- Location
- Between dreams and reality
Macbeth Act 1 Scene 7 Lines 80-83 Originally Spoken by Macbeth as he prepares to kill Duncan.
Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1 12-13. Originally spoken by the Witches
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Macbeth Act 1 Scene 7 Lines 80-83 Originally Spoken by Macbeth as he prepares to kill Duncan.
Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1 12-13. Originally spoken by the Witches
- Location
- Somewhere between the stars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You know, i think final fantasy 9 feels a lot of way like, the story was made then gameplay was made to fit around it. Rather then a game was made, then made to have a story, in a sense. There is a greater feeling of like, "This is a story", so far i feel. Not sure if that make full sense though 
.
It's really interesting so far though. Vivi's story is interestig, if i recall he did mention a Grand-father right, and if there's anything i've learned from this thread and previous final fantasy games. It's that where there is highly dubious and unethical experiments on children, Cid is not far away. So i'm gonna guess Vivi was a doll, and then Cid whom made them at some point abscond away with him, after realizing that "Huh, maybe synthesising living beings just for war might be unehtical".
Vivi is either gonna be one of the first black mage dolls, or one of the last and just released when the game started.
It makes Garnet a lot more intriguing though in that view. Garnet was dressed in white mage robes, and the Queen is desperate to have her back...Is Garnet maybe an attempt at creating a white-mage doll line or something along those lines? I'm leaning towards no, because Garnet looks pretty human, and these dolls while humanoid in shape, do have distinct body shape. But, it's something to consider. Not something i'd fully discard at current stage.
.It's really interesting so far though. Vivi's story is interestig, if i recall he did mention a Grand-father right, and if there's anything i've learned from this thread and previous final fantasy games. It's that where there is highly dubious and unethical experiments on children, Cid is not far away. So i'm gonna guess Vivi was a doll, and then Cid whom made them at some point abscond away with him, after realizing that "Huh, maybe synthesising living beings just for war might be unehtical".
Vivi is either gonna be one of the first black mage dolls, or one of the last and just released when the game started.
It makes Garnet a lot more intriguing though in that view. Garnet was dressed in white mage robes, and the Queen is desperate to have her back...Is Garnet maybe an attempt at creating a white-mage doll line or something along those lines? I'm leaning towards no, because Garnet looks pretty human, and these dolls while humanoid in shape, do have distinct body shape. But, it's something to consider. Not something i'd fully discard at current stage.
...
So it turns out I'm married to a JRPG protagonist. And yes, the shopkeepers are as confused by it as you might expect.
Pshaw. Absolutely nothing of relevance, this is just a nice sleepy little town where you rest and move on with zero events of importance taking place.
It doesn't really help Steiner's case that by this point, he's outright ignoring her wishes on the whole thing - Garnet/Dagger has said multiple times that she doesn't currently intend to go back to the castle, and instead wants to go to Lindblum, and yet he keeps circling right back to "I have to protect the Princess... by taking her back home!"
The dream isn't dead
Come on FFIX, give me that sweet sweet Playable Lucavi Party Member
I'm leaning the second one myself, though at this point Dagger is probably more of a mask since she's had the name for less than 24 hours.
Vivi really gotta be put through some Stranger Danger classes, even Dagger seems to have that idea down if necessary.
I'm sure there is absolutely no relevance to these ghosts being blue robe yellow hat-wearing black magic casters, when present in a facility dedicated to creating Black Mages.
(Game theory: is Vivi actually a ghost possessing a doll?????)
Yeah uh, I'd freak out a bit too if I found an assembly line creating armies of blank mindless clones of myself and shoving them into boxes.
Being somewhat fair to Steiner, at this point he's on his personal mission of "I need to get Garnet back to the castle!" so he's not super concerned with keeping her being the princess that on the downlow. Heck, from his point of view the town finding out would probably be a net positive since as citizens of Alexandria, obviously they would help him take the princess home!
Of course, he's actively ignoring what Garnet herself wants by doing this, considering she's said in front of him multiple times at this point that she doesn't want to go home right now, but eh details.
