon head, which was actually a mask, splits in two, revealing that this was all a prank by the thieves' boss, Baku.
Not that taking away the dragon head makes him any less of a weirdo: The man is, as far as I can tell from the low-def graphics, a pig. Like, he has a snout. And surprisingly large ears too, so perhaps he's a bat instead…?
The fight over, all our thieves are standing around or lying about looking completely exhausted while Baku laughs and tells them to hurry it up and start with the meeting in the next room.
Perhaps not all of VIII's sensibilities have been overruled in the change to IX, though, because we kick off the plot with a surprisingly villainous plot: Our thieves are part of the "infamous band of daring thieves" Tantalus, which are also somehow a popular theatre troupe under that exact same name, and they're heading to the Kingdom of Alexandria to abduct Princess Garnet, no doubt the same princess we saw in the opening. Their plan: To put up the kingdom's most popular play, "I Want to Be Your Canary," in which Marcus will have the leading role. Meanwhile, Blank and Zidane will sneak into the castle - Blank will use some kind of pest called "oglobs" to cause a distraction in the crowd (Blank notes that he can't stand the critters, but he'll manage), while Zidane sneaks away and abducts the Princess himself. Here, we're given a dialogue choice to show that we've been following; we can either correctly say Zidane is supposed to capture Princess Garnet, or that he is supposed to kidnap Queen Brahne, her mother. Baku comments that Garnet is the most "babe-ilicious beauty in all of Alexandria," which is…
Wait a minute. Daring thieves with an infamous reputation? Mounting a fake stage play? Abducting a woman renowned for her beauty? Using an airship?
This is Setzer and the opera from FFVI, is what it is! And you're making me play as Setzer! The ignominy!
A closer look at our cast of ruffians. Notably, the dialogue boxes have been improved with arrows so we can no longer be confused as to who's talking. Note that Marcus appears to be some kind of orc; he has pointy ears, tusks, and is the most muscular of the group by far, which makes him being the lead actor a neat twist. Note also how Blank is wearing a blindfold and leaning against the wall like a cool guy. Here's a secret: When I was a kid, I thought Blank/Frank was the coolest motherfucker alive. We'll find out soon whether that was entirely down to his attitude and his outfit, or whether there was more to him.
And to my surprise… That's it! After this brief and tantalizing (har har) introduction, we transition to a new cutscene, and a new character.
Wow, it's been a minute since we saw the old Black Mage design with the blue robe, pointy hat, and black hole for a face. Since V, in fact. Which makes me wonder, now that we're seeing it in 3D - is there going to be a moment when we take off that hat and find out that this Black Mage is just a normal dude under it, or is something spooky going on? I genuinely don't remember the answer!
This tiny BLM watches as the Tantalus airship flies overhead, casting the entire street in shadow… We follow the ship as it heads for the central palace, pull away, and…
Cue title card.
Also, yes. That thing standing out from the middle of the castle towers? That's a sword. That is a blade several hundreds of feet high. What the fuck.
II. The Most Adorable Black Mage You Ever Did See
We cut back to the game, where we see one of the streets of the city, and our little black mage making his way, clutching a ticket… Only to be knocked over by a careless passerby.
The city name card appearing over the poor kid being sprawled over alone in the street is just mean.
That poor kid. And he is a kid; it's not clear how old exactly, but he's noticeably shorter than most everyone he encounters, and everyone talks about him like a child without him protesting.
A little girl shows the kindness the rest of the crowd didn't, and picks up his ticket and hands it back to him, asking if he's "awright." And then we take control of the little Black Mage.
Oh hey, let's check out the menu.
MP is back, and our mysterious boy does indeed have the Command "Blk Mag" and can equip staffs and hats, and he knows only one spell so far - Fire. It looks like we're back to a more traditional class system after the various, increasingly intricate iterations on class-less systems of the past games. There's also a weird… Medallion? Next to a 14/14 note, but we can't seem to do anything with that so far. So let's explore Alexandria!
Kids are playing on the plaza, nobles are standing around muttering about how dreadful the sight of The Poors is to behold… Of note is that it turns out our theatre troupe of tricky thieves wasn't an exception; "humanity" in Final Fantasy IX turns out to be a broad concept, and we find nobles who are dog people, bird people, a kid who's literally a hippo… There are fish people, too, I'll try to catch a screenshot where we see them well.
There's also, hm.
The uniform of the Alexandrian soldiers.
They are wearing leotards under a boob plates, oversized helmets, and a whole bunch of belts. And nothing else.
I mean??? Props for having what's apparently a mostly-female army??? But why are they dressed like that.
Well, let's move on. The guards won't let us out of the city because it's too dangerous for a kid, so we turn around and explore more. There's a plaque by the statue with a brief story of its female general who fought in the 9th Lindblum War at only 13 years old. So now we know there's a place called Lindblum and war with them is an incredibly common occurrence.
…
So, there's something I've touched upon before in this Let's Play, but not in a while. So let's refresh everyone's minds by quoting myself from Final Fantasy VII:
This aspect - the "barging in people's homes to rummage through their drawers" that's often a cliché associated with JRPGs like Final Fantasy - was actually largely absent from the series until VII, and then didn't reappear in VIII (where Draw Points served as the stand-in for hidden loot). Even in VII, there was still a sort of internal logic to it; the fact that you can enter anyone's home doesn't make much sense, but at least the option to grab some gil from a kid's drawers is explicitly because the kid is asleep while you're doing it.
I'm going through all this again because IX is going to be playing this cliché incredibly straight in a way no other game has before. Check out this house:
God these are gorgeous.
I can steal some poor grandma's savings of 9 Gil while she's standing right there and won't do anything. But that's not all. By investigating that table in the corner, I can also find a Potion! And then I can climb up to that little dresser above and steal a playing card (more on the card game in a later update) from it. There are three steal points in this one house.
How did I know that, you ask? Well, you see, in FF9, when your character is in front of a point where you can grab an item, a little speech bubble with an exclamation mark appears over their head.
Like this, but an exclamation mark instead of a question mark. So I forgot to screenshot the one I wanted to show, sue me.
This tells you to press X and obtain an item.
There is, I am pretty sure, at least one item point per screen in this sequence. Some of them have multiple. There's a tavern; it contains a Potion, 27 Gil, and another playing card.
This means the natural incentive the game is creating is to have your character just hug every wall in the game to check for item drops.
In the process of playing this singular sequence with the Big Hat Kid, without using any guide, I have found the following:
That's fifteen individual item spots in a fairly short sequence, and I have almost definitely missed some. And like… It wouldn't matter if I missed them, right? There has never been a Final Fantasy game where two potions or 100 Gil was critical to success even in the early game. But also it's free stuff. I can't just ignore it. And that means hugging every wall in the game and breaking into people's homes to loot their drawers while they stare blankly at us like some demented kleptomaniac critter. It's very strange.
With that out of the way, let's get on with Big Hat Kid's story.
The ticketmaster is a… Dog?
Before handing our ticket to the ticketmaster, we can ask him some general culture question - it looks like Big Hat Kid is kind of a country kid, not used to the big city and unfamiliar with a lot of Alexandria's whole deal.
Notably, the ticketmaster says that I Wanna be Your Canary will be performed by "the Tantalus Company," "star performers from Lindblum, the regency to the west." So the Tantalus Company go by that name in public, and they're famous. I'm guessing that the whole "thief" shtick is something they've managed to keep hidden from everyone, committing crimes while touring, and no one's connected the dots yet. We also learn that Princess Garnet is sixteen, the "most beautiful princess in the history of Alexandria," but that her mother, Queen Brahne, has had strange rumors surround her lately, though no further detail.
Unfortunately, upon handing out his ticket, our boy finds out that… It's a fake! He's been swindled! Whoever sold him that ticket scammed him. The Ticketmaster actually does seem to be sorry for his misfortune, but unfortunately not so sorry as to give him a free pass to the play. Instead, he gives him some playing cards, and tells him if he wants to play he should talk to "Alleyway Jack."
Look at him. He looks so defeated, poor thing.
Unfortunately that doesn't help us with our main problem, namely finding a way to see the play. We're not given an immediate lead, but wandering around, Big Hat Kid eventually runs face-first into a ladder, managing to get himself knocked down again.
His existence is suffering.
The signmaker, Dante, admonishes the kid for his carelessness, then finishes righting the sign and leaves to grab a drink, whereupon we are accosted by a rat kid.
No, literally, that's how the game calls him: Rat Kid.
The rat kid offers Big Hat Kid a chance to see the play, in exchange for becoming "his slave." That's obviously a terrible deal, so I refuse, and Rat Kid just leaves.
Okay, lesson learned, the game will actually let you just stall the plot if you're not cooperative. That doesn't really give us anything, but it's funny. I take this opportunity to explore the city further, search people's drawers and mattresses (not a figure of speech; we can find 3 Gil by searching someone's bed), challenging people to card games (more on that in another update).
This game barely makes any more sense to me today than it did when I was ten years old.
Eventually though, we have to return to Rat Kid and agree to be his slave. He quickly directs us to stand watch at the entrance of the alleyway, and upon saying the coast is clear, he just up and steals the signmaker's ladder.
Before we follow him, though, someone passes through the alley, and Big Hat Kid asks them if they're Alleyway Jack; it turns out he is, and we can take a break to follow him to the tavern where he teaches us the basics of the card game. Then we head back out to follow Rat Kid into a steeple, where he tells us to climb the bell tower first because it's dangerous. We do so and no sooner has Big Hat Kid put his hand on the ladder that someone climbing down runs into him and he gets knocked over again.
Not any "someone," though.
A moogle.
Both PSX games so far have had moogles, technically, but in a very low-key fashion. In VII, they were featured as an early summon, as marketing for the Gold Saucer, and in two minigames. In VIII, they only existed as a summon exclusive to the PocketStation minigame which we didn't play in this LP, and as a Triple Triad card.
To tell the truth: I think the designers of VII and VIII were kind of embarrassed by moogles. Or, if not embarrassed, they felt like the cute, magical talking critters didn't really suit the grittier, modern vibes of the PSX era. I don't think it's a coincidence that IX, with its cartoon-like, high fantasy aesthetic, is the first game of that era to feature a moogle as a talking NPC.
And we're going to be seeing a lot of moogles, because they are… Our save points.
Every time we want to save, we have to talk to a moogle, who will do a backflip, open a big book, and write us down in it. So we're likely going to see dozens, potentially hundreds of moogles going forward. It's a curious choice, and one the game is doing something with that could be interesting or very obnoxious: Each moogle has a unique name, and they have mail which they want us to carry to one another. This moogle, for instance, is Kupo (Rat Kid knows him and introduces us; he names Big Hat Kid "slave number one.") He wants us to deliver a letter to another moogle named "Monty," whom we will presumably encounter later in our travels. Will we be rewarded for this? I have no idea.
There's another moogle in the steeple, an outdoorsy looking one called Stiltzkin who is leaving on a journey. I assume we'll run into him again later.
Once we've picked up the mail and saved, we follow Rat Kid up to the rooftops, where it turns out we're dealing with an unexpected challenge:
Slave Number One is afraid of heights. Not only that, but the way between the rooftops is these rickety planks that nearly shake themselves apart every time he attempts to cross them. Rat Kid tells him it's fine, he'll be perfectly safe, just pretend it's solid ground.
As it turns out the planks are exactly as unsafe as you would expect and one of them collapses the second Slave Number One is on the next rooftop, nearly killing him. Rat Kid laughs it off in a "can't be helped" kinda way then, after a moment, finally realizes that he never even asked our name. Which finally releases me from the burden of calling our character by workarounds:
Vivi. His name is Vivi. Adorable.
(For reasons entirely opaque to me, the FR localization calls him Bibi instead.)
In turn, Rat Kid reveals himself as being named Puck, which is fitting to his kind of assholish mischievous attitude so far. Finally, having hopped from rooftops to rooftops followed by a terrified Vivi, Puck reaches our intended destination, and the purpose of the stolen ladder:
He's using it to cross to the battlements of the castle.
Awful security in Alexandria, let me tell you.
Cue a gorgeous cutscene of our two stowaways sneaking into the theatre crowd as night falls, revealing that this world has not one, but two moons - one blue, one red.
I would say something like "the odds that there is something fucked up going on with one or both of these moons are zero," but I'm still not over the FF8 Moonspiracy letdown. ALL THAT BUILDUP AND FOR WHAT, ONE COOL CUTSCENE!? Ahem.
And this is where Vivi's tale ends for now, with him in the crowd watching the band play ahead of the start of the play, as we're about to cut back to the Tantalus Company. This was a cute interlude; the change in perspective by swapping between characters and places was novel, considering the recent games have mostly stayed shackled to the perspective of their one protagonist except for one mid-game beat each. Exploring Alexandria from Vivi's perspective was fun, and a nice way to show us a place that's sure to be of major importance to the plot of the game (their CASTLE is a fucking SWORD).
Unfortunately, it's now time to meet Queen Brahne.
Cut for image count.
The year is 1994. Square releases Final Fantasy VI on the SNES. Months later, a new console enters the market; the PlayStation. For three years, the world is without a Final Fantasy game, until VII releases on PlayStation and makes gaming history. It is followed by VIII on the same console, two years later.
