Honestly, it's more shocking that FF hasn't done more of 'emotion powered superpowers', considering how damn fucking useful it is for narrative beats. The closest thing is... Tellah? Going full-murder on whats-his-name.
It seems like even Brahne did recognize it, she just didn't expect it to go anywhere:
... 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!"
But it can also means sight-reading, that is to say, performing a musical piece (or a theatre play!) while reading it for the first time, without rehearsal - just like the kind of 'we only get one shot at this' plan which they deployed to abduct Garnet, or the group's improvisation when their play was disrupted.
Unrelatedly, one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given as a musician is that when you're sight-reading, never actually be sight-reading. (The other best advice is resist the temptation to sound like shit. This is very important advice for brass players)
As in, when new music is plopped onto your stand take a minute or two to look for transitions, fermati, "oh shit" licks, and anything else that might cause you to embarrass yourself. Never actually sight-read a piece blind, if you can help it.
But mostly? It seems like a solution in search of a problem. ATEs aren't bad, they're just… They don't need to exist. They do not bring anything to the table.
Steiner looks at the medicine, decides it's obviously poison, realizes he's locked in the room with no way to escape or help Garnet, so he just drinks the 'poison' willingly.
You big, beautiful idiot. At least now you won't get turned into a Last of Us clicker.
I remember really disliking Steiner when I first played this game back when it came out, because I was a teenage edgelord, but when I replayed it as an adult I really fell in love with the big doofus. It's wild how much time can change your perspective on things.
I'm not saying that you could run a great Blades in the Dark campaign based on Tantalus style shenanigans, but I'm saying that a better DM than myself should absolutely try.
I'm a fan, personally. It's very true that functionally, they're just regular cut-aways with an extra step. But the fact that they're universally very short and happen only in the middle of normal gameplay I think give them a fun sort of zippiness and sense of concurrency that would be lost if we just piled them up in sequence like a normal cutscene. Funnily, the only other series I can think of that does something similar is the Tales series of JRPG's with their skits, but those are much less elaborate.
When Steiner started ranting that the medicine was obviously poison, I expected that dumbass to toss it out the window so that later on we'd have to deal with "Steiner didn't drink the purgative, the plants are taking over!"
As far as I can remember, FF9 has a pretty good habit of purposefully avoiding characters doing stupid things to create contrived drama...but I'm only a bit further than you in my replay so my glasses might be a touch rose tinted still.
Heads up though, IIRC you'll need to find and activate the "Add Effect" ability for weapon status effects to actually function. Which is kinda stupid, but w/e.
I can't find a good picture of him online, but the Cymbalist might be my favorite band member. He's something that looks like a cross between a crocodile and a jackal wearing an old shabby suit, with a big toothy grin and bandages over his eyes. Peak wierdo side NPC energy.
I like that Zidane is, in contrast to our previous two characters, pretty socially perceptive and quick to try and raise the spirits of someone who's feeling down
I won't lie, it's pretty refreshing to have an MC who actually knows how to have normal conversations with people. I love Cloud and Squall, but I dunno if another 40 hours of emotional constipation would have been too entertaining.
But like - I'm thinking about the first Mass Effect's decision at Virmire, and Final Fantasy VII, and imagining a version of the game in which you can choose to have either Tifa or Aerith die at the end of Disc 1, and then Cloud ends up in a final romantic scene at the airship with the one who survived.
No notes, perfect observation. Even worse is that Bioware style romances don't even feel earned...you have to actively run away from them lest you stumble face first into finding out that your soul-mate is Ashley because you innocently tried to have a conversation about books that one time.
I think this is very funny as a way to have characters mince an oath while also working around that "jeez" wouldn't work, since presumably Jesus ain't a thing in these parts.
God, could you imagine if Baku was like Gaffgarion. "Listen, Zidane. We can either let the knight and the kid live, and rat us out to the Queen. Or...well, what's some more fertilizer in the forest?"
I love the old games, don't get me wrong. But isn't it nice to have side characters that aren't totally precriptive, one note gimmicks that show up to drop exposition on you for five minutes and then leave.