Special effects, duh. The more Black Mages you have, the better your special effects can be for the next traveling theater ship to show up at the castle!
Zidane just casually dropping the "oh yeah we actually got attacked by one of these guys during that sleep blizzard and I never told you" and everyone misses it because he does it so casually in a high-intensity situation. What a guy.
My own quick theorycrafting is that since we already saw Zorn and Thorn back at the Ice Cavern, they're following along/tracking the party offscreen, and calling in the Black Waltzes as they go. Like say they had No.1 on hand around the time of the Ice Cavern, but No.2 and No.3 were out and about scouring the local areas to try and find Garnet. Then we reach Dali and rest so it's maybe a day or so later when No.2 finally manages to catch up and you get that boss battle, and presumably No.3 is still on their way and will show up soon for another fight (or No.3 is really big and awesome and threatening and we won't be seeing them catch up until an end of disc boss fight or something, either or).
Yeaaaah, when it comes to distinctly negative memories I have of FFIX, this particular scene is always one of the few that jumps out.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Akshually Omi, if you'd been PAYING ATTENTION like a seasoned vet that's completed nine Final Fantasy games ought to, you would have been able to answer this question handily.
From literally the first playable screen in the game:
You can find this, EASILY, if you bothered to investigate the area with Zidane before lighting the candle in the center of room.
SMH
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Did you meet her? If you choose to wait, and then actually waited for a bit - I'm not sure how long, but it's no more than a minute, I think - she actually shows up.
Well, now that you mention it...
Yeah, that. Whichever hits harder between him and Steiner is generally dependent on their equipment; it's absolutely possible for Zidane to be the stronger fighter of the team at any given time.
Aw, I wanted to explain that.
Anyway, @Omicron, as mentioned, the rest of the questions from the Ragtime Mouse (although I've heard somewhere that this is a mistranslation and the thing was supposed to be called "Ragtime MOUTH"; not sure if that's correct) will also be incidental trivia that you're unlikely to remember easily even if you don't miss them due to being well-hidden like this one was; using the Save States for it is a better idea, given you have them available.
You can actually force meetings with the Ragtime Mouse, if you want to and know how, even if I think that stumbling on him is more fun - adds to the sense of exploration that FFIX delivers on in spades. As others mentioned, the Mouse has a maximum amount of questions; answering correctly earns a prize, and if you answer all the questions correctly you get an extra question, and therefore an extra prize. It's not in any way an unique prize, so you're not missing too much.
Also, if you picked "False"... that should have been Correct, not Wrong. Unless you picked "True" and just miswrote?
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Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If you do choose the option, it turns out "poke it with a sword" means to Steiner, "unsheathe your giant two-hander and ram it through the barrel"
Zidane: OW!
Zidane: OOOWWWWWCH!!!
Zidane jumps up onto the top of the barrel, turns to face Steiner and does his 'angry' pose while Steiner waves his hands in the air in panic
Zidane: What did you do that for?!
Steiner: You!!!
Zidane: You almost stabbed Dagger!
Steiner: The princess?!
Zidane jumps from the barrel and headstomps Steiner with both feet before hopping down to the ground. Steiner stumbles backwards and keels over with an "ouch!"
We then fade to the same following scene with everyone out. Genuinely funny but I think it's a bit out of character for Steiner so I'd pick observation as the 'canon' choice. Other than that, no notes. Dali is a great piece of character writing.
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- Location
- Northern Virginia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean...do they have crazy hair? They need to have crazy hair to be a JRPG protagonist.
Sometimes. They definitely did earlier this year for burning man.
- Location
- Northern Virginia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Okay, keep them away from glowing swords, mysterious old men, and amnesiac young girls.
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
The game's writers absolutely knew how adorable Vivi was and how attached players would get to him, and then they give him an arc in Dali that's basically just emotional terrorism. They have so much to answer for.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Black mages.
This is an assembly line for black mages.