The fascinating, rough, often frustrating, at times beautiful story of VIII culminates in Time Compression, when past, present and future all collapse into a single point. Perhaps it is fitting, then, than what follows Final Fantasy VIII is a sort of Time Compression of its own. VIII is released in February, 1999. In September of the same year, the PlayStation 2 is announced, a console that promises to cement Sony's leadership in the console war and become a monument to gaming with a lifetime of over a decade.
The PS2 will be released in March 2000. Final Fantasy IX, the following game in the FF series, will be released in July 2000, on the original PlayStation. Time has been compressed; present and future have collapsed; the latest entry in the widely acclaimed Final Fantasy series will come out on a previous-generation console after the release of the industry-warping PS2 juggernaut. Past continues into the future. Final Fantasy IX emerges not merely at the tail end of the PSX's lifetime, but in its afterlife, as its successor has already stepped onto the stage. IX's own successor, Final Fantasy X, is already being developed, and it promises to be "one of the…" You know the rest.
So that leaves IX. A game which sold less than VIII, which itself sold less than VII. The lowest-selling game in the 3D era of the Final Fantasy series. A game that deployed every single trick mastered by Square to draw the most out of the PlayStation console, a game strong of five years of PSX experience, of the lessons learned in VII and VIII. And yet already overshadowed. It will be given one year, almost to the day, before the next entry comes in and sweeps the board.
Obviously IX is not forgotten. It is a mainline entry in one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. And yet… It's impossible to escape the feeling that it is the small, unassuming child of the family. The overlooked one. VIII was controversial, yes, it had many flaws, but VIII is the brooding teenager of the family, it's dramatic, it's bold, it throws out ideas and doesn't commit. It's possessed of teenaged passions and a teenaged lack of follow-through. You might not be satisfied with it, but you certainly won't forget it existed. IX, though…
Well, perhaps there is a symbolism in the fact that all of its characters are shorter than the ones before. The youngest sibling, easily overlooked.
…
Unlike every other game in this series, I have played Final Fantasy IX before nearly to the end, once.
It was over twenty years ago now. My recollections are… Spotty. I remember specific plot beats, elements of characterization, but very little of the overall structure of the plot. I know the name of the main villain, but not what motivates them.
What I recall most of all about FF9 is a feeling. An atmosphere. A game whose aesthetic sensibilities are polar opposites to FF8's; a return to a kind of fantasy that was not, for me, my first exposure to Final Fantasy, and so was strange and novel, even as it may have been more familiar to a general audience.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. All these years ago, I never finished FF9, never crosses that final threshold.
Today, perhaps I will.
Hello again, dear readers.
Let's dive into Final Fantasy IX.
I. The Tantalus Theatre Troupe
Before everything else, before even the opening title, there is an opening montage. It's very short, much less of a distinct plot hook as VIII's duel between Seifer and Squall; rather, it's a sweeping view of beautiful vistas overlaid on a map that suggests the breadth of this fantasy world, its kingdoms and its cities:
Vast towering cities, airships flying over the mists, a distinct Early Modern vibe to it all. It's too short for us to learn anything much, but it's enough to inspire a feeling - some grand adventure is about to start, in a world perhaps more magical than we're used to.
Cut to title screen.
This time, the game's logo is some kind of orerry-looking contraption around what looks like a shining crystal. Could this be the return of Crystals as major elements of the game's story? They disappeared after V, so that'd be interesting.
We select New Game, and are greeted with a tense, dramatic opening cinematic. A ship is tossed over the waves amid a storm-wracked sea…
Two figures are sitting inside that ship, wrapped in heavy cloaks: A young woman, and an older one. We see their faces only briefly, but they are modeled so startlingly alike that there can be no doubt these are a mother and daughter. And as the camera zooms in on the older one's face, it transitions seamlessly to another girl waking up today in the middle of a frightful dream…
The brief beat of the mother's face went by too quickly for me to capture it.
It's only a glimpse, but it seems clear that we were looking at a nightmare drawn from the memories of this young woman - that she must have been the child of the two on that skiff, grown older now, though still younger than her mother was at the time.
Keep this in mind for later.
The young woman rubs her eyes, still shaking off sleep from her sudden awakening. She looks out the window at the bright day, and she's wearing a beautiful white robe and a diadem - she is, clearly, a person of importance, nobility or royalty of some kind.
She stands at the window, and the camera sweeps into a view out of a beautiful, enormous castle, and onto the city that surrounds it…
Flocks of white birds pass through the sky. In contrast to the grey storm-wracked sea of her dream, we are presented with beautiful waters, clear skies, white birds, cozy little red roofs, mills whose wings turn peacefully in the wind. A white castle towers at the heart of the city, dominating it with its strength, its shining walls, and the enormous central… Structure rising from between its towers (we'll get a better look at it in a bit).
The camera moves up, above the clouds, and a figurehead emerges - a winged mermaid, at the head of a massive, flying ship.
This is FF9's first big surprise: We are starting in an airship. Its wooden hull and elaborate towers evoke the great ships of the Age of Sail, though this one lacks sails - it is driven by some other, unseen means. It's also much larger than such ships ever were, almost a floating castle unto itself.
The camera enters the ship, and we see a fireman's pole - and a young man descending from it.
We only see his back, but there are several notable features. His features are different from the tall, photorealistic appearance of VIII's characters, more squished, giving him more of the look of a character from a cartoon. He's blond, with thick boots and gloves but bare arms, a kind of 'adventury' look to his clothes. Also?
He has a tail. Like a monkey's tail. Like Son Goku.
Wild.
Goku enters a dark room, and this is where we transition to in-engine graphics.
So this is our first playable character. He quickly cracks a match, holding it between his hand, and we're given the opportunity to explore the small room until we find a candle and light it up.
Ah, gorgeous, gorgeous PSX pre-rendered backgrounds. How I've missed you.
There's a knock on the door, and as the boy answers, we're given a chance to name him.
…
In my childhood, this character's default name was Djidane. As far as I can tell this is because, at the time, Zinedine Zidane was a football player of such earth-shaking popularity in France that it would have been impossible to look at this guy and not snicker a little.
Of course, today I'm writing for a mainly English-speaking audience decades after Zidane's heyday, so we'll keep his name as is. But it still feels weird.
Zidane calls out to the people on the other side of the door, and they enter.
What a lovely collection of weirdos. We're definitely not dealing with the relatively homogenous look of the VIII characters; we have some muscular dude with pointy hair and tusks called Marcus, a dude with a pot-belly wearing a literal pot on his head and a red nose called Cinna, and a guy in pseudo-fetish gear wearing a leather blindfold called Blank. I knew him as "Frank" from the French version, but this is much cooler.
Zidane asks where's the boss, Cinna says he hasn't arrived yet, and then there's a great noise and the door on the other side of the room opens and a… Dragon-headed man enters!?
The creature roars, and initiates battle.
Alright! No "spending half an hour wandering around campus before we even get into a fight" this time around, the game is introducing us to its combat within about a minute of the first cutscene. And with a full party, too! Though something is telling me that most of these guys aren't going to be with us on a permanent basis - call it a hunch.
And oh, joy. The four-man party is back. No longer will we be shackled to three-men party comps that incentivize every character to be a generalist because there isn't enough room for specialization! At last we can run Fighter-Thief-Black Mage-White Mage again, or whatever!
Well, once we have our real party unlocked, anyway. Because there's something fascinating the game is telling us about these guys right here and there in the UI…
Every single one of them is a thief.
As in, literally, they all have the Steal Command. It's also, for Marcus, Cinna and Blank, their only Command other than Attack and Item. Zidane is the only one with a unique Command - "Skill," which will likely gain in use later; it's a menu command which likely has several options eventually, but right now all he has unlocked is Flee, which runs away from battle with increased odds, and we don't care about that right now (and probably can't use it anyway, as this is a story battle).
So we're looking at a band of thieves, one of whom has Special Character status. Zidane, notably, also dual wields dagger; this doesn't, sadly, results in two hits per attacks like the ninjas of past game - maybe that'll be a later upgrade.
As a battle, this is fairly straightforward. The dragon-headed man shouts "Gwahahaha!" and "Get some!" while waving his cutlass and doing basic attacks, and we basic attack right back at him. It gives us the opportunity to Steal from him, though; and notably we can steal from him more than once. This is a first! Our first Steal gets us a Potion, the second gets us a Mage Masher, which based on precedent is going to be some kind of dagger, and the third gets us a Wrist, before the command returns "Doesn't have anything." to inform us that further thievery is useless. That's neat! If we're going to have a character permanently shackled to the Thief class and the Steal command, which historically haven't been… great… Then having Steal tables with multiple items per opponent could be a real boon.
Once we have everything we want from the weird man, we beat him up until his dragon head, which was actually a mask, splits in two, revealing that this was all a prank by the thieves' boss, Baku.
Not that taking away the dragon head makes him any less of a weirdo: The man is, as far as I can tell from the low-def graphics, a pig. Like, he has a snout. And surprisingly large ears too, so perhaps he's a bat instead…?
The fight over, all our thieves are standing around or lying about looking completely exhausted while Baku laughs and tells them to hurry it up and start with the meeting in the next room.
Perhaps not all of VIII's sensibilities have been overruled in the change to IX, though, because we kick off the plot with a surprisingly villainous plot: Our thieves are part of the "infamous band of daring thieves" Tantalus, which are also somehow a popular theatre troupe under that exact same name, and they're heading to the Kingdom of Alexandria to abduct Princess Garnet, no doubt the same princess we saw in the opening. Their plan: To put up the kingdom's most popular play, "I Want to Be Your Canary," in which Marcus will have the leading role. Meanwhile, Blank and Zidane will sneak into the castle - Blank will use some kind of pest called "oglobs" to cause a distraction in the crowd (Blank notes that he can't stand the critters, but he'll manage), while Zidane sneaks away and abducts the Princess himself. Here, we're given a dialogue choice to show that we've been following; we can either correctly say Zidane is supposed to capture Princess Garnet, or that he is supposed to kidnap Queen Brahne, her mother. Baku comments that Garnet is the most "babe-ilicious beauty in all of Alexandria," which is…
Wait a minute. Daring thieves with an infamous reputation? Mounting a fake stage play? Abducting a woman renowned for her beauty? Using an airship?
This is Setzer and the opera from FFVI, is what it is! And you're making me play as Setzer! The ignominy!
A closer look at our cast of ruffians. Notably, the dialogue boxes have been improved with arrows so we can no longer be confused as to who's talking. Note that Marcus appears to be some kind of orc; he has pointy ears, tusks, and is the most muscular of the group by far, which makes him being the lead actor a neat twist. Note also how Blank is wearing a blindfold and leaning against the wall like a cool guy. Here's a secret: When I was a kid, I thought Blank/Frank was the coolest motherfucker alive. We'll find out soon whether that was entirely down to his attitude and his outfit, or whether there was more to him.
And to my surprise… That's it! After this brief and tantalizing (har har) introduction, we transition to a new cutscene, and a new character.
Wow, it's been a minute since we saw the old Black Mage design with the blue robe, pointy hat, and black hole for a face. Since V, in fact. Which makes me wonder, now that we're seeing it in 3D - is there going to be a moment when we take off that hat and find out that this Black Mage is just a normal dude under it, or is something spooky going on? I genuinely don't remember the answer!
This tiny BLM watches as the Tantalus airship flies overhead, casting the entire street in shadow… We follow the ship as it heads for the central palace, pull away, and…
Cue title card.
Also, yes. That thing standing out from the middle of the castle towers? That's a sword. That is a blade several hundreds of feet high. What the fuck.
II. The Most Adorable Black Mage You Ever Did See
We cut back to the game, where we see one of the streets of the city, and our little black mage making his way, clutching a ticket… Only to be knocked over by a careless passerby.
The city name card appearing over the poor kid being sprawled over alone in the street is just mean.
That poor kid. And he is a kid; it's not clear how old exactly, but he's noticeably shorter than most everyone he encounters, and everyone talks about him like a child without him protesting.
A little girl shows the kindness the rest of the crowd didn't, and picks up his ticket and hands it back to him, asking if he's "awright." And then we take control of the little Black Mage.
Oh hey, let's check out the menu.
MP is back, and our mysterious boy does indeed have the Command "Blk Mag" and can equip staffs and hats, and he knows only one spell so far - Fire. It looks like we're back to a more traditional class system after the various, increasingly intricate iterations on class-less systems of the past games. There's also a weird… Medallion? Next to a 14/14 note, but we can't seem to do anything with that so far. So let's explore Alexandria!
Kids are playing on the plaza, nobles are standing around muttering about how dreadful the sight of The Poors is to behold… Of note is that it turns out our theatre troupe of tricky thieves wasn't an exception; "humanity" in Final Fantasy IX turns out to be a broad concept, and we find nobles who are dog people, bird people, a kid who's literally a hippo… There are fish people, too, I'll try to catch a screenshot where we see them well.
There's also, hm.
The uniform of the Alexandrian soldiers.
They are wearing leotards under a boob plates, oversized helmets, and a whole bunch of belts. And nothing else.
I mean??? Props for having what's apparently a mostly-female army??? But why are they dressed like that.
Well, let's move on. The guards won't let us out of the city because it's too dangerous for a kid, so we turn around and explore more. There's a plaque by the statue with a brief story of its female general who fought in the 9th Lindblum War at only 13 years old. So now we know there's a place called Lindblum and war with them is an incredibly common occurrence.