This really is the entire linchpin on which the character turns. Without this overwhelming sincerity and genuinely caring facet, Steiner is just a one note joke character that wears out his welcome fast. Really you can even extrapolate a similar sentiment out with our other three MC's. They al;l have the very broad stereotypical personalities at first glance, but the writers make the very smart choice to show that they've got other facets to their personality early, and they return to those beats often.
So, the Mist ... it's clearly a major worldbuilding element... monsters come out of it, that ships use it to fly, and that a ship needs to fly above the Mist because it's dangerous.
It looks like the land around Alexandria is cast in a shroud of nefarious mist that creates monsters and which cannot be traveled safely, requiring airships that use that very same mist as fuel while flying above it. Very interesting.
Of all the things I've shamelessly ripped off of Final Fantasy for various TTRPG's the Mist is, and how it interacts with the world, it's up there with the most shameless. A weird magic miasma filled with monsters that people sail giant baroque skyships on top of like the ocean! It's so cool. It's so, so cool.
On the one hand, it means we don't get ETERNAL CLANKING anytime Rusty is in the party. On the other hand, it means we don't get ETERNAL CLANKING anytime Rusty is in the party....
Zidane: "I can't sit around knowing a girl's in trouble. Goes against my nature." Blank: "Whatever. You're full of crap." Zidane: [He leans forward.] "Ohhh… I get it. You're jealous that I'm gonna get me a sweetie pie." Blank: "Pshhh… She's not even my type." [He produces a purple bottle.] "I came down here to give you this." Zidane: "You're always thinking about me… but I won't need a love potion to reel this one in."
Who needs soldiers and airships and mysterious sinister projects to find the Princess? Just follow the uninterrupted stream of Moogles carrying postage.
The designs just get more fun! For something that Nomura had i believe almost no hand in designing, some of these sure did influence some of his later work.
Steiner dotes on her, asking her to "please try to drink all of it" - he basically turned into a nanny the moment she was in his arms, it's kind of adorable.
(Reference here, again: Recall Barret uselessly banging against the doors to Sector 7 after its collapse, calling after its comrade. Blank and the Tantalus Troupe served the same narrative role as Avalanche.)
We can't exactly bring a Gold Needle to Blank, because the entire forest is locked down. It is a giant stone wall, and trying to unpetrify any part of it is going to trigger the antibodies again. This is… More elegant than Palom and Porom's "oh huh they can't be unpetrified because Reasons except actually they can just off-screen".
So, Garnet. I'll come back to this point later, but I really, really like her for this reason. She knows Steiner. She knows and accepts his foibles and flaws, and she knows and accepts that they come from a place of genuine respect and devotion. But she doesn't hesitate to to shut him down when he gets out of hand. And she does so very-matter-of-fact, but importantly, she doesn't mock him or treat him cruelly. And she has way of dealing with Zidaine. She likes him well enough, and seems genuinely entertained by his nature as a braggadocious flirt. But she comes off as a coequal partner in this strange endevour, and is more than willing to shut him down or make her opinions known, and to his credit, is more than willing to listen.
I wanted to transcribe this long conversation in full because I feel like it does a good job of showcasing the strengths of IX's writing, and to a lesser extent of its translation.
It is, frankly, a fantastic translation. I'm glad you pointed it out so I don't have to try and beg the point. According to the credits the localization team looked like this:
Localization Director: Kazuyoshi Tashiro
Localization Engineers: Yoshinori Uenishi, Richard Mark Honeywood
Translators: Nobuhiro Uchiyama, Vincent Zouzoulkovsky
Localization Assistants: Nathalie Ishida (Akira), Tomoko Sekii, Seikou Hokama, Mai Morofushi
Richard Mark Honeywood did the Xenogears translation, and is Australian. So I assume all English dialogue in FF9 must be read with a hearty Aussie twang and a staggering amount of swears.