So I remember about two scenes of FFIX from watching friends play it off and on when I was a kid, and this is one of them. It did color my expectations a bit, and I was a bit confused at how much comedy the game had when one of my clearest memories of the game is a party member watching an assembly line creating beings that look just like him, and getting deeply shaken from it.
It's interesting seeing it here and in proper context, I would've thought a scene like this would've come a ways later in the story though. If nothing else, it's pretty damn memorable.
Can I just say how much I appreciate having a competent and observent character as our lead here? It makes it much easier to trust that he has an idea of what's going on, and that if he's not commenting on something there is probably a reason for it.
See not telling the party about the first Black Waltz earlier - it's pretty clear now that Steiner would've absolutely assumed they were on the same side and would've looked for them earlier, even when N⁰2 says he doesn't care about him and will kill him with the rest he doesn't seem to quite believe it. It definitely establishes Zidane as cunning shows how he's survived as a thief and scoundrel so long.
I am curious though, if his distrist and unwillingness to explain plans before strictly necessary will come back to bite him as the game goes on. It's been useful so far, but at some point I can see it getting in the way of getting meaningfully closer to the rest of the party.
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
Well of course, Locke is a treasure hunter, not a mere thief.
- Location
- Texas
Obviously, there's a connection between the Black Waltz Trio and the Black Mage "Dolls". But are the Waltzes prototypes? A separate line for aerial capabilities (I can just picture Queen Brahne going "fly my pretties, fly!"), or maybe the Dolls are just the baseline and the wings and personality programming is handled in Alexandria somewhere?
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Would we be so attached to him if our first few hours of introduction to him weren't filled with his heart-tugging suffering?
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
And now we know why Vivi's quote:
Sounds like he's in the middle of an existential crisis. It doesn't help that soon after he gets to see Black Waltz #2, which implies that there are variations of the "basic" Black Mage doll...
dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I have the song for the quiz encounter (Fairy Battle) in my music library, but I was forced to take it off my default playlist because it made my and my spouse's blood pressure spike too much.
Comments for the Ice Cave post:
Yeah, I agree, I think that's been the chief problem. Here's another example for you: remember that moment in FFVIII where they were in prison, and Selphie tried to cast a healing spell? The devs had to pretend she was Draw-Casting it, but from where? There were no good answers and they knew not to do it again to avoid raising too many questions! It shows that they were aware of the problem and just didn't know how to solve it.
I was always disappointed by the name of the Heat status effect. It was the English word "Heat" to begin with, but in English, "heat" is kind of... mild? But the status effect is one of the most dangerous in the series! "Oh, I'm going to die if I so much as lift a finger. I think I'll call this... 'Warm.'" Adloquium mentions the FFXIV version is called Pyretic, which is much more stylish, and ironically applies to a much less dangerous incarnation of the effect!
The Black Waltzes went on to inspire the names of one of Kingdom Hearts' most prolific enemy lines, a series of squat, Black Mage-esque flying guys, named things like, "Red Nocturne," or "Blue Rhapsody." They've been adding new ones for twenty years! Despite FFIX being the second-most-recent Final Fantasy game at at the time of KH1's release, this is one of Kingdom Hearts' few references to it, because series creator Tetsuya Nomura had/has this idea that Final Fantasy references should be confined to games he had a major role in creating.
One of my favourite FFIX jokes online was simple, but well-executed. It screencapped every single dialogue box from the "Garnet learns about daggers" scene, waxing on about the symbolism of blades, and gets to Garnet declaring that she's going to give herself a new name based on this noble weapon, and then cut to a screencap of the player typing, "S-H-O-T-G-U-N".
--------------------
Dali:
Oh, good, I'm glad you ran into the Ragtime Mouse and the friendly Mu. Their spawn mechanics are... unusual, but I won't spoil them. During our playthrough, we didn't find either until we were deliberately mopping stuff up at the end of the game.
The Ragtime Mouse's unusual name is another example of English text in the Japanese original. It was arguably supposed to read, "Ragtime Mouth," but I love that it wasn't localized that way, because now it's even more surreal and jarring. "This, this is a mouse?"