…
So, there's something I've touched upon before in this Let's Play, but not in a while. So let's refresh everyone's minds by quoting myself from Final Fantasy VII:
Article: The evolution of 'barging into people's homes' in the Final Fantasy series is kind of fascinating. It FFI, it essentially doesn't exist; the only house you enter uninvited are plot relevant like Matoya or Sarda's homes, and they're old sages probably welcoming seekers from afar. In FFII, the main home you can barge into is Paul's, and he's the party's friend. The addition of more houses you can enter that just have people living in them is slow; even by FFVI, most of the houses you can enter serve a specific purpose. The richest man in South Figaro, for instance, has no reason to allow you to enter his home, but doing so serves as foreshadowing to the Empire's invasion of the town. Owzer's mansion is plot relevant not once, but twice. That weird old man near the Veldt just seems like a random kook until you visit him again with Gau. The idea that 'you can enter people's homes to check them for plot stuff or worldbuilding' has crept in progressively, but slowly - for the most part, if you just want to talk to incidental townsfolk to get random details about the world, you find them either in the street, or in the pub that's in every town and usually full of townsfolk.
FFVII really feels like it ramped that up to the extent where it really feels kinda strange. Cloud really can just go around, wander into people's homes, talk to them, search through their drawers, and no one bats an eye. And I think part of it is that each house is now unique? I've been screenshotting almost every interior building to that end, to show they all have their own individual pre-rendered background, they're each a lived-in place with its little touches of personality, and that makes it weirder that we can just walk into any given one like we own the place. And then steal the kid's pocket change.
This aspect - the "barging in people's homes to rummage through their drawers" that's often a cliché associated with JRPGs like Final Fantasy - was actually largely absent from the series until VII, and then didn't reappear in VIII (where Draw Points served as the stand-in for hidden loot). Even in VII, there was still a sort of internal logic to it; the fact that you can enter anyone's home doesn't make much sense, but at least the option to grab some gil from a kid's drawers is explicitly because the kid is asleep while you're doing it.
I'm going through all this again because IX is going to be playing this cliché incredibly straight in a way no other game has before. Check out this house:
God these are gorgeous.
I can steal some poor grandma's savings of 9 Gil while she's standing right there and won't do anything. But that's not all. By investigating that table in the corner, I can also find a Potion! And then I can climb up to that little dresser above and steal a playing card (more on the card game in a later update) from it. There are three steal points in this one house.
How did I know that, you ask? Well, you see, in FF9, when your character is in front of a point where you can grab an item, a little speech bubble with an exclamation mark appears over their head.
Like this, but an exclamation mark instead of a question mark. So I forgot to screenshot the one I wanted to show, sue me.
This tells you to press X and obtain an item.
There is, I am pretty sure, at least one item point per screen in this sequence. Some of them have multiple. There's a tavern; it contains a Potion, 27 Gil, and another playing card.
This means the natural incentive the game is creating is to have your character just hug every wall in the game to check for item drops.
In the process of playing this singular sequence with the Big Hat Kid, without using any guide, I have found the following:
- 3 Potions
- 294 Gil (in the form of 9 Gil, 33 Gil, 27 Gil, 38 Gil, 3 Gil, 29 Gil, 63 Gil, 92 Gil)
- 6 playing cards (Fang, Goblin, Flan, plus one stash of Ironite, Goblin and Fang
- 1 Eye Drops
That's fifteen individual item spots in a fairly short sequence, and I have almost definitely missed some. And like… It wouldn't matter if I missed them, right? There has never been a Final Fantasy game where two potions or 100 Gil was critical to success even in the early game. But also it's free stuff. I can't just ignore it. And that means hugging every wall in the game and breaking into people's homes to loot their drawers while they stare blankly at us like some demented kleptomaniac critter. It's very strange.
With that out of the way, let's get on with Big Hat Kid's story.
The ticketmaster is a… Dog?
Before handing our ticket to the ticketmaster, we can ask him some general culture question - it looks like Big Hat Kid is kind of a country kid, not used to the big city and unfamiliar with a lot of Alexandria's whole deal.
Notably, the ticketmaster says that I Wanna be Your Canary will be performed by "the Tantalus Company," "star performers from Lindblum, the regency to the west." So the Tantalus Company go by that name in public, and they're famous. I'm guessing that the whole "thief" shtick is something they've managed to keep hidden from everyone, committing crimes while touring, and no one's connected the dots yet. We also learn that Princess Garnet is sixteen, the "most beautiful princess in the history of Alexandria," but that her mother, Queen Brahne, has had strange rumors surround her lately, though no further detail.
Unfortunately, upon handing out his ticket, our boy finds out that… It's a fake! He's been swindled! Whoever sold him that ticket scammed him. The Ticketmaster actually does seem to be sorry for his misfortune, but unfortunately not so sorry as to give him a free pass to the play. Instead, he gives him some playing cards, and tells him if he wants to play he should talk to "Alleyway Jack."
Look at him. He looks so defeated, poor thing.
Unfortunately that doesn't help us with our main problem, namely finding a way to see the play. We're not given an immediate lead, but wandering around, Big Hat Kid eventually runs face-first into a ladder, managing to get himself knocked down again.
His existence is suffering.
The signmaker, Dante, admonishes the kid for his carelessness, then finishes righting the sign and leaves to grab a drink, whereupon we are accosted by a rat kid.
No, literally, that's how the game calls him: Rat Kid.
The rat kid offers Big Hat Kid a chance to see the play, in exchange for becoming "his slave." That's obviously a terrible deal, so I refuse, and Rat Kid just leaves.
Okay, lesson learned, the game will actually let you just stall the plot if you're not cooperative. That doesn't really give us anything, but it's funny. I take this opportunity to explore the city further, search people's drawers and mattresses (not a figure of speech; we can find 3 Gil by searching someone's bed), challenging people to card games (more on that in another update).
This game barely makes any more sense to me today than it did when I was ten years old.
Eventually though, we have to return to Rat Kid and agree to be his slave. He quickly directs us to stand watch at the entrance of the alleyway, and upon saying the coast is clear, he just up and steals the signmaker's ladder.
Before we follow him, though, someone passes through the alley, and Big Hat Kid asks them if they're Alleyway Jack; it turns out he is, and we can take a break to follow him to the tavern where he teaches us the basics of the card game. Then we head back out to follow Rat Kid into a steeple, where he tells us to climb the bell tower first because it's dangerous. We do so and no sooner has Big Hat Kid put his hand on the ladder that someone climbing down runs into him and he gets knocked over again.
Not any "someone," though.
A moogle.
Both PSX games so far have had moogles, technically, but in a very low-key fashion. In VII, they were featured as an early summon, as marketing for the Gold Saucer, and in two minigames. In VIII, they only existed as a summon exclusive to the PocketStation minigame which we didn't play in this LP, and as a Triple Triad card.
To tell the truth: I think the designers of VII and VIII were kind of embarrassed by moogles. Or, if not embarrassed, they felt like the cute, magical talking critters didn't really suit the grittier, modern vibes of the PSX era. I don't think it's a coincidence that IX, with its cartoon-like, high fantasy aesthetic, is the first game of that era to feature a moogle as a talking NPC.
And we're going to be seeing a lot of moogles, because they are… Our save points.
Every time we want to save, we have to talk to a moogle, who will do a backflip, open a big book, and write us down in it. So we're likely going to see dozens, potentially hundreds of moogles going forward. It's a curious choice, and one the game is doing something with that could be interesting or very obnoxious: Each moogle has a unique name, and they have mail which they want us to carry to one another. This moogle, for instance, is Kupo (Rat Kid knows him and introduces us; he names Big Hat Kid "slave number one.") He wants us to deliver a letter to another moogle named "Monty," whom we will presumably encounter later in our travels. Will we be rewarded for this? I have no idea.
There's another moogle in the steeple, an outdoorsy looking one called Stiltzkin who is leaving on a journey. I assume we'll run into him again later.
Once we've picked up the mail and saved, we follow Rat Kid up to the rooftops, where it turns out we're dealing with an unexpected challenge:
Slave Number One is afraid of heights. Not only that, but the way between the rooftops is these rickety planks that nearly shake themselves apart every time he attempts to cross them. Rat Kid tells him it's fine, he'll be perfectly safe, just pretend it's solid ground.
As it turns out the planks are exactly as unsafe as you would expect and one of them collapses the second Slave Number One is on the next rooftop, nearly killing him. Rat Kid laughs it off in a "can't be helped" kinda way then, after a moment, finally realizes that he never even asked our name. Which finally releases me from the burden of calling our character by workarounds:
Vivi. His name is Vivi. Adorable.
(For reasons entirely opaque to me, the FR localization calls him Bibi instead.)
In turn, Rat Kid reveals himself as being named Puck, which is fitting to his kind of assholish mischievous attitude so far. Finally, having hopped from rooftops to rooftops followed by a terrified Vivi, Puck reaches our intended destination, and the purpose of the stolen ladder:
He's using it to cross to the battlements of the castle.
Awful security in Alexandria, let me tell you.
Cue a gorgeous cutscene of our two stowaways sneaking into the theatre crowd as night falls, revealing that this world has not one, but two moons - one blue, one red.
I would say something like "the odds that there is something fucked up going on with one or both of these moons are zero," but I'm still not over the FF8 Moonspiracy letdown. ALL THAT BUILDUP AND FOR WHAT, ONE COOL CUTSCENE!? Ahem.
And this is where Vivi's tale ends for now, with him in the crowd watching the band play ahead of the start of the play, as we're about to cut back to the Tantalus Company. This was a cute interlude; the change in perspective by swapping between characters and places was novel, considering the recent games have mostly stayed shackled to the perspective of their one protagonist except for one mid-game beat each. Exploring Alexandria from Vivi's perspective was fun, and a nice way to show us a place that's sure to be of major importance to the plot of the game (their CASTLE is a fucking SWORD).
Unfortunately, it's now time to meet Queen Brahne.
Cut for image count.
Last edited:
Final Fantasy IX, Part 1.B: The Kidnapping of Princess Garnet
New
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
III. Why Is That Play Even Called That, Who The Hell Is The Canary
Jesus Christ what the fuck.
Now, I'm not going to preemptively cancel the game on twitter dot com or anything, so far we've had no indication that Queen Brahne is anything but a sympathetic character whose daughter is being targeted by vicious kidnappers. But I am making a note that the Queen is depicted as a grotesque caricature, obese, hideous, with the worst hair I've ever seen, and reacting to the spectacle with the kind of childlike glee usually associated with the Mad Ruler archetype. Is that a problem? I don't know! But, well, we'll see.
Princess Garnet, in contrast to her mother*, is looking downcast, even sad, and utterly uninterested in the spectacle; Queen Brahne does not notice, but another character does - a knight standing guard next to the royal pair.
*Well, 'mother.' We caught only the briefest glimpse of what we can only presume was Garnet's mother in the intro movie, and she looked… Different.
Whatever the source of Garnet's sadness, though, he seems confident it will solve itself with more spectacle; he smiles to himself and raises his sword, signaling the troupe to launch the fireworks that signal the beginning of the play; the band launches into a lively fanfare as their stage lifts up, revealing a theatre stage made up to look like a castle. Queen Brahne reacts with even more childlike glee, while in the crowd, Vivi can't help himself but swing a bit in tune to the music. The knight smiles confidently, and looks at Garnet again…
…and reacts with horror as she looks somehow even sadder.
Apropos of nothing, Garnet's name was also changed in French - to "Grenat," which is the French name for the garnet.
The Queen continues not to notice, even starting to dance to the tune of the music; and below, Baku enters.
Baku: "Ladies and Gentlemen! Tonight's performance is a story that takes place long, long ago. Our heroine, Princess Cornelia, is torn from her lover, Marcus. She attempts to flee the castle, only to be captured by her father, King Leo. When our story begins, Marcus, having heard of this, crosses swords with the King. And now, Your Royal Majesty, Queen Brahne, Your Highness, Princess Garnet… noble ladies and lords, and our rooftop viewers, Tantalus proudly presents 'I Want to Be Your Canary!'"
This… Seems to be skipping over most of what would be the actual plot of the play. Are they performing an abridged version or something?
Time will tell if the plot of the play has any relevance to the plot of FF9's own story - the opera in VI, of course, reflected Celes's own personal conflict as a soldier thinking of herself as a living weapon yet experiencing love for the first time. This play could have some similar connection or it could just be a classic star-crossed lovers riff because that's standard.
Zidane, Blank and Cinna appear, making bold proclamations of standing by Marcus's side in his combat, speaking in Ye Olde English; they enter the stage next to Marcus, who is engaged in battle against King Leo and two of his hench… hippos? Aardvarks? I think they might be aardvarks.
Cue the battle music.
Yes, the staged battle between Marcus and his kinsmen and King Leo and his soldier is in fact played out as an actual battle.
There's a twist, too! Seeing as they're putting on their public face, none of our characters has access to the Steal command; instead, they have the SFX command. What does SFX do?
Why, stage effects, of course.
"Medeo" is a pseudo-Meteor, while "Poly" is a light show, and both of them do… Exactly 0 damage.
Because they're stage effects. They're fake magic.
I honestly find that little touch incredibly charming.