Maybe it's just me, but this is, what, five years and three games (counting Tactics) post Chrono Trigger, and this is the first time since then Square has had a combo attack?
And it's much more limited than what Trigger did, which was essentially perfect?
I remember really disliking Steiner when I first played this game back when it came out, because I was a teenage edgelord, but when I replayed it as an adult I really fell in love with the big doofus. It's wild how much time can change your perspective on things.
Maybe it's just me, but this is, what, five years and three games (counting Tactics) post Chrono Trigger, and this is the first time since then Square has had a combo attack?
And it's much more limited than what Trigger did, which was essentially perfect?
Trying to be fair, just the fact that FFIX is a more traditional "everyone lines up and beats the snot out of each other" ATB combat system makes it slightly more difficult to be as great as Chrono Trigger having group Techs that can also have elements like varied effect ranges. Most FFIX would be able to do is throw on one more modifier for things like "single/multi-target" instead of Chrono Trigger having everything from single, to all, to circle, to line and so on.
(But yes Chrono Trigger is absolutely one of the better implementations of the ATB system)
To tack on to the "Master Vivi" bit of magic being something respected, Garnet was wearing the traditional white mage robe while escaping the castle. And while yes, it was mostly as a disguise, it's clearly a set of robes meant for her in particular. Meaning that the robes (and what they symbolize) are a big enough deal to earn a spot in a Princess's wardrobe.
I didn't like Steiner much when I was a kid playing this game too, but him going 'rascal!' at Zidane and then quickly goes 'Master Vivi!' at the toddling Black Mage earns him an 'ok' spot almost immediately.
Like, he's not nice per se, but Steiner knows to give respect to those he deems worth it, and it says a lot that he gives Vivi this distinction. He doesn't see a kid, he sees a Master Mage and that is actually an insane character perspective tbh. Most people can't bypass Vivi's size at all and then there is this guy who sees tall hat and Fire magic and goes 'That's a master of magic!'.
Also, the name 'Evil Forest' is there probably because of the kind of creature that controls the forest. Like, if the central parasite actually acts like the forest itself is part of its body with the petrification, I am at all not surprised that normal people calls the Forest 'Evil', because here we saw it acting like a singular organism. See what it did that calls onto our heroes to kill it: It captures people who stumbled onto its path and used their life force to feed itself. There is intent behind the attacking plants, and if most people who went into the forest never leaves it, then the moniker 'Evil' is pretty fitting for it.
Like, he's not nice per se, but Steiner knows to give respect to those he deems worth it, and it says a lot that he gives Vivi this distinction. He doesn't see a kid, he sees a Master Mage and that is actually an insane character perspective tbh. Most people can't bypass Vivi's size at all and then there is this guy who sees tall hat and Fire magic and goes 'That's a master of magic!'.
Look, Rusty might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but he's definitely smart enough to be respectful of someone that has, "set you on fire" as their fear response
My brain immediately went 'Was it possibly inspired by the multi-award-winning book about Tom Sawyer's Jim (James, by Percival Everett), but of course that was a 2024 book. If there's any link at all, it'd be Mr. Everett being inspired to write his magnum opus by 2020 Tom Sawyer.
Would she have to? Wouldn't she just tell the moogles to deliver the letter to Zidane? The moogles tell you the person, not the location when they give you letters, as far as I can tell, so no reason it wouldn't work that way in reverse.
I've not seen it brought up, and I'm not sure if Omi knows yet, but you can actually add multiple items with the same ability to a character to multiply the rate at which they gain AP.
So like, 2 items with Beast Killer on a Character means they'll gain AP for it twice as fast.
Heh. I didn't notice it during the first update, but the Tantalus airship is named the Prima Vista.
A prima vista is Italian for "at first glance," and as far as I can tell, it can mean two things: Either literally at first glance, that is to say, an initial but deceptive appearance, such as, say, a famous theatre troupe who are only here to entertain you might look like, when in secret they are a band of thieves. But it can also means sight-reading, that is to say, performing a musical piece (or a theatre play!) while reading it for the first time, without rehearsal - just like the kind of 'we only get one shot at this' plan which they deployed to abduct Garnet, or the group's improvisation when their play was disrupted.