Yeah, I agree, I think that's been the chief problem. Here's another example for you: remember that moment in FFVIII where they were in prison, and Selphie tried to cast a healing spell? The devs had to pretend she was Draw-Casting it, but from where? There were no good answers and they knew not to do it again to avoid raising too many questions! It shows that they were aware of the problem and just didn't know how to solve it.
I was always disappointed by the name of the Heat status effect. It was the English word "Heat" to begin with, but in English, "heat" is kind of... mild? But the status effect is one of the most dangerous in the series! "Oh, I'm going to die if I so much as lift a finger. I think I'll call this... 'Warm.'" Adloquium mentions the FFXIV version is called Pyretic, which is much more stylish, and ironically applies to a much less dangerous incarnation of the effect!
The Black Waltzes went on to inspire the names of one of Kingdom Hearts' most prolific enemy lines, a series of squat, Black Mage-esque flying guys, named things like, "Red Nocturne," or "Blue Rhapsody." They've been adding new ones for twenty years! Despite FFIX being the second-most-recent Final Fantasy game at at the time of KH1's release, this is one of Kingdom Hearts' few references to it, because series creator Tetsuya Nomura had/has this idea that Final Fantasy references should be confined to games he had a major role in creating.
One of my favourite FFIX jokes online was simple, but well-executed. It screencapped every single dialogue box from the "Garnet learns about daggers" scene, waxing on about the symbolism of blades, and gets to Garnet declaring that she's going to give herself a new name based on this noble weapon, and then cut to a screencap of the player typing, "S-H-O-T-G-U-N".
--------------------
Dali:
Oh, good, I'm glad you ran into the Ragtime Mouse and the friendly Mu. Their spawn mechanics are... unusual, but I won't spoil them. During our playthrough, we didn't find either until we were deliberately mopping stuff up at the end of the game.
The Ragtime Mouse's unusual name is another example of English text in the Japanese original. It was arguably supposed to read, "Ragtime Mouth," but I love that it wasn't localized that way, because now it's even more surreal and jarring. "This, this is a mouse?"
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- Location
- NC
It took me a couple of tries to find a long play with the right choice, but here you go! (3:24:40 in case the timestamp doesn't work)
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gks4QWrLo6w&pp=ygUNRmZpeCBsb25ncGxheQ%3D%3D&t=3h24m40s
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
So as part of my concurrent playthrough I found something that's new (to me)!
So when Steiner is harassing the old man about when the cargo ship will arrive, if you inspect the model ship you'll get new text thanks to the change in perspective.
Specifically, Steiner will muse that the ship was used by the popular Lindblum theater troupe, who he knows to be the na'er do wells which have caused his current crisis, but they don't really look like common criminals.
So when Steiner is harassing the old man about when the cargo ship will arrive, if you inspect the model ship you'll get new text thanks to the change in perspective.
Specifically, Steiner will muse that the ship was used by the popular Lindblum theater troupe, who he knows to be the na'er do wells which have caused his current crisis, but they don't really look like common criminals.
Ace of Scarabs
Mechanoid Pilot
- Location
- Singapore
Omi has started seeing the "friendly monsters" at last, these guys just ask for various things and then leave the fight while gifting you with AP for skills learning. Try to keep a decent stockpile of various stuff because they ask for all sorts of things.
WARNING: One of the Friendly Monsters appears in a location where its hostile counterparts also show up and they can WRECK you.
Also the Ragtime Mouse, yeah that's its name, who bombs you with trivia questions based on all sorts of details ingame that might be overlooked. No shame in using a guide if you haven't paid enough attention or are just plain unfamiliar with the answers.
WARNING: One of the Friendly Monsters appears in a location where its hostile counterparts also show up and they can WRECK you.
Also the Ragtime Mouse, yeah that's its name, who bombs you with trivia questions based on all sorts of details ingame that might be overlooked. No shame in using a guide if you haven't paid enough attention or are just plain unfamiliar with the answers.