With that said, this is an actual battle we have to win, so we need to use our Attacks to deal damage to King Leo, and he hits hard enough to actually KO Cinna. Still, this is a simple battle, and soon over.
As the battle ends, Baku as King Leo limps away, swearing vengeance; Zidane rushes up the stairs after him, but Blank stands in his way; it seems he's had a change of mind. While Marcus (notably, all of the characters are using their actual names except Baku as King Leo, which is… Weird; did Zidane et all coincidentally all happen to be named after heroes from a famous Alexandrian play?) is his friend, Blank believes that Princess Cornelia's arranged marriage with Prince Schneider would bring peace upon two kingdoms, a cause he's willing to betray his friends over. Zidane doesn't see things that way, and the two begin to do battle - this time though, it's not played as a real battle, but as a rhythm game.
It's very simple: Blank gives Zidane an instruction consisting of a single button input, either a face button or a directional arrow. Each option corresponds to a specific choreographed movement; and entering it correctly leads to a cool exchange of 'blows' while fucking it up causes Zidane to knock Blank over, all while a flamenco-styled tune plays and the crowd bobs along. It's surprisingly thrilling!
At the end, we're rated based on our performance by telling us how many of the 100 nobles watching were impressed, and whether Queen Brahne herself was pleased; doing all correct inputs only gets us to 90/100, so speed appears to also be key, and I don't really care enough to redo it a third time. The crowd showers us with 853 gil, which is pretty nice.
Of course, in truth, the whole battle is an excuse to carry the two of them off-stage, where they sneak away from the stage and into the castle. The game plays the classic "dark screen with sounds of people getting beat up" gag, and we tune back in to Zidane and Blank wearing two unfortunate guards' armor.
Blank: "Finished changing, Zidane?"
Zidane: "Yeah, but this helmets…" [He tosses the helmet onto a nearby table.] "It kinda smells…"
Blank: "What are you talkin' about!?" [He pantomimes.] "My helmet totally reeks! My armor's way too big… And my back's real itchy… The boots are wet… My gloves are all slimy… There's cookie crumbs in my pockets…"
Zidane: "Okay, I get the picture… You still have the package, right?"
Blank: "Don't worry! I won't screw up!" [A huge bug escapes from Blank's grasp as he says this, and he has to scramble to catch it.]
Zidane: "Alright! First, I'll go pour some sleep potion into Princess Garnet's teacup!"
Blank: "And I've got a special something for the lovely queen!"
And thus begins the infiltration of Alexandria Castle. Blank and Zidane are heading to the royal seats where we found Garnet and Brahne earlier. While I'm at it, let's check out Zidane's character menu.
Okay, a picture is starting to form. That 18/18 number above is an amount of, idk what they're called so let's go with "skill points" for now, that can be allocated to abilities which have a cost. For instance, we can spend 4 of these points on Protect Girls, which allows Zidane to take damage instead of a female character (and which tells us interesting things about his personality). This isn't permanent, though; we can take away those 4 points and put them into something else instead whenever we want.
Right now, the only abilities Zidane has access to are Protect Girls and Flee-Gil, which allows us to still get gil even after fleeing from battle; that's not actually enough to spend all 18 skill points. We'll need to find a way to learn more abilities, and it looks like that's going to be with items; Zidane's starting armor is a Leather Vest, and that Leather Vest has the Protect Girls skill tied to it. We can learn that ability permanently by gaining 35 AP in battle, at which point it'll presumably be permanently added to this menu where we can equip it or not out of those 18 skill points.
So, character growth is going to be tied to items. How will that work out in practice? We'll see.
Blank and Zidane have to briefly hide from a patrol of Alexandrian soldiers, which…
I will never be able to get over these outfits. What the hell.
In the process of running up the stairs, however, Zidane runs into a Final Fantasy I White Mage.
I'm starting to think this game might be a little referential.
Zidane takes one look at Definitely Not Garnet and decides something's up, so he does not, in fact, let her pass.
Zidane: [He examines her face.] "Let's see…"
Hooded Girl: "Is there something on my face?"
Zidane: "Oh, no. You see… I just thought maybe you were the one I'd been waiting for all this time."
Hooded Girl: "Excuse me? You were waiting for me?"
Zidane: "Yeah! I've dreamt of meeting you here ever since I was born!"
Hooded Girl: "Do you mock me?"
Zidane: "No, of course not…"
Hooded Girl: "Then, I shall take my leave of you!"
[She advances towards the stairs; Zidane steps in to block her.]
Zidane: "Just a sec! Haven't we met before?"
Hooded Girl: "No, I do not know you…"
Zidane: "Hmm…" [He starts circling the girl, examining her from various angles.] "Hmm… Maybe you're right. I'd never let someone as pretty as you get away. Say, you wouldn't-"
[Blank appears at the bottom of the stairs.]
Blank: "Hey, what's goin' on, Zidane?"
Hooded Girl: "I… I must go!"
[She storms away suddenly, moving past Zidane and Blank so fast they spin.]
Blank: "Who the heck was that!?"
Zidane: "Get up, Blank! That was Princess Garnet!"
Blank: "Are you serious!?"
[They both rush off after Garnet.]
You know, I don't recall a lot about Zidane's personality from my childhood playing this game. I think I just remember him being, like, a cool heroic boy. What I didn't remember was that he was apparently an incorrigible flirt with a problem respecting women's personal space! And he definitely realized he was talking to Garnet partway through this whole exchange - he played up the whole flirting angle for his own amusement while already knowing he had his target right in front of him.
Then the clowns come in.
IV. Captain Zenigata of the Pluto Knights
Queen Brahne apparently has a duo of color-coordinated jesters called Zorn and Thorn, one blue, one red, who echo each other's sentences. These guys are 100% paying homage to Kefka, and the chances that they aren't involved in some nefarious war crime-related bullshit are slim to none.
You know, it's funny. Kefka is often casually referred to as a "clown" but that's not, strictly speaking, accurate. Kefka was never a court jester; he merely dressed like one. His actual position was general in the imperial armies; he was a man of enormous power and influence who just put on clown makeup because it amused him. Time will tell if the same is true of Zorn and Thorn.
Anyway, the thorns do a whole synchronized routine lamenting how everything is terrible and they need to inform Queen Brahne of [something] at once, until finally reaching the royal seats, whereupon they are stopped by the knight.
Our knight is identified as the Captain of the Knights of Pluto. Which sounds prestigious, but as we'll see, really, really isn't. While he tells the jesters to buzz off, the woman on the other side, Beatrix, asks them if this is an emergency, and they immediately turn around to address her while the Captain seethes internally, "Grrr! Curse that Beatrix! Always trying to one-up me!" Our man is suffering from some job-related envy. The two jesters inform Beatrix that "Princess Garnet is in danger," which… How would they even know? Well, no matter; Beatrix decides this is important enough to bother the queen; apparently Garnet didn't just abscond, but also took with her the "Royal Pendant," whatever that is.
Queen Brahne: "Well, of all the… What could she be thinking!? General Beatrix!"
Beatrix: "Your Majesty!"
[Queen Brahne turns around to look at the Captain dubiously.]
Queen Brahne: "And Captain… uh…"
God. Incredible use of the menu screen timing to convey how little respect this dude gets. Also, Beatrix looks like she has an eyepatch, which is cool. Brahne orders Steiner and Beatrix to go look for Garnet; Steiner heads out to the big stairs earlier and shouts "ASSEMBLE!" to… Nobody.
Note how the two female guards don't answer Steiner's call; he lacks authority over them. Shortly after, two of the "Pluto Knights" emerge, only they don't look very knightly: They're the poor suckers Zidane and Blank clobbered for their armor.
Steiner boggles; there are supposed to be eight Pluto Knights, and here are only two of them, without any of their gear! Steiner rants angrily and tells them to go get dressed while he finds Garnet and the other Pluto Knights, and we take control of him.
Steiner is indeed a playable character; he's a knight who can equip heavy armor and swords, and appears to have abilities related to dealing extra damage to specific enemy types.
So here we are, given the run of the castle to look for Garnet… And Steiner's other men. And they are men. The Pluto Knights are a small order, and they're not an elite order either; most of the men appear to be layabouts of some sort. Blutzen and Kohel, the two soldiers who just appeared naked, can be found in the room they were in previously, and instead of looking for Garnet, they're trading gossip about who's dating who until Steiner yells at them again.
This guy, for instance, is hiding in the library and complains that he never wanted to be a soldier. Side note: One of the scholars in the library mentions that Garnet asked to borrow a copy of the script of I Want to Be Your Canary. This is our first hint that, despite her lack of interest in tonight's performance, Garnet is actually at the very least passingly familiar with the play - knowledge that might come in handy if, say, she was suddenly called to take part in it out of nowhere. Just saying.
The Pluto Knights are also all small and either scrawny or fat - and Steiner has this fascinating comment to one of them who's just sitting around complaining he's hungry:
Steiner: "Wimps like you are the reason nobody relies on men in Alexandria! Bite the bullet, you worthless grub!!!"
So there it is. Alexandria isn't just ruled by a queen, it's a matriarchy, where men are prejudiced against - and Steiner's men are living down to their stereotype. Steiner is envious of Beatrix because she is higher ranked and more respected than he is; his status is low because he's a man; his order of "Pluto Knights" are few in numbers and low quality recruits because male soldiers are generally dismissed and looked down on, so nobody would want to become one. All these female soldiers in the improbable uniforms are part of a separate chain of command from Steiner and, while they're helpful enough to answer his questions when talked to, they don't answer to him. There's one female soldier who reacts to Steiner greeting her by saying it's "an honor" to meet the Captain of the Pluto Knights, but she also immediately mentions that she's a new recruit.
That's… Interesting. I'm not sure what to make of this. The combination of "Alexandria is a matriarchy" with "the Queen is a hideous blob" and "the female soldier uniform is a leotard with boob plate" is… Hm. We'll see what the game does with it, I suppose.
Oh also what the fuck is that-
The Head Chef of the Alexandria Castle kitchens is a Lickitung!?
Let's just ignore this and move on.
Now, here's a funny thing: In the guards' room, we can find a list of all nine (eight + the captain) members of the Pluto Knights, by name. And every time we run into a member of the unit, they are named something along the lines of, "Mullenkedheim, Pluto Knight IX," so we can keep the order straight and know which one we've picked up. Why does this matter?
Because, when we run into this guy…
The fact that he is referred to as a "Knight of Pluto" without a name should alert us that something is up, and checking him against the roster should alert us to the fact that this isn't, in fact, a Pluto Knight at all, but Blank in disguise. (Or, you know, you're able to make out that he's still wearing his leather blindfold under his helmet at this low resolution. I suspect the upscaled textures of the Steam version make it a lot easier to notice.)
Something which Steiner, the Captain of the Pluto Knights, who has all of eight men under his command and should damn well be able to know their face and names, is totally oblivious to. As if we needed any further evidence that he is… Well, kind of a buffoon.
Eventually, after running out of other places to check if nothing else, we end up climbing up a tower, and there…
Steiner notices a woman in a white hood and a boy with a monkey's tail running in circles. To his credit, even at this distance and with the hood, Steiner immediately recognizes Princess Garnet.
Steiner: "It's Princess Garnet! Being hounded by brigands! Fear not, Princess! Your knight is coming!"
Notice the rope behind Garnet.
Unfortunately, they are on a different tower at the opposite side of the castle, and it looks like Zidane has cornered her. Garnet climbs up on the parapet, but there's nowhere left to run… And yet, she seems oddly confident, and smiles at Zidane. Surely she wouldn't…?
This game has some incredible faces.
Yep, you guessed it, Garnet jumps off the parapet, having sneakily grabbed hold of one of the ropes holding up the little colorful triangle that decorate the festivities. She swings on it, Tarzan-like, and Zidane realises that if he doesn't want her to escape, he has no choice but to do the same; he grabs his own rope, swings after her… And so does Steiner, though with less grace.
Notably, throughout all this, Garnet is clearly having the time of her life. Completely transformed from the sad, wistful princess at the show, she's smiling, taking ridiculous risks, and enjoying it all the while.
Unfortunately, Steiner manages to crash into the airship. This man is not allowed to have a single thing go right for him, it's impressive.
This takes him out of the race for now, and we return to Garnet and Zidane; at this point it's pretty clear that Garnet is running away more for the sheer joy of the chase than because she's actually concerned for her own safety.
Also she lands on Zidane's back at one point, it's funny.
She also continues to run so fast that she literally makes people spin by passing next to them, Looney Tunes style. This includes one of the female member of the troupe, a blue-haired girl named Ruby who inexplicably talks like a cowboy:
Ruby talks about making her "grand entrance," so I assume she's set to play the role of Princess Cordelia; she holds up Garnet just long enough for Zidane to catch up… Unfortunately Zidane forgets to turn on the charm at a crucial time.
Ruby: "Hey, Zidane! Did you see the way she hit me!? This cowgirl's wilder than a buckin' bronco!"
Zidane: "Just let me talk to her, Ruby!"
Ruby: "Come again, pardner!?" [She advances threateningly on Zidane, who steps back.] "Did you hear a word what I was sayin'!?"
[While Ruby occupies Zidane, Garnet escapes again.]
However, this is where this chase is about to end; Garnet now reaches the first room of the game, the one in which we found Zidane earlier, and she finally stops running.