It's a perfect double entendre for these scoundrels.
It also scans well as the name of an acting troupe's name - it's a boast, right? Prima Vista, sight-reading, we're so good we can perform a piece having just read it! It actually works as a theatre troupe cover name, there's layers.
You have to understand that France is a country of massive fucking weebs and if they have the opportunity to grow familiar with a classic of American culture through the medium of a Japanese anime instead of the actual original work, they will take it with zero hesitation.
It really was a boom time for public domain adaptations of western literature. Off the top of my head I can recall the freakish popularity of the Anne of Green Gables anime in Japan, The Wizard of Oz Anime and the Peter Pan anime that got localized here in the US, and like 4 or 5 different series based on various fairy-tale anthologies.
I remember really disliking Steiner when I first played this game back when it came out, because I was a teenage edgelord, but when I replayed it as an adult I really fell in love with the big doofus. It's wild how much time can change your perspective on things.
I don't, all of Steiner's lines of dialogue about wanting to blindly protect the princess are some of the cringiest moments in the entire game. It never gets good. Steiner is honestly one joke that is stretched for two discs until he experiences an existential crisis in Disc Two. Even if he supposedly "gets better", I cannot ignore the fact that he was downright intolerable for hours upon end. I get that Steiner can't think of anything other than protecting the princess and distrusting Zidane. I did not need for the game to spell this out to me over twenty hours, again and again. Otherwise he's a walking buffoon that results in major tonal shifts I found nauseating.
The game does try to develop him… but it doesn't really do a good job of that, but that more ties into Garnet and the reallystupid and selfish things she does after Disk 1 Lindblum, which we'll get to. The point is that I would have been way more tolerant of Steiner had there been a much better payoff, which there wasn't.
As far as I can remember, FF9 has a pretty good habit of purposefully avoiding characters doing stupid things to create contrived drama...but I'm only a bit further than you in my replay so my glasses might be a touch rose tinted still.
I won't lie, it's pretty refreshing to have an MC who actually knows how to have normal conversations with people. I love Cloud and Squall, but I dunno if another 40 hours of emotional constipation would have been too entertaining.
This really is the entire linchpin on which the character turns. Without this overwhelming sincerity and genuinely caring facet, Steiner is just a one note joke character that wears out his welcome fast. Really you can even extrapolate a similar sentiment out with our other three MC's. They al;l have the very broad stereotypical personalities at first glance, but the writers make the very smart choice to show that they've got other facets to their personality early, and they return to those beats often.
See my above critique of Steiner, also the development isn't really done that well, most of the cast still come off as clowns and idiots thanks to mediocre and grade-school writing.
So, Garnet. I'll come back to this point later, but I really, really like her for this reason. She knows Steiner. She knows and accepts his foibles and flaws, and she knows and accepts that they come from a place of genuine respect and devotion. But she doesn't hesitate to to shut him down when he gets out of hand. And she does so very-matter-of-fact, but importantly, she doesn't mock him or treat him cruelly. And she has way of dealing with Zidaine. She likes him well enough, and seems genuinely entertained by his nature as a braggadocious flirt. But she comes off as a coequal partner in this strange endevour, and is more than willing to shut him down or make her opinions known, and to his credit, is more than willing to listen.
Except that Garnet comes off as a stick in the mud towards Zidane most of the time, and in general a bad love interest/waifu and unlikeable character, she is very bland and boring compared to other FF female characters and lots of anime/manga I could name. We haven't even gotten to how she gets derailed and acts like an idiot in Lindblum.
This is a (mostly, in 9's case) blind let's play thread, the game past the point Omi has reached does not exist. Shut the fuck up and take it to the spoiler thread if you can't behave.
Baku: "Forget it. Monsters born out of the Mist are crawlin' everywhere." Zidane: "So what? There's nothing out there we can't handle." Baku: "Yeah, but what are we gonna do about the wounded?" Zidane: "We can take 'em with us." Baku: "How are we gonna carry all of them? Trust me. We go out now, and we'll all get wasted."