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- Location
- Malaysia
He's like that so far because they are currently stranded in the middle of Alexandria territory after crashing and losing his entire crew to a freaking forest. He also has a loud, clanking Alexandria soldier hell-bent on taking the Princess back to the castle where they just escaped.
There are also confirmed pursuers around, which means getting everyone out of Alexandria territory is top priority. He can't exactly ditch Steiner, because then Steiner will go back to Alexandria and inform Brahne where the heck they all are. Killing him will also upset the Princess.
Which means he will have to withhold information and manipulate the events to get the outcome he wants. Which is getting the hell out of Alexandria proper.
He will probably starts to be more honest with everyone once he is confident that they are safe from being attacked by random flying wizard dolls. Being in open plateau like Dali is asking to be found by flying wizard dolls, honestly.
Thread Policy | You Were Warned About Spoilers
I don't see what the big deal is with that, Garnet isn't some flawless overpowered Mary Sue soldier, she clearly needs protection, something that she is clearly aware about.
Yeah, that's completely valid. I don't see why Dagger can't at least explain why it's so important and dire that she needs to leave the castle and maybe make Steiner understand instead of being needlessly vague and allowing Steiner to keep trying to sabotage everyone's attempts to get to Lindblum.
Your mom fired a freaking giant harpoon and a monster bomb at the ship, that risked almost killing you! You glossed over that part. Also, nobody died in the Evil Forest, what are you talking about?
If Garnet hasn't seen so many oglops at home, then how come Steiner has seen so many and hates them if he also lives in the Alexandria castle?
Wouldn't not seeing those bugs make Garnet more likely to be uncomfortable with them, as opposed to seeing them a lot which would make someone more used to them?
I don't know, this whole exchange felt pretty forced and totally inane and random.
Or maybe you are looking too deep into this and reading it wrong. Steiner is just annoying and gets in the way of Zidane and Garnet being together.
This makes the whole "Garnet talking like a commoner" thing pointless as Steiner just blabs out the truth like a loudmouth anyways, which Zidane should have really seen coming, he really didn't think this through.Love Slai's genuine bafflement at Steiner engaging in Typical JRPG Behavior. In the real world when you just offer a random shop person to clean up for them they look at you like an alien! Why would you do that! It's a little funny considering that we do get to ransack every house we come through without anyone commenting on it, but I like the gag nonetheless. But what's really deft here is that just as Steiner is re-establishing that he is working at cross-purposes with the rest of the party, the game takes the opportunity to remind us that he is also a man with a good heart who would help a young shopkeeper with her daily chores.
Great posing.
Actually, why hasn't Steiner just blabbed to the whole village already about who "Dagger" really is? Since he is so insistent on getting Garnet back to Alexandria, you'd think that he would just let the entire village know that the princess was here, before Zidane, Garnet and Vivi woke up in the mourning at the inn, to screw over their attempts of sneaking by.
Did Dagger never look inside those crates when they were being delivered to Alexandria Castle? Why wouldn't she if she was so suspicious of them?
That is a good question that will never be answered. Why don't they just use a machine? Instead of doing what I'm pretty sure qualifies as animal labour abuse. (We never see Zidane and Garnet free that poor chocobo, by the way)
…okay, that's hilarious.
Look at this chocobo. It's in a hamster wheel. Now look just past it. That huge turnip dangling from a rope? That's gysahl greens. They put up a turnip to get the chocobo to turn the wheel and keep the treadmill going. Zidane wonders, fairly, why not just use a machine to do it, given that the whole operation is already this heavily technological, but we're not getting an answer.
[/center]Why are they hiding? They could just try and confront the workers, ask what these mages are and what they are for. These guys are no danger, they are just workers, not soldiers. Actually, now that I mention it, why AREN'T there Alexandrian guards here in the factory supervising things?
I disagree, this was just another pointlessly dragged out scene by Sakaguchi for some forced comic relief.
See? These guys instantly bolt when Steiner shows up, so I don't see why Zidane felt the need to hide from these guys before.