Zidane: "Whew… Well, it looks like you've finally made up your mind."
Zidane: (Wow. We really had to improvise. But hey, we got her!)
Hooded Girl: "Do you… Do you work on this theater ship?"
Zidane: (Aww… So she figured it out, huh?)
Hooded Girl: "As you have no doubt suspected… the truth is that… I am actually…"
[She lifts her head, the hood lifting up slightly to reveal her face.]
Hooded Girl: "Princess Garnet Til Alexandros, heir to the throne of Alexandria.
Garnet: "I have a favor I wish to ask of you… I wish to be kidnapped… right away."
Now there's a twist. This, understandably, flummoxes Zidane; but there's little time for questions, as the voices of the Pluto Knights call out for Garnet.
Garnet: "Please… they've come for me!"
Zidane: "Aha… So that's what's going on… Alright! Leave them to me!"
Garnet: "Thank you. You have my gratitude."
[Zidane kneels.]
Zidane: "Alright then, Your Highness!" [He bows.] "I shall hereby do my best to kidnap you!"
At this point, Cinna bursts into the room, frightening Garnet; Zidane tells her it's fine, he's a friend ("Well, with a face like his, I'd be pretty shocked too!"/"Man, that hurts! I wash up every morning, you know!") then Cinna leads them out of the room mere seconds before Steiner barges in after them, calling out for the princess.
Thankfully, he's not alone! Another Pluto Knight, whose name he doesn't quite recall at this particular moment, follows quickly after! How helpful!
In the other room, Zidane complains that this room is a dead end, and Cinna chuckles before revealing that the central table is actually hiding a disguised trap door! Everyone quickly jumps in. Unfortunately the trap door doesn't seem to have a way to close it back up, so when Steiner and Unnamed Pluto Knight enter, it's immediately obvious where Garnet has gone. Thankfully, Unnamed Pluto Knight volunteers to go first!
Oh no, look at this! He got his body stuck in the trap door! What a clumsy lad! Now Steiner has no choice but to find a different route to wherever the thieves have gone! How unfortunate!
I'm starting to think Steiner isn't the sharpest sword in Alexandria's armory.
Downstairs, our little party lands in the airship's engine room, which gives us a neat look at what that thing is running on. It looks like… A giant bellows?
It contracts repeatedly, pumping something somewhere, and steam is involved in the process somehow. Very curious.
Also Zidane just can't stop flirting.
Zidane: "Wow, you're really athletic, Princess. I think I'm falling for you!"
Garnet: "This is nothing. I have been training to escape the castle, after all."
Zidane: "What a waste. If only you weren't a princess…"
It's interesting that after two straight games focused on interrogating the idea of "coolness" and featuring maladjusted protagonists with issues relating to other people, using cold aloofness and killing prowess as a mask for their insecurities, we're now getting a protagonist who's just a funny little guy. A trickster archetype who has several friends, a trained actor and stage fighter as well as a thief and a scoundrel, who also seemingly can't keep himself from flirting with some women and accidentally making others mad at him. Oh, I'm sure there are hidden depths to Zidane and some mystery to his past, but unlike Cloud and Squall, he doesn't project mystery; you'd be forgiven from looking at him and thinking he's exactly what he appears to be.
At least until you remember that this charming rogue is currently pivoting opportunistically to "helping out" a woman he was originally planning to drug and abduct without a single moral qualm, and in fact seeming to find the whole thing great amusement.
We can actually mess with the engine by turning it down or cranking it up, though in both cases this just results in Cinna yelling at us and Zidane turning it back to neutral.
However, Steiner finally manages to corner our party just as they leave the engine room!
Garnet immediately turns around back the way they came but, oh no! It looks like the helpful knight who mysteriously doesn't fit into the Pluto Knights roster has cut off that escape!
How will our heroes escape this predicament?
Steiner: "Good work! This will be remembered as the Pluto Knights' finest hour!"
Knight: "Hehehe! Just relax, Princess. We'll get you outta here!"
Steiner: "WHAT!!!? You're not one of my knights!"
[Zidane, Cinna and Blank line up.]
Zidane: "You can just…"
Cinna: "...leave the princess…"
All at once: "...to us!"
Cut for image count.
Jesus Christ what the fuck.
Now, I'm not going to preemptively cancel the game on twitter dot com or anything, so far we've had no indication that Queen Brahne is anything but a sympathetic character whose daughter is being targeted by vicious kidnappers. But I am making a note that the Queen is depicted as a grotesque caricature, obese, hideous, with the worst hair I've ever seen, and reacting to the spectacle with the kind of childlike glee usually associated with the Mad Ruler archetype. Is that a problem? I don't know! But, well, we'll see.
Princess Garnet, in contrast to her mother*, is looking downcast, even sad, and utterly uninterested in the spectacle; Queen Brahne does not notice, but another character does - a knight standing guard next to the royal pair.
*Well, 'mother.' We caught only the briefest glimpse of what we can only presume was Garnet's mother in the intro movie, and she looked… Different.
Whatever the source of Garnet's sadness, though, he seems confident it will solve itself with more spectacle; he smiles to himself and raises his sword, signaling the troupe to launch the fireworks that signal the beginning of the play; the band launches into a lively fanfare as their stage lifts up, revealing a theatre stage made up to look like a castle. Queen Brahne reacts with even more childlike glee, while in the crowd, Vivi can't help himself but swing a bit in tune to the music. The knight smiles confidently, and looks at Garnet again…
…and reacts with horror as she looks somehow even sadder.
Apropos of nothing, Garnet's name was also changed in French - to "Grenat," which is the French name for the garnet.
The Queen continues not to notice, even starting to dance to the tune of the music; and below, Baku enters.
Baku: "Ladies and Gentlemen! Tonight's performance is a story that takes place long, long ago. Our heroine, Princess Cornelia, is torn from her lover, Marcus. She attempts to flee the castle, only to be captured by her father, King Leo. When our story begins, Marcus, having heard of this, crosses swords with the King. And now, Your Royal Majesty, Queen Brahne, Your Highness, Princess Garnet… noble ladies and lords, and our rooftop viewers, Tantalus proudly presents 'I Want to Be Your Canary!'"
This… Seems to be skipping over most of what would be the actual plot of the play. Are they performing an abridged version or something?
Time will tell if the plot of the play has any relevance to the plot of FF9's own story - the opera in VI, of course, reflected Celes's own personal conflict as a soldier thinking of herself as a living weapon yet experiencing love for the first time. This play could have some similar connection or it could just be a classic star-crossed lovers riff because that's standard.
Zidane, Blank and Cinna appear, making bold proclamations of standing by Marcus's side in his combat, speaking in Ye Olde English; they enter the stage next to Marcus, who is engaged in battle against King Leo and two of his hench… hippos? Aardvarks? I think they might be aardvarks.
Cue the battle music.
Yes, the staged battle between Marcus and his kinsmen and King Leo and his soldier is in fact played out as an actual battle.
There's a twist, too! Seeing as they're putting on their public face, none of our characters has access to the Steal command; instead, they have the SFX command. What does SFX do?
Why, stage effects, of course.
"Medeo" is a pseudo-Meteor, while "Poly" is a light show, and both of them do… Exactly 0 damage.
Because they're stage effects. They're fake magic.
I honestly find that little touch incredibly charming.
With that said, this is an actual battle we have to win, so we need to use our Attacks to deal damage to King Leo, and he hits hard enough to actually KO Cinna. Still, this is a simple battle, and soon over.
As the battle ends, Baku as King Leo limps away, swearing vengeance; Zidane rushes up the stairs after him, but Blank stands in his way; it seems he's had a change of mind. While Marcus (notably, all of the characters are using their actual names except Baku as King Leo, which is… Weird; did Zidane et all coincidentally all happen to be named after heroes from a famous Alexandrian play?) is his friend, Blank believes that Princess Cornelia's arranged marriage with Prince Schneider would bring peace upon two kingdoms, a cause he's willing to betray his friends over. Zidane doesn't see things that way, and the two begin to do battle - this time though, it's not played as a real battle, but as a rhythm game.
It's very simple: Blank gives Zidane an instruction consisting of a single button input, either a face button or a directional arrow. Each option corresponds to a specific choreographed movement; and entering it correctly leads to a cool exchange of 'blows' while fucking it up causes Zidane to knock Blank over, all while a flamenco-styled tune plays and the crowd bobs along. It's surprisingly thrilling!
At the end, we're rated based on our performance by telling us how many of the 100 nobles watching were impressed, and whether Queen Brahne herself was pleased; doing all correct inputs only gets us to 90/100, so speed appears to also be key, and I don't really care enough to redo it a third time. The crowd showers us with 853 gil, which is pretty nice.
Of course, in truth, the whole battle is an excuse to carry the two of them off-stage, where they sneak away from the stage and into the castle. The game plays the classic "dark screen with sounds of people getting beat up" gag, and we tune back in to Zidane and Blank wearing two unfortunate guards' armor.
Blank: "Finished changing, Zidane?"
Zidane: "Yeah, but this helmets…" [He tosses the helmet onto a nearby table.] "It kinda smells…"
Blank: "What are you talkin' about!?" [He pantomimes.] "My helmet totally reeks! My armor's way too big… And my back's real itchy… The boots are wet… My gloves are all slimy… There's cookie crumbs in my pockets…"
Zidane: "Okay, I get the picture… You still have the package, right?"
Blank: "Don't worry! I won't screw up!" [A huge bug escapes from Blank's grasp as he says this, and he has to scramble to catch it.]
Zidane: "Alright! First, I'll go pour some sleep potion into Princess Garnet's teacup!"
Blank: "And I've got a special something for the lovely queen!"
And thus begins the infiltration of Alexandria Castle. Blank and Zidane are heading to the royal seats where we found Garnet and Brahne earlier. While I'm at it, let's check out Zidane's character menu.
Okay, a picture is starting to form. That 18/18 number above is an amount of, idk what they're called so let's go with "skill points" for now, that can be allocated to abilities which have a cost. For instance, we can spend 4 of these points on Protect Girls, which allows Zidane to take damage instead of a female character (and which tells us interesting things about his personality). This isn't permanent, though; we can take away those 4 points and put them into something else instead whenever we want.
Right now, the only abilities Zidane has access to are Protect Girls and Flee-Gil, which allows us to still get gil even after fleeing from battle; that's not actually enough to spend all 18 skill points. We'll need to find a way to learn more abilities, and it looks like that's going to be with items; Zidane's starting armor is a Leather Vest, and that Leather Vest has the Protect Girls skill tied to it. We can learn that ability permanently by gaining 35 AP in battle, at which point it'll presumably be permanently added to this menu where we can equip it or not out of those 18 skill points.
So, character growth is going to be tied to items. How will that work out in practice? We'll see.
Blank and Zidane have to briefly hide from a patrol of Alexandrian soldiers, which…
I will never be able to get over these outfits. What the hell.
In the process of running up the stairs, however, Zidane runs into a Final Fantasy I White Mage.
I'm starting to think this game might be a little referential.
Zidane takes one look at Definitely Not Garnet and decides something's up, so he does not, in fact, let her pass.
Zidane: [He examines her face.] "Let's see…"
Hooded Girl: "Is there something on my face?"
Zidane: "Oh, no. You see… I just thought maybe you were the one I'd been waiting for all this time."
Hooded Girl: "Excuse me? You were waiting for me?"
Zidane: "Yeah! I've dreamt of meeting you here ever since I was born!"
Hooded Girl: "Do you mock me?"
Zidane: "No, of course not…"
Hooded Girl: "Then, I shall take my leave of you!"
[She advances towards the stairs; Zidane steps in to block her.]
Zidane: "Just a sec! Haven't we met before?"
Hooded Girl: "No, I do not know you…"
Zidane: "Hmm…" [He starts circling the girl, examining her from various angles.] "Hmm… Maybe you're right. I'd never let someone as pretty as you get away. Say, you wouldn't-"
[Blank appears at the bottom of the stairs.]
Blank: "Hey, what's goin' on, Zidane?"
Hooded Girl: "I… I must go!"
[She storms away suddenly, moving past Zidane and Blank so fast they spin.]
Blank: "Who the heck was that!?"
Zidane: "Get up, Blank! That was Princess Garnet!"
Blank: "Are you serious!?"
[They both rush off after Garnet.]
You know, I don't recall a lot about Zidane's personality from my childhood playing this game. I think I just remember him being, like, a cool heroic boy. What I didn't remember was that he was apparently an incorrigible flirt with a problem respecting women's personal space! And he definitely realized he was talking to Garnet partway through this whole exchange - he played up the whole flirting angle for his own amusement while already knowing he had his target right in front of him.
Then the clowns come in.
IV. Captain Zenigata of the Pluto Knights
Queen Brahne apparently has a duo of color-coordinated jesters called Zorn and Thorn, one blue, one red, who echo each other's sentences. These guys are 100% paying homage to Kefka, and the chances that they aren't involved in some nefarious war crime-related bullshit are slim to none.
You know, it's funny. Kefka is often casually referred to as a "clown" but that's not, strictly speaking, accurate. Kefka was never a court jester; he merely dressed like one. His actual position was general in the imperial armies; he was a man of enormous power and influence who just put on clown makeup because it amused him. Time will tell if the same is true of Zorn and Thorn.