[Baku turns around.] Zidane: [He stomps his foot angrily.] "!!!" Baku: "My boys come before the princess, you know. It's too bad… We're gonna stay put 'til everyone recovers. You better not set one foot outside this ship. You got that!?" Zidane: "I can't believe you're abandoning her! You're nothing but a big coward!"
[Dialogue ends.] Baku: [If we talk with him immediately after:] "I got nothin' else to say. If you don't agree with me, you're free to leave the band anytime."
Well!
I like a good conflict between an established party where everyone is holding a reasonable stance. Baku is right: The Prima Vista is full of wounded and non-combattants (I skipped over it, but the members of the band that played during the play are also part of the troupe), taking them for a trek in a monster-haunted forest is a surefire way to get everyone killed. At the same time, Zidane is also right: They abducted Garnet (even if it was with her approval) and got her into this mess, if they just leave her to die then they basically just killed her.
The solution would, perhaps, be to send out a small party, one that the rest of the troupe can spare, to go looking for Garnet, while others remain to protect the ship. Of course, that would be removing some of the crew able to protect the ship, but…
Well, let's just say that the way Baku emphasizes immediately "you better not set one foot outside this ship!" gives me the idea that he might have some ideas how the next beat is going to unfold.
I don't agree. So much for "The boss'll think of something". Eh, Zenero?
Baku is supposed to be one of Cid's best friends, whom he counted on to safely get his niece, Garnet, out of Alexandria and back to Lindblum, and he is just going to leave her to the forest monsters to potentially DIE?!(Baku is acting as if that isn't going to come back and seriously bite him in the ass if something does happen to Garnet and he shows his face to Cid again without her) But… "naturally", the whole thing will never be brought up again and Baku will never get called out on any of this seriously questionable morality and behaviour after this scene again.
Several of the Tantalus members like Cinna were acting all hectic and worried about Garnet's situation before, yet their boss/father doesn't seem to really give a crap or think about the potential consequences. Great writing, Sakaguchi. *Sarcasm*
Poor girl. I honestly have no idea when she'd have found the time to get down from the ship in the brief scuffle at the end, but now she's stuck in the city. Hopefully she doesn't get arrested or anything! Granted, she never got to the point of making her stage entrance, so it's likely nobody knows who she is.
This also makes no sense, how the heck did Ruby get separated from the rest of Tantalus in the first place? Wasn't she on the theatre ship right before they took off, like we saw when Garnet ran into her in the Prima Vista's dressing room in Alexandria? When did she have a chance to leave the theater ship? She would've had to jump off or something. Why? And why hasn't she been arrested and thrown in the dungeon yet? Shouldn't the Alexandrian knights know that she is part of Tantalus or at least know her name from the play promotions and advertisement, and thus a member of the group that "kidnapped" the princess?
Heck, why isn't Tantalus freaking out and worrying about her, shouldn't they have noticed that she is missing by now and might be dead, as far as they know?
Zidane: Man… Zidane: I never felt so strange… Zidane: Maybe fate brought us together… Zidane: I can't explain it…
[Back to the present.] Zidane: "Man, I can't stop thinking about her… What am I gonna do…?"
[Dialogue options: "Go look for her" // "Forget it"] Zidane: "Yeah! What's there to think about!? She's cute… and she's in trouble. That's all that matters."
Oh boy, you've got it bad.
It looks like IX is going to follow in the tradition of its predecessors and feature a central romance between two of the playable characters as a core part of its story. Which is fine, it's a good plot beat to hang a story on.
You know, I wonder. Most of the modern RPGs I've played tend to have optional romances with several potential partners. Whether they're BioWare, Obsidian, Larian, or CPRed - they're descended all from a particular mold and… Well, the "make your own story" angle obviously has a lot of appeal. But that means these romances have to be only partially integrated into the core plot. They're not completely extraneous, don't get me wrong; these games integrate their romance paths at various points of the main story and have them feed back into it to some degree.