Oh, so NOW you bring up that whole incident from the Ice Cavern.
Great timing, Zidane. *Sarcasm*
Also if the three Black Waltzes are successively stronger, why didn't Zorn and Thorn just send in No. 3 first, or all of them at once, as I've pointed out earlier? Heck, why didn't they just attack while everyone was sleeping in the inn the night before?
"Bandit"? The fact that it looked so similar to Vivi and clearly wasn't human, or any other anthropomorphic creature, says otherwise. Also, you are ignoring the fact that Zidane clearly told you that there was another previous Black Waltz that also wanted to capture the princess in the Ice Cavern before you even got to Dali.
If you thought it was "just a bandit", why did you tell it to wait before and say that you would be bringing the princess back to the castle anyways, Steiner?
Well, when you just stand around and talk about it (like right now), someone is bound to get suspicious. But really, Steiner is the one to blame for this for never shutting up.
Also, are you seriously actually taking Steiner's advice? The fact that said creature looks a lot like Vivi and those black mages that you saw in the factory, the same mages clearly being shipped to Alexandria in barrels- that you clearly saw in the castle before running away, isn't convincing enough for you that your mother was behind that Black Waltz going after you?
Maybe it has more to do with you constantly screeching "PRINCESS" everywhere, Steiner.
And yet you wanted to previously try and sneak Garnet past the border with that same loud mouth, Steiner, accompanying you… Great plan there, Zidane.
How can you go rest back at the Inn when you just took back Vivi and the villagers would clearly know you've been through the factory?When we go back to the inn, nearly the exact same beat plays out as the first time we did, with one exception; after Zidane wakes up Innkeeper Hal and he pauses to stare at the group, we hear his inner monologue, in which he says "I thought they'd captured it already;" then as before, Zidane tells him to stop staring at Dagger and Hal says it wasn't her she was staring at - but now we have the full context to know it was Vivi who drew his attention immediately, and about Vivi that he called his brother to arrange a capture.
Wish I could deck that guy, for real.
But the irony here is that if anything, Vivi helped distract the whole village from Dagger, with people being much more concerned with the rogue black mage "doll" wandering the streets than with the noble girl slumming it with the common folk.
So… Who gave us away and allowed Black Waltz N°2 to find us? I'm genuinely not sure at this point. It seems like everyone who looked at us suspiciously did so because of Vivi, no one seems to have noticed Dagger as anything but a girl talking a little strange, despite Steiner's best efforts.
I think it's kind of funny how there is this big dastardly plot going on beneath the village and yet no one seems to notice that there were strangers hanging around the cargo ship and were fighting a winged version of the Black Mages that they are making, or that Vivi is walking around again when he should be in a barrel.
Yet another item to put on the "Proof that the Game Designers were Lazy" list.
Well gee, maybe Garnet should have just fully explained why she wanted to run away from home and get to Lindblum so much, so that maybe Steiner would stop trying to sabotage them all at every turn and maybe treat this with more caution.
You are acting like the 2010s-20s don't also have this sort of gag/bit in romance and ecchi anime/manga. Also it's not called "sexual assault comedy", it's referred to as "accidental pervert or lucky pervert" and not to be taken that seriously.…
Clearly it wouldn't be Japanese entertainment media of the 90s-00s featuring a male protagonist who's obsessed with girls without a bit of sexual assault comedy, for flavor.
-_-
It's actually visually unclear from the scene alone if Zidane really did accidentally touch Dagger's butt because they were both in a hurry to clamber up the ladder (as he'll claim later) or whether he was taking advantage of the opportunity to grope her, but I'll choose to charitably believe the former.
Going to have to disagree in regards to Dagger, she feels pretty bland and boring. And Steiner is just obnoxious and has forced slapstick clichés, though a lot of fault falls to Dagger because she refuses to explain anything to him.
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- Location
- Texas
@Mamaluigi7 i believe this isn't the best thread for you right now. Perhaps you should sit this one out and rejoin us when Omi gets to a game you enjoy.