Anyway, the thorns do a whole synchronized routine lamenting how everything is terrible and they need to inform Queen Brahne of [something] at once, until finally reaching the royal seats, whereupon they are stopped by the knight.
Our knight is identified as the Captain of the Knights of Pluto. Which sounds prestigious, but as we'll see, really, really isn't. While he tells the jesters to buzz off, the woman on the other side, Beatrix, asks them if this is an emergency, and they immediately turn around to address her while the Captain seethes internally, "Grrr! Curse that Beatrix! Always trying to one-up me!" Our man is suffering from some job-related envy. The two jesters inform Beatrix that "Princess Garnet is in danger," which… How would they even know? Well, no matter; Beatrix decides this is important enough to bother the queen; apparently Garnet didn't just abscond, but also took with her the "Royal Pendant," whatever that is.
Queen Brahne: "Well, of all the… What could she be thinking!? General Beatrix!"
Beatrix: "Your Majesty!"
[Queen Brahne turns around to look at the Captain dubiously.]
Queen Brahne: "And Captain… uh…"
God. Incredible use of the menu screen timing to convey how little respect this dude gets. Also, Beatrix looks like she has an eyepatch, which is cool. Brahne orders Steiner and Beatrix to go look for Garnet; Steiner heads out to the big stairs earlier and shouts "ASSEMBLE!" to… Nobody.
Note how the two female guards don't answer Steiner's call; he lacks authority over them. Shortly after, two of the "Pluto Knights" emerge, only they don't look very knightly: They're the poor suckers Zidane and Blank clobbered for their armor.
Steiner boggles; there are supposed to be eight Pluto Knights, and here are only two of them, without any of their gear! Steiner rants angrily and tells them to go get dressed while he finds Garnet and the other Pluto Knights, and we take control of him.
Steiner is indeed a playable character; he's a knight who can equip heavy armor and swords, and appears to have abilities related to dealing extra damage to specific enemy types.
So here we are, given the run of the castle to look for Garnet… And Steiner's other men. And they are men. The Pluto Knights are a small order, and they're not an elite order either; most of the men appear to be layabouts of some sort. Blutzen and Kohel, the two soldiers who just appeared naked, can be found in the room they were in previously, and instead of looking for Garnet, they're trading gossip about who's dating who until Steiner yells at them again.
This guy, for instance, is hiding in the library and complains that he never wanted to be a soldier. Side note: One of the scholars in the library mentions that Garnet asked to borrow a copy of the script of I Want to Be Your Canary. This is our first hint that, despite her lack of interest in tonight's performance, Garnet is actually at the very least passingly familiar with the play - knowledge that might come in handy if, say, she was suddenly called to take part in it out of nowhere. Just saying.
The Pluto Knights are also all small and either scrawny or fat - and Steiner has this fascinating comment to one of them who's just sitting around complaining he's hungry:
Steiner: "Wimps like you are the reason nobody relies on men in Alexandria! Bite the bullet, you worthless grub!!!"
So there it is. Alexandria isn't just ruled by a queen, it's a matriarchy, where men are prejudiced against - and Steiner's men are living down to their stereotype. Steiner is envious of Beatrix because she is higher ranked and more respected than he is; his status is low because he's a man; his order of "Pluto Knights" are few in numbers and low quality recruits because male soldiers are generally dismissed and looked down on, so nobody would want to become one. All these female soldiers in the improbable uniforms are part of a separate chain of command from Steiner and, while they're helpful enough to answer his questions when talked to, they don't answer to him. There's one female soldier who reacts to Steiner greeting her by saying it's "an honor" to meet the Captain of the Pluto Knights, but she also immediately mentions that she's a new recruit.
That's… Interesting. I'm not sure what to make of this. The combination of "Alexandria is a matriarchy" with "the Queen is a hideous blob" and "the female soldier uniform is a leotard with boob plate" is… Hm. We'll see what the game does with it, I suppose.
Oh also what the fuck is that-
The Head Chef of the Alexandria Castle kitchens is a Lickitung!?
Let's just ignore this and move on.
Now, here's a funny thing: In the guards' room, we can find a list of all nine (eight + the captain) members of the Pluto Knights, by name. And every time we run into a member of the unit, they are named something along the lines of, "Mullenkedheim, Pluto Knight IX," so we can keep the order straight and know which one we've picked up. Why does this matter?
Because, when we run into this guy…
The fact that he is referred to as a "Knight of Pluto" without a name should alert us that something is up, and checking him against the roster should alert us to the fact that this isn't, in fact, a Pluto Knight at all, but Blank in disguise. (Or, you know, you're able to make out that he's still wearing his leather blindfold under his helmet at this low resolution. I suspect the upscaled textures of the Steam version make it a lot easier to notice.)
Something which Steiner, the Captain of the Pluto Knights, who has all of eight men under his command and should damn well be able to know their face and names, is totally oblivious to. As if we needed any further evidence that he is… Well, kind of a buffoon.
Eventually, after running out of other places to check if nothing else, we end up climbing up a tower, and there…
Steiner notices a woman in a white hood and a boy with a monkey's tail running in circles. To his credit, even at this distance and with the hood, Steiner immediately recognizes Princess Garnet.
Steiner: "It's Princess Garnet! Being hounded by brigands! Fear not, Princess! Your knight is coming!"
Notice the rope behind Garnet.
Unfortunately, they are on a different tower at the opposite side of the castle, and it looks like Zidane has cornered her. Garnet climbs up on the parapet, but there's nowhere left to run… And yet, she seems oddly confident, and smiles at Zidane. Surely she wouldn't…?
This game has some incredible faces.
Yep, you guessed it, Garnet jumps off the parapet, having sneakily grabbed hold of one of the ropes holding up the little colorful triangle that decorate the festivities. She swings on it, Tarzan-like, and Zidane realises that if he doesn't want her to escape, he has no choice but to do the same; he grabs his own rope, swings after her… And so does Steiner, though with less grace.
Notably, throughout all this, Garnet is clearly having the time of her life. Completely transformed from the sad, wistful princess at the show, she's smiling, taking ridiculous risks, and enjoying it all the while.
Unfortunately, Steiner manages to crash into the airship. This man is not allowed to have a single thing go right for him, it's impressive.
This takes him out of the race for now, and we return to Garnet and Zidane; at this point it's pretty clear that Garnet is running away more for the sheer joy of the chase than because she's actually concerned for her own safety.
Also she lands on Zidane's back at one point, it's funny.
She also continues to run so fast that she literally makes people spin by passing next to them, Looney Tunes style. This includes one of the female member of the troupe, a blue-haired girl named Ruby who inexplicably talks like a cowboy:
Ruby talks about making her "grand entrance," so I assume she's set to play the role of Princess Cordelia; she holds up Garnet just long enough for Zidane to catch up… Unfortunately Zidane forgets to turn on the charm at a crucial time.
Ruby: "Hey, Zidane! Did you see the way she hit me!? This cowgirl's wilder than a buckin' bronco!"
Zidane: "Just let me talk to her, Ruby!"
Ruby: "Come again, pardner!?" [She advances threateningly on Zidane, who steps back.] "Did you hear a word what I was sayin'!?"
[While Ruby occupies Zidane, Garnet escapes again.]
However, this is where this chase is about to end; Garnet now reaches the first room of the game, the one in which we found Zidane earlier, and she finally stops running.
Zidane: "Whew… Well, it looks like you've finally made up your mind."
Zidane: (Wow. We really had to improvise. But hey, we got her!)
Hooded Girl: "Do you… Do you work on this theater ship?"
Zidane: (Aww… So she figured it out, huh?)
Hooded Girl: "As you have no doubt suspected… the truth is that… I am actually…"
[She lifts her head, the hood lifting up slightly to reveal her face.]
Hooded Girl: "Princess Garnet Til Alexandros, heir to the throne of Alexandria.
Garnet: "I have a favor I wish to ask of you… I wish to be kidnapped… right away."
Now there's a twist. This, understandably, flummoxes Zidane; but there's little time for questions, as the voices of the Pluto Knights call out for Garnet.
Garnet: "Please… they've come for me!"
Zidane: "Aha… So that's what's going on… Alright! Leave them to me!"
Garnet: "Thank you. You have my gratitude."
[Zidane kneels.]
Zidane: "Alright then, Your Highness!" [He bows.] "I shall hereby do my best to kidnap you!"
At this point, Cinna bursts into the room, frightening Garnet; Zidane tells her it's fine, he's a friend ("Well, with a face like his, I'd be pretty shocked too!"/"Man, that hurts! I wash up every morning, you know!") then Cinna leads them out of the room mere seconds before Steiner barges in after them, calling out for the princess.
Thankfully, he's not alone! Another Pluto Knight, whose name he doesn't quite recall at this particular moment, follows quickly after! How helpful!
In the other room, Zidane complains that this room is a dead end, and Cinna chuckles before revealing that the central table is actually hiding a disguised trap door! Everyone quickly jumps in. Unfortunately the trap door doesn't seem to have a way to close it back up, so when Steiner and Unnamed Pluto Knight enter, it's immediately obvious where Garnet has gone. Thankfully, Unnamed Pluto Knight volunteers to go first!
Oh no, look at this! He got his body stuck in the trap door! What a clumsy lad! Now Steiner has no choice but to find a different route to wherever the thieves have gone! How unfortunate!
I'm starting to think Steiner isn't the sharpest sword in Alexandria's armory.
Downstairs, our little party lands in the airship's engine room, which gives us a neat look at what that thing is running on. It looks like… A giant bellows?
It contracts repeatedly, pumping something somewhere, and steam is involved in the process somehow. Very curious.
Also Zidane just can't stop flirting.
Zidane: "Wow, you're really athletic, Princess. I think I'm falling for you!"
Garnet: "This is nothing. I have been training to escape the castle, after all."
Zidane: "What a waste. If only you weren't a princess…"
It's interesting that after two straight games focused on interrogating the idea of "coolness" and featuring maladjusted protagonists with issues relating to other people, using cold aloofness and killing prowess as a mask for their insecurities, we're now getting a protagonist who's just a funny little guy. A trickster archetype who has several friends, a trained actor and stage fighter as well as a thief and a scoundrel, who also seemingly can't keep himself from flirting with some women and accidentally making others mad at him. Oh, I'm sure there are hidden depths to Zidane and some mystery to his past, but unlike Cloud and Squall, he doesn't project mystery; you'd be forgiven from looking at him and thinking he's exactly what he appears to be.
At least until you remember that this charming rogue is currently pivoting opportunistically to "helping out" a woman he was originally planning to drug and abduct without a single moral qualm, and in fact seeming to find the whole thing great amusement.
We can actually mess with the engine by turning it down or cranking it up, though in both cases this just results in Cinna yelling at us and Zidane turning it back to neutral.
However, Steiner finally manages to corner our party just as they leave the engine room!
Garnet immediately turns around back the way they came but, oh no! It looks like the helpful knight who mysteriously doesn't fit into the Pluto Knights roster has cut off that escape!
How will our heroes escape this predicament?
Steiner: "Good work! This will be remembered as the Pluto Knights' finest hour!"
Knight: "Hehehe! Just relax, Princess. We'll get you outta here!"
Steiner: "WHAT!!!? You're not one of my knights!"
[Zidane, Cinna and Blank line up.]
Zidane: "You can just…"
Cinna: "...leave the princess…"
All at once: "...to us!"
Cut for image count.
Final Fantasy IX, Part 1.C: The Kidnapping of Princess Garnet
New
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We only have three characters this time, but that's fine - our only opponent is Steiner. We open up by literally stealing the shirt off his back (his stealables are Silk Shirt and Leather Hat), toss some potions when his damage threatens to take out Cinna, and dump attacks on him. This is a lv 1 Final Fantasy battle, it's exceedingly simple and there's not much to be said.
Once we've hit him enough, however, Steiner decides to show that he has some tricks up his sleeve; his sword begins to shine, and he starts to draw a circle in the air, which is reflected by the moon appearing under Blank's feet!
The moon erupts in light, strong enough to shatter Blank's armor…
…unfortunately, as we established earlier:
That's where he keeps the oglops.
The battle breaks down into total chaos. Everyone is running around the room trying to get rid of the loathsome bugs. Everyone, that is, except Zidane and Garnet, who see their chance to escape and make a run for it while Steiner is running around the room trying to slap the damned bugs off him.
Up on the stage, Baku is continuing the play. We've reached the wedding of Princess Cornelia and Prince Schneider; as he gloats about his victory, the guards enter, dragging Marcus with them - they captured him while he was breaking into the castle! King Leo gloats that he shall never see his daughter marry a mere peasant, no matter how much she believes she loves him, and now he will have Marcus executed.
Under the stage, Zidane and Garnet reach another dead end… Except, this is a theatre stage. It has yet more trap doors, only these ones, lead up.
V. High Stakes Improv Theatre
Soon, all of Zidane, Garnet, and Steiner are on the stage. Zidane pleads to Baku to improvise, which is.
God.
Can you imagine being at Act V of Romeo and Juliet, at the point where everyone is supposed to start dying, and then you get the wrong actors on the stage and they ask you to improvise the ending?
I would die on the spot.