But you can't write a main plot around a romance if that romance can just… not happen. You can't write your story to be about Squall and Rinoa's burgeoning romance, and how she slowly opens Squall to his own feelings until, at the end, they find one another across time and space, if there is an option for that to not happen. It can't be the emotional core of your story. And we know this, because they tried that… In Final Fantasy VIII, where you can miss 90% of the Squall/Rinoa romance buildup!
That's mostly a joke. The game is still about that romance, it's just that you as the player can fuck up your decisions and get an objectively wrong version of the story where it's written badly.
But like - I'm thinking about the first Mass Effect's decision at Virmire, and Final Fantasy VII, and imagining a version of the game in which you can choose to have either Tifa or Aerith die at the end of Disc 1, and then Cloud ends up in a final romantic scene at the airship with the one who survived, and like.
Even if a lot of Squall and Rinoa's romance is missable, it and FFVII's romance are still way better than IX's really weak one, which I consider to be one of the worst in the series. Squall and Rinoa had a real developed romance while Garnet and Zidane fell in love for being within five feet of each other for a long period of time despite Garnet ABANDONING HIM and blowing him off. Garnet pushed "naive princess" to insane levels - Rinoa was actually plausible and realized when she got in over her head (end of Disc 1, she flipped out when she realized her actions had consequences). I remember Rinoa as a fully fleshed out character with flaws and good points despite getting chucked a Distress Ball for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Zidane + Dagger and Squall + Rinoa are literally the same dynamic with the genders being swapped. Dagger spends the entire game being standoffish to and manipulating Zidane for her own goals, and then once her mom dies she makes a 180. In fact it's worse, because with Squall we at least see his inner thoughts and get justification as to why he's being such a jerk to Rinoa.
Baku: "Took you long enough… I fell asleep, darn it. So, you're leaving, eh?" Zidane: "Yeah… I promised Garnet I'd kidnap her." Baku: "Gwahaha! I didn't ask you why! I can't blame you, though. She's damn beautiful. I guess that's reason enough! Well, I hope you're ready! 'Cause I'm gonna bust you up for breaking the rules." Zidane: "...Alright."
[Baku advances and pauses.] Baku: "Okay, get your butt over to the cargo room. We got more room there."
[He leaves.]
I wish people would stop commenting on the incredible beauty of the 16-year old girl but I feel like that won't stop any time soon.
Baku approaches Zidane… And punches him in the chest. You know, one of those friendly, 'atta guy!' kinda male bonding gestures, but it's enough to nearly knock Zidane over. "Bravo!" he says. "Go find your princess!" And, laughing out loud, he turns around and leaves the room.
Zidane: "Damn, that hurt! He pulled his punches 'til that last one."
See, the thing about Baku is that he is playing straight the role that I initially assumed Gaffgarion would play. Now, he's much less of a rude and violent asshole, but he's still, you know, a criminal, and he's an older, more experienced guy who has taken a young protagonist under his wing, but who is giving him orders to not do heroic things out of a mix of pragmatism and "sticking by your own people" that the young hothead then rebels against, and he turns and fights him…
But in Baku's case the "fight" is clearly him holding back because he's not seriously trying to beat up Zidane; he's trying to test him, to make him prove he has what it takes to head out and risk the forest's danger. He definitely planned to do this from the start, knew that Zidane wouldn't agree to stand by and played up the part of the bad guy to get the young thief's blood up.
So? It doesn't justify wasting valuable time to rescue Garnet. Another big reason should be that Cid'll have his head if he lets his niece die, after all the trust that he put into him, his freaking best friend, or whatever. Not to mention all of the other repercussions that will potentially happen to Baku if something happens to the princess, particularly from Alexandria.
I don't understand why Baku has such a fetish for beating the shit out of his kids. I would have left long ago if I were Zidane and the others.
Garnet might have already died by now thanks to all of the time that Baku wasted having this dumb fight. Time is of the essence and these guys are messing it up having these stupid disputes, instead of just letting Zidane do what his best friend Cid TRUSTED BAKU TO DO!