But the Tantalus Company are made of sterner stuff. Marcus immediately approaches Garnet, calling her Cornelia, and Garnet only needs a prompt from Zidane reminding her that Marcus is Cornelia's lover for her to launch into an improv.
Garnet: "Oh, Marcus!"
Zidane: "(Yeah, you're doing great!)"
Garnet: "(Hahaha. I have studied drama, you know.)"
Baku: "(Okay, guys. Let's keep going. Brahne is still watching, after all!)"
Garnet and Marcus embrace, Garnet lamenting that she has missed him so; and that she wishes never to leave his side again, begging him to take her away from this place. Zidane tells King Leo that he should give them his blessing, and this is when Baku has a stroke of genius:
Baku/King Leo: "Never leave his side, thou sayest? Foolish banter! I'll not allow it! Cornelia shall marry none other than this man - Prince Shneider!"
He ropes Steiner into the play.
Steiner has been just completely stunned for the entire duration of this improv so far; he's clearly extremely confused and overwhelmed at suddenly being on stage in front of every noble in Alexandria. Being directly addressed by Baku is enough to draw him out of his stupor, but not to make him any more aware of what's actually going on.
King Leo: "Is that not so, Prince Schneider?"
Steiner: "M-Marry the princess? Me!?"
King Leo: "Aye! And this traitorous crew, I will put to death!"
[At this point, Zidane turns on the guards, "hitting" them with a roundhouse kick, and they dramatically exclaim their pain and run away off stage.]
King Leo turns to Cornelia to ask her to please come back to him and marry the man he chose for her own good, but then, tragedy! Marcus draws his sword, and reveals there is something more bitter on his mind tonight than love - revenge
Marcus: "Now is my moment of vengeance! For my parents, and for my love, Cornelia… I shall cut thee down!"
Alas! The Princess loved her father too much to allow him to be killed in front of her! She throws himself in front of him, and Marcus kills the woman he loves by his own hand! A dying Cornelia pleads to Marcus to forgive her, but she still loves her father. King Leo weeps! Steiner falls to his knees in horror and sorrow!
Steiner absolutely, 100% forgot about the play and believes that he just saw Princess Garnet actually die in real life. Funniest character of all time.
Marcus: "What have I done!? Am I never to hear her loving voice again!? Am I cursed never again to feel her soft touch!? O, cruel fate! Thou hast robbed me of all I treasure!"
[He thrusts his sword into his own chest.]
Zidane: "Marcus!"
Up in the audience, Queen Brahne is eating this up. She bawls her eyes out, asking why Cornelia had to die, briefly wondering where the hell Garnet has gone before resuming theatrical sobbing.
Vivi actually looks genuinely sad about the play, the poor thing. Unfortunately, this is when two Pluto Knights show up and identify, presumably from their clothing, that these are not, in fact, wealthy nobles of the Alexandrian elite, and immediately start chasing after the kids.
SO OF COURSE VIVI TRIPS AND FALLS OVER AGAIN
WILL THIS POOR CHILD NEVER KNOW PEACE!?
Puck runs off on his own, the rat, leaving Vivi to get up and try to escape another way - towards the stage. This is just about enough to finally get our whole cast up on the same stage, with the fun twist that right now Steiner is an antagonist.
And then Vivi sets Garnet on fire.
This is hysterical.
Luckily, it turns out it's only the White Mage hood that's burning. Garnet manages to throw it off, revealing her face to the public. And also reminding Steiner that this was acting and she was not, in fact, dead, whereupon Steiner remembers that, oh, right, he's supposed to arrest all these people.
Steiner: "What… What is going on!?"
Garnet: "Steiner! Don't follow me anymore!"
Haagen, Pluto Knight VIII: "Captain, sir! We await your orders, sir!"
Steiner: "Hmm… Well… Umm… Errr… Princess! I'm afraid I cannot comply!"
Garnet: "Stubborn as always, aren't you?"
Zidane: "Come on, princess. Let's ditch Sir Rustalot and get outta here!"
ZIdane, Marcus and Garnet make a break for the stage, but stop upon seeing that…
Vivi… Who ran off in a panic after Garnet dropped her uniform…
Tripped.
And fell over.
Off-screen.
Luckily, he's fine. At this point I can only imagine his knees and forehead have hardened into, like, bone armor plates. This does give Steiner time to gather his bearings, and now he has two Pluto Knights to back him up.
Cue battle music.
So! We have nearly 3/4 of a "real" party with us now. No offense to Marcus, but the fact that we didn't get a naming menu for him, Cinna and Blank, unlike we did for Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Steiner, kinda gives away the game that he's not going to be a permanent member of the party. Hopefully this happens by way of him retiring to a management position and not a tragic and untimely death.
So! We now have Zidane, the Thief; Vivi, the Black Mage; and Garnet, the White Mage-
Wait a minute.
What do you mean, "Summon"?
…
Garnet has a summon menu full of summons that start at Shiva and top off at fucking Bahamut.
At level 1.
I mean, she can't use any of these; she only has 46 MP, and her cheapest summon, Shiva, costs 96 MP. So in a sense this is purely symbolic.
But what a symbol. We don't yet know what Summons are in this setting, but it's clear that Garnet is in some way special; she has a kind of incredible potential, even if it hasn't manifested yet.
Well, for the time being, we can't use these, so we'll focus on White Magic; Garnet starts off with Cure, Protect, and Panacea (which removes Venom and Poison; Venom is a new status effect that sounds like it's going to be Poison+). Vivi, meanwhile, only knows Fire, but we are at low level in a Final Fantasy game, so casting Fire beats attacks every time.
Hilariously, since we are on the theatre stage, Zidane still has access to the SFX command. It still does no damage, but it does prompt Steiner to angrily yell about "silly stage magic."
Also the Pluto Knights continue to be absolute jokes. Haagen both flee from battle after a single hit. Weimer even throws in an excuse about how he's going to be late for his date.
That leaves us at 4v1 against Steiner, who quickly starts getting short of breath.
This signifies the end of this battle round, though if Steiner has one quality, it's stubbornness, so we're not done with him yet.
VI. Battleship Tantalus
Meanwhile, in the ship's cockpit, the Tantalus Company are adapting to shifting circumstances as best they can: By slamming the accelerator to make a break for it.
The ship rises, to the shock and surprise of the crowd; but Queen Brahne has, by now, likely seen her daughter on the stage and realized that an abduction is in process, and she waves to the cannons posted on the castle's tower.
These are no ordinary cannons.
These are harpoon chain-cannons.
Holy fucking shit this is so cool
Now, Queen Brahne isn't exactly being careful with her artillery here, and Garnet nearly gets turned to a fine pink mist by a harpoon several times her size. But those harpoons are doing their job; the airship is struggling against the chains, which causes it to veer off wildly, knocking down one of the castle walls to the panic of the crowd.
Queen Brahne gesticulates angrily, and then waves forward another cannon - one mounted right above her throne.
And it's giving us one of the coolest ideas in a Final Fantasy game:
Monster artillery.
You see, the cannon fires an iron ball, and that ball comes apart to reveal a Bomb. As in the classic fireball monster.
God I want more of this. This is directly in line with the biomechanical missiles with monster brains from VIII, though distinctly more fantasy in its aesthetic, but it's such a cool idea. Weaponized monsters! Using literal Bombs as bombs! Love this.
Now, unfortunately, like I said.
Steiner has one quality and it's stubbornness.
We are on the deck of a sinking airship that is being pulled apart by harpoons, there is a Bomb on the deck, and he still decides the most important thing to do is to fight us.
In fact, Steiner hasn't noticed the monster at all. His back is literally turned to it, so he just. Doesn't see it. And because he's in the way, we can't target the monster either.
Which means that we, as Final Fantasy veterans by now, get to watch the Bomb use Grow every turn while we can't do anything about it, knowing exactly what happens when you let a Bomb on the field Grow repeatedly.
It's getting very large.
Our characters do try to warn Steiner about the monster behind him, but unfortunately, our knight in shining armor is too smart to fall for "the oldest trick in the book."
So the Bomb just. Keeps. Getting bigger.
Anyway, as a fight, this is still lv 1 Final Fantasy, but honestly for such a low level boss battle the game keeps it pretty interesting; Garnet has White Magic and her Protect allows her to be very proactive in the face of a physical opponent like Steiner rather than standing back waiting until someone needs a Cure, and while Vivi has only one spell, he also has a "Focus" command that allows him to increase his Magic Attack, so we have a choice between spamming Fire and having him self-buff for stronger Fires down the line.
It's almost like class-based design is really useful and versatile and allows you to create custom encounters and to have characters with complete skillsets from the first level of the game!! Crazy how that works!!!
Anyway, eventually, the Bomb grows to such enormous size as to knock Steiner over, at which point he finally does turn around and realizes his mistake.
Oops.
And we all know what happens when you let a Bomb grow too large.
Queen Brahne watches in delight as the monster explodes and the blast engulfs the airship, seemingly destroying him - she even does a little dance of joy; it seems like any concern about Garnet have been completely forgotten in the primal joy of doing violence on people who have slighted her, which is a fascinating insight into her character.
But of course.
It couldn't end like this.
Burnt, battered, tilting severely and trailing smoke, but still flying, the Tantalus airship soars away from the castle as Queen Brahne watches powerlessly, the vessel now far out of range of her cannons.
It's not home safe by any means; explosions are still rocking the ship even now, an entire tower falls off and explodes into the city below, the ship loses attitude slowly.
But it's still flying. Queen Brahne watches, seething, and in her anger, snaps her fan in half.
And so the airship flies away, into dark mists, away from Queen Brahne's grasp but perhaps into worse danger still. Fatally wounded, its flight will be a short one; but these new perils will wait for another day. For now, the Tantalus Company and Princess Garnet are (briefly) safe.
Their adventure has just begun. But we will close here on one last ominous stinger:
Queen Brahne: "Garnet… I never imagined you would do such a thing. Perhaps you're not such a helpless little girl anymore… Zorn! Thorn!"
[The two jesters appear.]
Queen Brahne: "Is our little experiment ready?"
Zorn: "Yes, Your Majesty. It is combat-ready."
Thorn: "Easily terminate Princess Garnet, it can, Your Majesty."
Queen Brahne: "I need her alive! Bring her back at once!"
Well, well, well.
There's no show of love or affection in Queen Brahne's attitude - she wants Garnet back because she somehow needs her. Is this related to her latent summoner powers? Very likely. And it's most likely related to Brahne and Garnet's at-best questionable familial relationship. Where did this girl come from?
(From whatever this game's equivalent to the Summoner Village is, probably.)
…
So!
That was the opening of Final Fantasy IX.
It was hefty. Like I said in the thread, I failed to anticipate and account for the difference in scope between IX's prologue and VII's Mako Reactor Raid. But we got to see a lot of stuff. I am loving the aesthetic so far, the vibrancy of it, the colors of Alexandria, the weirdness of all these humanoid people. We've only had a few battles so far but the gameplay looks interesting, and we might finally be getting over some of the issues I've had with past games. The shift from character to character is also a really neat way to show us a breadth of perspectives on the plot and on Alexandria.
I have some concerns I think are worth bringing up, though. Namely that this opening has a pretty high quotient of being Weird About Women compared to previous games. You'll all recall that I wasn't particularly fond of Setzer in VI, and here we get to basically play as Setzer - the plot starts with our heroes setting out to drug and abduct a teenage girl for unknown purposes. Which I wouldn't really bat an eye at, except that this is followed up with the entire female army of Alexandria being dressed in weird fetish outfits (something which the few male soldiers pointedly do not share), and then by the nefarious Queen Brahne being depicted as overweight, ugly, and violent in a kinda manic way that codes as childlike or, well, insane, which are a spicy combination of visual and acting cues to dump on an evil female ruler.
Still, it's early in the game, and I want to emphasize that 'concerns' is not the same thing as 'the game is Sexist and Problematic,' it just got my eyebrows raised a little. We'll see how it all pans out going forward.
Overall, though: A pretty fantastic introduction. Final Fantasy is heading into a new direction aesthetically and vibes-wise here, though in many ways that direction is more classical than its previous flirtations with sci-fi inspired settings and story. There's a kingdom and a castle, a princess, an evil queen, a stalwart knight, a dashing rogue. But I'm very excited to find out how all these familiar pieces get rearranged in new and surprising ways. So far, what I would say about IX is that it is fun. Its characters are compelling, its comedy is genuinely funny, the game finally has a decent translation that even pulls off some solid wordplay with "Sir Rustalot," the action is top-tier.
I'm really excited about this one.
And most importantly?
Look at him.
We must protect his smile. At least, I assume he's smiling.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Crash landing!
Once we've hit him enough, however, Steiner decides to show that he has some tricks up his sleeve; his sword begins to shine, and he starts to draw a circle in the air, which is reflected by the moon appearing under Blank's feet!
The moon erupts in light, strong enough to shatter Blank's armor…
…unfortunately, as we established earlier:
That's where he keeps the oglops.
The battle breaks down into total chaos. Everyone is running around the room trying to get rid of the loathsome bugs. Everyone, that is, except Zidane and Garnet, who see their chance to escape and make a run for it while Steiner is running around the room trying to slap the damned bugs off him.
Up on the stage, Baku is continuing the play. We've reached the wedding of Princess Cornelia and Prince Schneider; as he gloats about his victory, the guards enter, dragging Marcus with them - they captured him while he was breaking into the castle! King Leo gloats that he shall never see his daughter marry a mere peasant, no matter how much she believes she loves him, and now he will have Marcus executed.
Under the stage, Zidane and Garnet reach another dead end… Except, this is a theatre stage. It has yet more trap doors, only these ones, lead up.
V. High Stakes Improv Theatre
Soon, all of Zidane, Garnet, and Steiner are on the stage. Zidane pleads to Baku to improvise, which is.
God.
Can you imagine being at Act V of Romeo and Juliet, at the point where everyone is supposed to start dying, and then you get the wrong actors on the stage and they ask you to improvise the ending?
I would die on the spot.
But the Tantalus Company are made of sterner stuff. Marcus immediately approaches Garnet, calling her Cornelia, and Garnet only needs a prompt from Zidane reminding her that Marcus is Cornelia's lover for her to launch into an improv.
Garnet: "Oh, Marcus!"
Zidane: "(Yeah, you're doing great!)"
Garnet: "(Hahaha. I have studied drama, you know.)"
Baku: "(Okay, guys. Let's keep going. Brahne is still watching, after all!)"
Garnet and Marcus embrace, Garnet lamenting that she has missed him so; and that she wishes never to leave his side again, begging him to take her away from this place. Zidane tells King Leo that he should give them his blessing, and this is when Baku has a stroke of genius:
Baku/King Leo: "Never leave his side, thou sayest? Foolish banter! I'll not allow it! Cornelia shall marry none other than this man - Prince Shneider!"
He ropes Steiner into the play.
Steiner has been just completely stunned for the entire duration of this improv so far; he's clearly extremely confused and overwhelmed at suddenly being on stage in front of every noble in Alexandria. Being directly addressed by Baku is enough to draw him out of his stupor, but not to make him any more aware of what's actually going on.
King Leo: "Is that not so, Prince Schneider?"
Steiner: "M-Marry the princess? Me!?"
King Leo: "Aye! And this traitorous crew, I will put to death!"
[At this point, Zidane turns on the guards, "hitting" them with a roundhouse kick, and they dramatically exclaim their pain and run away off stage.]
King Leo turns to Cornelia to ask her to please come back to him and marry the man he chose for her own good, but then, tragedy! Marcus draws his sword, and reveals there is something more bitter on his mind tonight than love - revenge
Marcus: "Now is my moment of vengeance! For my parents, and for my love, Cornelia… I shall cut thee down!"
Alas! The Princess loved her father too much to allow him to be killed in front of her! She throws himself in front of him, and Marcus kills the woman he loves by his own hand! A dying Cornelia pleads to Marcus to forgive her, but she still loves her father. King Leo weeps! Steiner falls to his knees in horror and sorrow!
Steiner absolutely, 100% forgot about the play and believes that he just saw Princess Garnet actually die in real life. Funniest character of all time.
Marcus: "What have I done!? Am I never to hear her loving voice again!? Am I cursed never again to feel her soft touch!? O, cruel fate! Thou hast robbed me of all I treasure!"
[He thrusts his sword into his own chest.]
Zidane: "Marcus!"
Up in the audience, Queen Brahne is eating this up. She bawls her eyes out, asking why Cornelia had to die, briefly wondering where the hell Garnet has gone before resuming theatrical sobbing.
Vivi actually looks genuinely sad about the play, the poor thing. Unfortunately, this is when two Pluto Knights show up and identify, presumably from their clothing, that these are not, in fact, wealthy nobles of the Alexandrian elite, and immediately start chasing after the kids.
SO OF COURSE VIVI TRIPS AND FALLS OVER AGAIN
WILL THIS POOR CHILD NEVER KNOW PEACE!?
Puck runs off on his own, the rat, leaving Vivi to get up and try to escape another way - towards the stage. This is just about enough to finally get our whole cast up on the same stage, with the fun twist that right now Steiner is an antagonist.
And then Vivi sets Garnet on fire.
This is hysterical.
Luckily, it turns out it's only the White Mage hood that's burning. Garnet manages to throw it off, revealing her face to the public. And also reminding Steiner that this was acting and she was not, in fact, dead, whereupon Steiner remembers that, oh, right, he's supposed to arrest all these people.
Steiner: "What… What is going on!?"
Garnet: "Steiner! Don't follow me anymore!"
Haagen, Pluto Knight VIII: "Captain, sir! We await your orders, sir!"
Steiner: "Hmm… Well… Umm… Errr… Princess! I'm afraid I cannot comply!"
Garnet: "Stubborn as always, aren't you?"
Zidane: "Come on, princess. Let's ditch Sir Rustalot and get outta here!"
ZIdane, Marcus and Garnet make a break for the stage, but stop upon seeing that…
Vivi… Who ran off in a panic after Garnet dropped her uniform…
Tripped.
And fell over.
Off-screen.
Luckily, he's fine. At this point I can only imagine his knees and forehead have hardened into, like, bone armor plates. This does give Steiner time to gather his bearings, and now he has two Pluto Knights to back him up.
Cue battle music.
So! We have nearly 3/4 of a "real" party with us now. No offense to Marcus, but the fact that we didn't get a naming menu for him, Cinna and Blank, unlike we did for Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Steiner, kinda gives away the game that he's not going to be a permanent member of the party. Hopefully this happens by way of him retiring to a management position and not a tragic and untimely death.
So! We now have Zidane, the Thief; Vivi, the Black Mage; and Garnet, the White Mage-
Wait a minute.
What do you mean, "Summon"?
…
Garnet has a summon menu full of summons that start at Shiva and top off at fucking Bahamut.
At level 1.
I mean, she can't use any of these; she only has 46 MP, and her cheapest summon, Shiva, costs 96 MP. So in a sense this is purely symbolic.
But what a symbol. We don't yet know what Summons are in this setting, but it's clear that Garnet is in some way special; she has a kind of incredible potential, even if it hasn't manifested yet.
Well, for the time being, we can't use these, so we'll focus on White Magic; Garnet starts off with Cure, Protect, and Panacea (which removes Venom and Poison; Venom is a new status effect that sounds like it's going to be Poison+). Vivi, meanwhile, only knows Fire, but we are at low level in a Final Fantasy game, so casting Fire beats attacks every time.
Hilariously, since we are on the theatre stage, Zidane still has access to the SFX command. It still does no damage, but it does prompt Steiner to angrily yell about "silly stage magic."
Also the Pluto Knights continue to be absolute jokes. Haagen both flee from battle after a single hit. Weimer even throws in an excuse about how he's going to be late for his date.
That leaves us at 4v1 against Steiner, who quickly starts getting short of breath.
This signifies the end of this battle round, though if Steiner has one quality, it's stubbornness, so we're not done with him yet.
VI. Battleship Tantalus
Meanwhile, in the ship's cockpit, the Tantalus Company are adapting to shifting circumstances as best they can: By slamming the accelerator to make a break for it.
The ship rises, to the shock and surprise of the crowd; but Queen Brahne has, by now, likely seen her daughter on the stage and realized that an abduction is in process, and she waves to the cannons posted on the castle's tower.
These are no ordinary cannons.
These are harpoon chain-cannons.
Holy fucking shit this is so cool
Now, Queen Brahne isn't exactly being careful with her artillery here, and Garnet nearly gets turned to a fine pink mist by a harpoon several times her size. But those harpoons are doing their job; the airship is struggling against the chains, which causes it to veer off wildly, knocking down one of the castle walls to the panic of the crowd.
Queen Brahne gesticulates angrily, and then waves forward another cannon - one mounted right above her throne.
And it's giving us one of the coolest ideas in a Final Fantasy game:
Monster artillery.
You see, the cannon fires an iron ball, and that ball comes apart to reveal a Bomb. As in the classic fireball monster.
God I want more of this. This is directly in line with the biomechanical missiles with monster brains from VIII, though distinctly more fantasy in its aesthetic, but it's such a cool idea. Weaponized monsters! Using literal Bombs as bombs! Love this.
Now, unfortunately, like I said.
Steiner has one quality and it's stubbornness.
We are on the deck of a sinking airship that is being pulled apart by harpoons, there is a Bomb on the deck, and he still decides the most important thing to do is to fight us.
In fact, Steiner hasn't noticed the monster at all. His back is literally turned to it, so he just. Doesn't see it. And because he's in the way, we can't target the monster either.
Which means that we, as Final Fantasy veterans by now, get to watch the Bomb use Grow every turn while we can't do anything about it, knowing exactly what happens when you let a Bomb on the field Grow repeatedly.
It's getting very large.
Our characters do try to warn Steiner about the monster behind him, but unfortunately, our knight in shining armor is too smart to fall for "the oldest trick in the book."
So the Bomb just. Keeps. Getting bigger.
Anyway, as a fight, this is still lv 1 Final Fantasy, but honestly for such a low level boss battle the game keeps it pretty interesting; Garnet has White Magic and her Protect allows her to be very proactive in the face of a physical opponent like Steiner rather than standing back waiting until someone needs a Cure, and while Vivi has only one spell, he also has a "Focus" command that allows him to increase his Magic Attack, so we have a choice between spamming Fire and having him self-buff for stronger Fires down the line.
It's almost like class-based design is really useful and versatile and allows you to create custom encounters and to have characters with complete skillsets from the first level of the game!! Crazy how that works!!!
Anyway, eventually, the Bomb grows to such enormous size as to knock Steiner over, at which point he finally does turn around and realizes his mistake.
Oops.
And we all know what happens when you let a Bomb grow too large.
Queen Brahne watches in delight as the monster explodes and the blast engulfs the airship, seemingly destroying him - she even does a little dance of joy; it seems like any concern about Garnet have been completely forgotten in the primal joy of doing violence on people who have slighted her, which is a fascinating insight into her character.
But of course.
It couldn't end like this.
Burnt, battered, tilting severely and trailing smoke, but still flying, the Tantalus airship soars away from the castle as Queen Brahne watches powerlessly, the vessel now far out of range of her cannons.
It's not home safe by any means; explosions are still rocking the ship even now, an entire tower falls off and explodes into the city below, the ship loses attitude slowly.
But it's still flying. Queen Brahne watches, seething, and in her anger, snaps her fan in half.
And so the airship flies away, into dark mists, away from Queen Brahne's grasp but perhaps into worse danger still. Fatally wounded, its flight will be a short one; but these new perils will wait for another day. For now, the Tantalus Company and Princess Garnet are (briefly) safe.
Their adventure has just begun. But we will close here on one last ominous stinger:
Queen Brahne: "Garnet… I never imagined you would do such a thing. Perhaps you're not such a helpless little girl anymore… Zorn! Thorn!"
[The two jesters appear.]
Queen Brahne: "Is our little experiment ready?"
Zorn: "Yes, Your Majesty. It is combat-ready."
Thorn: "Easily terminate Princess Garnet, it can, Your Majesty."
Queen Brahne: "I need her alive! Bring her back at once!"
Well, well, well.
There's no show of love or affection in Queen Brahne's attitude - she wants Garnet back because she somehow needs her. Is this related to her latent summoner powers? Very likely. And it's most likely related to Brahne and Garnet's at-best questionable familial relationship. Where did this girl come from?
(From whatever this game's equivalent to the Summoner Village is, probably.)
…
So!
That was the opening of Final Fantasy IX.
It was hefty. Like I said in the thread, I failed to anticipate and account for the difference in scope between IX's prologue and VII's Mako Reactor Raid. But we got to see a lot of stuff. I am loving the aesthetic so far, the vibrancy of it, the colors of Alexandria, the weirdness of all these humanoid people. We've only had a few battles so far but the gameplay looks interesting, and we might finally be getting over some of the issues I've had with past games. The shift from character to character is also a really neat way to show us a breadth of perspectives on the plot and on Alexandria.
I have some concerns I think are worth bringing up, though. Namely that this opening has a pretty high quotient of being Weird About Women compared to previous games. You'll all recall that I wasn't particularly fond of Setzer in VI, and here we get to basically play as Setzer - the plot starts with our heroes setting out to drug and abduct a teenage girl for unknown purposes. Which I wouldn't really bat an eye at, except that this is followed up with the entire female army of Alexandria being dressed in weird fetish outfits (something which the few male soldiers pointedly do not share), and then by the nefarious Queen Brahne being depicted as overweight, ugly, and violent in a kinda manic way that codes as childlike or, well, insane, which are a spicy combination of visual and acting cues to dump on an evil female ruler.
Still, it's early in the game, and I want to emphasize that 'concerns' is not the same thing as 'the game is Sexist and Problematic,' it just got my eyebrows raised a little. We'll see how it all pans out going forward.
Overall, though: A pretty fantastic introduction. Final Fantasy is heading into a new direction aesthetically and vibes-wise here, though in many ways that direction is more classical than its previous flirtations with sci-fi inspired settings and story. There's a kingdom and a castle, a princess, an evil queen, a stalwart knight, a dashing rogue. But I'm very excited to find out how all these familiar pieces get rearranged in new and surprising ways. So far, what I would say about IX is that it is fun. Its characters are compelling, its comedy is genuinely funny, the game finally has a decent translation that even pulls off some solid wordplay with "Sir Rustalot," the action is top-tier.
I'm really excited about this one.
And most importantly?
Look at him.
We must protect his smile. At least, I assume he's smiling.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Crash landing!
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