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This is a (mostly, in 9's case) blind let's play thread, the game past the point Omi has reached does not exist. Shut the fuck up and take it to the spoiler thread if you can't behave.
This is a (mostly, in 9's case) blind let's play thread, the game past the point Omi has reached does not exist. Shut the fuck up and take it to the spoiler thread if you can't behave.
Go to edit, click on the three dots nest to the spanner and wrench icon, go to one of the icons that looks like an eye with a slash through it, then ensure that the spoiler tags are placed around the part you want hidden
You know, I wonder. Most of the modern RPGs I've played tend to have optional romances with several potential partners. Whether they're BioWare, Obsidian, Larian, or CPRed - they're descended all from a particular mold and… Well, the "make your own story" angle obviously has a lot of appeal. But that means these romances have to be only partially integrated into the core plot. They're not completely extraneous, don't get me wrong; these games integrate their romance paths at various points of the main story and have them feed back into it to some degree.
But you can't write a main plot around a romance if that romance can just… not happen. You can't write your story to be about Squall and Rinoa's burgeoning romance, and how she slowly opens Squall to his own feelings until, at the end, they find one another across time and space, if there is an option for that to not happen. It can't be the emotional core of your story. And we know this, because they tried that… In Final Fantasy VIII, where you can miss 90% of the Squall/Rinoa romance buildup!
Optional romance also does weird things to narrative weight of your options since some choices become Objectively More Narratively Satisfying. If you romance Alistair or Morrigan in Dragon Mage, that would lead to a lot of drama and tension in the endgame. If you go for one of the other two options, you'd also be there. Same for Anders (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Isabela) in DA2, same for Solas (he also exclusively romances elf women, so he's easy to miss just through character generation options) in Inquisition.
The desire for narrative control and player choice is understandable, but it can easily lead to the narrative being distorted in weird ways.
Blank: "Sheez… You really dig her, huh?" Zidane: "I can't sit around knowing a girl's in trouble. Goes against my nature." Blank: "Whatever. You're full of crap." Zidane: [He leans forward.] "Ohhh… I get it. You're jealous that I'm gonna get me a sweetie pie." Blank: "Pshhh… She's not even my type." [He produces a purple bottle.] "I came down here to give you this." Zidane: "You're always thinking about me… but I won't need a love potion to reel this one in." Blank: "Why don't you get your mind off girls for a second? This is the medicine that I gave to that black mage and the knight. It's sort of like a seed remover." Zidane: "Cool. This'll really come in handy." [He takes the bottle.] Blank: "Why am I always helping you…?"
That's… Kind of incredible. A risky move, too; it seems like it would naturally lead to never taking Steiner on if we're not also taking Vivi (while the rest isn't true), but it's a really interesting way to show that these two have a particular relationship.
Steiner is good on his lonesome. Don't get me wrong, he's absolutely better with Vivi, but on his own he still has a lot of HP and deals a lot of physical damage. Without Vivi he doesn't have an answer when physical attacks aren't helpful, but those are rare anyway.
...that being said, Vivi is a beautiful precious cinnamon bun who should be in the party anyway, so it's questionable how much of a downside it really is anyway.
This has the feel of "man tries licking a Switch cartridge and decides he likes the taste".
Anyway, completely unrelated, a piece of irrelevant trivia: this is FFIX's regular battle theme. (Video contains scenes of FFIX battles throughout the game, so includes characters from much later in the story.)
Dawntrail actually adds a lot more FFIX music as expected, but like the FFT and FFXII music in the Ivalice raids, they're literally the same songs as the original, including the sound fonts. So no real need to showcase them as such.
There's three more FFIX tracks that were properly remixed in FFXIV, but one of them is from a bit later in the game (still Disc One), another is well-known and also from a bit later in the game, while the last has already been featured in this playthrough so far, but is bundled with the first one in FFXIV. So I'll bring them up again when the time comes.
